Solaris

Hi

I have just acquired an Ultra 5. It has 256MB of memory and a 360Mhz Ultra IIi SPARC processor. So far, I have had some typical fun and games to get it working:
- It had a dead NVRAM chip. I hacked it open and installed a CR2032. It looks suitably bodged up, but is working. I set the MAC address and machine ID to some existing values that were on a web site (how to), because my machine is connected to a LAN and accesses the Internet via a router.
- There was no hard drive, so I slung in an old 8.2GB hard disk.
- I then installed Solaris 2.6 and configured it for DHCP. It can connect to the Internet.

So far, so good.

I have some questions though and I hope you can help.

What is the latest version of Solaris that will run comfortably on this machine? I have a copy of Solaris 10 but it will not boot (with a DVD reader installed it complains that it hasn't got enough memory). But I read that Solaris 10 on these machines is too slow.

Is the memory really limited to 512Mb? If that is true, how does the Ultra 10 (which I read uses the Ultra 5 motherboard) manage a maximum of 1Gb?

Is it "safe" to connect to the Internet? I'm thinking "vulnerabilities" here. Bear in mind it is sitting behind a firewall. I would like to be able to SSH into it from outside.

I notice it has no C compiler. What is the best approach for getting this installed, and how do I do it?

Finally, what's the best (fastest, most secure, easiest to use) Linux distribution for this and can it dual boot?

Thanks
JonB

Solaris 8 should run fine.
The U5 service manual is describing a four 256MB DIMM configuration leading to 1 GB so I guess it is possible.
The obvious risk is to run unpatched services/libraries. You would need to run current openssh/openssl software and make sure the system is quickly updated when vulnerabilities are discovered.
The simplest would be to find a gcc package for Solaris 8, this site looks to fit the need Index of /tgcware/sunos5.8_sparc/stable , it also had openssh/openssl packages.
No idea.

dont know... I have one in my garage ( or 2?) but it has been there for nearly 10 years... I remember seeing one running solaris 7 and at home I have a sunblade with similar speed (I think) running a solaris 8, I remembered trying a solaris 9 but it was starting to be slow... I upgraded my sunblad to 2GB in order to try again but never found the time
For the rest I dont know as you would have to go to the sun free software site to look for what can still be found and install, for C you would have to go for gcc... I am not sure but I think there was a security package for solaris 8 with ssh suite...

Confirmed, Solaris 8 runs fine. But my favourite is Solaris 9 (but I never tried it on Ultra-5).
Solaris 8 and 9 take 1-2 GB more disk space because of 64bit, and providing 32bit compatibility.
Solaris 9 comes with lots of convenient addons: sshd, logadm, -h option for ls/df/du ...

I tried solaris 9, it was slow with the default 256MB.... but runs fine with 512...

Exposing a ten years old sshd to the Internet would be reckless...

..and that is what cincerns me. Can it be updated?