What would I use SPARC for? What are pros and cons if we compare

>>58593870
bump please

>What would I use SPARC for?
mission critical enterprise servers, embedded systems and super computers.

high throughput with low complexity of operations, e.g. database, web serving, basic banking, etc. 32+ threads per cpu is a lot.

>>58594735
>>58594672
>SPARC
>embedded
Never knew about it.

So, how could a usual user benefit from it? Faster web browsing because tabs can use 32 cores?

Nothing. They days of expensive, specialised hardware are over. Distributed, commodity systems have too many benefits to choose anything else.

>>58593870
can you post more images like this

>>58594932
The only reason anyone buys SPARC servers anymore is because of Oracle's software licensing terms. They charge $lots per core, but SPARC CPUs have like 8 thread per core hyperthreading which is good for database threads and keeps the software costs down.

>>58593870
they're so tiny

>>58593870
sparc's niche has always been insane I/O making them good for database iron

oracle's also trying to push them as secure platforms now with hardware crypto acceleration and the "software in silicon" memory protection bullshit or whatever it is

>>58594932
SPARC chips aren't made for the "usual user", they never were, and you shouldn't look at it through that lense

>>58595181
it takes a lot more power and space to hold a cheapo "distributed" solution over something that can do it in one or two racks, it's oracle being oracle that makes it a lackluster option over commodity systems or IBM competitors

>>58595718
>it's oracle being oracle that makes it a lackluster option
just think of all the great things we'd have if Oracle weren't dicks

>>58595794
could've been worse, sun could have ended up like DEC with all the hardware IP in the hands of competitors that just wanted to buy it so they could shut it down or squander it on whatever

2000s-era SPARC always felt kind of lackluster to me

>>58595709

Sorry to tell you that they leave the girls on the board when they put it in the oven to melt the solder.

>>58595718
>>58593870
Agreed, the thread count on some of the processors are insane. I'm pretty sure one of the top line SPARCs has something stupid like 256-1024 threads for a whole CPU.

>>58595857
the highest-end SPARC M7 has 32 cores with 8 threads each making 256 total threads

I think Oracle's current highest-end M7 offering is an octa-socket making for 2048 threads in a single system

>>58596054
>>I think Oracle's current highest-end M7 offering is an octa-socket making for 2048 threads in a single system
if I were a billionaire, I'd buy one just to shitpost in guts threads.

wanting to do things like this is probably why I'll never be anywhere close to that rich

>>58595842
Why do you think Oracle bought Sun? They killed Solaris and shat on Java.

>>58596210
>They killed Solaris and shat on Java.
did a pretty fucking shit job of that considering they're still pouring millions into keeping Solaris and Java alive and keeping SPARC competitive

it's ironically very good at gernal computing that does not require floating point operations

shit like mysql and middleware [ spoiler ] that sun/oracle profits off of [ /spoiler ]

>>58595709
Or is it just a giant PCB?
>Stare at the image and imagine both.
>Get a headache from the constant perspective shifts

>>58596396
what makes it shit for floating point? always pictured it as a shit integer/strong fp like most of its competitors seemed to be

>>58593870
Watching anime of course. Like you do with everything else.

Gentoo can build on sparc by the way. So feel install it.

>>58593870
Basically nothing at this point.

Legacy applications if you still run these. Don't bother starting to use it now.

>>58596365
I heard they recently let go of a ton of Solaris engineers and are only keeping a handful around to maintain government support. Not sure if it's true or not but I wouldn't be surprised.

>>58596455
You might be thinking of PPC and POWER.

Is she pointing at something out of frame? They appear to only have capacitors on the tray.

>>58593870
Nothing. I'm a SysAdmin that deals with SPARC boxes and our RHEL platforms. Oracle is killing Solaris 12 and there is no reason to use SPARC. This will finally be my organization's exit out of the SPARC platform and makes life 10x easier when I don't have to do configuration management on two totally different architectures.

x86 is:
-Cheaper
-More readily available
-Don't have to deal with bullshit support contracts/need a lawyer just to turn your machine on and get updates.
-Wider support

SPARC is:
-A step below IBM computing platforms and reduces the amount of machines needed to perform tasks
-Big money in SPARC porting and programming
-Big money in IT supporting/maintaining it
-Most Unix/Linux distributions have dropped support for SPARC due to the lack of interest for it.
-Solaris is stable as shit.
-Pain in the ass support contracts/terms of service

>>58593870
SPARC was really for servers, but if you're going to do servers now may as well go for POWER8.

SPARC is dead.

Oracle fired all people working on the SPARC processor and Solaris 12.

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/20/oracle-lays-off-450-employees/

>>58597618
nah it definitely applies to those too but most enterprise-y RISC platforms in general have that kind of disparity really, first time I've ever heard anyone say differently about SPARC

>>58598859
>-Pain in the ass support contracts/terms of service
how ass is oracle on this end? seems like the biggest reason not to invest in the platform

File: 1451946328265.jpg (356KB, 526x628px) Image search: [Google]

356KB, 526x628px

>>58598893
Every year you have to report all of the licenses you are using and if Oracle -feels- like it, they can come in and audit your shit to make sure you're not running unlicensed copies of Solaris and providing updates to the unlicensed boxes. A buddy of mine in another organization wasn't licensing -all- of his boxes due to the constant imaging and deployments they do, got audited and the company got sued for a hell of a lot of money for it. He could have migrated the licenses, but it's not the point of why it's a pain in the ass.

RHEL generally doesn't care so long as your platforms have subscriptions bought with your access account.

>>58598951
that's fucking ridiculous
if only killing SPARC would kill their software business too as companies see an out but they're probably just going to shift over to the same shit on x86, rip

>>58593870
initiating combustion

File: 1481485344460.png (1MB, 1181x1080px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1181x1080px

>>58598967
That's where they're shifting. They're more focused on -the cloud- and Oracle Linux is supposed to be a replacement. They've effectively shot themselves in the foot by using a shitty business model and price gouging the IT industry with SPARC and Solaris. Their acquisition of SUN was the worst thing for that platform.

The sad part is that Oracle will probably not even open-source SPARC or Solaris again. The only open source projects that are based off of Solaris only support x86.

>>58599181
Why does that make them a loser?

>>58599002
there are illumos distributions that work on SPARC (it kind of baffles me that OI doesn't though even though it seems to be touted as the direct successor to OpenSolaris)

>>58599181
people who get autistic over it are retarded but the novelty is different and exciting regardless

>>58599181
yea, haha
fun things aren't fun at all
fuck everything

File: dip8 girls.png (1MB, 3840x2400px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 3840x2400px

>>58593870

The routing to the ground pads is interesting, if inconsistent (C49, R23).

Not a fan of all the silkscreen being put over holes (C38, R24), but I guess if your layout software puts a silkscreen exclusion around vias it should be fine.

Is that trolley ESD-safe?

>>58596397

Probably a giant PCB, given the artist's other drawings. Plus none of the vias are tented, so the surface tension of the soldermask must be negligible at this scale.

>>58599306
>there are illumos distributions that work on SPARC
Really?
I read illumos are going to drop SPARC.

What for Solaris is great? Or now it doesn't have advantages in comparison to Linux?
I think Solaris might be better than FreeBSD because it was professionally developed for so long.

>>58600229
>I read illumos are going to drop SPARC.
where'd you read that? sounds kind of senseless especially since that's up to the individual maintainers of various illumos operating systems rather than the core developers of illumos itself

>What for Solaris is great? Or now it doesn't have advantages in comparison to Linux?
service management facilities are the biggest differences I can think of off the bat but I don't really deal with them enough to go full shill on them

for a hobbyist/typical user it's going to be the same ultimately, solaris 10 has one of the best CDE implementations and sun studio compilers might be better than GCC for SPARC chips? dunno

>>58593870
SPARC, the ISA, isn't really good for anything. Its special feature, the shifting register window, wound up adding far too much complexity to both compiler and processor implementation. The actual processors implementing the SPARC ISA have the uses already mentioned by other posters.

>>58593870

specialty hardware [spoiler]from 2002[/spoiler]

>>58599922

Yeah I would have to imagine R23 is supposed to be a capacitor of some sort, and C36 was supposed to be a resistor.

Interesting that the artist at least knew a little bit about the components, and that the top layer has a ground plane.