Does anyone know of a linux distro that will run on UltraSparc machines, such as Sun's older SunFire models (i.e X100/X120), Netra T1/X1, etc.? I'm really more comfortable with something that's RedHat based (as close as I can get to my native OpenSuSE) but I guess anything would do...

Also, this is a long shot, but are there any ready-to-run firewall/router/DHCP/etc. distros?

Thanks,
Jason

If you are only looking for an open source OS, Solaris Express (and perhaps Martux) will happily run on these boxes. If you insist on using a Linux kernel, the best bet would be Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake).

Thanks. I just looked into Ubuntu and, from the download sites, it looks like up to 7.10 covers Sparc.

I have one box running Solaris 10, but everything else is Linux. I'd really like to stick to one OS if possible (if I'm already going to be dealing with multiple hardware platforms, and therefore two totally separate package sets).

I'll give it a shot, thanks.

BTW, if anyone happens to know of an RPM-based distro, please comment...

Have you checked CentOS and Mandriva? I have no experience with it, but I thought that they both had some support.

UltraPenguin! Which was merged into debian's ultrasparc distro. Works great, I run it on an old Sun Ultra 1

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Linux winnie 2.6.22-2-sparc64 #1 Fri Sep 7 14:56:53 UTC 2007 sparc64

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;



winnie:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
cpu : TI UltraSparc I (SpitFire)
fpu : UltraSparc I integrated FPU
prom : OBP 3.1.2 1996/03/12 18:31
type : sun4u
ncpus probed : 1
ncpus active : 1
D$ parity tl1 : 0
I$ parity tl1 : 0
Cpu0Bogo : 334.45
Cpu0ClkTck : 0000000009f437c0
MMU Type : Spitfire