On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 21:17:19 +0100
Joel CARNAT <joel@carnat.net> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> to be used as a remote workstation (I mean the machine will be headless,
> serial console and I will connect to it via xdm), what is worth :
> 
> * sunblade 150 / 650 MHz / 1Go RAM
> * sunblade 100 / 500 MHz / 512Mo RAM
> 
> the machine would be a "standard" workstation - xfce4 or fvwm2 / firefox
> or links / thunderbird or mutt / a bit of gimp / much of gqview, rox,
> album.
> 
> the blade 150 is more than twice the price the blade 100.
> that's why I'd like to know if the 150Mhz CPU diff and 512Mo of more RAM would
> make a real difference ; especially because I am not sure about how CPU
> acts when the machin is a XDM server.
> 
> TIA,
> 	Jo
> 

Which OS are you going to run on it? I think you'll struggle to turn NetBSD
sparc64 into a reliable desktop system:

1. Threading bugs are still present (I think)
2. 32-bit emulation is not complete (threading is not supported) and there is
too much software that is not 64-bit clean
3. No SMP :-(

If you decide to go with Solaris, don't get Ultra5/10 or Blade 100/150 for that
matter. Ultra5/10 machines have really crap onboard IDE controller, they're too
slow and you'll end up buying SCSI PCI cards.

Better choice would be a quod E450 with 4x400MHz CPUs (go for USII CPUs with
4MB cache) or something like Blade 1000 or 2000. These machine will cost you a
bit more, but in my view are much better investment.