Re: tlug: Q about Linux on SPARCs

["Manuel M. T. Chakravarty" <chak@example.com>]

Christopher Sekiya <wileyc@example.com> wrote,

Thanks, Chris, for the information.

> On Tue, 29 Sep 1998, Manuel M. T. Chakravarty wrote:
> 
> > To all the SPARC Linux experts out there, can I run Linux on an Ultra
> > 10, which uses a PCI-bus?  (This is some of the latest hardware from
> > Sun, I think.)
> 
> Yes.  Although the kernel is going to be running in 64bit mode, userland
> will still be using sparc32 binaries (unless something has changed
> recently.  John?)

I see, but that should be ok for the time being.  We are
currently hooking up a small cluster of these machines and I
would like to experiment with adding a light-weight message
passing substrate into the network driver that doesn't incur
the overhead of UNIX sockets.  But for that I obviously need 
the driver's source code.

> > Furthermore, can I -- as on a PC -- install Linux on an extra
> > partition of the SPARC, while leaving Solaris on the other partitions
> > for the time being?
> 
> Yes.  Make sure that you respect the settings of the preexisting sun
> disklabel when you're doing the partitioning.  Might be safer to drop it
> on a secondary drive.

If you ask me, I would just replace Solaris by Linux, but
that may be a bit difficult to sell to the head of my lab,
before I can demonstrate that hacking the driver is
worhtwhile.  Therefore, I was thinking about starting with
just adding a partition -- anyway, I will check the sun
disklabel.

Thanks,

Manuel
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