Sparc64 support

[Bill Sorenson]

I don't entirely disagree. As long as sparc64 works I'm glad it stays in. I
don't personally see sun4v support being much of a priority, unless Oracle
pulls a rabbit out of their hat and makes sparc competitive again.
On Aug 9, 2015 2:59 PM, "K. Macy" <kmacy at freebsd.org> wrote:

> I'm eager to encourage wider adoption of FreeBSD to the point where I'm
> quite comfortable making myself unpopular with its inner circle by
> criticizing project dynamics that hinder that. Nonetheless, I don't agree
> that this is a particularly rewarding investment of project resources.
>
> Please bear in mind that the number of developer man hours of that caliber
> is extremely limited. Working on SPARC only makes sense for a developer who
> wants to have a free hand in making changes to the MD code that he simply
> can't on x86 or simply really enjoys working on it as a niche platform. The
> return on investment of sustaining a marginal architecture represented only
> by outdated hardware is really vanishingly small vis a vis supporting
> recent laptops, better support for newer cloud platforms, and countless
> other areas where FreeBSD is struggling to keep up with the Joneses.
>
> I'm not saying that people who currently work on SPARC should stop doing
> so. I'm simply pointing out that as avenues for facilitating wider use of
> FreeBSD go, it's a bit lacklustre.
>
> -K
> On Aug 9, 2015 10:47 AM, "Bill Sorenson" <instructionset at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I have done much convincing with regard to new hardware. It always happens
>> eventually. But many companies I deal with are in a colo, don't care about
>> power consumption (yet) and are reluctant to quit paying for rack space
>> they think they might want. They move very slowly. I'd love to have them
>> all by new modern hardware, believe you me.
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 10:19 PM, Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling at kev009.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > On 8/5/2015 12:10 PM, Bill Sorenson wrote:
>> >
>> >> I have been advised to post this in this list. I was going to rewrite
>> this
>> >> a bit but I'm not sure what parts people will be interested. Anyway:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> I'm one of probably a few users of FreeBSD and OpenBSD on multiple
>> >> platforms left and I thought I'd share some of my experience with BSD
>> on
>> >> some of the lesser used platforms.
>> >>
>> >> I manage a fair number of systems, most of them running FreeBSD on
>> 64-bit
>> >> Intel, but I probably have more sparc64 and powerpc systems running now
>> >> than on i386. I have made it a bit of a specialty of mine to make use
>> of
>> >> BSD on existing equipment owned by a customer in a Solaris or OS X (or
>> >> some
>> >> other, older Unix...) environment and migrating their special sauce to
>> run
>> >> on it (or it could be as simple as setting up a FreeBSD Samba server
>> on an
>> >> existing G5 Mac they own).
>> >>
>> >> There are a lot of old SunFire servers running Solaris out there that
>> will
>> >> take years to die, and a lot of companies aren't excited about buying a
>> >> lot
>> >> of new hardware and porting their code over to Linux (thank goodness).
>> >> When
>> >> they start to run into software support and management issues, I've
>> found
>> >> FreeBSD to be a relatively easy sell. They get an up to date modern OS
>> >> with
>> >> modern ports available and usually migrating their C code or perl isn't
>> >> much of an issue. They get to hold off on buying hardware until there
>> is a
>> >> direct need (accounting really loves this).
>> >>
>> >> The advantage for me is that when these companies start looking at new
>> >> hardware with the latest Xeon, they're already running FreeBSD 9.3 or
>> >> 10.1.
>> >> Their code is already ported, the software they're now using is already
>> >> available and works. When they move, its basically a recompile and its
>> >> good
>> >> to go. These customers stick to BSD and forget about Linux or paying
>> >> Oracle
>> >> more money. Everything just works and they couldn't be happier.
>> >>
>> >> I've always been interested in the older and more unusual hardware,
>> its a
>> >> big part of how I found a niche in supporting it on a professional
>> level.
>> >> Personally I run a sparc64 server, a powerpc G5 Xserve, a Alpha based
>> >> DS20L
>> >> running OpenBSD and an old 68k Mac running NetBSD, partly for fun and
>> >> partly to make sure I can support my clients (ok, the 68k Mac is purely
>> >> for
>> >> fun).
>> >>
>> >> I've found a lot of value in FreeBSD's support for older platforms for
>> >> getting my foot in the door with a lot of customers. Yes sparc64 isn't
>> the
>> >> future for FreeBSD but I still think it is very much the present. Its
>> not
>> >> dead yet, there are a lot of users of this old gear out there if you
>> know
>> >> where to look. For a company that has never heard of FreeBSD to adopt
>> it
>> >> because it will extend the life of their hardware I think that is a
>> very
>> >> powerful thing.
>> >>
>> >> -Bill Sorenson
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >>
>> >>
>> > If you look around, you'll find many core committers are quite active on
>> > the ARM and MIPS ports.
>> >
>> > SPARC became solidly niche when Oracle bought Sun.  Your business model
>> is
>> > commendable, and getting people onto FreeBSD makes me happy.  But these
>> > businesses are being penny wise, pound foolish.  A $1200 Xeon-D server
>> > could consolidate (jails) a handful of sun4u systems and pay for itself
>> in
>> > electric savings within the year.
>> >
>> > I would love to see SPARC support continue simply because it's a
>> gauntlet
>> > that can eek out bugs.  jhb@ gave a good overview of what is needed for
>> > the toolchain.  sun4v support would be another nice thing.
>> >
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