Steve Mynott wrote:
>
> Dave Hodgkinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> [..]
>
> > How in gods name do Sun get away with charging so much for stuff?
>
> Because they can and they have a brand people trust like IBM or
> Microsoft. In fact you can buy far cheaper Sun clones from companies
> like Transtec but the Sun name tends (rather irrationally) to carry
> more weight in some circles (eg. telcos, ISP and City). Many people
> use clones internally but Sun kit for the stuff customers see.
>
> > We've erm, "acquired" an enterprise 420. this box has 2 CPUs, 4G or
> > RAM and about 80G of disk. For the same money I could build a
> > clutster of what, 30 linux boxes? Don't tell me programmer time has
> > got that expensive? Or that thinking about what you're doing stopped
> > happening? If it's good enough for Google...
>
> You can't really compare Suns with standard PCs because they have
> numerous advantages still -- 64 bit archecture, faster bus, SCSI
> (although some use IDE now). It's still expensive to get PCs in 1U
> cases and you can fit a lot of Netra T1s in a 19" rack. Although for
> desktop use the framebuffers rarely have enough colours to be useable.
>
> I suspect things like SMP probably still work better. And if I were
> on call supporting a server I would probably still trust a Sparc
> running Solaris over some dodgy PC desktop with Redhat stuck on it by
> a hobbyist who has never used another UNIX.
>
Cutting -
Althought I agree with the sentiment that a Sparc box will probably be
more reliable than a generic PC. However
s /some dodgy PC desktop with Redhat stuck on it by a hobbyist who has
never used another UNIX/inexperienced/;
Lets not compare inexperience with anyparticular flavour of *nix.
Greg
Who started on Redhat along time ago, and has since used and initially
disliked Solaris/Sun OS, but has since softened as is happy to work on
any *nix.
>
> Having said that I think they are probably doomed to occupy an
> increasingly small niche and things like clustered Free UNIX clones
> (PVM on BSD or Beowolf on Linux) certainly offer more bang per buck.
>
> --
> 1024/D9C69DF9 steve mynott [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> if you have any trouble sounding condescending,
> find a unix user to show you how it's done.
> --scott adams
