New machine

I am trying to get the money up to buy a new machine soemwhere in the 75-100$ range I am considering looking for a SPARC station on ebay but thats my last resort idea (I have never used it and am too young to have a CC) I am looking for something with enough power to set up for a small web/mail and possibly IRC server nothing fancy no X or anything probably wont even have a monitor hooked up to it if anyone has an old box laying around in that price range please post

Tell me if these are asking for too much

Specs looking for:

233-500 mhz P2+
64mb ram
7-10GB HDD
Arch: SPARC or x86
Network Adapter ethernet
Some kind of sound card would be nice

Looking to put gentoo on it or maybe slackware haven't decided yet
Also this is not a definate thing I dont know if I'll be able to come up with the money but considering its near christmas I'm sure it probably wont be a problem.

there's currently no Slack port for Sparc. gentoo, however, will technically work on even a Sparc 4c, though for performance reasons you probably wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than a 4m. UltraSparc would be even better.

a quick check on ebay suggests finding an UltraSparc for =< $100 might be a stretch, but a SparcStation 5, 10, or 20 ought to be doable.

I found out I only have 50$ to spend atm but I also found a couple sparc stations bundled online for dirt cheap they also come with a scsi cd-rom drive External thank the lord lol ones a SPARC 20 which I'll use for the server and the pother is a SPARC 4 which I'll use to practice my security on. Wish me luck on getting them I'm still not sure if I'l win the auction and if you figured out ti's on ebay dont try to steal it from me thats lame.

I'm reconsidering this and looking for a Ultra 2 instead maybe a 5 but preferably a 2 unless anyone has antoher idea.

later that day.....
After scouring e-bay fro a good 6 hours I have came up with a land slide oubid and a set of 3 identical Ultra 2's man this is getting irritating,,, I'm starting to think ebay is not what it's cracked up to be.

--Kody Manharth

There are a lot or morons on ebay that get caught up in the bidding and will pay way too much for hardware :)

Ehh, I got my U2 for $35 shipped, so I'd say it's only a matter of time before you get a deal. Just don't bid too early (this is my general ebay advice, lol).

Well I came to a decision so far I found a U5 heres the link I am rlinmir so you know:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=20328&item=5732708576&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
I chose it because it'll run right out of the box and with a bit of money I'll be able to put more memory and I think another processor in it it is about the cheapest I cound without needing to buy a herd drive/video adapter/mouse/keyboard and it's only like 15$ for shipping which is in the hard limit I got now of 60$ I'm not sure if a U5 is better equal or worse than a U2 but this should e enough for what I need if you have any input please input it :P I also like the fact it has PCI slots which are more familiar and I also have the ability to buy more from him in the future :-)

I would say (with a rather high degree of confidence) that a U5 is 2.5 times better than a U2. :D :D

Cool the only thing didn't like about the U5 was only one processor slot but It's not that big of a deal

I won the auction I should have it sometime around Tuesday because they only ship on buisness days :( But it comes with Solaris 9 I'm gonna try it out if I dont like it it's back to the gentoo. Solaris will probably be a sobering experience or a just a bit of learning.

But it comes with Solaris 9 I'm gonna try it out if I dont like it it's back to the gentoo. Solaris will probably be a sobering experience or a just a bit of learning.

You can always dual-boot it if you like. My Blade 100 runs Solaris 9 and Gentoo SPARC; my Ultra 10 runs Solaris 9 and Debian-sparc.

- Colleen

This is going to be a server as in up %99.9 of the time so dual-booting would kinda defeat the purpose. I'll try solaris it'll make a good laugh when the script kiddies start running exploits and t00lz on it and they just get errors because the shell code is completely different and just wont work(it is different ASM right?) I know solaris 9 on a SPARC box is supposed to be locked up tighter than most other combinations except for just the wierd way out there arch's that no body uses lol

I'll try solaris it'll make a good laugh when the script kiddies start running exploits and t00lz on it and they just get errors because the shell code is completely different and just wont work(it is different ASM right?)

Well, SPARC is indeed a different architecture than x86. It has different registers, is big-endian, and obviously has a different instruction set. This has absolutely nothing to do with Solaris though. Solaris is just an operating system that happens to run on that chip. Whether you run Solaris/SPARC, Linux/SPARC, BSD/SPARC, etc., the assembly code required to perform a certain task will be different from its x86 counterpart.

I know solaris 9 on a SPARC box is supposed to be locked up tighter than most other combinations except for just the wierd way out there arch's that no body uses lol

I strongly disagree on this point, unless you're talking Trusted Solaris. An out of the box Solaris 9 install is a lot more exposed than a Gentoo or Debian install. People don't generally run Solaris 9 for security reasons - they run it because they want to learn Solaris, or want to take advantage of the Sun Enterprise server management software that Sun distributes for Solaris with their beastly machines.

Lol I know the ASM is archetecture dependant I was just saying. They go out and find soem exploit for solaris then run it they gets nothing becuase they dont know how to write their own shellcode or even what SPARC is in most cases. As for choice on Solaris it was an Idea and I know 9 is not as secure as it used to be considering the old packages and other holes still in the distro and such. But I meant by more secure is with work and time (Which is needed in security no matter what OS your running) It'll also add tot he list of skills I have which Is nice.

Well it arrived to day and it had no keyboard or mouse which I dont need a mouse but I do need a keyboard I have 15$ left if anyone has a spare keyboard for a Sparc Ultra 5 I would buy it

I don't think I have any spare sun kb/mice here (in fact, I'm having to switch my crossbow mouse btwn my u5 and u10 because I can't seem to find my other one - grrr!). There's a slight chance that I may have a Type 4 kb w/opt mouse that you could borrow; I'll look for it when I'm looking for my other mouse this weekend.

Until you get one, you can always play with it through the serial console. You won't get to enjoy the beauty of CDE (heh) but you can still start configuring and using your machine...

I dont know how to set up a terminal on it anything you know of I could read about it. I heard it requires a DB25/DB9 cord but after I get SSHd set up I'll be doing everything over the network because I'm too lazy to switch my monitor back and forth to use it and also the extra processes X would eat up are unwelcome

I dont know how to set up a terminal on it anything you know of I could read about it. I heard it requires a DB25/DB9 cord but after I get SSHd set up I'll be doing everything over the network because I'm too lazy to switch my monitor back and forth to use it and also the extra processes X would eat up are unwelcome

Basically if you boot a Sun w/o a keyboard + monitor connected to it, it sets its output to its serial port. I may be wrong about this, but IIRC the U5 has two serial ports, 1 25-pin and the other 9-pin (I'll look at mine later to make sure, and to see if I can figure out which one it likes to use by default). You can configure which one it uses in OpenBoot, but that's not going to do you much good unless you can get there in the first place ;-P. Whichever port you use, you'll need at the very least a null modem serial cable, or a straight-through serial cable + null modem adapter, and possibly a 9->25pin adapter (and possibly a gender changer on top of that).

You connect the other end of the serial cable to your workstation. You'll run a terminal program on that machine to access the Sun. I use minicom on Linux/OS X; I assume that HyperTerminal would work on Windows. Configure your serial port settings to be 9600 8N1, HW flow control, Init string "~^M~". If you want to send BREAK to drop into OpenBoot (the equivalent of Stop+A on a Sun kbd), the minicom command is Ctrl+A then F.

I shoudl have been a member of this site a bit over a month ago. I have an old Sun SupserStation 20, dual cpu that I woudl have GIVEN to you, just to be rid of it.

Could you elaborate on the specs a tad, I wouldn't mind having a sun box to play with. Does it have standard vga out, ram, hd, proc speed, etc.

Thanks,

This is one of the older. flat, pizza boxen shaped units.

at this time...

A Sun SparcServer 20
Dual Processor (75MHz)
128 MB (8 * 16) RAM
4.2GB SCSI drive (regular 3.5" scsi will work)
8-bit framebuffer Card
NO VGA port

No monitor
I THINK I may have a keyboard, optical mouse and pad

wow that is pretty dated, no wonder you would be happy to give it away :)

Yes, it is dated, but it runs and it runs well. Actually has a reasonably low power consumption and is quiet. Anyone as a professional or hobbiest wanting a small machine to sit in the corner or on a shelf acting as a server would find it useful. That is what I am doing with my U5. It sits in the corner, runing as a small webserver/webapp dev server.

!!! - I would totally be happy to have it. I have this weird sentimental attachment to Sparc 20s in particular ;-D. It can have a happy home with the Sparc 20 that I already have, if you're still willing ;-).

- Colleen

Shameful thing is that I was in OKC, today...

you are welcome to it. Either come to Enid to get it, or I will meet you next time I have other busines in OKC>

it'd make a nice upgrade to my single 40MHz cpu SS10. bidding war!

First to make arrangements will be the new owner...

the only remaining question would be...what to do with the 18GB SCA drive that would fit in that machine...

any offers?

I'd like to make arrangements (I hope this matches your idea of arrangements?) ;-)

I have absolutely no clue where Enid is. So I think I would prefer to get it from you when you're in Oklahoma City next, if that works for you...

- Colleen

Done!

E-mail me (zylogue@yahoo.com) and we can discuss it there...


Z

that counts as arrangements? pfft!

To each their own.

I figured no one else wanted to follow along witht he personal details of trips to OKC and time adn places to visit...

Well... I got the money up for a Serial Cord and I went to buy it at Best Buy earlier and it hit me I have no clue what I'm doing. I'm looking for a guide to figure out what I need etc now wish me luck. Also What type of keyboard/mouse would I need type 5c or 6?

Well... I got the money up for a Serial Cord and I went to buy it at Best Buy earlier and it hit me I have no clue what I'm doing. I'm looking for a guide to figure out what I need etc now wish me luck.

If you want to talk to your Ultra 5 via serial console, you want either a "null modem" serial cable or a standard serial cable + a null modem adapter. You then connect the serial port of your U5 to the serial port of the machine you want to view the serial console from. See my post in this thread from Dec. 3rd for configuration specifics.

Also What type of keyboard/mouse would I need type 5c or 6?

Well, if you're using a serial console to talk to it, you use whatever keyboard is connected to the other machine, and there is no mouse bc it's just a terminal. Your U5 will only send a console out its serial port if there is no keyboard/mouse/monitor connected to it.

If you want to connect a keyboard/mouse/monitor directly to the U5, you don't need any type of serial cables. Either a type 5 or a type 6 should work. I use a type 6/crossbow mouse combo on mine. Just make sure if you buy a type 6 off ebay that you don't buy the USB version.