Among the flavors of UNIX, Solaris is considered to be the closest to Linux, so before starting a port of large Unix-based application to Linux, the OS-dependent code is generally picked up from Solaris. But for migration purposes, differences can arise in the areas that depend on the architecture, memory maps, threading, or some specific areas like system administration or natural language support.
Thinking about porting projects from Solaris to Linux on x86?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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With Solaris’ newly nice licensing, I’d think a lot of apps would work well migrating from Solaris-SPARC to Solaris-x86. That way you’d only be fighting one set of changes (the architecture). Later on you could port to Linux…
Also with Solaris’ newly nice licensing, it will be interesting to see movement the opposite way, porting from Linux to Solaris.
You’ll find some help and tips if you’re new to Solaris or Solaris development here:
http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/
Yes, it is my blog. But I’m doing exactly what this article is about and have run into a few differences along the way and have described how to fix or workaround them.
Sorry, I should say, I’m doing exactly the opposite of what the article is talking about. Linux -> Solaris. Nonetheless you may find it helpful
Is there anything to back this up? Also, yeah, I hope the IBM ad revenue is worth selling out so obviously.
Yeah, I was wondering the same thing… what gives? Is there anything to back that statement up or is it another case of POOMA?
This article was pointed to by an *advertisement* last week on slashdot. It may still be an ad there, not sure. Pure IBM marketing. After seeing this article, you’re supposed to think, man IBM must be the leaders in Linux migration.
By releasing an article of how to migrate Linux on Power to Open Solaris on x86……back atcha!
IBM kicks ass.
This is exactly what we need. Just like Larry Flynt’s comments about John Bolton’s sex life. Attack the opposition where it hurts them the most.
Hey, Sun had every opportunity to join the Linux movement. They chose this fight. So instead of complaining, you Sun supports should get out there and spread your pro-Sun propoganda. They need all the help they can get.
Wait for a year or two and wonder who’ll be laughing when IBM loses interest in Linux for something like FreeBSD (because GPL won’t let IBM add to its huge Patent portfolio)
Wonder if IBM has an AIX to Linux x86 porting guide too? That might even be more useful! If you’re just looking for an x86 platform to run your Solaris app, why not run Solaris on x86? Just a thought.
“Wonder if IBM has an AIX to Linux x86 porting guide too”
they do….i will look for the link and report back
Yes, thats what I call a nice piece of…advertisement 😉
.. is not do it at all.
If it previously runs on Red Hat Enterprise, it will runs on Solaris 10 (the feature is not public yet, but it’s coming.)
Seems like the Linux -> Solaris direction is easier
Looks like both ZFS and Janus are being pushed to 2006!
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5705288.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed
Just like Longhorn, so much hype and here we are left waiting.
ZFS and Janus are around and being used it’s just that they won’t put them into the general availability release until later. Unlike Microsoft, Sun releases things into GA when they are good and ready.
“If it previously runs on Red Hat Enterprise, it will runs on Solaris 10 (the feature is not public yet, but it’s coming.)”
Yeah, it’s comming and so is a cure for cancer and a cure for aids. But as others have pointed out, it’ll be at least a year.
porting from red hat to solaris is pretty simple, so long as you haven’t ensared yourself in all the RHAS snags. S10 is very fast, very production oriented – lacks a little of the eye candy, but more than makes up for it in breadth and power.
Agreed…
Blatant misrepresentation, go Eugenia pimp the Linux for IBM. How much do they pay? I mean obviously its lucrative, maybe i’ll join in.
I think people would be wanting to head in the other direction, particularly the “Enterprise” market, to the greener hills of stable ABI’s and other assorted goodies. Want to port your Linux application to Solaris…no need. Use Janus http://www.sun.com/2004-0803/feature/ (Not to be confused with Microsofts Janus DRM technology)
Just my thoughts…im ready for a flaming
I think people would be wanting to head in the other direction, particularly the “Enterprise” market, to the greener hills of stable ABI’s and other assorted goodies. Want to port your Linux application to Solaris…no need. Use Janus http://www.sun.com/2004-0803/feature/ (Not to be confused with Microsofts Janus DRM technology)
Except there is nothing stable about an OS component that no one officially supports. Janus is crap until Sun puts its official stamp of approval on it. McNealy and Schwartz grandstanding at a paper launch does not equal commercial support.
I can see that in the field of structure mechanics. ABAQUS (a Finite Element Suite) offers it’s pre-and post processor (the “front end”) for PC (Linux and Windows) only. The calculation code (no GUI) is available for all UNIXes but for pre- and postrprocessing you are dependent on a PC.
One license for a month costs as much as a new PC (a good one), so they can easily tell everyone to just switch from a UNIX workstation to a PC, and customers actually DO that (as we are doing it here), especially since the PCs are much faster for less money for this type of application.
> Wait for a year or two and wonder who’ll be laughing when
> IBM loses interest in Linux for something like FreeBSD
> (because GPL won’t let IBM add to its huge Patent
> portfolio)
Err, no.
GPL is actually more friendly to patents than the BSD license. Consider this – IBM patents some great synchronisation algorithm that helps an operating system scale up to 512 CPUs and more, let’s call it RCU.
Now IBM wants to contribute this to some open source operating system:
If that is GPLed, fine, IBM licenses their patent to GPLed software and none of its competitors can use that in their closed software, due to the nature of the GPL.
If the OS is BSD licensed, IBM either licenses their patent to BSD licensed software thus rendering the patent useless, or just licenses it to that specific open source OS, thus rendering their BSD license useless (because if someone takes the software and uses it for something else, they are vulnerable to litigation from IBM).
>“If that is GPLed, fine, IBM licenses their patent to GPLed software and none of its competitors can use that in their closed software, due to the nature of the GPL.”
Actually, due to the nature of the GPL, it works both ways:
If that is GPLed, and IBM licenses their patent to GPLed software- all of its competitors can use that in their GPLed software, due to the nature of the GPL.
>“Consider this – IBM patents some great synchronisation algorithm that helps an operating system scale up to 512 CPUs and more, let’s call it RCU.”
That operating system, which is GPLed, must be Linux, right?
Consider this: IBM invested $1,000,000,000 and thousands of man/hours to develop and implement RCU.
Suddenly, every Linux distro in the world, including those offered by IBM competitors, has RCU.
That situation, no doubt, benefits software development community and user community.
It does benefit IBM’s competitors: get cool RCU for free, no R&D costs attached.
How does it benefit IBM?
Based on my own experiences with AIX I guess, that would be a nice 100+ pages article 🙂
Or should this article just tell me IBM thinks Solaris is a much better OS than heir own AIX?
Greetings,
Carsten
PS Fight war not wars!
Yes, it is. When Linux startet some 10 years ago, SunOS/Solaris was the idol of the public. So SunOS/Solaris was the archetype to mimic.
Carsten
Being out of this particular topic for some years, just my naive question.
What about Gaussian?
Does it still exist?
Carsten