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By opening the UltraSPARC T1 and UltraSPARC T2 source code and specification
we hope to create opportunity to create unique solutions built on a proven architecture.
One of these areas is Operating Systems ports to these architectures.
Through the efforts of Sun Microsystems and the community, the following efforts
are shared with the community. The OpenSPARC community would be very open to lending
support to other projects that would want to port to UltraSPARC T1 and/or UltraSPARC T2.
Below are several operatings systems that support the UltraSPARC T1 and/or UltraSPARC T2 or will very soon.
Linux Ports
 Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds
with the assistance of developers around the world. Developed under the
GNU General Public License , the source code for Linux is freely available to everyone.
Several distros of Linux are supported on Sun Hardware.
Below are some highlights of the amazing progress made on the Linux ports.
Ubuntu Supports the UltraSPARC T2
On October 15, 2007, Ubuntu released Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" and release notes, which includes support of the Sun Fire T5120 and T5220 both UltraSPARC T2 based systems. See which Sun Systems are certified with Ubuntu .
Ubuntu Supports the UltraSPARC T1
On October 26, 2006, Ubuntu released Ubuntu 6.10 "Edgy" and release notes.
On August 16, 2006 Ubuntu released the first maintenance release of "Dapper Drake", Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS.
Here is some help to do a network install of Ubuntu on a Sun Fire T2000.
On May 30, 2006,
Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Canonical Ltd. announced that Ubuntu 6.06 LTS
(Long Term Support), the release of the widely popular GNU/Linux
distribution, will support the UltraSPARC(R) T1 processor on Sun Fire(TM)
T1000 and T2000 servers. Ubuntu GNU/Linux has achieved strong recognition
on the desktop through its focus on ease-of-use and "it just works" user
experience. With this announcement, Canonical brings that same focus to
the server market, having chosen the UltraSPARC T1 processor as its
vehicle into the datacenter.
"Ubuntu is arguably one of the most important - if not the most important -
GNU/Linux distribution on the planet and will soon blaze new trails in
support for SPARC-based servers," said John Fowler, executive vice-president,
Systems, Sun Microsystems. "The availability of both Solaris and Linux-based
operating systems on the Niagara platform will further expand our lead in
delivering chip multi-threaded innovation and choice to customers."
"There has been a vibrant community working with Ubuntu on SPARC for some time.
Given the broadening of our offering from desktops to servers, and the power
and promise of CoolThreads servers, official support for SPARC was a natural
fit with our upcoming enterprise-ready release of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS," said
Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu. Ubuntu 6.06 LTS is due to be released
at the beginning of June 2006.
Some other comments on the fridge at Ubuntu: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/389
On March 21, 2006, David Miller blogs that "Linus pulled in all of the Niagara
porting work this morning, it's all in there." Read David Miller's blog entry.
On March 10, 2006, an article at tectonic.ca.za, Ubuntu on Niagara
The Ubuntu development team has announced an Ubuntu version that will run on Sun Microsystem's much-vaunted Niagara processor.
Fabio Di Nitto announced the news by email today: "Thanks to extraordinary efforts from David Miller, the Ubuntu SPARC team and the entire Linux-on-SPARC community, it should now be possible to test out the complete Ubuntu installer and environment on Niagara machines. As of today, the unofficial community port of Ubuntu to SPARC should be installable on Niagara, and we would love to hear reports of success or failure (and love them more if they come with patches for performance or features :-))."
Read the original post.
On February 17, 2006, CNET's Stephan Shankland writes, Linux boots on Sun's Niagara chip
Dave Miller, the lead programmer for Linux on Sun Microsystems' Sparc processors,
said on his blog Friday he has fired up the open-source operating system on
Sun's new UltraSparc T1 "Niagara"-based server. The move is an early milestone
in Sun's effort, not just to make Linux functioning on its Sparc-based computers,
but also to foster a useful software environment for Linux on Sparc.
In his blog, Miller published a log showing Linux recognized the system as a
32-processor machine with the words, "total of 32 processors activated." The
appearance of 32 separate processors for a single chip derives from the fact
that the UltraSparc T1 has eight processing engines called cores, each able
to handle four separate instruction sequences called threads.
Read the original post.
Read David Miller's blog as he blogs about the progress he makes on his efforts to port
Linux to the UltraSPARC T1.
 Linux Virtualization On January 2, 2007, The OpenVZ project (www.openvz.org)
announced its open source virtualization software is available
for servers using Sun's breakthrough UltraSPARC T1 CoolThreads
processor. See the press release.
 On November 1, 2006, Wind River Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: WIND), the global leader in Device Software Optimization (DSO), today announced that Wind River© Platform for Network Equipment, Linux Edition, will be optimized to support the next-generation UltraSPARC T1 processor. See the press release.
 Gentoo Linux 2006.1 Unleashed On August 30, 2006, The Gentoo Release Engineering team proudly
announces the release of Gentoo Linux 2006.1.
The SPARC release includes several improvements over 2006.0, including
InstallCD support for systems with more than 4GB of memory and a updated toolchain bringing fixes for various compilation problems. Also
new is InstallCD and kernel support for the new UltraSPARC T1 processor
used in the Sun T1000 and T2000 systems. See the announcement and download the release.
BSD Ports
 There are several open source projects derived from BSD, the version of
UNIX developed at the University of California, Berkeley. This includes FreeBSD.
Below are a few progress reports from the community.
OpenBSD Port 
On Jan. 4, 2008: Mark Kettenis (kettenis@) has been hard at work making OpenBSD work on yet another processor type: the UltraSPARC T1. Below, Mark talks about the new processor type and his experience making it work.
Last month, Sun graciously donated a SPARC Enterprise T1000 to make it possible to port OpenBSD to their UltraSPARC T1 processor. These processors have up to 8 cores, and each core runs 4 threads, presenting the operating systems with 32 virtual CPUs. Now that OpenBSD/sparc64 has SMP support, getting it to run on the T1 actually makes some sense.
http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20080104164929&mode=expanded&count=8
FreeBSD Port 
On November 12, the very first install ISO and live CD for the FreeBSD
port to UltraSPARC T1, can be downloaded. Check it out at the FreeBSD/sun4v Project.
See the latest status report.
On May 22, 2006: FreeBSD Self-Hosting on the Sun T1 Processor
FreeBSD is now able to complete a full run of the "make buildworld" command
on machines running the Sun T1 processor with CoolThreads technology, and is
thus self-hosting. The code currently resides in the FreeBSD Perforce revision control system and will be merged to the official
CVS repository when support for logical domaining is complete. A log file of the boot process can be found here.
Read the original post.
On April 14, 2006: January-March 2006 FreeBSD Status Report
The highlights of this quarters report certainly include the availability
of native Java binaries thanks to the FreeBSD Foundation, as well as progress
has been made with Xen support and Sun's Ultrasparc T1. Futhermore we are
looking forward to FreeBSD 6.1 and TrustedBSD audit support has been
imported into FreeBSD 7-CURRENT. All in all, a very exiting start to 2006.
Read the original post.
Solaris and OpenSolaris
  Solaris operating system and operating systems derived from OpenSolaris on UltraSPARC T1.
The foundation for Sun systems; delivers a consistent computing environment
from departmental servers up to massive, clustered servers with more than
100 CPUs; designed for multiprocessing and 64-bit computing.
Below are some resources specific to UltraSPARC T1 and the sun4v architecture.
Get your Free Solaris 10 and Sun Studio Software Media Kit
Below are several resources specific to UltraSPARC T1.
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