RE: [RFC PATCH 0/13] sparc32: sunset sun4m and sun4d

[David Laight <David.Laight@ACULAB.COM>]

From: Julian Calaby
> Sent: 20 December 2020 08:55
> 
> On Sun, Dec 20, 2020 at 6:46 PM Romain Dolbeau <romain@dolbeau.org> wrote:
> >
> > Le sam. 19 déc. 2020 à 22:41, Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org> a écrit :
> > > Another said that it would be a shame to sunset sun4m and sun4d because
> > > there are so many machines around, and netbsd is also active on the
> > > sparc32 area.

The advantage of netbsd is that the build gives you a kernel and userspace
from the same source tree and it is designed to cross build.
Even the compilers get built - so all you need is a native compiler
that will compile the (probably slightly older) version of gcc.
This used to be problematic because gcc sources tended to use gcc-only
features (which have been deprecated).

The userspace will also be a lot less bloated than a typical Linux,
but more complete than the 'busybox' tools often used on small/embedded
Linux systems.

> > Yes, those were plentiful back in the day and there's still quite a few around.
> 
> I have three: two SparcStation 10s and a SparcStation LX.
> 
> If I want to run them, assuming the hardware still works, I need to
> netboot them as I cannot find working, compatible HDDs for them as
> everything has switched to SATA or SAS.

I trashed the PSU on my sun3 trying to get netboot to work.
The main problem seemed to be that the switching fet wasn't
actually rated for 240v input! (needs to be a 400v device).

I never did get around to connecting an ATX psu up to the connector.

	David

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