[KLUG Members] Linux-compatible video cards for SPARCs

[Adam Bultman]

Dan Sikorski wrote:
> Adam Bultman wrote:
>> I've got a Sunblade 2000 machine at work that is currently running
>> solaris, and sucking a lot of wind.   
> Out of curiousity, what version of Solaris?  There isn't much that
> should be slow on a sunblade 2000.  If you decide it's just too slow
> for your use, let me know, i'd be happy to take it off your hands. ;)

Solaris 10.   It is a fast workstation - Dual 1.2GHz, 4G of RAM - but it
runs my applications a lot slower than it should.  My previous machine,
a dual Athlon MP 1.5GHz, ran things with a lot more zip. 

>> The only issue is with the Video Card, which is an XVR-500.
>> Incompatible with linux!
>>   
> I believe the XVR-500 is a rebadged 3DLabs Wildcat II, have you tried
> using drivers for that?  A quick google search indicated that your
> only option might be buying an X server...
I've done quite a bit of googling, and it turns out the XVR 500 is
useless in linux.  It works on the console, but that's it.  

>> For those of you running linux on SPARC machines, what video cards do
>> you use?  I haven't found much about linux compatible video cards for
>> SPARCs.  I have a couple of Sun-Branded video cards from other machines
>> in the office, but Xorg complains about no Int13 domain.
>>   
> I run my sparcs headless.  But then again, the sparcs that i have and
> don't run far outnumber the ones that i do run.  You can be sure that
> if i had something like a blade2k that i'd be running more sparc's.
> :)  That said, i believe Sun's newer video cards are all nvidia based,
> so you should have some better luck with that.  Your biggest problem
> is that i'm pretty sure you need the sun firmware on the card to get
> Open Boot to recognize it.  Have you looked for other cards on ebay?
My official budget is $0, so I'm doing some freecycling and local
LUG-querying (KLUG is not local to me anymore.)  The folks on
#gentoo-sparc said that Matrox cards do rather well with SPARCs, so I'm
going to try that next.  I am not holding out hope, however.  I think
there's some special quirks regarding the PCI bus on the sunblade 2000s. 

>> Anyway, if you have any info, I'd appreciate it. I'm going to keep
>> looking in my spare time.   Last time Itested linux on this thing, it
>> screamed compared to solaris (and solaris' gnome packages have serious
>> bugs.)
>>   
> I've never used a Sun machine as a personal workstation myself, so i
> can't really comment.  Oddly enough, i'm just getting ready to give
> solaris x86 a shot.  I haven't ever really used solaris on x86 in the
> past.
>
>
Solaris x86 is alright.  I ran it when I first started my current job
since I'm managing Solaris and linux machines (and I was not
super-familiar with Solaris), but it had a enough quirks to make me
reformat and install linux.   I use gnome-terminal, gaim, skype,
thunderbird, evolution, firefox, xmms, openoffice - all desktop apps
(although I do run server programs too inside of zones).  While Solaris
is a fine OS, on the desktop I find myself up creeks without paddles far
more often than with linux.   The program pkg-get is a lifesaver
(install it first thing!) but I end up rebooting about every 3 days, vs.
15-25 with linux.

Re: solaris x86 on the server, it works just fine. We have a couple of
those around, and they run just fine.  Just as, if not more reliable
than some of our SPARCs. 

Adam