I almost have finished my attempts to re-animate my Sun Microsystems
Ultra 20 computer.
I have replaced the original mainboard (a customised Tyan Tomcat) with
the stock one (i.e. with additional Ethernet and PS/2 ports but sans
the sound and FireWire chips). After a lot of struggling I managed the
integrated graphics to work at 1280x1024. It was not-accelerated and
the was problem with the OpenGL (it did no worked at all) so I have
decided to install a really cheap (ASUS-branded) PCIe nVidia card which
works much better with the "nouveau" drivers (the OpenGL problems
persist which is strange - I'll have top manage this). So now I'm able
to use the Ultra on the 1920x1200 screen without problems (the Firefox
works very well).
I also have installed a PCI SCSI card. I have not connected any device,
yet. But the card has been identified by the OS without problems. So
now it should be possible to connect a SCSI CD-ROM or a DVD-ROM (or
even a tape drive).
What does not work? The front panels seems to be dead - the On/Off
button works, the indicator light works but that's all. The FireWire
ports are not connected (there is no FireWire chip on the mainboard)
and the USB port do now work at all. The RAM is just 2GB which seems to
be fine for FVWM+Firefox combo but it will be too limiting for other
workloads. I don't have no the GNOME/Unity nor the MATE desktops here
and I will probably keep the FVWM (it I will be able to configure some
tools on this OS).
So, what's now? There are some areas of possible improvements:
- the Ubuntu 18.04 (now there is the 16.04). Hope it will work, too.
- OpenGL/GLX issue still has to be fixed.
- more RAM (there are 2 free slots).
- a PCIe card with some USB-3 ports (I should have one somewhere).
- maybe a PCI/PCIe FireWire card (I have a few FireWire peripherals).
- a new (quieter and 4-pin one, if possible) case fan.
- a sound card (I have an USB one which will be probably just fine).
At the moment I'm planning to use the computer for my standing desk
project. I have set up a standing desk in my office. Now it's based on
the original Raspberry Pi model B which is not the best solution for a
office computer. After some months of sporadic use I thing that I need
here a computer which will be (at least) able to run software like the
Octave and which will be able to use LaTeX at an acceptable speed.
Unlike the Pi the Ultra 20 is able to do this quite easily.
