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BSD Operating Systems

NetBSD announces port to Ultrasparc 80

Posted by sengan from the no-netbsd-icon dept.
Herb Peyerl contributed this earlier in the week, but the NetBSD site did not confirm it for some time. "NetBSD now runs on Sun Ultrasparc hardware. NetBSD/sparc64 is the product of a 2-year effort. Currently, UltraSPARC I and II CPUs, esp SCSI controllers, le ethernet controllers, zs serial ports, cgsix graphics controllers are supported. Any of the other drivers from the NetBSD/sparc port might also work. The 32-bit kernel runs most NetBSD/sparc binaries. A 64-bit version of the system currently exists and runs on some hardware, but requires further development to be fully functional.". The latest snapshot is available.
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NetBSD announces port to Ultrasparc More

NetBSD announces port to Ultrasparc

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  • Hmm... I'm not a "literate European" (mainly since I'm not European), but I am not a native english speaker, and I do ocassionally write "gonna" on the net. It's called informal or colloquial language.
    As a linguist, tell me how someone trying to use a non-native language as its natives do is "insulting the language".
    And for your racism, hell, I'm not even gonna touch it. I think I know what opinion you will have of me if I move to California in September like I plan to do.

    ---

  • Proprietary, closed source software mongers may have to disparage each others software, but we're not in competition and we're providing alternative implementations of the same standard. It's good for both sets of developers, all users of free operating systems, and Unix and standards based computing in general. If I had a spare machine knocking about I'd probably give all the Open Source OSses a try.

    Hooray for NetBSD!
    --
  • I do. I am gonna whack you with the clue stick now. *whack*

    /mill
  • Human nature takes over again...

    "Meet the new OS, same as the old OS" (with apologies to Pete Townsend)

    I use Solaris/SPARC and WinNT 4.0 at work, but I'm tinkering with FreeBSD at home. Why am I not joining the Linux Generation? 'cause I want to be different!

    I've tried Linux, but SysV doesn't do anything for me. Besides, the *BSD world doesn't have nearly as many foamers as the Linux world does.

    Dare to be different!


  • Don't worry about it. It's obviously not for you! That's why we have free will and free choice.

    For me, NetBSD [netbsd.org] rocks. I love being able to build my entire userland by typing "cd /usr/src && make build". I love have a cool package system that automatically FTPs and builds requisite packages for me, from source. (I particularly love how every single binary on my box, with the exceptions of Quake II and Netscape, were built right here on my box!)

    I like how unified NetBSD is. I started off using NetBSD because it was the only Unix that would run on my old mac68k hardware. I stuck with it when I got new hardware because I just like the feeling of wholeness and quality that NetBSD exudes. (I prefer it to FreeBSD, which is very nearly as good IMHO, and I definitely prefer it to Red Hat, which I tried once and rapidly removed.)

    One thing that I'm curious about, that may be a mis-understanding on my part, is the package systems on non-i386 GNU/Linux platforms. How integrated are alternative architectures? On NetBSD, I can cd into /usr/pkgsrc and make pretty much any package on any platform, without having to ftp anything manually. Are things this slick on, say, Linux/Alpha or Linux/StrongARM, or does someone have to port each package and make it available for FTP somewhere, and hope that people can find it? That's my current impression.

    The last point is that NetBSD [netbsd.org] (and FreeBSD [freebsd.org], and I assume OpenBSD [openbsd.org]) does Linux emulation. With this, I can keep my comfortable, nice environment, and still use stuff like Quake that has only been released for GNU/Linux. (Or Solaris, in that case, but that doesn't apply.) That why, for instance, I wrote to Blizzard and said I wanted Diablo II to run under Linux. I told them that I was running NetBSD, but that NetBSD could run Linux binaries, and that a Linux-native Diablo II would be something I'd buy.

    So, the upshot: It's cool that we're running on UltraSPARCS now. It's not half-bad hardware, in my experience, although IMHO you're trading quality for performance as compared to fast Intel hardware, which tends to be faster but which isn't half as meaty in terms of... quality.

    PS: If you've never run NetBSD, give it a try. It's free, and it's neat.

  • From what you say about NetBSD, this is not quite as slick, since you do have to track down the SRPM files first. But for the most part you can get them from RedHat's ftp servers, so it is not that big of a deal unless they haven't packaged the version you need yet (like the libc5 needed for Kernel 2.2.1).

    Okay, so, if I have a source RPM, it's essentially platform-independant, as long as I have the right libc (and/or other requisites), which is also available on all the alternative platforms?

    If this is the case, then I guess it's not all that bad. I'd still miss the automatic FTPing, and the automated package system updates I get by supping the package source daily.

    Hm. Thanks for the answer.

  • One thing that I'm curious about, that may be a mis-understanding on my part, is the package systems on non-i386 GNU/Linux platforms. How integrated are alternative architectures? On NetBSD, I can cd into /usr/pkgsrc and make pretty much any package on any platform, without having to ftp anything manually. Are things this slick on, say, Linux/Alpha or Linux/StrongARM, or does someone have to port each package and make it available for FTP somewhere, and hope that people can find it? That's my current impression.

    Under Debian Linux, the non-i386 are treated just like i386. If a package comes in, it's then built for the sparc, i386, alpha and any other system, and they can be downloaded from any Debian mirror as a binary package. If you want the source, the source is available, but isn't automatically downloadable.
  • Is there a reason that every NetBSD story gets a "FreeBSD News" Icon on it?
  • Really eh? Look who is smearing who here. And it's almost amusing how I'm using my real name, and yet, *gasp* you can't even slander people like a person with a spine.

    'Sides look who jumped on who. Seems like the Linux "camp" has some inate need to yawn everytime BSD news is posted. Get over yourself, you're not all that you never will be.
  • I'd really like to request that Anonymous Cowards not be allowed to post, but I'd settle for a reading mode wherein I can tell slashdot to simply not display comments from ACs.

    Thanks,

    Peter
  • Relax, don't get so uptight. Its not that big of a deal :)
  • > but I will NEVER use Linux because of the
    > arrogant "society" in which it lives.

    One imature kiddie makes an immature comment, and you think the whole society is arrogant?
    You'll find this attitude with Win9x users, OS/2 Users, MacOS users, Amiga users, and yes even FreeBSD/OpenBSD users. I think it is unfair to judge the OS by a small, yet vocal, segment of it's users. I love Linux, but, if someones wants to love another OS, well, thats once of the whole foundations OSS was built upon, choice. Don't take mine away, or begrudge me for it, and I'll fight for your right to choose as I did, whatever that choice maybe.


  • It is sad to see that some linux advocates use their time spreading FUD about BSD. It seems that everytime BSD is mentioned on Slashdot their boodpressure rise and they start bashing. And I don`t understand it.
    These developers have worked very hard , in their sparetime, to make this port and they give it away for free! And they get flamed by some idiots about it!

    I say well done NetBSD.



  • It's probably not worth responding to nonsense like this, but:

    what in hell are you talking about? The only place `there are winners and losers' is in the closed source world, where if you don't make the big bucks your product dies even if it's better than everything else out there. This is the game microsoft plays -- it's not an approach that makes any sense in the open source world.

    Once more: Open source software is not a zero sum game. If more projects set out to write the same thing, more ideas get tried, and everyone wins. Why are you trying to stop this?

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