hiebeler@turing.cs.rpi.edu (Dave Hiebeler) (03/02/89)
munnari!natmlab.dms.oz.au!ronb@uunet.uu.net (Ron Baxter) writes: >However, we have just seem some specs for this Solbourne Computer (just >announced, I believe) which has a Fujitsu SPARC CPU together with >SunOS/SunView/NeWS etc licensed from Sun. So it looks like an >alternative. >... >So if anyone has investigated it, or had hands on experience, or stories >to tell that may allay my fears (or reinforce them) I would be very >grateful for the information. We have been testing a Solbourne here for some time now. I don't have any info on the installation stuff, or serial lines, but I can give you a general user's point of view. When the thing was up and running, I FTP'd a set of programs that I had written, over to the Solbourne. The programs were: A moderately-sized set of fairly portable C programs, and a program that uses BSD sockets to allow clients to call up and run these other programs and do a few other things. I FTP'd the _executables_ over from a Sun-4/260, and ran them on the Solbourne without a single problem. Also, I sent over a SunView program that I had written on some Sun-3's. I FTP'd the source to the Solbourne, and compiled them there, with no trouble at all. The SunView program also uses sockets to call up machines to run things. (The SunView program is basically a remote user-interface for my other set of programs). So at least BSD sockets work fine, from my point of view. I've also sent over misc. other programs, sometimes just sending the binary over from a Sun-4, other times sending source. I haven't had any trouble. Also, for those who recall the "cellsim" package which was mentioned here a while ago: I compiled that on the Solbourne. It worked fine, although a couple of times I got Panic reboots with a "Mouse overrun error". I'm not sure where that came from, and I haven't tested the program on a Real Sun-4 yet, but I suspect a Sun-4 will have the same error. I ran X-windows on the Solbourne a couple of times, because I have a program I grabbed from somewhere that runs in color X. The program ran fine, and so did X as far as I could tell, but I'm not really familiar with X. I haven't tried out NeWS. (Since I wrote this a few weeks ago, I have started using X-windows, and it seems to be just fine. No problems that I can think of.) I hope that info helps you out somewhat... Dave Hiebeler Internet: hiebeler@cs.rpi.edu (preferred address) Computer Science Dept. hiebeler%cs.rpi.edu@itsgw.rpi.edu Amos Eaton Bldg. Bitnet: userfrzk@rpitsmts.bitnet Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. Troy, NY 12180-3590