We are retiring a Sun e250 at work, and I wondered if I could put it to any good use. Will I have any problems loading Linux as opposed to Solaris? Should I use any particular flavor of Linux that might be more Sun friendly? Assuming I manage to load Linux on this server, then what? Will it be useful for anything, or is it just a boat anchor? Feedback welcome. =)
It looks like Gentoo might be a viable candidate. I think I will download that and try to get this running. I have not loaded a linux OS in several years, and that was on an x86. I may be in WAY over my head here, but what the heck. This unit is slated for disposal anyway. =)
Gentoo recently dropped support for all sparcs but sparc64, so that might not be a good choice. That it had sparc32 support before says linux on Sparc is quite possible, though, and you can probably find one of their sparc32 livecds still hanging around somewhere on their mirrors.
The research I have done so far says the E250 is an ultrasparc, which is 64bit. Is this incorrect? Or were you saying you feel Gentoo will also drop support for the 64 bit sparcs?
Do you have another gnu/linux you recommend for this platform.
Thanks for your input.
You may be able to use Ubuntu Linux.
I did not know that Ultrasparc is 64-bit. If so, Gentoo's as good a distro as any... most distros are pretty inflexible with respect to processor but Gentoo covers nearly anything.
Thanks for all the input, so far. I decided to load x86 on a couple of spare computers I had lying around. One is a barebones laptop (no battery even) that I can use as a terminal for the e250. The other is a PC at home just for testing. Because I am a linux loser, it took me at least 6 attempts before I got the OS to load on the one at home. Even then, I have an installation that boots to a command prompt and not a GUI. I am on my 3rd attempt at loading this on the laptop. Since I am more familiar with the x86 architecture, it seemed logical to start here rather than on the sparc box. This will give me a chance to refamiliarize myself with the commands and the overall installation steps. I will let you know how it goes.
I got the laptop working (it is an old Twinhead A5000) with a basic install of Gentoo. However, I am running Gnome and I cannot find a terminal emulator. I think I can run X11 and get a terminal emulator, but, I can't figure out how to load X11. More research required.
Still, the x86 box is actually running, so I should be able to start working on the sparc box later this week. 
Thanks to everyone for their help so far.
in a word 'minicom' it's curses based so you don't need X.
Thanks, Reborg. When I finally get the system stable, I will check minicom out.
Gentoo is definately not for the impatient. I am encountering portage issues right now. I tried to do an emerge --sync but I get the message that there is a newer version of portage. I am now in the process of downloading and trying to install portage. There is a 93 page manual you can download from Gentoo that walks you through the steps of installing Gentoo, and it does not pay to skip around. Everytime I jump ahead I end up going back and working on the items I skipped. At this rate, I MIGHT have a working terminal emulator and will be ready to attempt installation on the sparc server by Friday. 