[geeks] Sunsolve Information

[Scott Howard]

On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 10:16:55AM -0400, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> This is probably old news, but somehow I missed out.

Very old news - happend about a year ago.

> I've not been to Sun's website for system information in awhile, and today
> I went and found you have to have a Sunsolve service agreement to view the
> content.
> 
> Seems a bit heavy handed to not let anyone see technical details on even old
> systems without a service plan.

You CAN see technical details on ALL systems.  On the Sun System Handbook
side you can still access a large percentage of the information (although
not all of it) - just stay away from the "System Views and Components"
option.

Sunsolve itself is a little more patchy, but there's still a large number
of older documents that have been kept public.

> The site says limited access is available to all users, but I don't see any
> information on how to get that.

Just go to the sections that don't need a login. On Sunsolve anything
that needs a login will have a small key icon next to it. In the SSH
the Hardware Specs and Full Components List are the best place to start
for the free stuff.
eg, for the Ultra-2 hardware list you'll want
http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/U2/components.html

> When did this happen? I remember Sun changing things awhile back, but I didn't
> realize it meant stuff like basic product information. What kind of idiots
> block access to product information?

Nobody.  http://sun.com/products certainly doesn't ask you to login,
nor does much of the SSH as stated above.

Yes, I agree it would be nice to have everything available to everyone
for free, but at the same time Sun does actually need to charge for
_soemthing_!  If you give your software AND your support away for free
then it's really hard to pay your staff...
If you're a business it's a non-event - a SunSolve account is only going
to cost you $120/year which is nothing. Unfortunately it's the home
users/etc that get caught up as collateral damage, but there's no other
workable way to do it :(

  Scott.