223 lines
9.3 KiB
Text
223 lines
9.3 KiB
Text
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" [
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<!ENTITY base CDATA "..">
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<!ENTITY date "$FreeBSD: www/en/platforms/sparc.sgml,v 1.9 2002/03/13 13:18:36 murray Exp $">
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<!ENTITY title "FreeBSD/sparc64 Project">
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<!ENTITY email 'freebsd-sparc'>
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<!ENTITY % includes SYSTEM "../includes.sgml"> %includes;]>
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<html>
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&header;
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<p>This page contains information about porting FreeBSD to UltraSPARC
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systems.</p>
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<h3>General Information</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#news">Latest News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#history">Port History</a></li>
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<li><a href="#faq">Port FAQs</a></li>
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<li><a href="mailto:freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.org">FreeBSD/sparc mailing
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list</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h3>Source Code</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a
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href="http://people.FreeBSD.org/~obrien/freebsd-sparc/src-981023.tar.gz">src-981023.tar.gz</a>
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- early boot code (sun4u)</li>
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</ul>
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<h3>Documentation and White Papers</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="http://www.sun.com/microelectronics/manuals/">Sun
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Microelectronics Manuals</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://playground.sun.com/pub/1275/home.html">Open
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Firmware Home Page (Sun)</a></li>
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<li><a
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href="http://www.UNIX-systems.org/version2/whatsnew/datasize.html">Data
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Size Neutrality</a></li>
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<li><a
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href="http://www.UNIX-systems.org/version2/whatsnew/lp64_wp.html">Why
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LP64?</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h3>Other Links of Interest</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="http://www.geog.ubc.ca/s_linux.html">Linux for SPARC
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Processors</a></li>
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<li><a
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href="http://www.NetBSD.org/Ports/sparc/">NetBSD/SPARC</a></li>
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<li><a
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href="http://www.OpenBSD.org/sparc.html">OpenBSD/SPARC</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://www.firmworks.com/">FirmWorks</a></li>
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</ul>
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<hr noshade>
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<h3><a name="news">Latest News</a></h3>
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<ul>
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<li><p><strong>10 March, 2002</strong> : Perl works. Thanks to an in
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depth bug report from Garrett Wollman we were able to identify a bug
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in the fpu emulator which was causing problems bootstrapping
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perl.</p></li>
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<li><p><strong>9 March, 2002</strong> : SMP support has been added,
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which is known to work on dual ultra 2 and ultra 60 workstations.</p></li>
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<li><p><strong>3 March, 2002</strong> : A bootable ISO image is
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now available for installing FreeBSD/sparc64 onto a supported
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system. Please see the freebsd-sparc mailing list for more
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information. The ISO image is available <a
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href="http://people.freebsd.org/~jake/sparc64">here</a>.</p></li>
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<li><p><strong>26 February, 2002</strong> : David O'Brien has
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posted a working self-hosted sparc64 toolchain. You may
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download the archive file <a
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href="http://people.freebsd.org/~obrien/sparc64/native-uberbaum_20020224.tar.bz2">
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here</a>. Untar it in /.</p></li>
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<li><p><strong>9 October, 2001</strong> : Jake Burkholder and
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Thomas Moestl have been porting FreeBSD to the UltraSparc for
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the past few months and first booted a machine into single user
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mode on the 18th of October. The log from the serial console can
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be found <a
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href="http://people.FreeBSD.org/~jake/tip.single_user">here</a>.</p></li>
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</ul>
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<h3><a name="history">Port History</a></h3>
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<p>The FreeBSD/sparc64 platform port was initiated by Jason Evans in
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1997. Originally, the port was backed by Sun Microelectronics. Sun
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Microelectronics (SME) is the part of Sun that makes
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microprocessors. Up until now, SMCC (the part of Sun that makes
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workstations) has been the overwhelmingly primary customer of SME.
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SME naturally wants to expand its sales, and to do that, they need
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to sell CPUs to people outside of Sun. FreeBSD was perceived as
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being a way of accomplishing this.</p>
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<p>To understand why Sun could fund a FreeBSD port, which would seem
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to conflict with Sun's Solaris offerings, you need to realize that
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Sun is broken up into separate business units that often
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<strong>compete</strong> with each other. The Solaris people at
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Sun may not like having a FreeBSD port to compete with, but their
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power to prevent it is somewhat diminished due to the business
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model. Of course, if the FreeBSD port were a major threat, SMI
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(the main Sun umbrella company) would put a stop to it. However,
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this is unlikely, since FreeBSD mostly meets the needs of a
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different market sector than Solaris. Solaris does wonderful
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things on big MP servers. FreeBSD is fast and lean for small
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servers. It is also useful for certain types of embedded
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applications, which is actually the main reason SME is interested
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in seeing a port of FreeBSD to UltraSPARC.</p>
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<p>A while back, SME approached the FreeBSD core team and offered
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monetary compensation of some nature in exchange for an official
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UltraSPARC port. The core team turned down this offer. The exact
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reasons are known only to the core team, but Jordan Hubbard
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implied that SME's offer was not of major interest since to be of
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long term use to FreeBSD, such a proposal would need to include
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support for a number of years from someone internal to Sun.</p>
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<p>Jason Evans started working at SME in September of 1997. During
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the first week, he caught wind of the negotiations SME was making
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with the core team. Jason expressed extreme interest in working
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on the project. Through a bit of persistence (and the failure of
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the proposal made by SME), he was given permission to begin work
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on the port.</p>
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<p>Jason's other duties SME included finding information for
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software vendors who are porting their OSes/RTOSes to the
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UltraSPARC. This put him in a good position to gather hardware
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information pertinent to the FreeBSD port.</p>
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<p>Jason was instrumental in getting the FreeBSD/sparc64 port done,
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and doing much of the initial planning. Sun Microsystems has
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since backed out of their support for the FreeBSD/sparc64 effort,
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and Jason Evans eventually left Sun.</p>
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<p>Paolo Di Francesco was the next "father" of the port. Paolo
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attempted, for the first time in the history of the port, to
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organize information, developers, and tasks into a structure that
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can only be known as project management. If not for the 98-99
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holiday season and a few overspoken individuals on the mailing list,
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Paolo would have continued on. During his tenure, a number of
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people stepped up to work on the older Sun SPARC architectures.
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This did cause a slight chasm in the project, and many of the more
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qualified individuals were on the side of the UltraSPARC family of
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machines. Luckily, this didn't end up a period of quiet on the
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mailing list, as Telecom Italia provided us with a list keep-alive.
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A glitch in their system caused one of Paolo's posts to keep coming
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back and back and back and back... This repeat post continued well
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into 1999, when the list did once again become mostly silent.</p>
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<p>In 2000, Jake Burkholder and Thomas Moestl have made an
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incredible amount of work on the sparc port. Most of the
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development has taken place in the Perforce repository on
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freefall, and has only been merged to the HEAD (-CURRENT branch)
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of CVS after more careful testing. David O'Brien has done a lot
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of work to provide a usable toolchain for FreeBSD/sparc64
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development. Until one of the above mentioned people updates this
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paragraph, please see the mailing list archives. ;)</p>
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<hr noshade>
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<h3><a name="faq">Frequently Asked Questions</a></h3>
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<ol>
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<li><a href="#1">What happened to the old FAQ?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#2">What is the status of the port?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#3">What machines will FreeBSD/sparc64 run on?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#4">Does FreeBSD/sparc64 support device X?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#5">Will FreeBSD/sparc64 run Solaris/SunOS binaries?</a></li>
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</ol>
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<h4><a name="1">What happened to the old FAQ?</a></h4>
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<p>It's right <a
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href="http://people.FreeBSD.org/~obrien/freebsd-sparc/oldfaq.html">here</a>.
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The old FAQ is SME-centeric, and sun4u-specific. These traits do
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not reflect the current state of the port, since SME has pulled
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their official support from the port and the majority of the
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development equipment now consists of older Sun SPARC hardware.
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Furthermore, there haven't been a lot of frequently asked questions
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of late. Most of the items in the old FAQ date back to before the
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mailing list was being archived.</p>
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<h4><a name="2">What is the status of the port?</a></h4>
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<p>It is possible to boot a number of newer UltraSparc hardware
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platforms into FreeBSD with time and patience. Please see the <a
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href="&base;/relnotes/CURRENT/hardware/sparc64/index.html">FreeBSD/sparc64
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Hardware Notes</a> for more information.</p>
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<h4><a name="3">What machines will FreeBSD/sparc64 run on?</a></h4>
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<p>Please see the <a
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href="&base;/relnotes/CURRENT/hardware/sparc64/index.html">FreeBSD/sparc64
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Hardware Notes</a> for more information.</p>
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<h4><a name="4">Does FreeBSD/sparc64 support device X?</a></h4>
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<p>See <a href="#3">question #3</a>.</p>
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<h4><a name="5">Will FreeBSD/sparc64 run Solaris/SunOS binaries?</a></h4>
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<p>It is reasonable to say that FreeBSD/sparc64 will provide some
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Solaris/SunOS emulation. It is too early in the life of the port to
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answer this any more specifically.</p>
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&footer;
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</html>
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