James Carlson writes:
> Rainer Orth wrote:
> >>From my understanding, it was not. UltraSPARC I support was dropped when
> > 32-bit SPARC was removed. The fact that US-I machines run perfectly fine
> > in 64-bit mode (and have been since Solaris 7) wasn't taken into
> > consideration. Yes, there was a small risk, but at least you had the
> > choice. With the wholesale removal, you didn't any longer.
>
> There's more to it than that. Yes, dropping 32-bit kernel support was
> an important issue, as keeping it would be a substantial burden to other
> project teams (dtrace, for example, would need new hot patching
> procedures for trace points for those few still using 32-bit mode
> kernels). And not all US-I actually does work right with 64-bit mode
> due to bugs, meaning some complexity in support.
But those bugs have existed since the introduction of 64-bit SPARC support
and seem to have hindered no one from running the machines in 64-bit mode.
AFAIK, no workarounds or whatever have been removed with the integration of
the US-I desupport case.
> More importantly, it would mean that project teams doing extensive
> kernel work (such as the ones already named) would have to do testing on
> old US-I machines, which at least at Sun are getting harder and harder
> to find. They break down and can't be repaired due to a lack of parts.
> They are expensive in terms of lab real estate, power, and heat.
> They've long since fallen off the price list. They're very slow and
> usually very limited in memory and disk space, and thus make poor test
> machines. Many can't even boot the installer anymore.
Fully understood. That's the reason for my suggestion to allow for support
to live in ON that isn't tested any longer by Sun, but only by the
community.
> When you add to that the fact that the marginal utility is extremely
> small -- existing machines can reasonably run S9 or older and continue
> doing so until the magic smoke escapes with little benefit from
> OpenSolaris -- and that those still using US-I likely have little money
> to spend on new hardware, the costs far exceed the value, which is (in
> large measure) how such support decisions are made.
Existing machines can run S10 and SX:CE until today: you just need a couple
of symlinks (and previously need to rip out code in {inet, ufs}boot to
reject US-I machines).
> I realize there's a hobbyist market out there for the ZX81's of the
> workstation world, but it's not a place I'd expect any company to spend
> its money.
That's one of the questions: what's to cost and who has to bear it. I can
understand the cost might increase massively if e.g. a new VM system would
require tons of special code to deal with those old machines, but if
there's no requirement for Sun to test and support US-I, the cost seems to
be far smaller.
Rainer
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Rainer Orth, Center for Biotechnology, Bielefeld University
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