Sun/IRAF V2.11 Site Manager's Guide

Sun/IRAF V2.11 Site Manager's Guide

6. Host System Requirements

IRAF is currently supported on all Sun models capable of running SunOS or Solaris. Any of these system will make excellent IRAF hosts In a typical installation there will be a large central compute server, usually a fast Sun-4 with several Gb of fast SMD or IPI disk and 32-64 Mb of memory, serving a number of client nodes. For scientific use, a color screen (17 inch is fine) and several hundred Mb of local disk is desirable. The local SCSI disk is comparatively slow and is no substitute for the large, fast disks on the server, but is cheap and is worthwhile for server independence alone. The GX graphics accelerator option available on the newer systems is attractive and is recommended, finances permitting. At present IRAF takes no special advantage of high-end 3-D graphics cards but users may still see improved windowing performance.