Sorry for the OT post, but I think people here might be able to offer me some worthwhile advice.
I currently run Solaris 9 on a Sun Ultra 2 as my main workstation. I like Unix and need it for many of the things I do. But no operating system is perfect, and sometimes I have to do a re-install. Recently, I've been finding it difficult to find the software packages I want for Solaris 9. Mostly I get my packages from
formatting link
Gimp is a good example. The last release of Gimp 1.2 was great. It did almost everything a basic image editor needed to do, and was also fast and reliable. Gimp 2.2, by comparison, is a pig. It's slow and bug- ridden. Sometimes I can't even get it to save an image without dumping core. Now I would upgrade to Solaris 10, but I don't like it much. This is mainly because I use Gnome as my main window manager. I know this isn't a popular choice, but to me Gnome 2.0.2 (which came with Solaris 9) was a good compromise between speed and user friendliness. Then Sun ruined it with the Java Desktop System in Solaris 10.
This seems to have happened to almost every operating system. All of them seem to have reached a peak in the early 2000s. Windows 2000 Professional was, in my opinion, the best ever Microsoft OS. Mac OS 9 was the best Apple OS. Solaris 9 was the best Sun OS. Since then, all of these operating systems have been spoilt in pursuit of eye candy. I just don't understand it. Who wants the Fisher Price look of brightly- coloured buttons and stupid animations? Obviously people don't see the world the way I do.
But I don't really like the very basic Unix window managers either. I rarely use CDE, and I always hated FVWM. I want a nice compromise, without the eye candy or bloat. Gnome 2.0.2 with the "Crux" theme was great (yes, I like the way Windows looked in pre-XP days, it was good).
So I'm wondering if I might find a more satisfactory compromise with another kind of Unix. I'd rather stick with Unix as opposed to Linux. I was thinking about FreeBSD, probably on PC hardware. Anyone here use it?
Basically I need a reliable Unix OS with good third party software support. Reliable software without major bugs is much more important to me than having the latest version of everything. And I want a window manager which is intuitive and user friendly (preferably resembling the traditional Windows look) but without eye candy or stupid animations. It seems so hard to find a window manager which occupies the middle ground between CDE and the latest versions of Gnome and KDE.
So should I stick with Solaris 9 or try something else? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Solaris 10 blows. 9 is where it was getting good as you pointed out. Frankly, if you can use the VI editor, anything can be done. An Ultra 2 with the Sbus is the killer as well. Our E10K's I used to manage were Sbus over PCI (real bad choice from upper mgt. at the time). Your hardware resources are taxed hard on 10 period. I have a quad E450 with 8gb for my main workstation on Solaris 9 I hated 10 from the install to the packages and patches. My two cent opinion is stick with 9. When tuned properly it's bullet proof. Obviously you know what you are talking about Iggy and a few others of us here are geeks with torches and tool. I have an Ultra 10 in the shop running ProE for my cad/cam. I have a Intel based server running Server 2003 64bit for my AutoCAD and it sucks.
O.K. I've been using Solaris 10, and am currently running U3. I've got U4, but have not yet installed it.
Hmm ... I don't find gimp 2.0.2 (which comes with Solaris 10) to be buggy -- I've never had it dump core on me, and I've never encountered bugs which I've noticed. This is the gimp which comes with Solaris 10 (and it happens to be compiled as 32-bit code, even though Solaris 10 won't run on a 32-bit machine -- it wants the ultras, which are all 64-bit as you know.)
It *could* be that the bugs you are encountering are from your choice of window manager -- and almost certainly the slowness is. To my mind, *any* version of Gnome has too much eye candy, which costs CPU cycles.
I'm doing most things on an Ultra-60 (very similar to the Ultra-2, except 450 MHz maximum CPU speed, instead of the 400 MHz maximum for the Ultra-2. Both run dual CPUs, but the Ultra-60 uses PCI bus instead of SBus, so you can get more modern interfaces (such as LVD SCSI) which are not available for the Ultra-2. Also, there are slots for *two* Creator-3D framebuffers, so you can run double headed if you so desire.
Note that there *are* much faster machines around. I have one Sun Fire 280R (a rack-mount server) which happens to have dual 900 MHz "Ultra-III Cu" CPUs, and can be pushed to dual 1200 MHZ Ultra-3 CPUs should you so desire. While I do most things on the Ultra-60, the Sun Fire 280R gets used for things where I need the speed. It appears to be much faster than the 2X speed increase you would expect from a jump from
450 MHz to 900 MHz. I understand that this was a result of some significant optimizing of the Ultra-III CPUs and of Solaris 10 to work with that.
And while not everybody would want a rack-mount server with a noisy set of fans, the same CPUs and system board run in the Sun Blade
2000 -- and that one has fans which speed up or slow down according to the cooling needs. At the moment, the room temperature (by my chair) is
78F, the temperature inside the computer is 93F (at the remote system control card), and the two CPUs are running at 131F and 127F respectively. (The high-temperature warning starts at 199f for the CPUs, and the "Failure" zone starts at 203f.
The Sun Fire 280R and the Sun Blade 2000 both boot (by default) from Fibre channel drives. I have a pair of 146 MB drives in mine, but larger are available. There is an internal SCSI bus which is used only for the DVD ROM drive (and optionally for an internal tape drive as well), and a separate external 68-pin SCSI bus which has all fifteen IDs free for drives.
Note that I went to the Ultra-60 because I needed a LVD SCSI card -- which is not available in the SBus cards, but is in the PCI cards. That card has now moved to the Sun Fire 280R.
I've never gotten to like Gnome -- it slows things down too much, even in Solaris 9. And it has too much in the way of fancy images which I don't need.
Quite the way I feel about Gnome, FWIW.
I used OpenWindows until forced by its disappearance to move to CDE, which I am currently still using. If CDE vanishes, I will probably move to FWIM. I used TVWM before going to OpenWindows.
Each move loses something, and gains something else.
So -- why don't you compile Gnome 2.0.2 yourself?
BTW -- not only is Sun allowing download of Solaris 10 for free (other than the need to register), but they are also now making their fancy development system and cc/c++/FORTRAN compiler available for free as well. If you hit them at the right time, they will even ship you DVD-ROMs with the OS (for both SPARC and X86) and the development system for free.
There are things which compile better with gcc, and other things which compile better with Sun's cc. And one of the problems with gcc and gnu-based packages is that there are now incompatible versions of some of the libraries. You need to compile package X and have to first compile the latest version (or at least a later version) of libraries Y, Z, and W. Then, when those are installed, you discover that older programs have stopped working, because they *required* the older versions of one or more of those libraries. So there is something to be said for sticking with Sun's cc and c++.
Your problems with the GIMP may well be that of library versions, especially if they are third-party compiled and downloaded to your system. You should either use the version of the GIMP which Sun supplies (in /usr/swf/bin, if you are trying to find it), or compile it on your system so the libraries match what you have.
I don't use that -- but I use OpenBSD. Not as a desktop, but as a firewall (with PF), and for servers which I have to leave exposed to the outside world, like web servers.
I seldom even install a window manager, because I normally connect to these systems via SSH -- or if I do need to log on directly, I will be doing something simple enough so the raw console suffices. Note that I have OpenBSD both on UltraSPARC systems and Intel CPUs.
And I think that you will discover the problems with GNU's libraries with just about any unix version.
And what I have seen of Gnome has *always* struck me as having too much eye candy.
Try getting a slightly more modern box (The Sun Blade 2000 would be really nice -- especially if you get it with a pair of 1200 MHz CPUs.) I run CDE on the Ultra-60, with my Sun Fire 280R as a file server (using the ZFS version of RAID which comes with Solaris 10), and backups with an Exabyte 430 tape library using Mammoth-2 drives.
Oh yes -- the Sun Fire 280R and the Sun Blade 2000 can accept up to 8GB of RAM, while the Ultra-2 (and my current Ultra 60) are limited to 2GB of RAM. For things which need a lot of RAM (such as the GIMP), the more RAM you have the better. And the faster (and more) swap space you have, the better, too. I presume that your Ultra-2 is fully loaded with 2GB of RAM.
Christopher and Rob, I would at least invest some time into getting FVWM2 and making sure that it does what you want, before writing it off. That's what FVWM2 is good at -- at doing exactly what you want. I used it extensively since 1994, first on AIX and then on Linux. It is extremely customizable and very reliable and powerful.
As a side bar- I have a very good friend I build his bracket race engines for his wife's car (She is one of the best drivers I know) that aside, I get payment in gear. He is a Sun VAR reseller. If you ever need anything let me know. I have piles of stuff from Ultra 10's to a complete E10K PCI and two racks of 480R's and Blades from failed .coms also- tons of Exabyte Mammoth M2's and DLT 35/70's and flexpaks. I need a 24" Sun LCD. The one thing he can't get..... I just can't get over the fact two years ago a Ultra 10 450 with a gig and a 100 gb drive was $2500.00 now 30.00 on Ebay.... Ouch!! Not to mention I have tons of stock in Sun and SGI I can use for shop rags! How many houses have Enterprise 10000's in them? Wanna help me move next month Iggy? The stuffs all upstairs in my office....And we thought the shop would be a bitch to move!
============ Thanks for the insights/suggestions/observations. While many of us are not [yet] running unix/linux and its open source applications, discussions and first hand experience such as this are very helpful in making us aware of what's out there, and some of the problems we might encounter if we decide to switch [rather than fight].
Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.
As you may have noticed in my other posts I have just been able to upgrade from 28.8k POTS to 1-10m wireless internet connection. This eliminated one of my main problems which was getting a windows modem to work with any version of linux.
I am currently just now updating all my windows software, and getting the "undocumented features" when operating with a h/s wireless connection, especially my ZA firewall, under control. As soon as I get this done, it will be time for either a dual boot system, or the conversion of one of my older computers with a ram upgrade to Ubuntu Linex.
In some ways I am locked in to keeping Windows because of my cad application [Intellicad], web page design soft ware [Frontpage], custom Word macros, Excel add-ins [Winstat], programming environment/compiler [Power Basic CC], etc.
FWIW - I am running w2k professional and it does indeed seem to be more stable and faster than the later versions of Windows, which appear to be resource/memory hogs for no apparent end-user benefit. But then again that's the American way, bigger, heavier, more expensive, bigger engines, premium sound systems, just like our cars.
Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.
I used to be a Unix hater! Using the command line of the old sh was pretty bad, none of the commands had the order of options the same, or the switch letters the same for the same function, etc. I used PDP-11's, then VAXes with VMS, then Alpha systems. But, then I had a reason to use Linux (the real-time version, for a CNC motion-control application) and found that things had improved quite a bit. There were some decent utilities that made the command line easier to use, and the X version of EMACS is VERY nice. I'm doing as much as I can now on Linux, and have 5 Linux systems at home, specialized for different purposes.
Linux Gimp seems to work quite well, I use it for many image processing applications.
Software bloat is a real problem! At least with Linux, you have an array of choices to deal with that. There are many window managers with different levels of features (and overhead).
What's wrong with Linux? And, how can you really tell, at this point?
I think Linux support is really good, I do that all by myself, but I know that there are people I could call if I really wanted to. There is steady improvement, and my Linux systems often stay up 100+ days at a time, between power failures. I usually wait to do serious upgrades until things are REALLY out of date.
Yup, I agree. I had to do some manual tweaks to get Knoppix/Morphix to write the boot sector and get the video mode right on Dell desktop boxes. You'd think that was a standard-enough configuration to get it right. The Ubuntu installs I've been using (6.06) work quite seamlessly. I've been running Linux systems since 1999, and converted my desktop completely over about 2000.
If you want to see a stable Windows system, run Win2K under VMware on a Linux system. Instead of dual boot, you have both systems live at once, and switch back and forth by clicking on the desktop. I do all my CAD applications that way.
Ubuntu, followed by PCLinux. Xandros is very very good as well, if you purchase the non free version.
Ubuntu and PClinux seem to have the best hardware compatability with WIFI. All three are exceptionally easy to set up. Ubuntu and PCLinux are easiest for the newbie...with PC Linux perhaps being the best transitional OS, between Winblows and Linux.
W2k is probably the most stable OS Microsloth ever came out with.
"[L]iberals are afraid to state what they truly believe in, for to do so would result in even less votes than they currently receive. Their methodology is to lie about their real agenda in the hopes of regaining power, at which point they will do whatever they damn well please. The problem is they have concealed and obfuscated for so long that, as a group, they themselves are no longer sure of their goals. They are a collection of wild-eyed splinter groups, all holding a grab-bag of dreams and wishes. Some want a Socialist, secular-humanist state, others the repeal of the Second Amendment. Some want same sex/different species marriage, others want voting rights for trees, fish, coal and bugs. Some want cradle to grave care and complete subservience to the government nanny state, others want a culture that walks in lockstep and speaks only with intonations of political correctness. I view the American liberals in much the same way I view the competing factions of Islamic fundamentalists. The latter hate each other to the core, and only join forces to attack the US or Israel. The former hate themselves to the core, and only join forces to attack George Bush and conservatives." --Ron Marr
I run Win2K with the zipped-folder patch from ME, but it doesn't support HDTV tuner cards. So I bought a faster but infected XP PC cheap and am learning how to clean up and manage it using Knoppix and BartPE, both of which speak NTFS. So far so good, the Registry is clean and it still boots.....
======== Sounds ideal. How much ram do you have? Anything special about the disk partitioning? What speed/cpu are you running? Are the USB ports functional? I have a ton of USB stuff running.
Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.
In the last 12 years, at home, I have not had a "need" for a Windows computer. Meaning that there was no task that I had to do and had to have a Windows computer for it.
After I got married, we had a windows computer, which I was not using much, if at all. It finally stopped working a year ago, after Microsoft informed me that I did not have a "Genuine Advantage". (I used a pirated copy of Windows). It's been collecting dust ever since.
Linux keeps my kids safe, we share movies across the whole house, it runs my plasma TV, etc. I download updates every night and do a lot of things automatically, for example backups.
I use Fedora, but would like to set up a Ubuntu computer for my parents. Their windows computer is a total mess.
Hmm ... any chance that you can lay your hands on a pair of magazones for the Exabyte 430 tape library? I have one, but only the built-in magazine -- the two removable ones were long gone before I got the library (for $30.00 at a hamfest last year. :-)
I'm using a mixture of 19" and 17" LCD monitors on various systems. Or do you *really* need the Sun 24" one?
Ouch!
If that is the one I remember from before I retired, that is really heavy. An over-width rack (21"? 23"?) with ten plug-ins each carrying its own CPU, and two big trays for six full-height 5.25" drives at the bottom. (Or was that the Enterprise 1000?) If yours is running UltraSPARCs, then it is a different model from what I knew, which pre-dated the Ultras.)
The biggest that I have currently in use is the Sun Fire 280r, though the old Sun 280R (Sun3 CPU, rack-mount VME bus cage.) was bigger and heavier before I retired it.
And yes -- I do have to do metalworking to rack-mount some of these things, just to bring it marginally on-topic. :-)
:-)
Well ... I've always preferred jove, and remember enough vi to get the sources for jove configured on a new processor. Emacs for the serious work where jove gets unhappy -- like with lines over 1024 bytes long. :-)
About the only reason I keep a token Window box around is for the annual income tax software. It is that, or spend a fortune getting a Mac. If only they would produce the tax software for some more general form of unix I could happily turn that machine to running OpenBSD really fast. :-)
You should consider an upgrade. An Ultra-2 is a decade or so old. Check the serial number - the first digit of that, is the last digit of the year it was produced. So if it starts with a 9, that's 1999, and so on. Good Sun gear is cheap on eBay, if you find something local you can save on shipping.
Take a look at sunfreeware.com - been around for a long time and has a better assortment. All packaged up, just a pkgadd -d ./whatever is all it takes.
Interesting. It doesn't change much if anything from a legacy standpoint, all your old stuff should work. It might suck horribly on an ultra-2 though, if it's even supported?
Pretty sure you can just install the gnome packages onto Sol10. Haven't found anything that doesn't work on 10 that works on 9 yet, and I've got
800+ Sol10 servers that my team supports...
Yes.
Errr, dunno. I ignored Mac until they went to Unix with OS X.
Ah, the GUI is little of the change in Sol10. zones are huge, for us, on server-side. Not much change for desktop but, again, anything that worked in 9 should work in 10 in the global zone.
It's fine for servers, for desktops, I'd rather install ubuntu and be done with it.
Much as I love Sun hardware, and make a living wrangling it, you'd be much better off with a $300.00 commodity off the shelf PC and Ubuntu linux. Stable, popular, and uses the apt package tool (much like blastwave). sudo apt-get packagename gets you everything you need, in the right order, and builds it so it works.
I've got an ultra-2 in the basement, off. I'm on a 7 year old Mac right now, with no reason to retire it. But if I was going to build new, it'd be ubuntu or I'd buy another Mac. Depends on the budget. Same OS more or less, the Mac's GUI is better but a Linux box would be cheaper.
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.