DOes anyone ever read these newsgroups anymore?

[Rich Teer]

Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone ever reads these newsgroups anymore.
It seems like it's been ages since any traffic came this way...

I guess it's a sign o' the times and a movement towards the web-based
forums. Nice to see that comp.unix.solaris is still fairly active
though!
--
Rich Teer

. * * . * .* .
. * . .*
* . . /\ ( . . *
. . / .\ . * .
.*. / * \ . .
. /* o \ .
* '''||''' .
URLs: http://www.rite-group.com/rich ******************
http://www.linkedin.com/in/richteer

[Edward Kroeze]

Post by Rich Teer
Hi all,
I was just wondering if anyone ever reads these newsgroups anymore.
It seems like it's been ages since any traffic came this way...

63 messages (including yours) from 15-Nov till today.

Post by Rich Teer
I guess it's a sign o' the times and a movement towards the web-based
forums.

Not all change is progress... :-)

Forums are ok if you want to look for something specific I guess,
and when you actually take the time to bother and log in to those things :-)

Newsgroups I read for building up long term general background
knowledge and the occasional event of serendipity :-)

Post by Rich Teer
Nice to see that comp.unix.solaris is still fairly active
though!

Cheers,

Ed

[Canuck57]

Post by Rich Teer
Hi all,
I was just wondering if anyone ever reads these newsgroups anymore.
It seems like it's been ages since any traffic came this way...
I guess it's a sign o' the times and a movement towards the web-based
forums. Nice to see that comp.unix.solaris is still fairly active
though!

You probably are right at least in that many have gone to web based.
But I also suspect it is also in part that fewer people are maintaining
interest in Solaris as an OS choice. Fewer users. For years now
Netcraft shows a steady drop off of users using Solaris.

Unfortunate too, as I think Solaris is the best OS out there, right
ahead of Linux. That other OS makes a lousy high volume server.

[John D Groenveld]

Post by Canuck57
interest in Solaris as an OS choice. Fewer users. For years now
Netcraft shows a steady drop off of users using Solaris.

Does Netcraft have a signature for Nevada and Indiana?

John
***@acm.org

[Canuck57]

Post by John D Groenveld

Post by Canuck57
interest in Solaris as an OS choice. Fewer users. For years now
Netcraft shows a steady drop off of users using Solaris.

Does Netcraft have a signature for Nevada and Indiana?
John

Don't think so, I think they global all of Solaris together as one.

If you mean the settings that can hide it, perhaps admins many do. But
also having beening in a few dozen environments in the last 10 years,
Solaris is on a decline. Netcraft agrees with my observations.

And I know of no one using OpenSolaris for production. Linux yes, lots
actually. But OpenSolaris? Most is Sparc with some scatering of x86.

[Casper H.S. Dik]

Post by Canuck57
And I know of no one using OpenSolaris for production. Linux yes, lots
actually. But OpenSolaris? Most is Sparc with some scatering of x86.

Everyone who bought a "Sun Unified Storage system" is running OpenSolaris
in production. There are some other webbased companies who run OpenSolaris
(e.g., Joyent)


Casper

[John D Groenveld]

Post by Casper H.S. Dik
in production. There are some other webbased companies who run OpenSolaris
(e.g., Joyent)

I see F5 Big-IP.
<URL:http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=www.joyent.com>
But I think a large chunk of the web is behind funky appliances.

I'm running Dassault Systems' Matrix One on top of Oracle and Indiana on
a Sun Fire x4250.

Netcraft states that the OS is unknown.

The customer is happy so far, but we have only been in production since
Christmas.

John
***@acm.org

[Canuck57]

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Canuck57
And I know of no one using OpenSolaris for production. Linux yes, lots
actually. But OpenSolaris? Most is Sparc with some scatering of x86.

Everyone who bought a "Sun Unified Storage system" is running OpenSolaris
in production. There are some other webbased companies who run OpenSolaris
(e.g., Joyent)

2 more than I had yesterday. But the point remains that OpenSolaris
adoption is prety small.

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Post by Canuck57

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

Post by Canuck57
And I know of no one using OpenSolaris for production. Linux yes, lots
actually. But OpenSolaris? Most is Sparc with some scatering of x86.

Everyone who bought a "Sun Unified Storage system" is running OpenSolaris
in production. There are some other webbased companies who run OpenSolaris
(e.g., Joyent)

2 more than I had yesterday. But the point remains that OpenSolaris
adoption is prety small.

Look at what's big! Windows and Linux. Do you want your enterprise
and/or your continued employment to depend on one of those?

[Canuck57]

Post by Casper H.S. Dik

And I know of no one using OpenSolaris for production. Linux yes, lots
actually. But OpenSolaris? Most is Sparc with some scatering of x86.

Everyone who bought a "Sun Unified Storage system" is running OpenSolaris
in production. There are some other webbased companies who run
OpenSolaris
(e.g., Joyent)

2 more than I had yesterday. But the point remains that OpenSolaris
adoption is prety small.

Look at what's big! Windows and Linux. Do you want your enterprise
and/or your continued employment to depend on one of those?

I don't depend on MS-Windows for enterprise work. Strictly UNIX/Linux
or appliances with anything but MS-Windows. The only reason MS-Windows
is in the data center is it gives the CIO/CTO a feeling that they have a
clue on what is happening. OK, burger flippers think they can install it.

MS-Windows as a server, don't think I have ever installed a production
MS-Windows server.

On the other hand, Linux, HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, and a list of other xNIX,
lost count a long time ago.

[unknown]

Post by Canuck57
The only reason MS-Windows
is in the data center is it gives the CIO/CTO a feeling that they have a
clue on what is happening. OK, burger flippers think they can install it.

Well, sadly, many corporates and certainly the government seem to think
that Windows is essential. Solaris is used on one (1) box in the data
centre that I work on and that's only because there is one application
that is essential and that one application works only on Solaris because
the developer refuses to port it to Windows or Linux.

Similar picture at every contract that I have worked on in the past.

It does astound me. A large component in each DC is the license server
infrastructure needed to control users' deployment of Windows and
Windows Applications. The licensing fees are enormous and the work done
could be equally well done using OpenSource systems and freeware which
would save the government millions (they still have to pay the
consultants, but they pay that anyway).

[Nomen Publicus]

Post by unknown

Post by Canuck57
The only reason MS-Windows
is in the data center is it gives the CIO/CTO a feeling that they have a
clue on what is happening. OK, burger flippers think they can install it.

Well, sadly, many corporates and certainly the government seem to think
that Windows is essential. Solaris is used on one (1) box in the data
centre that I work on and that's only because there is one application
that is essential and that one application works only on Solaris because
the developer refuses to port it to Windows or Linux.
Similar picture at every contract that I have worked on in the past.
It does astound me. A large component in each DC is the license server
infrastructure needed to control users' deployment of Windows and
Windows Applications. The licensing fees are enormous and the work done
could be equally well done using OpenSource systems and freeware which
would save the government millions (they still have to pay the
consultants, but they pay that anyway).

Sadly I also know of organisations that are _desperate_ to cut IT costs and
are prepared to look at any solution except non-Microsoft software.

I know of one organisation that spends well over $1M a year on MS licenses
yet will not even concider moving to a non-MS setup for 30K users. Their
desire to retain MS software is so intense they essentially volunteer to run
a high cost IT facility _and_ then cry about costs.

For years I used to care and would argue and campaign for alternatives and
was ignored. Now I just watch them as they run faster and faster towards the
cliff edge of unsustainable expenditure.

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Post by Nomen Publicus

Post by unknown

Post by Canuck57
The only reason MS-Windows
is in the data center is it gives the CIO/CTO a feeling that they have a
clue on what is happening. OK, burger flippers think they can install it.

Well, sadly, many corporates and certainly the government seem to think
that Windows is essential. Solaris is used on one (1) box in the data
centre that I work on and that's only because there is one application
that is essential and that one application works only on Solaris because
the developer refuses to port it to Windows or Linux.
Similar picture at every contract that I have worked on in the past.
It does astound me. A large component in each DC is the license server
infrastructure needed to control users' deployment of Windows and
Windows Applications. The licensing fees are enormous and the work done
could be equally well done using OpenSource systems and freeware which
would save the government millions (they still have to pay the
consultants, but they pay that anyway).

Sadly I also know of organisations that are _desperate_ to cut IT costs and
are prepared to look at any solution except non-Microsoft software.
I know of one organisation that spends well over $1M a year on MS licenses
yet will not even concider moving to a non-MS setup for 30K users. Their
desire to retain MS software is so intense they essentially volunteer to run
a high cost IT facility _and_ then cry about costs.
For years I used to care and would argue and campaign for alternatives and
was ignored. Now I just watch them as they run faster and faster towards the
cliff edge of unsustainable expenditure.

The idea of moving 30K (is that "K" decimal or binary? :-) ) users from
Windows to anything boggles my mind. Even if you get the new software
free, the training costs for users and support people are going to be
substantial.

A few years ago I bought a copy of "Red Hat Linux", with a year of
"support". The flow of patches was practically continuous. I know that
Windows needs patches too, but I question if the number required is as
great! I've been running W/XP on my desktop for several years now.
I've installed a bunch of patches but none to fix problems that *I* had.

[Ian Collins]

Post by Richard B. Gilbert

Post by Nomen Publicus
Sadly I also know of organisations that are _desperate_ to cut IT costs and
are prepared to look at any solution except non-Microsoft software.
I know of one organisation that spends well over $1M a year on MS licenses
yet will not even concider moving to a non-MS setup for 30K users. Their
desire to retain MS software is so intense they essentially volunteer to run
a high cost IT facility _and_ then cry about costs.
For years I used to care and would argue and campaign for alternatives and
was ignored. Now I just watch them as they run faster and faster towards the
cliff edge of unsustainable expenditure.

The idea of moving 30K (is that "K" decimal or binary? :-) ) users from
Windows to anything boggles my mind. Even if you get the new software
free, the training costs for users and support people are going to be
substantial.

You don't do them all at once! My organization has about 2/3 of its
users off windoze now, others will be "relocated" when their PCs come up
for renewal.

[DoN. Nichols]

[ ... ]

Post by Richard B. Gilbert

Post by Nomen Publicus
Sadly I also know of organisations that are _desperate_ to cut IT costs and
are prepared to look at any solution except non-Microsoft software.
I know of one organisation that spends well over $1M a year on MS licenses
yet will not even concider moving to a non-MS setup for 30K users. Their
desire to retain MS software is so intense they essentially volunteer to run
a high cost IT facility _and_ then cry about costs.
For years I used to care and would argue and campaign for alternatives and
was ignored. Now I just watch them as they run faster and faster towards the
cliff edge of unsustainable expenditure.

The idea of moving 30K (is that "K" decimal or binary? :-) ) users from
Windows to anything boggles my mind. Even if you get the new software
free, the training costs for users and support people are going to be
substantial.

The "support people" are needed anyway. But the information
that *they* need is free for the downloading, unlike with Microsoft and
the expensive training courses needed.

As another followup says -- move a few at a time -- as you
replace/upgrade machines instead of all at once. As the process
progresses, you will have more and more people already in a given office
who can answer the newbies' questions.

Post by Richard B. Gilbert
A few years ago I bought a copy of "Red Hat Linux", with a year of
"support". The flow of patches was practically continuous. I know that
Windows needs patches too, but I question if the number required is as
great! I've been running W/XP on my desktop for several years now.
I've installed a bunch of patches but none to fix problems that *I* had.

Note that Microsoft avoids patching a lot of things until it is
past *really needed* -- and the patches which are issued are either
serious security patches already too late, or things which aid *them* to
verify whether everything on the system is legally acquired. The latter
is not a problem with open source systems like Linux, *BSD, and even
Solaris these days. (Except that commercial packages for Solaris may
well be licensed and require license key servers.)

And the Microsoft patches bundle a lot of patches into a single
distribution -- with difficulty accepting what you really need and
rejecting everything else.

The linux (and other open source) patches are issued as someone
discovers a problem and develops a fix. Often, this means that the
problem (if a security problem) is discovered and fixed before someone
out there has a chance to start exploiting it.

Enjoy,
DoN.

[John D Groenveld]

Post by Richard B. Gilbert
Look at what's big! Windows and Linux. Do you want your enterprise
and/or your continued employment to depend on one of those?

Now that Dassault Systems has certified Matrix One for Solaris x64,
we're stripping out Microsoft.

Hopefully Dassault will soon add SUNWpostgres to their list of
supported databases and we can strip out Oracle.

John
***@acm.org

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Post by Rich Teer
Hi all,
I was just wondering if anyone ever reads these newsgroups anymore.
It seems like it's been ages since any traffic came this way...
I guess it's a sign o' the times and a movement towards the web-based
forums. Nice to see that comp.unix.solaris is still fairly active
though!

I'm still here! A few others as well. Of the groups you listed, I post
only to comp.sys.sun.admin

[Cydrome Leader]

Post by Rich Teer
Hi all,
I was just wondering if anyone ever reads these newsgroups anymore.
It seems like it's been ages since any traffic came this way...
I guess it's a sign o' the times and a movement towards the web-based
forums. Nice to see that comp.unix.solaris is still fairly active
though!

I follow this group, but most of the posts are just stupid and not worth
even replying to.

Nobody cares about an opensolaris install failing on some mac.

[Raymond Toy]

Post by Cydrome Leader
Nobody cares about an opensolaris install failing on some mac.

Why not run opensolaris on a mac via parallels or vmware?

Ray, who fails to see why anyone wants to run solaris on a mac.

[Michael Laajanen]

Hi,

Post by Raymond Toy

Post by Cydrome Leader
Nobody cares about an opensolaris install failing on some mac.

Why not run opensolaris on a mac via parallels or vmware?

Or why not Virtual box, I think Virtual box is really fast catching up
with vmware!

Post by Raymond Toy
Ray, who fails to see why anyone wants to run solaris on a mac.

/michael

[Dave]

Post by Michael Laajanen
Hi,

Post by Raymond Toy

Post by Cydrome Leader
Nobody cares about an opensolaris install failing on some mac.

Why not run opensolaris on a mac via parallels or vmware?

Or why not Virtual box, I think Virtual box is really fast catching up
with vmware!

Some would say it has passed VMware. I've not compared the two myself, but I
know someone who has used both extensively, and believe VirtualBox is the better
of the two.

[Kees Nuyt]

On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 10:36:42 -0800, Rich Teer

Post by Rich Teer
Hi all,
I was just wondering if anyone ever reads these newsgroups anymore.

I do read alt.solaris.x86, but I don't think we need it.
comp.sys.sun.admin and comp.unix.solaris roughly cover the same
interest group, and, with a few exceptions, Solaris for x86 is
not that much different from the SPARC implementations.

Post by Rich Teer
It seems like it's been ages since any traffic came this way...

One reason might be there are good, high traffic, mailing lists.

Post by Rich Teer
I guess it's a sign o' the times and a movement towards
the web-based forums.

The popularity of web-based forums keeps surprising me, usenet
and mailing lists are much more comfortable (for me).

Post by Rich Teer
Nice to see that comp.unix.solaris is still fairly active though!

I agree.

Your article made me subscribe to comp.sys.sun.admin and
comp.sys.sun.hardware, with 84 and 210 articles in 5 months it
will not increase my workload too much ;)

[Tim Bradshaw]

Post by Kees Nuyt
The popularity of web-based forums keeps surprising me, usenet
and mailing lists are much more comfortable (for me).

This is one of the great mysteries of our time. Even with the very
limited choice of newsreaders on the Mac (if anyone knows a
native-look-and-feel one better than Unison I'd be interested), I can
read a newsgroup in a reasonable order by occasionally tapping the
space bar. I've never seen a web forum that was so painless.

[Cydrome Leader]

Post by Tim Bradshaw

Post by Kees Nuyt
The popularity of web-based forums keeps surprising me, usenet
and mailing lists are much more comfortable (for me).

This is one of the great mysteries of our time. Even with the very
limited choice of newsreaders on the Mac (if anyone knows a
native-look-and-feel one better than Unison I'd be interested), I can
read a newsgroup in a reasonable order by occasionally tapping the
space bar. I've never seen a web forum that was so painless.

yeah, they all suck, and are cluttered messes of garbage, plus you need to
login to most of them.

I like my terminal set to 132x50, and to get the equivalent amount of data
in a web forum, you'd need to scrollup and down for hours or click on some
"next" link about 15 times.

[unknown]

Post by Rich Teer
I was just wondering if anyone ever reads these newsgroups anymore.
It seems like it's been ages since any traffic came this way...

Umm well, I haven't got any points that need discussing at the moment.
My V20Z tends to sit unobtrusively running ESX and I hardly notice that
it is doing anything apart from making a very, very loud noise 24/7.

[Nemo ad Nusquam]

Post by unknown

Post by Rich Teer
I was just wondering if anyone ever reads these newsgroups anymore.
It seems like it's been ages since any traffic came this way...

Umm well, I haven't got any points that need discussing at the moment.
My V20Z tends to sit unobtrusively running ESX and I hardly notice that
it is doing anything apart from making a very, very loud noise 24/7.

My view as well. I regard this newsgroup as an excellent emergency line
tapping an incredible depth of h/w knowledge but most of the time, all
runs well.

--
Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service
------->>>>>>http://www.NewsDemon.com<<<<<<------
Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access

[Dave]

Post by Rich Teer
Hi all,
I was just wondering if anyone ever reads these newsgroups anymore.
It seems like it's been ages since any traffic came this way...
I guess it's a sign o' the times and a movement towards the web-based
forums. Nice to see that comp.unix.solaris is still fairly active
though!

comp.unix.solaris seems to be where everyone has migrated.

[Lordgnome]

Post by Rich Teer
Hi all,
I was just wondering if anyone ever reads these newsgroups anymore.
It seems like it's been ages since any traffic came this way...

Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

Les.

[unknown]

Post by Lordgnome
Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

Sun Solaris - introduced 1992.
PC Clones - introduced 1981.

You errm might want to reboot your Lantime unit there. It seems to be
running backwards.

[Lordgnome]

Post by unknown

Post by Lordgnome
Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

Sun Solaris - introduced 1992.
PC Clones - introduced 1981.
You errm might want to reboot your Lantime unit there. It seems to be
running backwards.

No, I mean the time when Sun started issuing those horrible boxes which were
little more than a PC running Sun software - Ultra 10, etc.

Les.

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Post by Lordgnome

Post by unknown

Post by Lordgnome
Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

Sun Solaris - introduced 1992.
PC Clones - introduced 1981.
You errm might want to reboot your Lantime unit there. It seems to be
running backwards.

No, I mean the time when Sun started issuing those horrible boxes which were
little more than a PC running Sun software - Ultra 10, etc.
Les.

How dare you insult my Ultra 10s?!?! They are not super-computers but I
didn't buy them for super-computing. They taught me to install, use,
and administer Solaris 8, 9, and 10. They also taught me to configure
and use NIS and NFS.

I paid $50-$60 each for them. I have had my money's worth several times
over!

[Tim Bradshaw]

On 2010-01-01 14:50:29 +0000, "Richard B. Gilbert"

Post by Richard B. Gilbert
How dare you insult my Ultra 10s?!?! They are not super-computers but
I didn't buy them for super-computing. They taught me to install, use,
and administer Solaris 8, 9, and 10. They also taught me to configure
and use NIS and NFS.

I half-agree. Our Ultra 10 died late last year (disk failure), after a
little over 10 years of service. But on the other hand the mechanical
quality of it was just dire compared to the Ultra 2 say (and I remember
when I got my Ultra 1 thinking is was cheap-feeling compared to the SS5
I had before that).

[Ian Collins]

Post by Tim Bradshaw
On 2010-01-01 14:50:29 +0000, "Richard B. Gilbert"

Post by Richard B. Gilbert
How dare you insult my Ultra 10s?!?! They are not super-computers but
I didn't buy them for super-computing. They taught me to install,
use, and administer Solaris 8, 9, and 10. They also taught me to
configure and use NIS and NFS.

I half-agree. Our Ultra 10 died late last year (disk failure), after a
little over 10 years of service. But on the other hand the mechanical
quality of it was just dire compared to the Ultra 2 say (and I remember
when I got my Ultra 1 thinking is was cheap-feeling compared to the SS5
I had before that).

How mechanically robust does a box that sits on a bench and runs for 10
years have to be??

[Tim Bradshaw]

Post by Ian Collins
How mechanically robust does a box that sits on a bench and runs for 10
years have to be??

It doesn't, of course. But it still makes you (well, me) feel bad when
the machine is clearly made out of tinfoil. However I suspect there's
a correlation between systems that are well physically made and systems
that are reliable - things like quality of connectors and rigidity of
the things which connect together counts for a fair amount I suspect.
There must be a reason that 25ks are nicely made (though, perhaps, it
is because people *expect* such machines to be nicely made).

The whole question of the correlation between various things (physical
quality, "high-end-ness") and reliability is interesting. No-one
releases figures of course, but I sometimes wonder if the most reliable
systems are actually small, simple ones, with less to go wrong.

[Stefaan A Eeckels]

On Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:47:57 +0000

Post by Tim Bradshaw
The whole question of the correlation between various things
(physical quality, "high-end-ness") and reliability is interesting.
No-one releases figures of course, but I sometimes wonder if the most
reliable systems are actually small, simple ones, with less to go
wrong.

In the eighties I worked with a Motorola 68000 based fault-tolerant Unix
system from Nixdorf; one of the important lessons I learned from one of
the hardware engineers is "the more components, the lower the
reliability of the overall system". In the case of a fault-tolerant
device, you'll have more faults, but a better chance to deal with them.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Post by Tim Bradshaw

Post by Ian Collins
How mechanically robust does a box that sits on a bench and runs for 10
years have to be??

It doesn't, of course. But it still makes you (well, me) feel bad when
the machine is clearly made out of tinfoil. However I suspect there's
a correlation between systems that are well physically made and systems
that are reliable - things like quality of connectors and rigidity of
the things which connect together counts for a fair amount I suspect.
There must be a reason that 25ks are nicely made (though, perhaps, it
is because people *expect* such machines to be nicely made).
The whole question of the correlation between various things (physical
quality, "high-end-ness") and reliability is interesting. No-one
releases figures of course, but I sometimes wonder if the most reliable
systems are actually small, simple ones, with less to go wrong.

By default, when you add components to a system, the reliability drops.
It is possible to add components and have reliability improve, but that
needs more careful design and implementation. It's probably better at
this point to refer to availability than reliability. The reliability
of a DIMM memory module is probably not a whole lot different in a
desktop system than a large server. When it dies, your desktop probably
halts (or worse, carries on unknowningly using corrupt data). In a more
complex high availability server, the telemetry is likely to have noticed
the DIMM starting to go bad before data was lost, and retired it from use,
and may even allow it to be replaced whilst the system carries on running
and brought back into use again. So whilst the reliability of the DIMM
was probably no different, the availability of the server system was
vastly improved over that of the desktop. The server was more complex,
but that complexity went into telemetry monitoring of the components,
and hardware and software designs which allowed the faulty DIMM to be
hot swapped and brought back into service, so it was geared very
specifically at higher availability.

Another example I like, just because I've seen it _so_ many times...
After a few power cuts or brown-outs, someone decides that the solution
to their problems is to go out and buy a UPS. The UPS is duely installed.
There then follow a string of system outages due to the UPS, almost always
worse than the original problem of a few power cuts. What went wrong?
Well, the system was added to and became more complex, and as a result,
the reliability dropped. Now a UPS _can_ be used to improve system
reliability, but remember what I said; by default, when you add components
to a system, the reliability drops. To improve the reliability, you need
to stop and think about the system design in the light of a UPS, read the
manual on how to configure it, and implement the solution correctly. Then
you can achieve improved availability of a more complex system.

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Post by Andrew Gabriel

Post by Tim Bradshaw

Post by Ian Collins
How mechanically robust does a box that sits on a bench and runs for 10
years have to be??

It doesn't, of course. But it still makes you (well, me) feel bad when
the machine is clearly made out of tinfoil. However I suspect there's
a correlation between systems that are well physically made and systems
that are reliable - things like quality of connectors and rigidity of
the things which connect together counts for a fair amount I suspect.
There must be a reason that 25ks are nicely made (though, perhaps, it
is because people *expect* such machines to be nicely made).
The whole question of the correlation between various things (physical
quality, "high-end-ness") and reliability is interesting. No-one
releases figures of course, but I sometimes wonder if the most reliable
systems are actually small, simple ones, with less to go wrong.

By default, when you add components to a system, the reliability drops.
It is possible to add components and have reliability improve, but that
needs more careful design and implementation. It's probably better at
this point to refer to availability than reliability. The reliability
of a DIMM memory module is probably not a whole lot different in a
desktop system than a large server. When it dies, your desktop probably
halts (or worse, carries on unknowningly using corrupt data). In a more
complex high availability server, the telemetry is likely to have noticed
the DIMM starting to go bad before data was lost, and retired it from use,
and may even allow it to be replaced whilst the system carries on running
and brought back into use again. So whilst the reliability of the DIMM
was probably no different, the availability of the server system was
vastly improved over that of the desktop. The server was more complex,
but that complexity went into telemetry monitoring of the components,
and hardware and software designs which allowed the faulty DIMM to be
hot swapped and brought back into service, so it was geared very
specifically at higher availability.
Another example I like, just because I've seen it _so_ many times...
After a few power cuts or brown-outs, someone decides that the solution
to their problems is to go out and buy a UPS. The UPS is duely installed.
There then follow a string of system outages due to the UPS, almost always
worse than the original problem of a few power cuts. What went wrong?
Well, the system was added to and became more complex, and as a result,
the reliability dropped. Now a UPS _can_ be used to improve system
reliability, but remember what I said; by default, when you add components
to a system, the reliability drops. To improve the reliability, you need
to stop and think about the system design in the light of a UPS, read the
manual on how to configure it, and implement the solution correctly. Then
you can achieve improved availability of a more complex system.

It does not have to be that way. My desktop is protected by a UPS which
has paid for itself! Power is a little flaky around here. When the
lights blink, instead of rebooting, my computers keep running! If the
lights go out and stay out, I have time to do a clean shutdown before
the UPS runs down. YMMV!

[Tim Bradshaw]

Post by Andrew Gabriel
By default, when you add components to a system, the reliability drops.
It is possible to add components and have reliability improve, but that
needs more careful design and implementation. It's probably better at
this point to refer to availability than reliability. The reliability
of a DIMM memory module is probably not a whole lot different in a
desktop system than a large server. When it dies, your desktop probably
halts (or worse, carries on unknowningly using corrupt data). In a more
complex high availability server, the telemetry is likely to have noticed
the DIMM starting to go bad before data was lost, and retired it from use,
and may even allow it to be replaced whilst the system carries on running
and brought back into use again. So whilst the reliability of the DIMM
was probably no different, the availability of the server system was
vastly improved over that of the desktop. The server was more complex,
but that complexity went into telemetry monitoring of the components,
and hardware and software designs which allowed the faulty DIMM to be
hot swapped and brought back into service, so it was geared very
specifically at higher availability.

Yes, I agree with this. But there's an important caveat. The big
machine now has a mass of extra hardware to deal with problems lke the
above (I'm mostly happy this can be made reliable) and a mass of extra
software (which is almost never reliable). So what actually happens is
that when something fails, the mass of extra software wakes up, and
proceeds to kill the domain for you. If you're really unlucky it also
proceeds to kill various neighbouring domains as well. I've seen this
happen too many times.

[Michael Laajanen]

Hi,

Post by Tim Bradshaw
On 2010-01-01 14:50:29 +0000, "Richard B. Gilbert"

Post by Richard B. Gilbert
How dare you insult my Ultra 10s?!?! They are not super-computers but
I didn't buy them for super-computing. They taught me to install,
use, and administer Solaris 8, 9, and 10. They also taught me to
configure and use NIS and NFS.

I half-agree. Our Ultra 10 died late last year (disk failure), after a
little over 10 years of service. But on the other hand the mechanical
quality of it was just dire compared to the Ultra 2 say (and I remember
when I got my Ultra 1 thinking is was cheap-feeling compared to the SS5
I had before that).

my firewall is still a SS10 still runs Solaris 8 2/02 on a 4GB IBM disk
from a old Tandem box :)

Last login: Sun Nov 22 2009 10:14:56 +0100 from 192.168.1.55
Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.8 Generic Patch October 2001
No mail.

SunOS purify 5.8 Generic_108528-13 sun4m sparc SUNW,SPARCstation-10

Post by Tim Bradshaw
psrinfo -v

Status of processor 0 as of: 01/06/10 17:40:29
Processor has been on-line since 12/21/09 23:35:29.
The sparc processor operates at 40 MHz,
and has a sparc floating point processor.
Status of processor 2 as of: 01/06/10 17:40:29
Processor has been on-line since 12/21/09 23:35:33.
The sparc processor operates at 40 MHz,
and has a sparc floating point processor.

SS10 was a great design!


/michael

[DoN. Nichols]

Post by Michael Laajanen
Hi,

Post by Tim Bradshaw
On 2010-01-01 14:50:29 +0000, "Richard B. Gilbert"

Post by Richard B. Gilbert
How dare you insult my Ultra 10s?!?! They are not super-computers but
I didn't buy them for super-computing. They taught me to install,
use, and administer Solaris 8, 9, and 10. They also taught me to
configure and use NIS and NFS.

I half-agree. Our Ultra 10 died late last year (disk failure), after a
little over 10 years of service. But on the other hand the mechanical
quality of it was just dire compared to the Ultra 2 say (and I remember
when I got my Ultra 1 thinking is was cheap-feeling compared to the SS5
I had before that).

my firewall is still a SS10 still runs Solaris 8 2/02 on a 4GB IBM disk
from a old Tandem box :)

[ ... ]

Post by Michael Laajanen
SS10 was a great design!

Yes -- but a SS-10 and an Ultra-10 are very different machines.
The only thing the Ultra-10 has going for it are the faster CPU and the
ability to run the Creator-3D framebuffer. (And the Ultra-5 does not
have that latter ability.)

Enjoy,
DoN.

[Doug McIntyre]

Post by Michael Laajanen
SS10 was a great design!

I dunno about that. Those rubber & metal feet with the yellow pegs to
hold the drives into special rings on the case were a bit odd to deal
with drive manipulation at all.

The memory sticks were huge, and impossibly expensive.

I'd say good design, but not great.

[DoN. Nichols]

Post by Tim Bradshaw
On 2010-01-01 14:50:29 +0000, "Richard B. Gilbert"

Post by Richard B. Gilbert
How dare you insult my Ultra 10s?!?! They are not super-computers but
I didn't buy them for super-computing. They taught me to install, use,
and administer Solaris 8, 9, and 10. They also taught me to configure
and use NIS and NFS.

I half-agree. Our Ultra 10 died late last year (disk failure), after a
little over 10 years of service.

Easy enough to put in a new IDE drive and re-install the latest
OS on there if you want to.

Post by Tim Bradshaw
But on the other hand the mechanical
quality of it was just dire compared to the Ultra 2 say (and I remember
when I got my Ultra 1 thinking is was cheap-feeling compared to the SS5
I had before that).

Try the Ultra-60 or Sun Blade [12]000 for quality. I far prefer
them to the Ultra-5 and Ultra-10 -- though I am still using some of each
for tasks which don't need the speed (and power consumption) of the
latter systems. And these machines were a lot more affordable than the
others -- even at hamfest prices for both.

I considered even the Ultra-2 to be better than the Ultra-1 in
construction quality, FWIW.

Enjoy,
DoN.

[Tim Bradshaw]

Post by DoN. Nichols
Easy enough to put in a new IDE drive and re-install the latest
OS on there if you want to.

We know. I feel bad about it on (probably spurious) green grounds, but
I'm planning a funeral pyre instead, complete with someone reciting
epic verse composes for the occasion. To coincide with the date the
Oracle acquisition goes through if we can sort that.

[Martha Starkey]

Post by Tim Bradshaw

Post by DoN. Nichols
Easy enough to put in a new IDE drive and re-install the latest
OS on there if you want to.

We know. I feel bad about it on (probably spurious) green grounds, but
I'm planning a funeral pyre instead, complete with someone reciting epic
verse composes for the occasion. To coincide with the date the Oracle
acquisition goes through if we can sort that.

: )

[unknown]

Post by Lordgnome

Post by unknown

Post by Lordgnome
Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

Sun Solaris - introduced 1992.
PC Clones - introduced 1981.
You errm might want to reboot your Lantime unit there. It seems to be
running backwards.

No, I mean the time when Sun started issuing those horrible boxes which were
little more than a PC running Sun software - Ultra 10, etc.

I have a very nice V20Z. The great thing about it is that I can run
VMWare ESX on it and not that horrid Slowaris stuff.

[Doug McIntyre]

Post by unknown

Post by Lordgnome
Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

Sun Solaris - introduced 1992.
PC Clones - introduced 1981.
You errm might want to reboot your Lantime unit there. It seems to be
running backwards.

That date is for 'Solaris 2.0', aka SunOS 5.x but rebranded by
marketing, long after Sun was around doing Unix workstations.

You need to go back to 1982 for the first Sun UNIX release. Granted,
Solaris marked the shift to SVR5 code, which was a major change.

I'd push the first true PC Clone (100% BIOS compatible) by Compaq up
to 1982 as well. So, neck and neck.

[unknown]

Post by Doug McIntyre

Post by unknown

Post by Lordgnome
Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

Sun Solaris - introduced 1992.
PC Clones - introduced 1981.
You errm might want to reboot your Lantime unit there. It seems to be
running backwards.

That date is for 'Solaris 2.0', aka SunOS 5.x but rebranded by
marketing, long after Sun was around doing Unix workstations.
You need to go back to 1982 for the first Sun UNIX release. Granted,
Solaris marked the shift to SVR5 code, which was a major change.
I'd push the first true PC Clone (100% BIOS compatible) by Compaq up
to 1982 as well. So, neck and neck.

Umm the OP specified Solaris, not UN*X. Yes, I know but the product
known as Solaris didn't appear until 1992.

Or are you going to argue that Mac OSX has been around since 1977?

[Doug McIntyre]

Post by unknown

Post by Doug McIntyre

Post by unknown

Post by Lordgnome
Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

Sun Solaris - introduced 1992.
PC Clones - introduced 1981.
You errm might want to reboot your Lantime unit there. It seems to be
running backwards.

That date is for 'Solaris 2.0', aka SunOS 5.x but rebranded by
marketing, long after Sun was around doing Unix workstations.
You need to go back to 1982 for the first Sun UNIX release. Granted,
Solaris marked the shift to SVR5 code, which was a major change.
I'd push the first true PC Clone (100% BIOS compatible) by Compaq up
to 1982 as well. So, neck and neck.

Umm the OP specified Solaris, not UN*X. Yes, I know but the product
known as Solaris didn't appear until 1992.

When they rebranded SunOS as Solaris 1.x after the fact, I'd argue
that SunOS=Solaris, and you need to go back to that beginning.

Post by unknown
Or are you going to argue that Mac OSX has been around since 1977?

No, 1989.
When NextStep 1.0 came out. :)

[DoN. Nichols]

Post by unknown

Post by Doug McIntyre

Post by unknown

Post by Lordgnome
Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

Sun Solaris - introduced 1992.
PC Clones - introduced 1981.
You errm might want to reboot your Lantime unit there. It seems to be
running backwards.

That date is for 'Solaris 2.0', aka SunOS 5.x but rebranded by
marketing, long after Sun was around doing Unix workstations.
You need to go back to 1982 for the first Sun UNIX release. Granted,
Solaris marked the shift to SVR5 code, which was a major change.
I'd push the first true PC Clone (100% BIOS compatible) by Compaq up
to 1982 as well. So, neck and neck.

Umm the OP specified Solaris, not UN*X. Yes, I know but the product
known as Solaris didn't appear until 1992.

Well ... actually, Sun used Solaris 1.x to reference the SunOs
4.1.x versions when bundled with X11/OpenWindows, so depending on how
you count it, Solaris (minus the 2.x designation) was around before
that, even if they did not bother *calling* it that until near the
transition to the SysVr4 based system.

And he clarified the "PC Clone" label to refer to the UltraSPARC
based Ultra-5 and Ultra-10 -- using PC style power supplies, and IDE
disk drives. I'm still running two Ultra-10s and one Ultra-5 with
various versions of OpenBSD on them -- to use them for what *I* need
them to do. My chairside machine (on which I am typing this) is a Sun
Blade 2000, and my server is a Sun Fire 280R (Same system board, but
different mounting).

Post by unknown
Or are you going to argue that Mac OSX has been around since 1977?

:-)

Since I did not ever get a Mac until they came out with OS-X,
and I needed some form of "popular" OS and hardware to handle things
like income tax software and running the Nikon slide scanner (not yet
supported by SANE), and updating GPS receivers, since they did not
bother to support either on Solaris. :-) At least since OS-X was based
on unix, I felt a bit more comfortable about allowing it to talk to the
net (as all these programs except the Nikon scanner software require.)

Enjoy,
DoN.

[solx]

Post by unknown

Post by Lordgnome
Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

Sun Solaris - introduced 1992.
PC Clones - introduced 1981.
You errm might want to reboot your Lantime unit there. It seems to be
running backwards.

Sun386i a 25Mhz Intel 386 released in 1988-89 running SunOS 4.0 but it
was very slow compared to running MSDOS. The Intel CPU was not up to the
job.

[Tim Bradshaw]

Post by solx
Sun386i a 25Mhz Intel 386 released in 1988-89 running SunOS 4.0 but it
was very slow compared to running MSDOS. The Intel CPU was not up to
the job.

Rumour has it that the 386i was "slugged" to make sure it was slower
than the SPARC systems of the same era.

[Ian Collins]

Post by solx

Post by unknown

Post by Lordgnome
Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

Sun Solaris - introduced 1992.
PC Clones - introduced 1981.
You errm might want to reboot your Lantime unit there. It seems to be
running backwards.

Sun386i a 25Mhz Intel 386 released in 1988-89 running SunOS 4.0 but it
was very slow compared to running MSDOS. The Intel CPU was not up to the
job.

But it could run multiple instances of MSDOS. At the time, that was
impressive! The CAD designers I looked after were amazed that they
could run more than one instance of Autocad on one box. An easy sale
for Sun.

[Canuck57]

Post by solx

Post by unknown

Post by Lordgnome
Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

Sun Solaris - introduced 1992.
PC Clones - introduced 1981.
You errm might want to reboot your Lantime unit there. It seems to be
running backwards.

Sun386i a 25Mhz Intel 386 released in 1988-89 running SunOS 4.0 but it
was very slow compared to running MSDOS. The Intel CPU was not up to
the job.

But it could run multiple instances of MSDOS. At the time, that was
impressive! The CAD designers I looked after were amazed that they could
run more than one instance of Autocad on one box. An easy sale for Sun.

Only if you bought DoubleDOS or DeskviewX, and was fragile by todays
standards. Much the same as we do today with VirtualBox and VMWare. In
fact, the virtualiation is a change phase as people want to abstract the
old OS dogs onto new hardware.

[Tim Bradshaw]

Post by Canuck57
Only if you bought DoubleDOS or DeskviewX, and was fragile by todays
standards. Much the same as we do today with VirtualBox and VMWare.
In fact, the virtualiation is a change phase as people want to abstract
the old OS dogs onto new hardware.

No. It could actually run multiple DOS instances, under the "parent" SunOS.

[Canuck57]

Post by solx

Post by unknown

Post by Lordgnome
Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

Sun Solaris - introduced 1992.
PC Clones - introduced 1981.
You errm might want to reboot your Lantime unit there. It seems to be
running backwards.

Sun386i a 25Mhz Intel 386 released in 1988-89 running SunOS 4.0 but it
was very slow compared to running MSDOS. The Intel CPU was not up to the
job.

I didn't run SunOS 4.0 on x86, started with Xenix and ODT at that time
frame.

MSDOS was a PITA. Scripting was a joke, as was reliability. But ran on
COT hardware which is really why it took off. No other reason. Win 2.0
was enough to make you scream bloody murder.

[DoN. Nichols]

Post by Lordgnome

Post by Rich Teer
Hi all,
I was just wondering if anyone ever reads these newsgroups anymore.
It seems like it's been ages since any traffic came this way...

Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

And I read one of the three newsgroups daily --
comp.sys.sun.hardware, and normally work with SPARC and UltraSPARC based
systems. None of the x86 or x64 based systems by Sun, so no need for me
to vist alt.solaris.x86.

Enjoy,
DoN.

[HankVC]

Post by DoN. Nichols

Post by Lordgnome

Post by Rich Teer
Hi all,
I was just wondering if anyone ever reads these newsgroups anymore.
It seems like it's been ages since any traffic came this way...

Yep, I still read it. Been a while since I was able to contribute much
though, having been retired from the game for around nine years. Still
mentally in Solaris 7 land. Don't know much about these new PC clones!

And I read one of the three newsgroups daily --
comp.sys.sun.hardware, and normally work with SPARC and UltraSPARC based
systems. None of the x86 or x64 based systems by Sun, so no need for me
to vist alt.solaris.x86.

And I, too, read these newsgroups daily, and have since they existed.
The bad news is that the Ultra 2's and Ultra 60's I've run on for
years are getting pretty long in tooth, and from what I can see, "Sun
workstation" now means Wintel hardware.

I picked up a couple of NOS Ultra 20 M2's a while back for a lot less
than I'd have paid for a Silver Blade 1500 or 2500, and have been
getting my feet wet with Solaris 10 10/08 one one of them. Can't
really say I'm enjoying the experience. At least the preloaded
Solaris (S10 u4 on boxes that were configured the last week of
production) burned a DVD for loading S10 u8, so there may be hope yet.

Hank

[John D Groenveld]

Post by HankVC
really say I'm enjoying the experience. At least the preloaded
Solaris (S10 u4 on boxes that were configured the last week of
production) burned a DVD for loading S10 u8, so there may be hope yet.

There's no need to burn a DVD.

To upgrade to ZFS root and S10U8, install the LiveUpgrade packages
from the S10U8 media
# lofiadm -a /home/ultra20m.1/hank/sol-10-u8-ga-x86-dvd.iso
# mount -r -F hsfs /dev/lofi/1 /mnt
# /mnt/Solaris_10/Tools/Installers/liveupgrade20

Then create a BE on a second disk. I used a Western Digital Passport
drive:
# lucreate -n WDzfsBE -p wdrpool
# luactivate -n WDzfsBE

Then boot WDzfsBE. I would recreate the Solaris slice layout on your
boot disk since Sun's likely has space dedicated for swap and /home.
I gave slice 8 a cylinder and then slice 0 the remainder.
Then create a single pool on slice 0.
# zpool create rpool c0t0d0s0

Then I create the new BE and upgrade it to S10U8
# lucreate -n zfsBE -p rpool
# lofiadm -a /home/ultra20m.1/hank/sol-10-u8-ga-x86-dvd.iso
# mount -r -F hsfs /dev/lofi/1 /mnt
# luupgrade -n zfsBE -u -s /mnt
# luactivate -n zfsBE

When S10U9 is released, upgrading will be less of a headache
as you can create multiple BEs inside a single ZFS pool.

John
***@acm.org

[HankVC]

Post by John D Groenveld

Post by HankVC
really say I'm enjoying the experience. At least the preloaded
Solaris (S10 u4 on boxes that were configured the last week of
production) burned a DVD for loading S10 u8, so there may be hope yet.

There's no need to burn a DVD.

Quite true, and I'm well aware of that. It has been years since I
install Solaris on anything from removable media.

This time around, logistics suggested installing from DVD. The U20 M2
that burned the disk was reconfigured with new bare drives, and I
decided that a standalone install was the most appropriate. Plus,
having a known good install DVD has its good points.

Post by John D Groenveld
To upgrade to ZFS root and S10U8, install the LiveUpgrade packages
from the S10U8 media
# lofiadm -a /home/ultra20m.1/hank/sol-10-u8-ga-x86-dvd.iso
# mount -r -F hsfs /dev/lofi/1 /mnt
# /mnt/Solaris_10/Tools/Installers/liveupgrade20
Then create a BE on a second disk. I used a Western Digital Passport
# lucreate -n WDzfsBE -p wdrpool
# luactivate -n WDzfsBE
Then boot WDzfsBE. I would recreate the Solaris slice layout on your
boot disk since Sun's likely has space dedicated for swap and /home.
I gave slice 8 a cylinder and then slice 0 the remainder.
Then create a single pool on slice 0.
# zpool create rpool c0t0d0s0
Then I create the new BE and upgrade it to S10U8
# lucreate -n zfsBE -p rpool
# lofiadm -a /home/ultra20m.1/hank/sol-10-u8-ga-x86-dvd.iso
# mount -r -F hsfs /dev/lofi/1 /mnt
# luupgrade -n zfsBE -u -s /mnt
# luactivate -n zfsBE
When S10U9 is released, upgrading will be less of a headache
as you can create multiple BEs inside a single ZFS pool.

Well, you're way ahead of me there. My production U60's use UFS
filesystems, and one is still configured to run production with
Solaris 9.

All of this stuff about ZFS is new to me, still. The second U20 M2
will get ZFS so that I can learn my way around it. I have no idea
what the acronym "BE" translates to, but using lofiadm to get a
mountable hsfs image is something I've used for years.

Probably should point out that I have no real need (nor any burning
desire) to get up to speed with the "latest and greatest." At age 75,
I do what I do strictly as a side hobby, and if I'm spending more than
an hour or two a day at it, it's too much.

Hank

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Post by HankVC

Post by John D Groenveld

Post by HankVC
really say I'm enjoying the experience. At least the preloaded
Solaris (S10 u4 on boxes that were configured the last week of
production) burned a DVD for loading S10 u8, so there may be hope yet.

There's no need to burn a DVD.

Quite true, and I'm well aware of that. It has been years since I
install Solaris on anything from removable media.
This time around, logistics suggested installing from DVD. The U20 M2
that burned the disk was reconfigured with new bare drives, and I
decided that a standalone install was the most appropriate. Plus,
having a known good install DVD has its good points.

Post by John D Groenveld
To upgrade to ZFS root and S10U8, install the LiveUpgrade packages
from the S10U8 media
# lofiadm -a /home/ultra20m.1/hank/sol-10-u8-ga-x86-dvd.iso
# mount -r -F hsfs /dev/lofi/1 /mnt
# /mnt/Solaris_10/Tools/Installers/liveupgrade20
Then create a BE on a second disk. I used a Western Digital Passport
# lucreate -n WDzfsBE -p wdrpool
# luactivate -n WDzfsBE
Then boot WDzfsBE. I would recreate the Solaris slice layout on your
boot disk since Sun's likely has space dedicated for swap and /home.
I gave slice 8 a cylinder and then slice 0 the remainder.
Then create a single pool on slice 0.
# zpool create rpool c0t0d0s0
Then I create the new BE and upgrade it to S10U8
# lucreate -n zfsBE -p rpool
# lofiadm -a /home/ultra20m.1/hank/sol-10-u8-ga-x86-dvd.iso
# mount -r -F hsfs /dev/lofi/1 /mnt
# luupgrade -n zfsBE -u -s /mnt
# luactivate -n zfsBE
When S10U9 is released, upgrading will be less of a headache
as you can create multiple BEs inside a single ZFS pool.

Well, you're way ahead of me there. My production U60's use UFS
filesystems, and one is still configured to run production with
Solaris 9.
All of this stuff about ZFS is new to me, still. The second U20 M2
will get ZFS so that I can learn my way around it. I have no idea
what the acronym "BE" translates to, but using lofiadm to get a
mountable hsfs image is something I've used for years.

BE = "Boot Environment"?