Sun Fire V480 compatibility question?

[Kaya Saman]

Many thanks for the response Marius! :-) I appreciate your help so much.
>
> It's the other way around, version 4 and 7 refer to the contents
> of the "version#" property of these bridges in the Open Firmware
> device tree, which can be translated into 2.x revision numbers for
> exampled based on the table present in the Schizo Errata [1], i.e.
> version 7 translates to revision 2.5 and version 4 translates to
> revision 2.2. The sunsolve document you refer to actuall is in
> line with this information.
>   

Ok now I get it....

> I highly suspect this problem is related to the infamous BugID
> 4898531, just that Solaris can work around it to some extent or
> that FreeBSD happens to better a triggering it (I actually have
> a version of cas(4) which makes it less likely but still doesn't
> work around it completely), so V480 equipped with 501-6780 and
> 501-6790 centerplanes should be fine while those with 501-5819
> and 501-6733 are prone to fail.
>
> Marius
>
> 1: http://www.sun.com/processors/manuals/External_Schizo_Errata.pdf
>   


Just some more quick questions if you don't mind:

Can I add extra NICs to the v480 that will work with BSD - provided I 
have a bridge that is supported?

Last question is can I virtualize on this machine?? Obviously things 
like Xen, Vbox, VMware, Xvm are all built for x86 machines but I have 
heard about LDoms although I don't know if they will work with SPARC or 
the v480 and most importantly BSD.

According to this: 
http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/data/v12n/views/v12n_ldoms.page1.html

it only supports Linux and Solaris?

Just that I am still stuck between deciding to use OpenSolaris on the 
machine or BSD as the real thing pulling me towards BSD is the software: 
Cacti and Munin mainly.

Apart from that I am more familiar and happier using Solaris zones as I 
will create a primary/secondary combo. As we have been through this 
already in my last post which got many responses I don't want to dwell 
on this topic and will just have to play around I guess as to see which 
one suites my needs overall best.

Regards,

Kaya