“When Sun Microsystems got started in 1982, companies such as Wang and Data General dominated the hardware business. In less than a decade, this upstart Unix outfit was a billion-dollar-plus phenom while the once-mighty minicomputer makers had been consigned to irrelevance.” Read the commentary on ZDNews and a comment a few days ago, explaining Sun’s Linux strategy, which is different of what IBM, DELL or HP does with Linux. Also, another Sun article says that Java servers feel the open source heat.
Linux is Giving Sun a Burn
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Even though Linux does not yet feature any special technological advantage over Sun’s Solaris operating system
I will be very curious to read some samples…
Does this guy mean that the numerous Linux bugs can be a “technological advantage” ?
The only quality of Linux is to be free. Free as in beer.
Solaris scales much-much better than Linux. That’s one sample…
Another Sun argument: What’s written to Red Hat’s Linux won’t run on Linux distributions from SuSe, Monte Vista, and the rest of the pack.
Shame on Sun, this is plain lie ! The truth is : “what’s written for Red Hat’s Linux won’t run on Red Hat Linux”…
Of course you can decline for each version : “what’s written for Gentoo’s Linux won’t run on Gentoo Linux”
“what’s written for Mandrake’s Linux won’t run on Mandrake Linux”
And so on, and so on…
But, honestly, those guys from Sun are crazy, i will never try a Red Hat package on Suse ;-))
Linux ? It’s rocks ;-))))
That’s said, just try a solaris program on AIX (two flavors, not compatible, IBM and BULL…), HP-UX or Irix, just to laugh !
*nix ? It’s rocks ;-))))))
Solaris scales much-much better than Linux.
In general, proprietary Unices scale much better than free (as in beer or in speech) Unices. So what? People are substituting Suns for Linux clusters or consolidating Sun farms on a S/390 (I’ll never speak zSeries, this name sux) or… turning away from Sun, anyway.
Yes, please let me laugh too.
IBM offers binary compatibility on their high end servers, with machines and programs released on or after 1962. BEAT this if you can
Linux. Linux and its distros many times can’t even keep binary compatibility from version to version one month apart. 😉
Solaris programs are pretty compatible, programs written for 5-6 year old SunOS run on Solaris 9 SPARC. That is a pretty good track and headache-free for the customers.
>Unices scale much better than free (as in beer or in speech) Unices. So what?
So what? that IS a selling point my friend. Not everyone needs such scaling, this is why some are reverting to Linux, but the rest who need it, stay with SGI and SUN offerings.
Just to laugh on IBM “compatibily”, ascending or not, Eugenia ;-)))
Solaris scales much-much better than Linux. That’s one sample…
The gap is closing all the time. The work being done by companies like IBM and SGI see to that – Linux is scaling further and further with each revision. We’ve seen that 2.4 can scale well to 64 processors (Altix) with a few changes. 2.5/2.6 is/will be even better.
IA64 and PPC64 are starting to dramatically shift the high end Unix market. PA-RISC and Alpha are EOL and SPARC is looking increasingly slow whilst offering terrible P/P. IBM are heavily pushing PPC64 Linux boxes and HP/SGI are pushing high end IA64 Linux systems.
The market for >64 processor machines is absolutely tiny and is rapidly being devoured by cheap, comodity clusters.
As for technical features, there is some very exciting work being done in the fields of abstraction and virtualisation with Linux.
I have an article in front of me that was printed in EWeek, capable of hundreds of CPU’s running LINUX. Claims that Linux can’t scale as well as SUNOS are out of date. 😉
Yes, Linux scales pretty bad.
Guess that’s why big blue designs it’s 65536 CPU monstrosity for Linux… – don’t tell me Solaris does 65537 CPUs?
Besides, as anybody should have recognized by now, Linux was intended for desktop use, there aren’t that many desktop PCs with more than 64 CPU…
I doubt anyone can dig up a paper that shows Sun scaling past HPUX, AIX, or Irix efficiently and without an insane pricetag.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030213.html
Personally, I’d like to see Sun stay with sparc, then GPL Solaris and offer it to RMS as the GNU kernel. That’d be one spicy meatball.
The real headline should be “Losers still using Windows 2000 are getting their clocks cleaned by LINUX’s superior performance, reliability, price, and security. Sun also feeling the pinch.”
//”Losers still using Windows 2000 are getting their clocks cleaned by LINUX’s superior performance, reliability, price, and security//
How are W2K users getting beat down by Linux users?
If W2K suits the need, and you’re happy with it, why would you care what Linux does?
Such a petty fool, you be.
Forget Java. Forget StarOffice. McNealy has to talk up Sun/Solaris because Sun (like Apple) is principally a Hardware vendor. Solaris on SPARC is their bread and butter – Solaris keeps SPARC viable, in much the same way that OSX keeps Macintosh viable.
Sun is in competition with Microsoft and Intel – the fact that Linux performs on Intel is a catalyst. Intel real momentum INTEL derived has been from sales of MS Windows on Intel. The revenues from the sales of all of those processors has enabled Intel to invest more than Sun to improve the architecture to the point where it’s viable to run either UNIX or a UNIX like OS on Intel and make cost benifit gains. Enter Linux, almost free at the point of use and purporting to be a realistic replacement for Solaris and there you have it.
McNealy does “get it”. He’s trying to keep his hardware company afloat and more power to him, I say.
A Linux on Intel future across Desktops, file and print, midrange and high end servers is almost as dangerous as a windows on Intel future. Currently, operating system competition is preventing Intel from completely dominating the market for processors. Remove Sun, Irix and Apple, replace Windows with Linux and watch AMD go to the wall. Welcome to the future.
Myth – “Solaris scales BETTER than Linux”.
This is so patently untrue. Most of the giant supercomputers that are built these days are running Linux. Most of the rendering farms are running Linux. When it comes to pure compute power, Solaris scales far worse than Linux. Also, SPARC is falling farther and farther behind Intel, AMD, IBM, etc., when it comes to performance, so Solaris which is designed primarily for SPARC will have a tougher and tougher time. And the only product then that could scale would be Solaris x86, a product Sun only reluctantly re-introduced into the market and doesn’t ideologically support. Sun is fighting years of anti-Intel cultural baggage.
When it comes to the datacenter, here we also find a lie. Solaris only scales up on Sun’s expensive hardware. It does not scale across an array or grid of inexpensive machines. Every software vendor in the world, including Oracle, is moving their software to scale up via multiple smaller cheaper computers. One might call this RAISE — Redundant Array of Inexpensive SErvers. Sun doesn’t believe in this model.
So as the rest of the world ditches their big boxes and moves to smaller, cheaper, higher-value computing, Sun is going to be in a tough spot.
Overall, Linux is buggier and less mature than Solaris. This is definitely true. Linux is a newer product. However, Linux is on an incredible path of evolution whereas Solaris is not. Linux is pervasive, found everywhere, used by millions. Solaris is a niche product. There is no way Sun can survive the powerful evolutionary forces that Linux is bringing to bear on them.
As we look at the market today, Sun is the walking dead. They sell expensive hardware which has mostly been commoditized or outmoded. They sell expensive software and services which are being commoditized.
I would not put a penny in Sun. They have no strategy that is based on reality and thus no hope for the future.
–ms
“Myth – “Solaris scales BETTER than Linux.
This is so patently untrue. Most of the giant supercomputers that are built these days are running Linux. Most of the rendering farms are running Linux.”
Well, those multicomputers use a different instance of the OS (linux) per node. Scalability for an OS, in this context, means having systems with large number of CPUs or nodes and a single OS image for all those CPUs.
remind of the same remarks that SGI apologists were making during the early glint chipset, nvidia tnt, 3dfx days…several years ago.
“blah blah blah, the performance of those amatuers is blah blah blah…SGI will always be the king of opengl, blah blah blah”
I am not saying that at this very moment that solaris is not a superior and elegant solution. (not to mention more expensive)
but the writing is on the wall.
//”Losers still using Windows 2000 are getting their clocks cleaned by LINUX’s superior performance, reliability, price, and security//
>> How are W2K users getting beat down by Linux users?
>> If W2K suits the need, and you’re happy with it, why would you care what Linux does?
Because while you’re comfy using easy-lazy Windows, your competitors are getting muscle by learning Linux and adding intelligence to their operations. This is strategic thinking — sorry, but “fits me now” cannot grant you many things in the future.
>> Such a petty fool, you be.
Aren’t we all in the final math?
BTW, this OSNews policy of making IPs public is really an impeditive for me at times.
Not BTW.
re: Solaris scales much-much better than Linux. That’s one sample…
Does it ? Solaris scales on the high end, on rather small servers it actually sucks. Also, the 2.6 kernel will change this significantly, bringing linux to the Solaris, while still be efficient on small and mid sized machines.
re: “bringing linux to the Solaris,”
ahem.. bringing linux almost to the Solaris level I meant.
Ok, OTOH doesn’t fit, too. It’s unrelated.
BTW (now related), great article by Cringely, as always.
If opening the source of Solaris under a shared source-like license take a long time to get through the legal department and that parts of Solaris is still a state secret, GPLing Solaris doesn’t sound all that wise. Next what? GPL OS/2?
Meanwhile, GNU is “Gnu’s Not Unix”, which would be entirely wrong if they have a UNIX kernel with original UNIX code here and there.
> Meanwhile, GNU is “Gnu’s Not Unix”, which would be entirely
> wrong if they have a UNIX kernel with original UNIX code
> here and there.
Teehehehe… They’d have to call it GIU.
There are two Linux clusters at 5 and 46. The first Sun cluster is at 145, then there are a few more and then a bunch of Sunfire 15k’s from 379-460. No one comes near number 1, the NEC “earth simulator”. I think all this says if you put 2304 2.4 GHz Xeons together with Linux you will make a cluster 13.5 times faster than a 896 CPU SUN HPC 4500 400 MHz cluster. If you extrapolate that out you will find the SUN machine’s doing a shit load more with less MHz. Total GHz of the Linux Xeon cluster, 55296. Total GHz of 13.5 SUN HPC clusters 4838.4.
Ghz is not an apples and apples comparison on different archs, neither are these clusters equivalent. Obviously they are very different and I would bet SUN could make a monster cluster if a customer wanted one. In any case, the Sunfire 15K’s further down the bottom show where SUN’s strength is, lonesome multi-cpu systems. They have some catching up to do with IBM, HP, Cray, SGI, and a few others but I don’t see any singular Linux machines there. You could beat the Linux cluster with gameboys if you connected enough together, that’s just a matter of throwing more and more together.
PS. 13.5 is how many times more R-max GFlops the Linux cluster is rated at to the SUN HPC 4500 clusters, in case that wasn’t clear.