Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
A first step would be someone gathering a list of people committed to working on it, and going through the opensolaris project creation process to get yourself a mailing list and source repository setup. I am not an X11 expert but you can count me in, with some guidance I can do some work. I believe however that this project can kick-off only after we will have gained access to the source code. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Jensen Lee wrote: Certainly I want to keep using my Sun Blade. Will Sun next commercial release of Solaris at least support the legacy 3D Labs cards? Because like every other computer company in the world, including Sun for the past 25 years, hardware is not supported forever and at some point you must choose between hardware upgrade or software upgrade? Those cards Let me understand Alan, why in 25 years of computing I never had this problem before. Windoze supports old hardware, Linux supports very old hardware. Now I chose a very expensive platform, let say the Rolls Royce of workstations, 10 years on they decide to stop selling leaded fuel, only green one. Do you think Rolls Royce would tell me my expensive car would no longer run because the fuel standard has changed or would they make it run with the new fuel? I have a 1998 Pentium II laptop that runs the latest versions of both WinXP and Linux! Thanks God I am European and in Europe software patents are illegal, and for a very good reason, they hamper progress and integration to the detriment of the consumer. Now, on the constructive side, I understand the financial problems Sun is going through right now, but there is a large user base who owns workstations with 3D labs based FBs that sooner or later will want to upgrade to OpenSolaris. If Sun keeps supporting their hardware they will remain Sun's customers and may pay for support licenses, a memory upgrade etc. But if you brick their workstations, chances are they will switch to a different hardware supplier as in the Intel/AMD market there is open competition. What about the following options: 1) open the 3D Labs drivers in Europe where software patents even if existing are not enforceable, someone in Europe could pick up the work 2) include a binary package of both drivers (already available I believe) and Xsun, installable on OpenSolaris Sparc. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Jensen Lee wrote: 1) open the 3D Labs drivers in Europe where software patents even if existing are not enforceable, someone in Europe could pick up the work Software patents have nothing to do with this discussion. There are legal agreements in place which restrict disclosure and derived works. FWIW, using WinXP as a metric for the proper way to provide long term hardware support is a bit of a stretch compared to what we continue to do with the IFB/JFB family on Solaris. ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 3:30 PM, Jensen Lee hayd...@haydude.org wrote: Jensen Lee wrote: Certainly I want to keep using my Sun Blade. Will Sun next commercial release of Solaris at least support the legacy 3D Labs cards? Because like every other computer company in the world, including Sun for the past 25 years, hardware is not supported forever and at some point you must choose between hardware upgrade or software upgrade? Those cards Let me understand Alan, why in 25 years of computing I never had this problem before. Windoze supports old hardware, Linux supports very old hardware. Now I chose a very expensive platform, let say the Rolls Royce of workstations, 10 years on they decide to stop selling leaded fuel, only green one. Do you think Rolls Royce would tell me my expensive car would no longer run because the fuel standard has changed or would they make it run with the new fuel? I have a 1998 Pentium II laptop that runs the latest versions of both WinXP and Linux! Thanks God I am European and in Europe software patents are illegal, and for a very good reason, they hamper progress and integration to the detriment of the consumer. Now, on the constructive side, I understand the financial problems Sun is going through right now, but there is a large user base who owns workstations with 3D labs based FBs that sooner or later will want to upgrade to OpenSolaris. If Sun keeps supporting their hardware they will remain Sun's customers and may pay for support licenses, a memory upgrade etc. But if you brick their workstations, chances are they will switch to a different hardware supplier as in the Intel/AMD market there is open competition. What about the following options: 1) open the 3D Labs drivers in Europe where software patents even if existing are not enforceable, someone in Europe could pick up the work 2) include a binary package of both drivers (already available I believe) and Xsun, installable on OpenSolaris Sparc. 3) obtain the chips documentation from 3D Labs and give that to the community. Like Sun already did for his own chips. It can be understood that 3D Labs don't want to provide documentation for advanced 3D features. But not publishing the basics to use the chip is utterly outrageous. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org -- Mattieu Baptiste /earth is 102% full ... please delete anyone you can. ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Hi Everyone, I've complained about the same issues before. I understand the need to move onto Xorg and drop Xsun. At the same time, I understand that Sun really isn't in the SPARC workstation business anymore and is hoping that people will buy a Intel PC from them for running Solaris 10 or OpenSolaris on today. The reality is that only folks who want a complete support contact on the desktop hardware and OS will bother, because it runs on a wide variety of PC hardware. By doing this Sun has killed it's own workstation market which is drying up and obviously pissed off all of it's ISV's, vendors, and integrators that marketed, developed, and resold SPARC workstations. This even forced me to bite the bullet and buy a used Ultra20 to use OpenSolaris. Notice, used.. so no money went back to Sun! Hell, I'll probably just keep the case and upgrade everything inside of it! This is the future Sun has chosen outside of servers and thin clients, limited desktop/workstation sales. Not to mention that Sun has killed the ecosystem for SPARC by making the entry-point extremely expensive.. $12,795 for a T5120 (http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/overview/products.jsp) and $14,795 for a M3000 (http://www.sun.com/servers/midrange/m3000/index.xml). So you have to wonder what is the thinking here? Are x64 server sales out-pacing SPARC for Sun? Hate to burst the bubble of every Sun employee working on Solaris/OpenSolaris with their x64 laptop.. NO! The lion's share of server sales are SPARC, specifically the T-Series CMT servers! So how does this make sense? The sales are on SPARC, but the majority of the development effort with OpenSolaris has been focused on x64. So Sun has to decide if they want to keep soo much of the development effort with OpenSolaris focused on x64, which brings in little profit or if they want to focus on the needs of their paying customers. Hey, I'm not saying the stuff that has been done on OpenSolaris doesn't matter, it's great work. But focus has been lost on turning that into profit and you have to wonder at the end of the day how Oracle will look at this. They have committed themselves to investing more into SPARC, because they know that's where the money is. Sun/Oracle needs to bring back SPARC workstations and rebuilding the ecosystem. Here's a fun test that shouldn't cost millions for Sun to do today. How about get Nvidia or ATI to build a PCI and PCI-E 3D video card that will work with OpenSolaris Xorg on SPARC. Make it work on UltraSPARC III/IIIi workstations and sell it for under $300. I'm willing to bet that this would sell like crazy and make tons of people happy. It would also let Sun see that there is still a large SPARC workstation market out there that they have been ignoring. This isn't rocket science, look on Ebay and check out the number of SPARC workstations being sold every week! And why? Because businesses and professionals need a SPARC workstation. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Octave J. Orgeron Solaris Virtualization Architect and Consultant Web: http://unixconsole.blogspot.com E-Mail: unixcons...@yahoo.com *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* - Original Message From: Jensen Lee hayd...@haydude.org To: opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org Sent: Wed, November 4, 2009 8:30:33 AM Subject: Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards Jensen Lee wrote: Certainly I want to keep using my Sun Blade. Will Sun next commercial release of Solaris at least support the legacy 3D Labs cards? Because like every other computer company in the world, including Sun for the past 25 years, hardware is not supported forever and at some point you must choose between hardware upgrade or software upgrade? Those cards Let me understand Alan, why in 25 years of computing I never had this problem before. Windoze supports old hardware, Linux supports very old hardware. Now I chose a very expensive platform, let say the Rolls Royce of workstations, 10 years on they decide to stop selling leaded fuel, only green one. Do you think Rolls Royce would tell me my expensive car would no longer run because the fuel standard has changed or would they make it run with the new fuel? I have a 1998 Pentium II laptop that runs the latest versions of both WinXP and Linux! Thanks God I am European and in Europe software patents are illegal, and for a very good reason, they hamper progress and integration to the detriment of the consumer. Now, on the constructive side, I understand the financial problems Sun is going through right now, but there is a large user base who owns workstations with 3D labs based FBs that sooner or later will want to upgrade to OpenSolaris. If Sun keeps supporting their hardware they will remain Sun's customers and may pay for support licenses, a memory upgrade etc. But if you brick
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Jensen Lee wrote: Let me understand Alan, why in 25 years of computing I never had this problem before. Windoze supports old hardware, Windows 7: Requires at least 1Ghz CPU, 1 GB RAM, Video card capable of DirectX 9 MacOS Snow Leopard: only supports Intel Macs - no longer supports their previous PowerPC Macs, sold until 2006. Now I chose a very expensive platform, let say the Rolls Royce of workstations, 10 years on they decide to stop selling leaded fuel, only green one. Do you think Rolls Royce would tell me my expensive car would no longer run because the fuel standard has changed or would they make it run with the new fuel? I have a 1998 Pentium II laptop that runs the latest versions of both WinXP and Linux! WinXP? That is hardly the latest Windows - I doubt that machine runs Vista or Windows 7. You'll be able to run Solaris 10 for many years to come on your workstation - that would be similar to running XP on your ancient laptop forever. 1) open the 3D Labs drivers in Europe where software patents even if existing are not enforceable, someone in Europe could pick up the work Who said anything about software patents? Copyright contract law are enforceable in Europe, but frankly, European law is irrelevant, since the contract is between two US-based companies, and is thus governed by US law, and would result in lawsuits in US court if we decided to break it. 2) include a binary package of both drivers (already available I believe) and Xsun, installable on OpenSolaris Sparc. The binary package of the drivers is available on opensolaris.org. As already noted, we cannot make the current Xsun available for separate download due to other license issues in Xsun itself. -- -Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersm...@sun.com Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Octave Orgeron wrote: Here's a fun test that shouldn't cost millions for Sun to do today. How about get Nvidia or ATI to build a PCI and PCI-E 3D video card that will work with OpenSolaris Xorg on SPARC. Make it work on UltraSPARC III/IIIi workstations and sell it for under $300. I'm willing to bet that this would sell like crazy and make tons of people happy. Sun's been selling ATI cards for SPARC workstations for a while, the XVR-100 (PCI) and XVR-300 (PCI-E) - both of which are supported under OpenSolaris Xorg - sales are not exciting in the least. Developing new models would cost millions, especially if it meant having nvidia port their driver to a new platform and develop OBP-compatible firmware for their hardware. It would also let Sun see that there is still a large SPARC workstation market out there that they have been ignoring. A new SPARC workstation would require a significant design effort, since the CPU's used in the previous models are simply no longer made, and workstation based on either the Niagara or SPARC64 chips would be a significantly different beast. That one hasn't been produced doesn't mean Sun's ignoring it's users, just that management hasn't believed that it could earn enough profit on such a project in the current economic climate to justify pulling engineers off other projects. This isn't rocket science, look on Ebay and check out the number of SPARC workstations being sold every week! And why? Because businesses and professionals need a SPARC workstation. But every workstation offered for sale on Ebay is a sign that someone else no longer needs one. -- -Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersm...@sun.com Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Windows 7: Requires at least 1Ghz CPU, 1 GB RAM, MacOS Snow Leopard: only supports Intel Macs - no WinXP? That is hardly the latest Windows - I doubt that machine runs Vista or Windows 7. You'll be able to run Solaris 10 for many years to come on your workstation - that would be similar to running True, however my WinXP laptop that I use only to browse the Internet from the bathroom runs the latest version of Firefox. Something that appears to be hard business for a Unix/Solaris/Linux workstation! To get the latest Firefox you have to upgrade the whole system. And that of course applies to several other applications, not just Firefox. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Who said anything about software patents? Copyright contract law are enforceable in Europe, but frankly, European law is irrelevant, since the contract is between two US-based companies, and is thus governed by US law, and would result in lawsuits in US court if we decided to break it. Do these companies Sun have contracts with even exist anymore? If they do how can they have an interest into non disclosing information on old and no longer commercially exploited technology? Do Sun care more about the apathic interest of a defunt organization or that of hundreds of thousands of pissed-off professional customers? As already noted, we cannot make the current Xsun available for separate download due to other license issues in Xsun itself. Please could you expand on the license issues you mention? Why would I be denied to run on my own workstation with OpenSolaris a software component that Sun provides for other Solaris versions if these are provided or sold separately? Xsun is an X server and as such I could run it anywhere I like. Will then Sun prohibit OpenSolaris users to run on OpenSolaris other commercial close source applications? I am afraid this does not make sense. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Jensen Lee wrote: Windows 7: Requires at least 1Ghz CPU, 1 GB RAM, MacOS Snow Leopard: only supports Intel Macs - no WinXP? That is hardly the latest Windows - I doubt that machine runs Vista or Windows 7. You'll be able to run Solaris 10 for many years to come on your workstation - that would be similar to running True, however my WinXP laptop that I use only to browse the Internet from the bathroom runs the latest version of Firefox. Something that appears to be hard business for a Unix/Solaris/Linux workstation! To get the latest Firefox you have to upgrade the whole system. And that of course applies to several other applications, not just Firefox. Be careful in your assumptions there. You confuse having depository/repository access to a program, with being able to install the program manually. Remember that Windows (any flavor) doesn't have software repos - this is a feature that Linux/OpenSolaris has above and beyond that of Windows. Yes, WinXP will run the latest Firefox. So will Solaris 10 (for that matter, Solaris 9, as well). For that matter, you should be able to trivially install it on a Linux as far back as 1999. In all cases, you'll have to download the installer from www.mozilla.org and install it yourself. Very rarely with Linux and extremely rarely Solaris do you need to update anything else to get a new program installer to work. What OpenSolaris (and Linux) aren't going to do is keep refreshing old release repositories indefinitely. So, at some point, you lose the ability to use the nice OpenSolaris/Linux software installer tool to get the latest version of programX. It can hardly be any other way. -- Erik Trimble Java System Support Mailstop: usca22-123 Phone: x17195 Santa Clara, CA ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Jensen Lee wrote: Who said anything about software patents? Copyright contract law are enforceable in Europe, but frankly, European law is irrelevant, since the contract is between two US-based companies, and is thus governed by US law, and would result in lawsuits in US court if we decided to break it. Do these companies Sun have contracts with even exist anymore? If they do how can they have an interest into non disclosing information on old and no longer commercially exploited technology? Do Sun care more about the apathic interest of a defunt organization or that of hundreds of thousands of pissed-off professional customers? Look, it's contract law, and it's an effort (often non-trivial) to get these contracts changed. You can't change a contract license just because you want to (or, for that matter, because you can't find the other party). We have to go to every vendor we licensed code from (and remember, some of this is 15+ years old now), and re-negotiate being able to Open Source their code. It's a huge effort, logistically. And, many of those companies don't have the commitment to Open Source Sun makes, so much of it is going to be wasted effort. We went through this when the JDK was Open Sourced, which is why even though 95% of the JDK is now GPL'd, there still are binary-only plugs. It's a decidedly non-trivial effort, which costs non-trivial $$, and may very well not pan out in the end. And where is the revenue stream to offset this cost? Frankly, it's a better idea to see if we (or some other helpful soul) can implement support for the various cards into Xorg (which comes with it's own challenges, but is a more sure bet). As already noted, we cannot make the current Xsun available for separate download due to other license issues in Xsun itself. Please could you expand on the license issues you mention? Why would I be denied to run on my own workstation with OpenSolaris a software component that Sun provides for other Solaris versions if these are provided or sold separately? Xsun is an X server and as such I could run it anywhere I like. Will then Sun prohibit OpenSolaris users to run on OpenSolaris other commercial close source applications? I am afraid this does not make sense. The license restrictions are REDISTRIBUTION restrictions. Not USE restrictions. So, if you happen to have a legally-obtained copy of Xsun from [say] older Solaris 10 media, you can happily install and run it legally on your own workstation with OpenSol. We just can't make available for download Xsun unless it's bundled into a Solaris release [i.e. 10, 9, etc]. -- Erik Trimble Java System Support Mailstop: usca22-123 Phone: x17195 Santa Clara, CA ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Mattieu Baptiste wrote: 3) obtain the chips documentation from 3D Labs and give that to the community. Like Sun already did for his own chips. It can be understood that 3D Labs don't want to provide documentation for advanced 3D features. But not publishing the basics to use the chip is utterly outrageous. The docs we received from Intense3D and later 3DLabs were: 1. Paper only. I never saw electronic copies of these docs and even the 3DLabs employees used paper copies. This could pose a distibution problem even if Creative wants to release them. 2. Not separated into basic and advanced functionality. If Creative is approached to release docs they will need to decide to release everything. Does basics mean the highly touted dumb frame buffer implementation for FreeBSD is sufficient? I had previously assumed people wanted full 2D and 3D acceleration for OpenSolaris. ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Sun's been selling ATI cards for SPARC workstations for a while, the XVR-100 (PCI) and XVR-300 (PCI-E) - both of which are supported under OpenSolaris Xorg - sales are not exciting in the least. Is this perhaps because they are 2D and too expensive for what they offer? Developing new models would cost millions, especially if it meant having nvidia port their driver to a new platform and develop OBP-compatible firmware for their hardware. It cannot be that hard or expensive to develop an OPB firmware for an existing chipset, again, give us the OBP source code and will do it for you guys, free. It would also let Sun see that there is still a large SPARC workstation market out there that they have been ignoring. What Sun fail to understand here is that it does not make sense to sell SPARC servers without supporting workstations. Where do they think the application development do take place? -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Jensen Lee wrote: Who said anything about software patents? Copyright contract law are enforceable in Europe, but frankly, European law is irrelevant, since the contract is between two US-based companies, and is thus governed by US law, and would result in lawsuits in US court if we decided to break it. Do these companies Sun have contracts with even exist anymore? Yes - as you yourself posted just a few days ago, 3DLabs is still around, though under a new name. If they do how can they have an interest into non disclosing information on old and no longer commercially exploited technology? That's their right to determine, not ours or yours. Do Sun care more about the apathic interest of a defunt organization or that of hundreds of thousands of pissed-off professional customers? If Sun starts ignoring our contract obligations, not only do we risk lawsuits, we make it harder to get other vendors to be willing to do business with us in the future. I also don't see hundreds of thousands of pissed off customers - most professional customers for those workstations are very slow to upgrade since the apps they run take years to get certified for new OS releases. We get far more complaints about the workstations not running Solaris 8 or 9 than about them not being able to run a new Solaris release coming out in the future, and forcing them to stay on Solaris 10 for the remaining life of their workstation. As already noted, we cannot make the current Xsun available for separate download due to other license issues in Xsun itself. Please could you expand on the license issues you mention? Why would I be denied to run on my own workstation with OpenSolaris a software component that Sun provides for other Solaris versions if these are provided or sold separately? Xsun is an X server and as such I could run it anywhere I like. I never said you were not allowed to run it. Sun is not allowed to make the current Xsun server available as a freely redistributable download, which is what's required for inclusion in OpenSolaris or the OpenSolaris IPS repository. The exact contract terms are confidential. Will then Sun prohibit OpenSolaris users to run on OpenSolaris other commercial close source applications? I am afraid this does not make sense. Of course not, that makes no sense, and I never said anything of the sort. -- -Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersm...@sun.com Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
OBP *is* open src since 2007. And there have always been guides and books describing how to write fcode drivers. One I know costs 60$ and includes many sample fcode / forth sample drivers, including basic graphics. if you are that expert who will write us all this fancy stuff, then you can already start. -- %mab On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 7:14 PM, Jensen Lee hayd...@haydude.org wrote: Sun's been selling ATI cards for SPARC workstations for a while, the XVR-100 (PCI) and XVR-300 (PCI-E) - both of which are supported under OpenSolaris Xorg - sales are not exciting in the least. Is this perhaps because they are 2D and too expensive for what they offer? Developing new models would cost millions, especially if it meant having nvidia port their driver to a new platform and develop OBP-compatible firmware for their hardware. It cannot be that hard or expensive to develop an OPB firmware for an existing chipset, again, give us the OBP source code and will do it for you guys, free. It would also let Sun see that there is still a large SPARC workstation market out there that they have been ignoring. What Sun fail to understand here is that it does not make sense to sell SPARC servers without supporting workstations. Where do they think the application development do take place? -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 7:28 PM, Martin Bochnig mar...@martux.org wrote: OBP *is* open src since 2007. And there have always been guides and books describing how to write fcode drivers. One I know costs 60$ and includes many sample fcode / forth sample drivers, including basic graphics. if you are that expert who will write us all this fancy stuff, then you can already start. beyond that I could need some help with libpciaccess ... p.s. i don't work for Sun, nor ever did. So don't expect me to be biased. I understood parts of your complaints, at the beginning. -- %mab ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Frankly, it's a better idea to see if we (or some other helpful soul) can implement support for the various cards into Xorg (which comes with t's own challenges, but is a more sure bet). Thank you, we are beginning to be constructive here, better than a NO NO So what it the plan? Who is working on it? Is there any documentation? It would be a start at least to support plain desktop like they did on OpenBSD, can anyone port it into OpenSolaris to begin with? The license restrictions are REDISTRIBUTION restrictions. Not USE restrictions. So, if you happen to have a legally-obtained copy of Xsun from [say] older Solaris 10 media, you can happily install and run it legally on your own workstation with OpenSol. We Excellent, so what would be the problem with: 1) package and configure OpenSolaris to make easy to install Xsun, this means have everything there ready, but the actual packages 2) publish a step by step guide to get the packages from Solaris 10 or SXCE, if necessary extract and repackage them with IPS, put them in a local private repository and install them into OpenSolaris? I do not think this would be a great deal of work for Sun to make a considerable amount of customers happy, and it would not break any law or contract. And next time you Sun signs a contract with its suppliers, I hope they will make sure they obtain the integration rights to protect their customers! How shortsighted is that! No wonder they're loosing money they did not have me checking their deals :-) -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
I doubt you'll find any vendor who'll promise the video card you buy today will be supported in new OS versions coming out ten years from now. True, but as a consumer I have a choice to buy the video card that has open drivers, at least for x86. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 7:44 PM, Jensen Lee hayd...@haydude.org wrote: I doubt you'll find any vendor who'll promise the video card you buy today will be supported in new OS versions coming out ten years from now. True, but as a consumer I have a choice to buy the video card that has open drivers, at least for x86. -- FYI: The 3dlabs cards are not open-src supported on / by *any* OS, including Linux and BSD*. There were binary only Xorg ddx modules for Linux x86, but that was it. XIG offered some accellerated drivers for Solaris, but $$$ and closed. They did not use Xorg though, but their own proprietary server derived from 6.8.0 . Forget the wsfb support on BSD*, which does not actually deserve this name. Although you are right, that it is better than nothing. Ok: That's why I tried to get it working on Solaris. But it closely depends on wscons, which is not what we have as console driver on Solaris. Alan ported as much of wsfb to OpenSolaris, which has been possible. But this was not enough (without wscons) to get the 3dlabs cards into even only framebuffer Xorg gfx mode. So: Instead of complaining, either install Xsun from SXCE on OS200yy.mm, or buy one of the officially Sun-Xorg supported cards, or one of the community supported ones (#0). (#0) http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Project+fox/SPARC-Xorg -- %mab ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Hi Jensen, A few things: 1. There was some work I did a few years ago in that we didn't need SPARC-specific video cards - you could use commercially available video cards that were compatible to Xorg and SPARC motherboards. 2. I submitted a bunch of RFEs to update Sun OpenGL to OpenGL 1.5-2.1 compliance. Sun has made a lot of updates to the Sun OpenGL API implementation so existing drivers have a nice OpenGL API. Maybe you'll see Sun OpenGL 3.2 one day - wishful thinking there. 3. As for those existing XVR drivers, I think you basically want XVR driver support and maintainance - right? As for Sun, I don't expect them to handle this role forever. It is almost like saying, we want Sun to provide recommended patch clusters for Solaris 2.5.1 since we still use it. Sometimes you'd hope a small tech company would pick up the slack and provide this service. But, like your driver support sometimes this does not happen - but if it does then you need people dedicated and having the financial resources to provide you that service. Or, make donations to them to inspire them to keep doing it. Sun can't do it all (maybe?)... so that is why community is important. Independent Solaris developers can step in and provide help where they can. Since Martin Bochnig has been working on legacy SPARC video drivers for awhile, you might want to add him as your primary community contact (or whatever team is formed from this result). I also can help you with old XVR cards up to the XVR-2500. I've used most of these graphic cards or maintained them... Ken Mays ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
You can run Solaris apps in compat mode under OpenBSD ;-) zfs - no , but you can try real competitor from BSD world in this area - DragonflyBSD zones - chroot of course, not same, but no one says that OpenBSD is good for everything virtualization - no until developers correct their buggy craps (VirtualBox,Wine and so on) You want to use your Sun Blade but in same time you want to use Solaris. Then you have big problem because of this http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#39 ' Blobs are vendor-compiled binary drivers without any source code. Hardware makers like them because they obscure the details of how to make their hardware work. They hide bugs and workarounds for bugs. Newer versions of blobs can weaken support for older hardware and motivate people to buy new hardware...' So you have option. Buy new hardware or use different OS where you have much more longer support for your HW. Funny that many people will choose first option. Some higher lines of Sun HW are very good because of many reasons when comparing to buggy i386/amd64 but if you need something like HA cluster or so then you must use Solaris/OpenSolaris, but if you want NFS server, web server and so on you can be very happy with OpenBSD or maybe another BSD. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
If they do how can they have an interest into non disclosing information on old and no longer commercially exploited technology? That's their right to determine, not ours or yours. This is arguable. As a consumer I have the right to use the hardware I purchase in whatever way I see fit and without limitations. Moore's law has accelerated the aging of technology consumer products, however in real terms I would expect any goods I purchase to be usable for more than a decade. If a vendor decides to no longer support a product, he should be forced to disclose the information necessary for the consumers to continue to use their product, and any IP and licenses made void and unenforceable. I hope that this will be clarified by future legislation, and I am confident that in Europe this will happen sooner or later. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
either install Xsun from SXCE on OS200yy.mm, or buy one of the officially Sun-Xorg supported cards, or one of the community supported ones (#0). What packages have to be installed on OpenSolaris (from SXCE or Solaris 10) to make Xsun work with a Sun FB? Is there a guide? -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Mauro M. wrote: If they do how can they have an interest into non disclosing information on old and no longer commercially exploited technology? That's their right to determine, not ours or yours. This is arguable. As a consumer I have the right to use the hardware I purchase in whatever way I see fit and without limitations. From a legal standpoint, it is not arguable under current laws. I understand you disagree with it, and I don't argue with that, but Sun has to follow the law, not consumer opinion. Moore's law has accelerated the aging of technology consumer products, however in real terms I would expect any goods I purchase to be usable for more than a decade. No one has said that your hardware will be unusable or unsupported. It will remain usable and supported with the software it was sold with and in most cases, a number of newer versions of that software. Sun is just not promising to make all future software releases support that hardware - you got what you paid for, you're just not getting upgrades to improve that any more (whether free or sold). If a vendor decides to no longer support a product, he should be forced to disclose the information necessary for the consumers to continue to use their product, and any IP and licenses made void and unenforceable. I hope that this will be clarified by future legislation, and I am confident that in Europe this will happen sooner or later. Sadly, I believe that if such legislation somehow managed to make it past all the lobbying of the technology media companies, the most likely result would be a lot of products no longer being sold in Europe, or companies finding other loopholes such as shutting down all their European offices, and only selling via third party importers, so they wouldn't be subject to such laws. -- -Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersm...@sun.com Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Mauro M. wrote: If they do how can they have an interest into non disclosing information on old and no longer commercially exploited technology? That's their right to determine, not ours or yours. This is arguable. As a consumer I have the right to use the hardware I purchase in whatever way I see fit and without limitations. Moore's law has accelerated the aging of technology consumer products, however in real terms I would expect any goods I purchase to be usable for more than a decade. Aside from the fact that your first sentence (well, OK second) isn't true for a wide variety of cases (in all jurisdictions), you're hardware is still usable. You're asking for /UPGRADABLE/. Which is a completely different issue. Even still, there is a long history in all sorts of industries of equipment which has a built-in obsolescence. If a vendor decides to no longer support a product, he should be forced to disclose the information necessary for the consumers to continue to use their product, and any IP and licenses made void and unenforceable. I hope that this will be clarified by future legislation, and I am confident that in Europe this will happen sooner or later. There's a been quite a bit of discussion in the OpenSource community about abandonware in it's many forms - software, computer hardware, even copyrighted works. However, there hasn't been any real discussion in the Intellectual Property legal realm (in either the US or Europe) about codifying this into Copyright Law. Unfortunately, if anything, the trends have been mostly moving the other direction, towards giving more control to the IP owner, and less freedom to the public. So I wouldn't hold your breath for this to change anytime soon. -- Erik Trimble Java System Support Mailstop: usca22-123 Phone: x17195 Santa Clara, CA Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800) ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Mauro M. wrote: either install Xsun from SXCE on OS200yy.mm, or buy one of the officially Sun-Xorg supported cards, or one of the community supported ones (#0). What packages have to be installed on OpenSolaris (from SXCE or Solaris 10) to make Xsun work with a Sun FB? Is there a guide? You'd want the SXCE ones - they're more cleanly separated from the rest of X than Solaris 10 ones. Writing a guide would be an excellent community contribution here. I would also love to hear from one of the passionate users if you can run Xsun from a Solaris 10 branded zone, if you exported the fb devices to it, once there's a build out there with that feature in. -- -Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersm...@sun.com Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
--- On Mon, 11/2/09, Jensen Lee hayd...@haydude.org wrote: From: Jensen Lee hayd...@haydude.org Subject: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards To: opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org Date: Monday, November 2, 2009, 5:21 AM It is a shame that Sun does not support XVR-500, XVR-1000, Expert 3D and several other graphic cards on OpenSolaris because of copyright/NDA/patent issues. I think that Sun should make an effort to liase with 3D Labs to open their drivers source to allow for implementation into OpenSolaris. In the meantime could Sun at least provide binary drivers for these cards, even as separate downloads, to allow those like me with legacy Sun workstations to install, use and contribute to OpenSolaris? Hi Jensen, Well, the driver's source for those cards is owned somewhat by 3Dlabs so I don't think they'd want to open up their source anytime soon. Some companies that still have closed drivers: 1. ATI 2. Nvidia 3. Others Most of the mid-level XVR 3D cards from 3Dlabs were replaced by the XVR-2500. Besides that, Sun does have the drivers for all of their XVR cards posted (see: http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/downloads/sparc_graphics)and they are still included in SXCE and Solaris 10u8. Driver engineering resources for the older MAJC, 3Dlabs, and ATI-based cards may be very limited or defunct by now. Get one of the latest SXCE releases and stick with Solaris 10u8 if you have or maintain the older SPARC workstations. Ken Mays ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Has anybody (Sun) actually asked 3D Labs to open their graphic cards drivers source? Because 3D Labs are no longer in the business of producing graphic cards, and I do not see why they would not do that if asked. If they did it would only make good publicity to their name. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 12:29 PM, Jensen Lee hayd...@haydude.org wrote: Has anybody (Sun) actually asked 3D Labs to open their graphic cards drivers source? Because 3D Labs are no longer in the business of producing graphic cards, and I do not see why they would not do that if asked. Check : http://wikis.sun.com/display/FOSSdocs/Home for the details. For XVR-500, XVR-600, XVR-1200 and Expert3D support, I run OpenBSD: a really open system. Cheers, -- Mattieu Baptiste /earth is 102% full ... please delete anyone you can. ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Mattieu Baptiste mattie...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 12:29 PM, Jensen Lee hayd...@haydude.org wrote: Has anybody (Sun) actually asked 3D Labs to open their graphic cards drivers source? Because 3D Labs are no longer in the business of producing graphic cards, and I do not see why they would not do that if asked. Check : http://wikis.sun.com/display/FOSSdocs/Home for the details. For XVR-500, XVR-600, XVR-1200 and Expert3D support, I run OpenBSD: a really open system. Cheers, -- Mattieu Baptiste /earth is 102% full ... please delete anyone you can. hi, with unaccelerated frame buffer mode drivers derived from wsfb ... %mab ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 3:00 PM, Martin Bochnig mar...@martux.org wrote: hi, with unaccelerated frame buffer mode drivers derived from wsfb ... %mab Yeah, with that unaccelerated frame buffer mode drivers derived from wsfb my *workstation* is actually more useful than a serial console. -- Mattieu Baptiste /earth is 102% full ... please delete anyone you can. ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Jensen Lee hayd...@haydude.org writes: It is a shame that Sun does not support XVR-500, XVR-1000, Expert 3D and several other graphic cards on OpenSolaris because of copyright/NDA/patent issues. I think that Sun should make an effort to liase with 3D Labs to open their drivers source to allow for implementation into OpenSolaris. In the meantime could Sun at least provide binary drivers for these cards, even as separate downloads, to allow those like me with legacy Sun workstations to install, use and contribute to OpenSolaris? True. In the meantime (which will probably last forever ;-), I'll take the last SVR4 packages from SX:CE build 130 and use them (together with Xsun) on my Blade 1500 with XVR-600. It may require some hacking since I expect the SMF support for switching between Xorg and Xsun to go away, but certainly doable, and much better than turning my desktop into a brick. Rainer -- - Rainer Orth, Center for Biotechnology, Bielefeld University ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Rainer Orth wrote: Jensen Lee hayd...@haydude.org writes: It is a shame that Sun does not support XVR-500, XVR-1000, Expert 3D and several other graphic cards on OpenSolaris because of copyright/NDA/patent issues. I think that Sun should make an effort to liase with 3D Labs to open their drivers source to allow for implementation into OpenSolaris. In the meantime could Sun at least provide binary drivers for these cards, even as separate downloads, to allow those like me with legacy Sun workstations to install, use and contribute to OpenSolaris? True. In the meantime (which will probably last forever ;-), I'll take the last SVR4 packages from SX:CE build 130 and use them (together with Xsun) on my Blade 1500 with XVR-600. It may require some hacking since I expect the SMF support for switching between Xorg and Xsun to go away, but certainly doable, and much better than turning my desktop into a brick. The SMF support for selecting an X server should stay - I have no plans to remove it since it is useful for selecting between the remaining X servers (Xorg, Xvnc, Xvfb), but Xsun will probably disappear from the list in the Xserver script at some point. -- -Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersm...@sun.com Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
I understand that even though Sun posted binary drivers for OpenSolaris, Xorg will not work with them and Xsun is not bundled with it. To reply to those who suggested OpenBSD, that is out of topic, I have Sun because I want to run Solaris, if I wanted openBSD I would have had a cheap intel box. And BTW can OpenBSD run zfs or zones, or even virtualization? Certainly I want to keep using my Sun Blade. Will Sun next commercial release of Solaris at least support the legacy 3D Labs cards? And by the way, due to this mess with OpenSolaris, I do not think I will ever buy Sun hardware in the future. But most importantly, being a professional, I will refrein from advising anyone to buy Sun hardware. I used to recommend it as an investment ... what a shame! No wonder why Sun is loosing money. Professionals like me have lost confidence in the company. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
I posted a message to ziiLabs' customer support which is the new company formed from 3DLabs. Please join me in inondating ziiLabs with requests to open the drivers for Sun frambuffer cards following this link: http://www.ziilabs.com/aboutus/contactgeneral.aspx The power of the Internet community. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Jensen Lee wrote: Certainly I want to keep using my Sun Blade. Will Sun next commercial release of Solaris at least support the legacy 3D Labs cards? Solaris 10 is the last release of Solaris planned to support those cards. And by the way, due to this mess with OpenSolaris, I do not think I will ever buy Sun hardware in the future. But most importantly, being a professional, I will refrein from advising anyone to buy Sun hardware. I used to recommend it as an investment ... what a shame! No wonder why Sun is loosing money. Professionals like me have lost confidence in the company. Because like every other computer company in the world, including Sun for the past 25 years, hardware is not supported forever and at some point you must choose between hardware upgrade or software upgrade? Those cards from Sun will have OS support a lot longer than most of their contemporary video cards, and even a lot longer than some of Sun's older graphics drivers. I doubt you'll find any vendor who'll promise the video card you buy today will be supported in new OS versions coming out ten years from now. -- -Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersm...@sun.com Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Alan Coopersmith writes: The SMF support for selecting an X server should stay - I have no plans to remove it since it is useful for selecting between the remaining X servers (Xorg, Xvnc, Xvfb), but Xsun will probably disappear from the list in the Xserver script at some point. That's great news, thanks. I'm sure I'll be able to deal with the eventual removal of Xsun support in Xserver :-) Rainer - Rainer Orth, Center for Biotechnology, Bielefeld University ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Jensen Lee wrote: And by the way, due to this mess with OpenSolaris, I do not think I will ever buy Sun hardware in the future. But most importantly, being a professional, I will refrein from advising anyone to buy Sun hardware. I used to recommend it as an investment ... what a shame! No wonder why Sun is loosing money. Professionals like me have lost confidence in the company. This is ridiculous. Sun's hardware and software support of the IFB/JFB family of graphics cards has continued *way* past what any other company would provide. There have been recent software enhancements for customers who have made requests and hardware service contracts are honored with actual spares, not a forced upgrade to new product (Vista - cough!). I have seen no requests from customers for IFB/JFB X.Org/OpenSolaris support -- just the opposite, they want continued support for Xsun on Solaris 8 and 9. If you are an enterprise customer who wants support for long term deployment, what we've done with IFB/JFB is a shining example of why you would want to continue to do business with Sun. Sun is bound by its agreements with the IP owner. INAL, but the agreements are very specific on use and restrict derived works. Even if a customer asked for X.Org/OpenSolaris support, no engineer could begin work until the lawyers on both sides agreed on the scope of derived works. ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
