OSNews

The author didn't write those words, that is why they are in quotation marks.

Learn to read mate! ;-)

"The author didn't write those words, that is why they are in quotation marks.

Learn to read mate! ;-)"

Actually, it's you who didn't read Moocha's comment:

"If a person who confuses the concepts of free software and of freeware gets quoted as an authority in an article, then that article is crap."

That's right - the clueless person got quoted as an authority in the article. Good article wouldn't quote such clueless crap and present is as something insightful.

I know they aren't, but the person who spoke those words is presented as an "expert" in the matter, which I pointed out above. I'd like to return your advice about learning to read. Please extend it to my post, mate.

mmmm you doesn't knows nothing.

Go and use Solaris/Sparc for a year or two. Then you can come back and give ur opinion. Seriously.

5 years and still using it. No complaints really.

Dude, this is OSNews for "OS" news and story is from The Register (who bashes Sun frequently). What is your point again?

Dude, this is OSNews for "OS" news and story is from The Register (who bashes Sun frequently). What is your point again?

I know I'm going to get modded down for this but I'm in agreement with Shaman about Solaris on OSnews.

If the register bashes Sun frequently why doesn't OSnews post those articles? Why instead does OSnews always seem to post articles about how Solaris is the best thing since sliced bread? Then all the brainwashed masses of the Solaris cult worship it in their comments to that article. If you're someone like me who doesn't really care for Solaris, has had trouble with it in the past, or thinks Linux is a good competitor, be prepared to get shouted down, modded down, and called names. God forbid OSnews actually posts a negative article about Solaris. You've never seen hateful comments until you see the comments on an article like that.

And why do you insist on posting anti-Sun comments in Sun related pieces? What I see more often than not is a nice quiet discussion until the Linux trolls like you who feel it is necessary to tell the world their opinion of what they think of Solaris. If you don't like Solaris fine, we get it! If your comments were actually on topic and remotely factual I wouldn't have a problem with them.

If there are that many problems with Solaris, why don't you write an article for OSNews showing the superiority of a particluar Linux distro to Solaris?

Now I just wonder what would happen if I trolled Linux articles here the way you troll Solaris pieces?

And why do you insist on posting anti-Sun comments in Sun related pieces?

Did you notice the title of the article? "Linux, Solaris Face Off".

Now I just wonder what would happen if I trolled Linux articles here the way you troll Solaris pieces?

I don't have to wonder, you already troll Linux articles.

Actually, it's one of the nicer features of Solaris. It beats the heck out of /dev/sdaX with no indication of controller number, target LUN, etc.

If you don't like it, use Veritas FS, the built-in software RAID, one of their SAN solutions or ZFS. This isn't a valid criticism to my mind.

Your BeOS example is pretty clear, too.

Solaris 10 is much quicker but it's still an ancient and archaic feeling *nix which makes life more complex than it should be... and their Java admin tools are still slow as dirt (even for a Java GUI app). It has a small handful of great features - ZFS being primary among them - but the rest of the OS fails to stand out, and is relatively inflexible. Big hardware or no hardware is Solaris' motto.

the c0d0s0 etc assignments are great for server land but in home land, they just caused someone to have a heart attack. Heck in /dev/hdXX is enough to make people fret. So I think its all rational to what the application is.

In all my time using x86 solaris is that if its not workstation or server class, forget about. It will be stable, no doubt but it will run slower then the other guys.

So once again, depending on application...this may or may not be a concern.

Just my 2 cents

I think you have to look at Solaris and Linux as two different products rather than two versions of the same product. Here's where I've found Solaris to be good option:

1) A data center environment.
2) The expected lifetime of applications is measured in years.
3) Support of hardware/software is very important.
4) You have really big requirements.
5) High-end products.

Solaris has some great fetures - like Jumpstart and management co-processors, which help you to configure and manage large farms of machines. Linux has some support as well, but with the proper tools it's much easier and faster to bring up 100 Sun boxes from scratch. (Your mileage may vary with non-Sun hardware). For the home user, small developer, or very small company this offers no real advantage.

The second point is that an application is fielded for the next 5 years with patches and the odd upgrade. The platform has to be a supported platform and you need to be able to download patches and get parts on that server, running that OS for the next 5 years. You also want 5 years of almost un-interrupted performance (although you obviously will tolerate some down-time). In 2002 I was still seeing production databases running on Sparc 20's with no intention of changing until the app was retired. A lot of expensive data center type applications are like this.

Sun will support systems for many years. They will also support OS releases for several years, where Microsoft is more than willing to EOL the software. Volunteer linux maintainers also don't want to support the distro they came out with a couple of years ago, they want to work on the promising, new features. (Whic is the version I want to download and use, anyway). Commercially supported linux comes close, but generally requires a contract for the hardware and a contract for the software. Again, this is more for corporate data center types.

By big requirements I mean you have scale in two dimensions. Vertical, in the sense that you buy a 24 processor server with 192 GB of memory for Oracle data warehousing. Horizontal in the sense that you support application clusters over dozens of machines. Or temporal, in the sense you cannot tolerate down-time. I think Sun has those basis covered better than most Linux vendors. (SGI specializes in vertical, but not horizontal. Others specialize in horizontal only).

Finally, although Java has changed the game, in the sense that the VM makes it easier to support multiple platforms, some vendors don't have customers on some platforms. For example, you might find an application supported on Solaris Sparc but not Linux x86 or Solaris x86. Usually these are specialty applications, or the vendor has a very limited customer base that only requires support on those platforms. Again, not useful for the home user.

I love Linux and use it all the time. I also use Solaris. I like them both, I just like them for different purposes and different reasons.

It is somewhat stodgy and sluggish in its default form, but it's pretty easy to make it a comfortable environment.

I'm not savvy enough to tune Solaris to the degree of "snappiness" that you can get out of the chute with Debian or Fedora, but once you start piling on the "real" capabilities (scalability, virtualization, storage) to those OSs, the differences start to diminish.

Two to three days "getting" the Solaris-ness of it, the installation of 'pkg-get' (http://www.bolthole.com/solaris/pkg-get.html) a more useful shell, and optimized Xorg drivers (http://www.nvidia.com/object/solaris_display_1.0-9755.html) ease the pain, IMO.

I've been flirting with Solaris since 8 on i386, and only recently on SPARC hardware (Ultra 10). Based on my experience, I can appreciate the utility of Solaris on Sun gear if your goal is a managable, solid platform with tight integration with storage products. However, if you want a development or workstation environment, there's room for Solaris to improve, and as a result, the need can be better served with something less "heavy" (Linux, MacOS)

Maybe Ian will bring some of Debian's flexibility and modularity to Solaris.

Actually, no you don't. Once you get to the download page and accept the License Agreement, you can donwnload whatever you want by clicking on it and select a location to save it (in Firefox) which I am doing right now.

Thanks for that.

No problem.

Hmm, go to sun's download site, try to download solaris, you have to download their download mangler.
Are you sure you *have* to? I don't think I've ever installed the download manager. I don't think I have ever used it to download my copies of Solaris for x86 and SPARC.

Edit: I think that's an IE thing. Ick, go grab a copy of Firefox.

Edited 2007-04-13 15:44

I'm using Linux (thus no IE), FYI. But thanks.

(Yes, I know there are ways and means to run IE on Linux. I choose not to.)

What they do is giving you the option to download their download manager which then s populated correclty with the files you have asked for. Pretty nifty. But you still have the possibility to download each file separately.

Compare Solaris to FreeBSD or debian or Redhat or Ubuntu. I think that makes a lot more sense. i.e. compare OS to OS and kernel to kernel.

You have a point, but perhaps it would be fairer to compare Solaris Express vs. Nexenta vs. Schillix vs. Debian vs. Redhat vs. {Free,Open...}BSD.

Hey apparently Solaris has something going for it. Our company is replacing all of our IBM i5/OS400 systems worldwide with Fujitsu/SPARC systems running Solaris.

Hey apparently Solaris has something going for it. Our company is replacing all of our IBM i5/OS400 systems worldwide with Fujitsu/SPARC systems running Solaris.

If it's part of an upgrade process, then that's where Sun can get in. I don't know how old those i5s/OS400, but that platform has been out since 1988.

I'm just saying it doesn't make sense to take a working, non-obsoleted/non-EOLd infrastructure and replace it with Solaris just because Solaris is nifty.

Our IBM's are only about two or three years old and they are running the latest i5/OS. I never said it made sense that they were doing it, but obviously someone in the corporation has a thing for Solaris. I just hope their affinity for Solaris turns out to be well founded.

Either that, or Sun offered them a deal they couldn't refuse; if you have a look at the price of IBM support contracts vs. Sun and most other competitors, quite frankly I question why anyone sane would go with IBM.

Sure, I could have understood 10 years ago when they had a PC unit; buy everything off the one vendor and use the muscle of a large bulk purchase to drive down the support cost - but today? makes little or no-sense what so ever.

About the only thing missing from the arsenal is the lack of a 'big database' but that can easily be sorted out by simply having a good relationship with a number of database vendors, IIRC they have a good working relationship with Sybase and oracle.

"If it's part of an upgrade process, then that's where Sun can get in. I don't know how old those i5s/OS400, but that platform has been out since 1988."

Here in Germany, Karstadt and Sparda-Bank are still using IBM systems (i5, AS/400) with "Windows" PCs running as 3270 terminals. As long as it runs, is secure and fits the purposes, it does not matter if anyone considers the platform to be "out since 1988".

"I'm just saying it doesn't make sense to take a working, non-obsoleted/non-EOLd infrastructure and replace it with Solaris just because Solaris is nifty."

Nobody (with a properly working brain) does exterminate a working data processing facility just because some other OS is "nifty"... If a new system is needed, it may be okay to replace an AS/400 system with a Solaris installation (if Solaris is the right tool here).

And if you define "obsolete" in the right way... :-)

"If it's part of an upgrade process, then that's where Sun can get in. I don't know how old those i5s/OS400, but that platform has been out since 1988."

Here in Germany, Karstadt and Sparda-Bank are still using IBM systems (i5, AS/400) with "Windows" PCs running as 3270 terminals. As long as it runs, is secure and fits the purposes, it does not matter if anyone considers the platform to be "out since 1988".

"I'm just saying it doesn't make sense to take a working, non-obsoleted/non-EOLd infrastructure and replace it with Solaris just because Solaris is nifty."

Nobody (with a properly working brain) does exterminate a working data processing facility just because some other OS is "nifty"... If a new system is needed, it may be okay to replace an AS/400 system with a Solaris installation (if Solaris is the right tool here).

And if you define "obsolete" in the right way... :-)

Web infrastructure typically goes through upgrade cycles, depending on the company, platform, etc., but I would imagine people are replacing their web infrastructure every 2-4 years.

Mainframes typically last longer. But there are periods of time when it makes sense to migrate platforms, and it may be necessary. Saving money, getting of EOL'd hardware, etc.

Because of that, Solaris isn't going to make an overnight comeback. New installations are going to come only when a platform change is underway, and someone is unhappy with Linux (which there doesn't seem to be a significant amount of), enough to justify the additional time, money, and energy that will need to be expended for even a flawless transition.

That's just the price they must pay for going the way they did.

Edited 2007-04-13 18:37

I think Nextenta is or is going to be Ubuntu based on the GNU/Solaris platform.

Well, it moved to being Ubuntu based after originally being Debian-based... I don't think it's an official Ubuntu project though.

Just wondered why the text was different between the article and summary.

There is also a tonne of stuff happening behind the scenes as well - its just a pitty to some degree that Sun doesn't evangelise almost every piece of code which has been added, and every new device being supported.

One has to remember also the amount of work it took to re-hire new programmers to write code, get the x86 group back up and running - its only been two years; from dead project to viable product line up. I don't know about you, but its bloody remarkable the turn around.

OpenSolaris will get there, and as more programmers come on board, you'll find that OpenSolaris will be a viable replacement for those who dismissed it earlier, but also as a workstation for those users who want a UNIX operating system.

If you grab the latest OpenSolaris (b61), it is rock solid - the great thing with Sun; when things are integrated into Solaris, they're actually tested and work, rather than what I see in other projects where things 'merge first, sort out the bugs later'.

IIRC, the Next Solaris Express Developer Edition is going to be released soon, and it'll be based on the best bits from build 63/64 of OpenSolaris, and IIRC, the aim is to get JDS/GNOME 2.18 into build 65 of OpenSolaris, which includes some big bug fixes and changes.

Couple that with KDE 4.0 officially supporting OpenSolaris once it has been ported to Studio 11 compilers, you'll see a bigger ground swell of end users coming to OpenSolaris - it takes time. For Sun its weighing up adding features for existing customers, adding features to get new customers and adding features to OpenSolaris that'll benefit users for the sake of just being nice :-)

So you're comparing a old version of OpenSolaris to the latest and greatest Linux - yeah, thats a fair comparison *rolls eyes*

Not really. I was comparing it to Nexenta Alpha 6 with ON beta build 50ish. I think Nexenta is at at Alpha 6 ON build 60ish now.

I'm pretty sure the only difference is low-level bug fixes that didn't affect me anyway.

Question: Why didn't you download and install either the Solaris Express Developer Edition, which is designed to be used on a workstation or grab the latest Solaris Express Community Edition?

I don't think Solaris has to fight anything at all. I feel comments like yours are an example of Linux users who think Sun has been hurt by Linux with nothing more to back it up but thier opinions.

First, not everybody wants to run Solaris on x86 boxes (we don't). The usual pro-Linux argument almost always involves x86 hardware. There are capabilities that midrange and high end Sun hardware has over x86 machines I find it surprising that anybody would want to use anything else (this would also include IBM and HP hardware as well). Just Google Dynamic System Domains (Sun), LPAR (IBM) and nPar and vPar (HP-UX).

Sun doesn't have to make OpenSolaris appeal to the Government (I know, I work for them), the appeal is the result of years of uptime in critical environments.

And what makes you think that you can't do Ruby On Rails on Solaris? Oh and let's drop the desktop argument, it is really getting old.

What I think it comes down to is Linux users using any tired argument they can come up with to justify using Linux in the face of an OS that has significant advantages in observability, provisioning, reliability, and resource control available as free and an Open Source product. Linux users have stated here time and again that "Competition is good", well Sun is raising the bar with Solaris 10, Solaris Express and OpenSolaris and basically what I have read here is nothing more than the same tired arguments about what is wrong with Solaris, and most of them probably aren't based on Solaris 10 at all.

So if you have something to say, at least try it before you complain. At least when I say anything about Linux, it is based on actual use of the product (RHEL 3 and 4).

Well really, sun hurt themselves.

I worked for the government through a defense contractor, I remember cutting checks for $20k for simple development systems we'd proven to be computationally and even IO wise inferior to mainstream x86 hardware at the time. I got really pissed to be spending $800 for a CD burner I could buy off the street for $80 at the time.

There's nothing "magical" about Sun, they share responsibility for the rise of Microsoft for ignoring the market.

I don't know why you should be so sour grapes.

The point I'm making is with linux you DON'T have to use RHEL. I know...where I worked before we processed (and even served) imagery you see on google maps & microsoft's map services. Almost all of that done with fedora, a few gentoo peripheral systems. I wasn't IT, I developed the software and specced the hardware with IT.

And yes you are right, the latest I saw was solaris9 which is OK, but I've never run a canned "out of the box" system. I've been a unix user a long time, desktop useability is very important to me.

Edited 2007-04-14 14:59

Sour grapes? What the Hell are you talking about? Just because I question the validity of your comments isn't sour grapes, unless being called out for comments you made that sound as if you are locked in 1996 is sour grapes. Thanks for making my point!

So you haven't used Solaris 10 at all but feel you can comment on it, how arrogant!