SunRay Server installation

As mentioned in 42: Racks are us I am installing our new system.

The server is a Sun Fire V20Z (2 AMD opteron 64 bit processors). So far I have installed Suns Java Desktop System v2.0 (which is a branded version of Suse 8.?) and have now started the installation of SunRay Server Software (SRSS) v3.

I am not totally impressed with the JDS 2.0 and SRSS 3.0 combination. There are a number of poor or missing features here:

• It won't run the monitor attached to the V20Z at full resolution (in the medium term I won't have monitor at all on the server, but until then it should be used properly).
• SRSS requires Apache and LDAP, but neither are provided as part of JDS 2.0 or SRSS 3.0 Why these could not be provided on one of the CDROM's I don't know.
• I am not particularly impressed with the docs for installation/configuration of SRSS. For example it took me several hours to get the DHCP stuff right (despite the fact that I am trying to do the simplest possible configuration with one network port used only for the SunRay clients).
• I keep finding that it won't eject a CDROM, I just get told it is busy (that is using both the graphical UI means of ejecting and doing a umount from a root terminal. That is after closing all applications and in one case after logging out and then logging in again.

As a comparison I just did a test boot using a Ubuntu 5.04 live cd and it immediately came up at full screen resolution and found all the correct hardware. It was of course a much much newer version of Gnome and included Firefox by default.

I am just debating whether to upgrade to Ubuntu knowing that some aspects of SunRay support are going to be harder (audio in particular I believe).

In one sense all this is temporary as this is all 32bit. The key component needed is a 64bit SRSS either for Linux or for Solaris 10. So far the SRSS 3 and Solaris 10 combo is not available for i386 architecture nor in 64bit mode. But Solaris 10 will still not give me the latest Gnome even with JDS 3. On the otherhand it seems that there is much better USB device support on SunRays with Solaris than with Linux.

Looks like there is going to be some fun experimenting with all these options over coming months.

Comments

[DaveW]

OK so I am definately going to clean install Ubuntu (just completed download of install cdrom). Last straw was compiling the latest stable openldap only to find that the Berkley DB included with JDS 2.0 is 4.0 and 4.2 is needed.

[Akhila Sinha]

We have srss 3.1 running on a dual 32 bit Xeon machine with RHEL 3.
But it did not install on an HP dual-AMD 64 bit machine, also with RHEL 3.

Could you let me know which Linux you are using ? And is the srss a costed version specific to AMD hardware ?

Thanx in advance .
Akhila

[DaveW]

Akhila,

I am using Ubuntu 05.4 and the SRSS linux that came with the Sun Ray bundle I bought (ie 3.0 for Linux) I don't think the SRSS is AMD specific (although I am using a AMD K7 SMP linux kernel) but it did come with my V20Z which is of course AMD.

Dave