Re: Debian on Sun box any advantage?
John Bevins wrote:
Hello Everyone,
I don't know much about Sun boxes. What advantage, if any, is there to
running Debian on a Sun box as opposed to a brand name x86 server?
In my case I have Debian running on a range of systems from single-CPU
ARM with 32Mb to a moderate-sized Sun box with a dozen or so CPUs and
several Gb. That is arguably a wider span of system capabilities than
you get with x86 and it is interesting to see how different software scales.
Because Sun SPARC systems don't have a legacy BIOS which relies on an
attached screen etc. they tend to be easier to support. You don't need
KVMs, special management cards, remote access software etc. and you can
even get at the system configuration before boot (OBP access to
printenv/setenv etc.).
Being able to compile for multiple architectures is a good way of
finding certain types of bug.
There is very little malware that can attack non-x86 systems.
If you're interested in using open source software then it would be nice
to think that you could contribute something back to the community, and
people with non-x86 experience are in comparatively short supply.
You'll get geek points for doing something out of the ordinary :-)
--
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk
[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]
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