I've tried it on three different machines. Two Dells and one home made and they all crapped out at different points.

The two Dells had SCSI CD-ROM with Adaptec Adapter --- puked.

Home made had an ATA controller that wasn't made by INTEL --- puked.

I think I wasted $20.

Maybe I should just by a SPARC off of E-Bay and fiddle around with it.

It would be nice to see if any of you guys/gals out there have installed it succesfully and what type of hardware you are running it on.

1. Manufaturer
2. Model

..etc.

Thanks

green one

I haven't yet played with Solaris on x86 platforms but I do know our mod finegan has gotten it to install, so it is possible.

You can't beat an actual Sun machine though.. and you can find them for cheap nowadays.

What type of boxen do you suggest I get. I see a lot on ebay for <= 350.

I want to start learning Sun as I have become pretty proficient in Linux.

Also, I want to start developing for the Sun environment. Any tools you can recommend to get started? I am primarily a C/C++ developer.

TIA

I mean if you want something mid-range, like above 200 mhz for some performance and using GUI, you could probably get the Ultra5 for a decent price. They usually 270mhz to 380mhz I think.

If you just want a low end model, probably go with the 10's or 20's, SunSparc's that is... You can get those for dirt cheap in most cases.

It's sort of weird coming from the x86 world and looking at the Sun hardware when you have 3+ Ghz out there.

Got Solaris9 x86 up and running on a second-hand 450Mhz Gateway E3200.

Not sure where else you could look, but I would avoid ebay if at all possible. 90% of the time, people bid way more than that crap is worth. Especially on computer equipment.

I haven't yet spent the dinero to get Solaris 9 x86, been using the Solaris 8 2/02 version I dl'd for free a while back. But the only place I had problems with that was on a Dell Inspiron 8200 (Intel P-4 mobile). Solaris didn't care for the H/W implementation, crapped out during install. I think it was the NIC/Modem that it didn't like. However I could install it in a vmware instance on the same box with no troubles (aside from no X).
I have successfully installed it on other laptops/PC's, some custom, some name brand, such as a Sony Vaio and an IBM Thinkpad (laptops).

haha
don't be fooled by that.
sun processors run on a 64-bit architecture with a true 64-bit OS on top of that.
Considering that sun have always had 64-bit processors while AMD is just releasing the first 64-bit processor now puts things into perspective... especially when there isn't even a 64-bit OS to support it (windows 64 will be coming out next year though).

Sun architecture is designed for high/medium end computing, which can be downgraded for desktop computing.
Intel are working the other way around...

edit (added below)

with X86, you usually have to build your hardware around the X86 distribution of Solaris that you're wishing to install. If possible try to grab the latest edition of X86 which will have a more extensive range of drivers availible for the hardware out there.

I got it to run under vmware.

Got lucky as:
a) Its a free download again,
b) installed almost "out of the box" on the crappy eMachines 550 that my wife found in the next doors trash (Intel ZX based Mobo, PIII 550, 96 megs of RAM). The video card (a cut down TNT2 w/ 8Meg) did not work correctly in CDE - (visual tearing). I think this was due to the system recognizing it as a std TNT2. I fixed this by installing an old 3dfx 3000 and installing the XFree port and drivers kit from Sun.

My saving grace was the NIC I dropped into the box. I bought a couple of Intel Pro 10/100 cards years ago. I LOVE THIS CARD as every OS I have ever tried has drivers built in for them (Sure I paid $100 CDN when I could have gotten Bargain Brand at $30 but the extra was worth it).

I have succsesfully installed Solaris x86 12/03 on my AMD Athlon 1800+ with AUSU A7V8X Mainboard, Asus GeForce 4 ti4200, and on-board LAN.

If you want to buy a Sun WS, be sure you get one with an UltraSpac II CPU..Something like an Ultra 5 or Ultra 10 station.

I have it running the following system:
PIII600
MSI-6315 mobo
GF mx440 graphics card.
Intel 8255x NIC

Solaris8 couldn't find a suitable driver for the graphics card, but it works great in Solaris9.
Those Intel NICs are great!
I haven't installed a (network) OS which doesn't have a working Intel-driver included.
Life is so much easier when you have network access...

I was succesful in getting it installed. I built a box, using the HCL as a guide and made sure that each piece of hardware was supported. Truthfully, when I did it the first time I had no idea what I was doing and pretty much just made choices hoping they were right, and I guess I did ok since it did run. The only problem was the network card did not work, but I believe I needed to install a driver for it. I recently put on an unmetionable O/S on the box to test something out, but in the next couple of days I will be re-installing Solaris, hopefully I will understand what I am doing a little bit this time.

Managed to install it successfully on a Gateway 350 mhz machine I picked up from a PC liquidator. Had my Windows setup in place, started with the Software #1 CD (don't waste time with the Install CD), all went perfectly smooth except the boot loader. Checked an excellent Sun FAQ at http://www.sun.drydog.com/faq/, reinstalled the Sun boot manager in the boot block, and I was ready to go.

I also had problems on a PC I built from parts, with an Intel mobo and a TNT chipset video card. Video cards and NIC cards are probably the biggest roadblocks on an install. Never tried to fix it because I have Sun hardware (an Ultra 5 and Sparc 20) for Solaris now.

Good luck - post a reply if you can get a specific error message.