[SunRescue] Q on "optimal" OS for Sun4c machines, now that Solaris 8 won't run

[MikeNicewongertwmaster at twmaster.com]

I would try either OpenBSD www.openbsd.org or NetBSD www.netbsd.org . Both
are mature Unicies and  have packages available as well as very easy to
install ports from source. My preference is OBSD. The only thing that does
not work is SMP.

Mike N
----- Original Message -----
From: Ken Hansen <n2vip at bellatlantic.net>
To: <rescue at sunhelp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2000 8:11 PM
Subject: [SunRescue] Q on "optimal" OS for Sun4c machines, now that Solaris
8 won't run


Hello,
    My question, simply, is since Sun have decided to no longer support
Sun4c
architecture for Solaris 8, what would folks suggest running on these
machines?

    I never thought Solaris 8 would be a great OS to drop on a 64 Meg
SPARC2,
but the issue did "sparc" this question... Solaris software seems keyed to
version 2.5.1 and above, and some fokls are reporting *nearly amazing"
results
with some of the *BSD OSs, so I'm wondering what the popular opinion is.

    In order to make this look like a reasonable question, let me add that
my
thought is to use the machine at home, and being able to download pre-built
binaries would be very useful. This would be a desktop machine with very
low demand web serving (and maybe SAMBA file serving as well) duties. The
box in mind specifically is a SS/2 w/Weitek PowerUP and 96 Meg RAM
(that is 64 Meg + 32 Meg SBUS expansion card).

    I am concerned that other OSs may drop support, following Suns lead...

Ken