Solaris on SPARC emulator- anything besides QEMU but for a home lab?

For purely educational purposes I am looking for a way to lab Solaris 10 on SPARC architecture without actually owning a SPARC machine. What are my options beside QEMU?
QEMU can emulate SPARC architecture (to a certain extent) but installing Solaris for SPARC under QEMU proved impossible (OpenBIOS doesn't support Solaris and that BIOS is the only option)...
It doesn't have to be an app on my lab, it can be hosted in the "cloud" but for reasonable price. I am also NOT looking for a ready-to-use installation of Solaris 10 on SPARC, but a way to lab install process and some other things on that platform.

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Comments

tiersten

Never heard of any SPARC emulator that is good enough to actually run Solaris or SunOS. The closest is QEMU and that isn't quite there.

varelg

I figured QEMU isn't up to par, but I hoped there's an alternative to adding a SPARC machine in my home lab setup.

sidsanders

considering the cost of the old ultra2 lines, it may not be too bad to add something physical, unless space/heat/power is an issue (which ill guess and say they probably are).

if you want to run 32bit variants (which sol10 is not) check some qemu hacks this guy is working on: Artyom Tarasenko's blog

i recall some mention of a more 64bit mod that blog mentions, not sure how well that has moved.

tiersten

sidsanders wrote: »

considering the cost of the old ultra2 lines, it may not be too bad to add something physical, unless space/heat/power is an issue (which ill guess and say they probably are).

Yeah. I agree with sidsanders. If you really want to use Solaris then find a cheap small Ultra workstation.

sidsanders wrote: »

if you want to run 32bit variants (which sol10 is not) check some qemu hacks this guy is working on: Artyom Tarasenko's blog

They're pretty dinosaur though! My pizzabox SS10 would be able to run those!

sidsanders

tiersten wrote: »

They're pretty dinosaur though! My pizzabox SS10 would be able to run those!

running at quad core speeds though!! i was kinda shocked/impressed how far he has gotten some of it.

i guess i could run dos 6.22 at blazing speeds too (for what???)

tiersten

sidsanders wrote: »

i guess i could run dos 6.22 at blazing speeds too (for what???)

For this thread of course!

I wonder how fast it would actually be as I doubt any of the CPU manufacturers bother to optimise for 16 bit real mode usage now.