Re: Power supply efficiency on older model Sun equipment

On Sun, 31 Aug 2008, Craig Dewick wrote:

> CentOS is quite a good OS - that's what the Strongbolt OS for Cobalt 
> embedded-x86 servers is based around.

It's Linux. Life is too short.

> It's a good, solid, reliable system, so that's not at all surprising really.

It's also at the end of support life come December and they're beginning 
to really creak with age. All good things must eventually come to an end.

> About the only Ultra-1 based system I would consider now is an E150, but they 
> are *rare* and very hard to find (esp. here in Australia).

The only interesting thing about the E150 is that they are rare. They're 
also the crappest machine Sun ever made. Power control problems and foam 
that turns into mush. Awesome.

> Compaq PL-800 server). Our electricity bill is almost A$600 per 3 months at 
> present - way too high.

Hah, you should see mine. No gas = even higher power bills. Gah. Not to 
mention the guzzling espresso machine.

> SunRay software isn't free though, and licensing it for US$125 per device per 
> year is a bit on the nose for a grass-roots application. That's why I decided 
> to list the SunRay 150 I've been hanging onto for a while on Ebay - can't 
> justify paying extortive amounts for access to the software for a home 
> environment. Sun does offer a 'trial' download for free of version 4, but 
> it's only good for 30 days I think. I don't know if version 3 is available 
> for free without restrictions but I haven't seen it anywhere.

Well, the license conditions aren't actually enforced in the software. So 
you could probably quiet happily use it at home and I doubt Sun is going 
to find out and sue you. Then again, I guess you've brushed up against 
Sun's legal team before, so not looking for trouble is probably a good 
thing.

-- 
Andre van Eyssen.
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