How much changes in a year?

It's difficult to believe that it's been over a year since I last posted here, but much has changed. The precious Sun Ultra 2 is gone, as is the old notebook, and I don't even own a regular desktop computer.

Once the Sun Ultra 2 was pumped with RAM I decided I didn't want to work with it anymore. After seeing it pitted against a Pentium III 600MHz with 1/2 the RAM (both running Linux) I wasn't impressed. So I had a local friend I gave the machine to.

The Compaq Armada E500 went up in a puff of smoke, literally. One afternoon I decided I would compile Gentoo from scratch. About 10 hours of compiling in (100% CPU usage), even with a notebook cooler working underneath, the unit actually caught fire! Smoke started coming out the side, then a bit of fire. Can't say I was very impressed, but things change.

So what's new?

My notebook is now a Celeron 1.5GHz (Lenovo 3000 C100). It's packed with a whopping 2GB of RAM which makes burning entire FULL DVDs a matter of less than 10 minutes. I said I didn't have a desktop computer, but that's not quite accurate - my desktop computer sits on top of an entertainment unit and serves as our Personal Video Recorder (PVR). The desktop system is an Athlon XP-based motherboard running at 2GHz, with 1GB of RAM divided into 2 dual channel 512MB Kingston memory sticks. The media centre runs Linux of course. There's a Fedora-core based distribution called MythDora that merges MythTV components with Fedora Core 6. My only real complaint so far is that the Weather applet doesn't seem to work. I was pleased as punch the other evening when I got a really nice remote from another coworker to work with the media centre, no more wireless keyboard.

Last year while I was giving away stuff I had someone offer me a SGI O2. I took the offer and used it for a bit, but haven't much lately. It's one of 2 machines that I have to do something with. One machine is set up to be a LAMP development machine. I think I'll probably make it my main desktop machine, but I need to buy another LCD monitor before I work it. Something simple like a 17" LCD should do fine. My notebook is really my main machine. For a Celeron I find it has excellent performance. My main complaint with it has to do with screen scratches I couldn't see when I first got it. The screen is so close to the keyboard that it scratches is any pressure is put on it. Mine must have sat at the bottom of a pile because it had a number of key scratches I couldn't really see because of the low lighting conditions I was always using it in. Until I started using it in bright light I didn't notice the scratches... just a consideration if you're buying a notebook, check out the screen in bright light.

Sun Ultra 2 reprise.

I've been shopping on ebay again, even though I shouldn't be. This time I bought 1GB (8 x 128MB) SIMMS for my Sun Ultra. Currently the machine has 128MB of RAM (8 x 16MB). SIMMS have to be installed in quads, that is 4 of the same type. I actually have a couple of 128MB SIMMS that will work in my Ultra, but they won't work until they're installed in a quad configuration.

I am reprising the Ultra for a couple of purposes, 1 to learn Solaris 9 (or 10), and to learn Java. I've been reading Cay Horstmann's Computing Concepts with Java Essentials. What make's Cay's book interesting for a hack like me is he has mentioned the SPARC processor a few times in the first chapter. It's interesting to learn about Java's cross-platform abilities when processors are compared instead of just saying that Java is a cross-platform programming language and then continuing on with code examples.

Solaris 9 is a dog on 128MB of RAM, particularly the Xserver. All the web-start stuff slows the system down even more. The new RAM is coming from the United States, so I'll probably have to wait a couple of weeks before it arrives. I'm itching for more. I actually looked at a quad port network card, but decided I really didn't need it. Perhaps when I learn NIS+ a bit better I'll replace my hub with the card.

I'm going to install Slow-laris tonight and set it up so I can SSH in. I decided on a new naming scheme for my network based on Anne Bishop's Blood Jewels series of fantasy novels. The temporary notebook is Lucivar, my 733MHz x86 is Janelle, and the Ultra is Saetan. I haven't decided on whether I'm putting the Sun Sparcstation 5 online again. I pilfered the 9.1GB SCA hard drive for my Ultra which has dual 9.1GB SCA SCSI hard drives. I already bought a Creator 3D card for the Ultra.

One of the things that's great about Sun is they still have a lot of information about their systems, even old boxes like the Ultra 2.

I also love looking at what people are doing with the Ultras. A place in Taiwan is using them for SNMP, Web, and DNS/NIS along with a Sparc 10 as a firewall. The department of engineering at the University of Cambridge at one point was using an Ultra 1 to run a Pro Engineer CAD package. At the Observatoire de Physique Du Globe De Clermont-Ferrand in France they're using a sun box for Inferometry. I was never into physics or most sciences while in school, but this looks like a really cool application. I'm somewhat interested in the telescope possibilities. I enjoy creating backgrounds from jpegs I've snapped with my Powershot A20 digital camera. It's only 2.1 mega-pixels, but it's more than enough to do 1600x1200. Having space scenes would be pretty cool.

There are so many possibilities for a box like this and here companies are filling landfills full of them...