[SunRescue] bringing alive SS2

[Ken Hansen]

See below...

----- Original Message -----
From: "Valentine" <valik at softhome.net>
To: <rescue at sunhelp.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 2:04 PM
Subject: [SunRescue] bringing alive SS2


> ok.
>
> I've got SS2 case with motherboard and floppy drive in it with 64mb
> ram and 1gb hd.
> now I wanna know what are my options bringing this thingy alive.
> I wanna put this machine as a router/firewall for my home lan.

A 1 GB drive and 64 Meg of RAM will allow you to run most any of the SPARC
compatible OSs (OpenBSD, Red Hat Linux, other SPARC Linuxen, Solaris 7 or
earlier, etc.). A lot of folks here seem to like OpenBSD for applications
like you mention.

> and... here comes the best part, there is no framebuffer and there is
> no OS installed on the harddrive. I spent few days reading how-to's/faq's,
> mainly on sunhelp.org and obsolete.com, and come up with nothing.

Good, then you won't be tempted to run X Windows on the machine!

Seriously, do you have a linux box you could boot off of? Redhat Linux for
SPARC has a tool called tftpboot or tftptool for setting up a linux box as a
network boot server, your SS/2 would get it's OS from your other Linux PC,
the local HD could be used for local swap, /tmp files.

> Now what should I do? Should I go to some PC recyclres and buy
> framebuffer SBUS card, plus SBUS ethernet card, plus a monitor?

A CG3 framebuffer is less than $20, maybe even less than $10 and will allow
you to use a $20 13W3 <-> SVGA adapter and a keyboard/mouse for a console.
But, I like using real terminals for console devices, and with a little
patience you can find VT220 or other text terminals for $25 or less and use
one as a console - you cna always telnet in from anither box for general use
if desired.

An SBUS ethernet card will run you $50 - $100 US, check out Ebay for a sense
of the market value. Sun monitors typically cost more to ship than buy, so
see if you can find one locally - should be less than $50 for a 17" monitor.
My local CompUSA is usually selling 17" monitors for $150 to $180, so beware
of paying too much for a used Sun monitor.

> I figured it would be cheaper to get sun monitor for $10 than buying
> $100 13w3 converter and using PC monitor.

A $10 dollar monitor (w/o screenburn) is a good deal, but a PC monitor
adapter is usually $20-30, not $100.

> and, did I mentioned, i never dealed with sparcs in my life.

You have to start sometime!

Enjoy,

Ken