From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Douglas Eadline Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 12:54:05 +0000 Subject: Re: Ultra AXmp Message-Id: List-Id: References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: ultralinux@vger.kernel.org On Sat, 11 Jul 1998, Bob Drzyzgula wrote: > > Sun's newly announced Ultra AXmp board is a pretty interesting > platform. Based on early pricing estimates I've seen, it should > be possible to build a quad-processor @ 300+MHz, 2GB rackmount > system for under around $US 20K. I have a lot of Solaris applications > for this board, but I also wonder what capabilities one would > expect ULtraLinux to have on this machine... > > http://www.sun.com/microelectronics/SPARCengineUltraAXmp/ > http://www.sun.com/microelectronics/SPARCengineUltraAXmp/805-5865.pdf > http://www.sun.com/microelectronics/SPARCengineUltraAXmp/s7-mod.pdf > http://www.sun.com/microelectronics/SPARCengineUltraAXmp/cover980706.html > http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/9807/sunflash.980706.1.html > While I find such hardware interesting, lately I seem to have developed an attitude of "If it is not in Computer Shopper" (or equivalent) I do not consider it commodity and therefore it is premium priced. Such introductory prices do not mention service contracts and upgrade prices - which add up. Getting spare parts at the corner PC shop or discount store has a certain comfort. At the same time, high end hardware usually has better reliability but, the "off the shelf stuff" is not that bad. I grew up on non-Intel platforms, but at the end of the day, reliability, price to performance and cost of ownership always seem to go to Intel/Linux. This is my opinion - take what works for you - throw the rest away. Doug Eadline ------------------------------------------------------------------- Paralogic, Inc. | PEAK | Voice:+610.861.6960 115 Research Drive | PARALLEL | Fax:+610.861.8247 Bethlehem, PA 18017 USA | PERFORMANCE | http://www.plogic.com -------------------------------------------------------------------