[geeks] She-it! (Ultra 20 arrived ;^)

[Lionel Peterson]

Hello all,

My shiny new Ultra 20 arrived today - I was amazed that they shipper didn't require someone to sign for it!

Anyway, the system is nice, but there are a few odd nits to pick:

noise - it make occasional *blasts* of air to cool off, then it runs near silent for 10-15 minutes... Odd.

mouse - the mouse cable is shorter than the keyboard cable, but about 18-24" - WTH?

mouse pad - there is no mouse pad.

video - my system has the mid-level video upgrade, and I dutifully installed 2 Dell 17" 1704 panels - I get redundant displays through the openboot/config activity, but once we go into X windows, only one panel is active. I haven't tried "boot -r" yet, though that seems to not be a useful act...

case - like a well made PC - very well-made. *no* loose cables flopping around, and I must admint my first reaction on looking inside was "bloody hell - where am I going to get a suitable sled to add a second Serial ATA drive?" - then I realized I could borrow one from an Ultra 30/60.

booting - the X86 boot process is absurd - is there a real good reason it is so unlike SPARC-based systems?

media - where the hell is the Solaris 10 install media? I got CDs for all the "bonus" software, but no OS image...

startup - the system complains of "no usable keyboard alias!" eventhough I am using the supplied Type 6 USB keyboard - annoying.

Anyway, rant over - 2 Gigs of RAM with a 2.2 GHz Opteron is a nive config (FYI) - I was able to get 2 Gigs of RAM by ordering a small 512 Meg RAM upgrade, then using a coupon at checkout "doublemymemory" IIRC - that got me two Gigs of ECC RAM ;^)

I'll report back after a bit more playing around - I literally just powered it up about 20 minutes ago...

Lionel