Hardware compability - Solaris on an old Intel x86 mobo
Hello, I've searched the site for a while for a hardware compability list without any success. I'm planning to test Solaris on my old web server at home (using Ubuntu at the moment) but don't know how compatible it is.
The "server" (or PC used as server) has the following specs:
Intel SE440BX Motherboard with a P3 CPU at 450 Mhz
--> http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/SE440BX/index.htm
An ATI Rage Family GPU
A no-name NIC (Works fine with Ubuntu)
I don't know anything about Solaris and hardware compability, so please supply me with external links if you have anything useful to share with me :)
EDIT: I found a HCL, but no entry for my motherboard. But all informations ablout those older systems are appreciated.
Sincerely,
Linus Waerner, 謗ebro, Sweden
[873 byte] By [
Deadmeat] at [2007-11-26 9:45:20]
# 1
Linus,
I've been using a 440BX board with Solaris x86, since Solaris 7.
I continue to use the same ABIT BE-6 board today, on Solaris 10.
Through the years, I've upgraded the cpu to my current P-III at 800MHz.
Your ATI Rage card should be recognized natively.Mine was.
I recently replaced my ATI card with an Nvidia TNT so as to go to 16MB of video RAM.
1024x768 on the Nvidia card was a bit nicer than 1024x768 on the ATI.
Check that Ethernet adapter one more time.Try to find the actual chipset.
There really isn't any such thing as no-name for networking.
There's got to be someone's chipset on it.
I use a DC21140 for 10/100Mbit connectivity.
# 2
Thanks alot! It's normally hard to find people who used the same mobo as me :)
Well, the card doesn't say much, but however, I found a 3Com- and a CNet NIC as well so I guess atleast those two will work just fine.
Thanks alot for your fast reply. Is it worth the time to switch from Linux to Solaris?
# 3
My 3COM 3C905-TX card was also recognized natively.
As for your question on "is it worth it" ?
You may have to make your own judgement call for that.
I happen to prefer it, and feel it runs better on older hardware
than the more famous named Linux distributions.
(by comparison, FC5 on the same 800MHz cpu and same 384MB of RAM was horribly sluggish)
So, go ahead and install Solaris. Run it for a few days.
You can always wipe the disk and start over.
My 440BX box is not a production box.
I have a removable disk bay and four or five hard drives, each with different OS's.
I use the system as a guinea pig testbox, such as
does this application conflict with such-and-such
or
can I run this program in that old OS
