Sun Microsystems announced another milestone in its x86 computing strategy with support from leading independent software companies for the Sun Solaris 9 OS, x86 Platform Edition. Brooks Automation, Check Point, MatrixOne, RSA Security, and SunGard joined the growing list of Sun iForce(SM) partners such as Sybase supporting Solaris-based x86 platforms.
In other Unix industry news, HP has announced commercial benchmark results on the HP Server rx5670 using the next generation of the Intel Itanium 2 processor (code-named “Madison”), running HP-UX.
In the meantime, Irix, the version of Unix supplied by technical computing specialist SGI, has been certified to run the Defense Department’s Common Operating Environment (COE), the Mountain View, Calif.-based company said Thursday.
Also, an interesting article at ServerWorld Magazine is comparing HP-UX, Solaris and IBM’s AIX offerings: “Itanium or Unix?“
Or is it still much like Solaris 8.0?
I’ve found hardware support to not be a problem, provided you are prepared to install third party drivers. Sun are about to release the XF86 porting kit 4.3, SCSI support is reasonable and nearly as many network cards as fbsd are supported. The only major one not supported out of the box is the RTL8139 but you can pick up drivers for that at solaris-x86.org.
Try 9.0. I think you’ll be plesantly surprised.
I have two issues with Solaris:
1) XF86 porting kit stuffs up colours and so forth in CDE and the performance is pretty mediocre at beast in comparision to the likes of XFree86 4.3. There was an interesting list of things missing from the Xsun that are available in the Sparc edition, maybe sun can “rattle their dags” and start getting both on par with each other.
2) Compiling stuff is a bloody nightmare. On one had you have GCC which can compile, however, most that have been ported require the SUN CC, but who in the right mind are going to spend a few thousand dollars just so they can compile a few piddly GNU programs? Heck, when I was a student I tried to get a compiler from SGI just so I can compile a few things on a second hand SGI station, what was their response, “oh, you have to pay $20,000 for the compiler”, well, explain to me why giving me a free copy is going ot decrease your profit? now apply that to SUN MIcrosystems.
So the SiS900 network card is supported?
> XF86 porting kit stuffs up colours and so forth in CDE and
> the performance is pretty mediocre at beast in comparision
> to the likes of XFree86 4.3.
Try using 24bit colors as many of the Sun tools aren’t designed to operate @ 16bit.
> There was an interesting list of things missing from the
> Xsun that are available in the Sparc edition, maybe sun
> can “rattle their dags” and start getting both on par
> with each other.
I’m sure you’re right, as the Sol. x86 display capabilities do tend to be very limited. Although what is it that you’re looking for? Dual monitor support, remote display capabilities, DRI integration? On a server this isn’t going to be an issue. Solaris x86 can be set up to be a perfectly usable workstation IMHO even though the x86 port isn’t designed for/supported as this.
> Compiling stuff is a bloody nightmare. On one had you have
> GCC which can compile, however, most that have been ported
> require the SUN CC, but who in the right mind are going to
> spend a few thousand dollars just so they can compile a
> few piddly GNU programs?”
On one hand I agree with you, commercial *nix compilers can be too expensive.. although, Solaris 9 x86 comes with a disc labeled “Forte Developer 9 Update 2” which provides the Sun C/C++/Fortran compilers if the GNU compilers don’t suffice.
SiS900 drivers for Solaris 9 x86 are available from: http://homepage2.nifty.com/mrym3/taiyodo/eng/
BTW, Eugenia
My last two posts exposed my complete IP address. Just a word of caution in case it happens to someone else and they get grumpy about it.
I don’t know why the php code first decided to show the one half of the IP and then the other half… that part of the code is not mine, so I have to take a look at it..
On one hand I agree with you, commercial *nix compilers can be too expensive.. although, Solaris 9 x86 comes with a disc labeled “Forte Developer 9 Update 2” which provides the Sun C/C++/Fortran compilers if the GNU compilers don’t suffice.
Yes, however, they only work for 60 days, what is bundled with the sun solaris kit is mearly a evaluation license, unless you can otherwise show that you can use it beyond the 60days, bundling it with Solaris is pretty useless.
> Yes, however, they [Sun Compiler Tools] only work for 60 days, what is bundled
> with the sun solaris kit is mearly a evaluation license,
> unless you can otherwise show that you can use it beyond the
> 60days, bundling it with Solaris is pretty useless.
As far as Solaris is concearned, I tend to use “out-of-the-box” software like CDE, Forte and SunONE (I was using Netscape 4.x up until a few months ago). I choose this way of working because it allows me to have unmatched dependability through software that has endured rigorous testing. This means that all hardware/software is provided from one manufacturer who has carefully engineered/assembled/tested each component with care. No, I do not work for Sun.
Others will want to assemble their Solaris system(s) with non-standard software such as KDE, gcc, JBoss. etc. This can be beneficial if these components are better suited to the task at hand. It does however reduce interoperability as most of these components were just compiled and copied onto a cd with little or no changes. Poor stability can be another side effect of this kind of usage.
As many poor souls before us have discovered, a complete package is absolutely priceless when it comes to cost savings/manageability and trustworthyness.
If we can’t yet compile GNU/O.S.S on commercial *nix then perhaps we need support solutions like the one above more than ever before. I hope that as a result, Sun will realize that LSB compliance is a _MUST_ for Solaris 10.