Hi everybody, I have Solaris 8 on my Sun SPARCstation 20 machine having TWO 75-MHz SuperSPARC-II processors and 256 Memory. I am thinking to upgrade it to Solaris 9. Box runs web/ftp servers, samba, sendmail, firewall for small research project for 7 people. Reason for upgrade is just learning newer Solaris. What is your recommendation about it from your own experience. Thanks, Alex Zarutin EncryptLab.com

I don't believe sol9 runs on not ultra processors. Either way, it doesn't bring a lot to the party other than a current java vm.

Well, from: http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/binaries/specs.html it appears Solaris9 runs on a system that can at least run Solaris 2.5.1.So it's okay with a ss20.To check it out better: http://wwws.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hardware/docs/pdf/816-1664-10.pdf My experience: I have a SS20 myself.I putted Solaris 9 and it runs just fine.I'm not been benchmarking but I tend to think it runs a little bit better than Solaris8. My SS20 runs by now 2x100Mhz Ross with 384 RAM and video via the SX framebuffer@8 Mb VSIMM.That's a minimum to do some basic java, but as an experiment I ran the installation of Solaris9 with just one 50 Mhz/1mb cache cpu via a TGX framebuffer and it installs.It takes forever but it installs and then runs fine as long as one doesn't fire up the JVM (exple: the SMC -Solaris Management Console). In a near future I will buy some Ross cpus from ebay and push the SS20 at 4x125 or more and then the pizza box will last for a while as a workstation (not to talk as a server box only of course), with Solaris 9 and maybe the next too :-)... My advice for a fast installation: boot from the CD#1, not from the "Installer CD". What is different/better with Solaris 9 compared with Solaris 8: it comes with a broader choice of end user software compliant with the GNU galaxy.Thinks like bash, gzip, ssl/ssh, Netscape 6, etc. What is gone: OpenLook desktop. CDE is faster.(much motif improvement). On a 2 x 75 cpus @ 256 ram Solaris 9 will do fine (not really for java development).Just be sure to use the SX video to get the nicest desktop. I have no experience with 64-bit Sun (ultra, blade) but I use 64-bit HP9000 with HPUX. My SS20 does almost as good as a C200 @768 RAM...

Thanks for the good advice. I am thinking to buy additional memory. I think it is more valuable than just increase CPU's speed or number of them. Thanks, Alex Zarutin EncryptLab.com