[SunRescue] SparcServer 670/MP O.S. Options / VME Support?

[Mike Nicewonger]

Hiya's
>
> But the 4m's posed a problem - they span the gamut - the 4/600 series, the
> Classic/LX, the 4, 5, 10, and 20 (As well as my beloved voyager)...
>
> So, Sun just started dropping OS support for the products that were
reaching
> EOSL.  The last release that supported the 4/600 series was 2.5.1.  Sol  8
> is the end for the 10 and I believe the LX/Classic and the Voyager. Or was
> that 7?  I know I have 8 on a 10, but...

VME support indeed died in 2.5.1, however Sun has killed the 4c (IPC, IPX,
SS2 etc) support in Sol. 8. I heard they were going to kill 4m (SS10, LX,
SS5, etc) and 4d (SS1000, SC2000) in the next major release of Solaris.

One cool item to note about the 4/600, it has all three common buses. VME,
S-bus and M-bus

>
> In any event, for your purposes, the support for the VME bus ended in
2.5.1.
> The VME bus is how your various system component communicate over a common
> backplane.  Actually, VME is still used (especially in the embedded
> markets), but not at Sun.  So, devices that are VME-specific are no longer
> supported in 2.6 and up.
>
> There is some device overlap (there were Sbus slots for the 4/600 series),
> but you are limited to 2.5.1, not a bad thing.  2.5.1 is a great version
of
> Solaris - just Y2K patch it and go!  I know of a few E10000 sites out
there
> still running 2.5.1...

2.5.1 patched to the latest (not necessarily the greatest) is fine for a
server. I have a 4/670 that I plan to run as a main file and other services
server when I get moved.

Cheers,

Mike N