Sun Microsystems has distributed more than two million registered licenses for the Solaris 10 Operating System since the software became available on January 31st. These numbers, coupled with a record number of visitors to the Sun website during the last six months, highlight the incredible demand for the freely available operating system.
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Solaris is a great OS. It was great when it was closed source, it's great now that it is open source. The long term viability of Solaris is not so dependent on licenses, which are just glorified registrations, or on downloads. The future viability of Solaris is dependent on it's ability to make money for Sun. If it can't do that in some probably decided timeframe, it will follow BeOS and OS/2 into the realm of thought of but seldom used.
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2005-07-14
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"These numbers are fluffed... I alone have agreed 9 times... "
Unless you like having redundant LICENSES (not just simply downloaded copies), it still means the solaris install base grew by 2 million. Those two million installs could be done by one company/person for all I care; it doesnt take away that in the last six months, 2 million systems have seen solaris...
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Member since:2005-07-02
However, we're talking about the number of downloads, not installs. To have accurate numbers, you'd have to know how many of the downloaded copies are actually installed. It would be relatively easy (if bandwidth intensive) for Sun - or Sun enthusiasts - to boost the number of downloads. Not saying that they did, or that it wouldn't be a fair marketing tactic (and, in the case of enthusiasts, not even the company's responsibility), however the possibility of it means that we cannot take the number of downloads as an accurate indication of the number of installs.
That said, I do believe that OpenSolaris is generating a lot of interest among *nix fans. I myself will very probably download and try it at some point.
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2005-07-22
I downloaded Solaris 10 so I probably count as two of those two million( one SPARC, one X86).
I tried it. I really did. However the three systems that I have run it on only one is still running it and that is my E250 SPARC System.
One big gripe( and I would like to be corrected) is the difficulty/labarynth of the SUN web site. I want to download the patches but unless I pay for a support contract then I can't.
So IMHO, giving away the OS is all fine and dandy (and agreat loss leader) but it you can't update it like other OS's then it can quickly become a liability.
So, we await a proper distro built around the free OS. I know there are some in development but they are not really ready for the street yet.
So, If someone knows different then I would like to be corrected.
Member since:2005-07-08
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I have a similar concern too. I don't know exactly how they register licenses. However, after studying their site, I assumed they did it the honest way. I noticed that people first need to login with their username and password and then the site asks them how many licenses of each they use. I just assumed that the information you enter here modifies, not adds to, the total of licenses used. I could be wrong though.
Member since:2005-07-08
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Solaris 10, on x86, is still a baby, and have lots of things to grow..i've had lots of trouble with it on some Dell Servers..some well known issue, which they only know a temporary solution (every reboot, you must do some stuff..)so..it's indeed a great OS, but DEFINITLY, on sparcs.. cheers!
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"These numbers are fluffed... I alone have agreed 9 times..."
Arrrggghhhh! You didn't count for nine downloads. Sun maintains a profile of how many licenses you declared, and that only changes when _you_ change it! It's that page that asks you how many computers you plan to install it on, how many are upgrades, etc.
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If you want Solaris 10 patches to download then goto:
http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/show.pl?target=patches/os-patches
If you want to patch in a automated fashion from a command line just type: "smpatch update"
There is one problem currently (and a major grip of mine) with the automated patch process. "smpatch" or the GUI "updateManager" will not work once you install a zone on your system. You will have to download and install patches using "patchadd". It is a pain in the butt and hope they fix this soon.
Besides this grip, and one more about zones, I would say Solaris 10 is by far my favorate (best) server OS to use. I personally have moved all my Linux boxes to Solaris 10 zones. Works great, and some of the things you can do with zones is great.
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Member since:2005-07-14
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Member since:2005-07-06
The real question I have is - what's the download volume of Hp's UNIX? Or IBM's? IS it just me, or do they just look completely dead compared to Solaris?
Enterprise Unix OS's aren't downloaded, they are bought along with the hardware they run on, so you're asking completely the wrong question.
Also big companies _order_ their upgrade cd's so all these downloads are probably curious linux/windows users, not really Sun's core audience (it's still the datacenter) and definately NOT a money maker.
For a real an analysis see : http://www.serverwatch.com/stats/article.php/3080081
Sun is making all the right moves.
Like completely missing out on the very lucrative blade market ?
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"The real question I have is - what's the download volume of Hp's UNIX? Or IBM's? IS it just me, or do they just look completely dead compared to Solaris?"
It seems that the mindshare of HP-UX and AIX has simply fallen off the face of the earth. Sun has said many times they are among the three major systems remaining, with Linux and Windows being the other two. Sun sells two of the three, and has certified the third on all their x86 hardware. Not bad, IMO.
While some people criticize Sun for lacking direction, what about HP and IBM? HP might have the worst track record of the whole industry (Alpha/PA-RISC/Itanium, HP/Compaq/HPaq, shedding core competencies, Tru64/HP-UX/Linux/Windows, etc.). IBM is better off, but even they've struggled with AIX' identity for a number of years.
Member since:2005-07-06
It seems that the mindshare of HP-UX and AIX has simply fallen off the face of the earth. Sun has said many times they are among the three major systems remaining, with Linux and Windows being the other two. Sun sells two of the three, and has certified the third on all their x86 hardware. Not bad, IMO.[i]
Mindshare is definately low among the pimply faced youth. Talk to an experienced unix admin that actually works in the industry and you get a very different view.
Maybe Sun is right to be pimping Solaris to *nix-kiddies, after all they are the admins of tomorrow. I just hope they don't take their eye of the ball too long, or they might not have a business tomorrow.
See the article I referenced in an earlier post :
[i]"Worldwide, both Gartner and IDC returned IBM to the top spot with $3.2 billion in sales, bumping Hewlett-Packard decisively into second place after several quarters of both vendors claiming top honors. Based on IDC's accounting, this represents year-to-year growth of 10.1 percent and quarter-to-quarter growth of 20.2 percent for IBM. IDC's data reported HP remaining virtually flat across the board with $2.9 billion in sales. Gartner reported $2.8 billion in sales for HP with year-to-year growth of 1.6 percent and quarter-to-quarter growth of 8.5 percent. With both research firms estimating Sun Microsystems' revenue in the $1.4 billion range, its revenue declined 18.7 percent or 21.4 percent compared to 2Q02 (depending on which firm you believe), according to Gartner and IDC, respectively."
I agree with you on the HP fiasco though.
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Add IBM's stack. Solaris x86 is going to get WebSphere and DB2, at least. It looks like BEA WebLogic runs on Solaris x86, too. That means Solaris x86 has all the major J2EE and database vendors covered.
It's a no brainer, anyway, as Solaris x86 is completely source compatible with Solaris SPARC, except for the trivial things like uname values (you people do write scripts properly, don't you?). Also, all Java programs are a shoe-in.
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> their hardware is still more expensive with Solaris compared to Intel commodity hardware with Linux.
Where did you get that data? Do you mind backing it up?
Did you check the latest amd64 offerings from Sun? The hardware seem to be priced extremely competitively to me (and not only me, from what I read).
And given that Solaris 10 support contracts are actually cheaper than RHAS/ES..
Thanks,
Dmitri
Java2D Team
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"Talk to an experienced unix admin that actually works in the industry and you get a very different view."
While this is probably true among the current crop of experienced admins, what compelling arguments are there for companies to stay with HP-UX and AIX moving forward? What compelling arguments are there for HP-UX and AIX on new installations? Outside of legacy systems support...what is there?
Member since:2005-07-06
While this is probably true among the current crop of experienced admins, what compelling arguments are there for companies to stay with HP-UX and AIX moving forward? What compelling arguments are there for HP-UX and AIX on new installations? Outside of legacy systems support...what is there?
There's world class support, especially for big enterprises you cannot beat the way IBM etc will actually develop custom patches for you. (No we DON'T wan't a "custom patch" from somebody of the usenet)
Also for AIX (which I know the best) if you want dynamic partitioning or micro-partitioning you have to have AIX. AIX is also particularly good with high i/o throughput (network/disk) which is why it handles our san backup solution for example. I'm sure HPUX and Solaris have similar strengths in other area's.
Personally I see UNIX pushing out the mainframe on the high-end to provide high availability solutions and Linux pushing out MS on the low-end in the "one box, one server" category.
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6 Miilion and Iwas one of them... (Unix newbie, but no exactly a computer newbie)
It was much easier to install than Solaris 8 or 9, and the included drivers worked (except the sound).
Got that working and everything was great until...
I cannot get a DVD to play... not w/ totem... not w/ vlc... not w/ mplayer...
I did however get very choppy reasults w/ ogle. I mean seconds/per frame w/ no sound results.
I still think Solaris is great, but it has some way to go. I consider myself somewhere in the intermediate geek range. Solaris will still make non-geeks cry.
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