Re: [cobalt-developers] XTR Kernel

[Ryan Verner <xfesty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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On 21 Dec 2002 13:24:19 -0800 "William L. Thomson Jr."
<support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

| It's been a while, but sounds like I need to send an email to a contact
| a Sun. Gordon Garb. He was the one to invite/put me on the list for
| Sun's VIP day at Linux world. He is more on the Sun/Linux side now
| rather than specifically Sun/Cobalt, but I am pretty sure he still has
| some influence.

It feels really, really strongly to me that Sun just want to forget all
about the Cobalts and the fact they even existed.  But hey, if you've got
friends there, go for it - I'm still running the Sun OS on my cobalt, and
any major update would be very much appreciated.

| > I know, there's no excuse for it - 2.2.16 is horribly outdated, and the
| > XTR's certainly aren't obselete, they're still very, very capable
machines
| > (ours has 70gig of raid, 800mhz PIII, and 1.5gig of ram.)
| 
| Yes, I am not to upset on the hardware, except that I can't use all of
| it. Dual proc board, with a single proc. The software is another story
| all together. It's limiting the hardware.

Yah huh - the first XTR we had did (I believe) have dual processors in it,
but we were quite peeved to find out when our "replacement" unit arrived
that it only had one. The whole reason we bought the XTR two years ago is 
because it seemed the most reliable, fast machine at the time for Quicktime
streaming. 

I find this little except out the Linux kernel (its been there for ages, and
it still is) quite amusing:

xfesty@reflection:/usr/src/linux$ grep Sun drivers/net/sunhme.c
 *           "Happy Meal Ethernet" found on SunSwift SBUS cards.
	/* Welcome to Sun Microsystems, can I take your order please? */
	/* Come back next week when we are "Sun Microelectronics". */
/* Only Sun can take such nice parts and fuck up the programming interface
	/* Sun MAC prefix then 3 random bytes. */

The second last line had me in tears a few months ago when I accidentally
stumbled apon it ;-)

| > These are all things Qbalt aims to
resolve, and it'll be released Any Day
| > Soon Now if I can get my dirty little mits on an XTR.
| 
| Released any day now is the app you have developing right? Not some sort
| of OS upgrade from Sun/Cobalt right. If they have been working on a
| major one of those, then I will be a happy campier. Although I doubt it.
| I believe your reference was to your app?

Yah, Qbalt is basically a total conversion for the Cobalt units - the Sun OS
basically sits on top of RedHat, and a very outdated version at that.  For
Sun to keep everything up to date is painful to say the least.

Qbalt is Debian based - adding new packages is a complete breeze, and
Debian's design allows the system to basically "morph" into the latest
version (where Redhat basically goes stagnant over time).  Keeping machines
up to date is two commands, and with a web interface, a click of one button.
It'll require minimal effort from the maintainers (myself, a few others),
just a lot of work initially to get it all working and looking like the
current Cobalt units do.

| If I had another machine, and use the XTR for development purposes I
| would let you have at mine. So long as you did do bad things with the
| access. However since my XTR is one of the main aspects of my production
| env, I can't help out.

Nah, no problems - I've got remote access to XTR's, the main problem right
now is that I need physical access to test things such as the bios upgrade,
remote booting via bootp (Restore CD's), getting the LCD to work, etc... 
Qbalt is based off another commercial product I created two years ago, and
it does install from a CD fine - doing this on a Cobalt however is a
completely different story.

| In fact I can barely do experimental things with it. Like
playing around| with compiling my own kernel for it.
| 
| Very frustrating as all my other machines are RH 8.0 with custom
| compiled kernels. All others, problem free. The XTR, well it's a pain.

Yah huh, I know exactly what you mean.  Its like bashing your head against a
brick wall.

| One I would like to go away.
| 
| > Until then, its no go ;-(
| 
| Well depending on the next several months and how things go, you may see
| my XTR on Ebay. ;)

Hah!  If I can't manage to get physical access to a Cobalt, looks like Qbalt
will end up going that way too :-/

R

| > R
| > 
| > - --
| > Ryan Verner <xfesty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
| > PGP: 5819 DE5D B5AE 9381 7E60  5B4C 45CC 64DF D3CC EB07
| > 
| > MSN: dev.festy@xxxxxxxxxxxx           IRC: xf/irc.oublinet.net
| >  EQ: [46 Bard] Mummer Hummer (Human)   PH: +61 418 186 604 (*)
| > 
| > In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of
| > people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
| > 
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| > 
| -- 
| Sincerely,
| William L. Thomson Jr.
| Support Group
| Obsidian-Studios Inc.
| 439 Amber Way
| Petaluma, Ca. 94952
| Phone  707.766.9509
| Fax    707.766.8989
| http://www.obsidian-studios.com
| 


- --
Ryan Verner <xfesty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
PGP: 5819 DE5D B5AE 9381 7E60  5B4C 45CC 64DF D3CC EB07

MSN: dev.festy@xxxxxxxxxxxx           IRC: xf/irc.oublinet.net
 EQ: [46 Bard] Mummer Hummer (Human)   PH: +61 418 186 604 (*)

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of
people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

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