Here’s a review of Sun Solaris 9, x86 edition. It’s no competition for GNU/Linux or FreeBSD on the desktop, but Solaris on x86 could make low-end IA32-based workstations available to people who previously needed to buy a SPARC machine to use Solaris software, says the author.
Solaris 9-x86 Review
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
What an awful review!!
The fact that the author (reviewer) could not even get the network functioning properly is a sign of inexperience. Although Solaris x86 is not the greatest OS in world, it is greatly misrepresented by this review.
I agree. I think most people that use Solaris x86, use it to learn another *NIX or are used to Solaris on SPARC. With the latest release by Sun with Java Enterprise System, there are some cool administrative programs and services to play with.
Although Solaris x86 is not the greatest OS in world, it is greatly misrepresented by this review.
I guess it depends on how you are looking at it. I’ve been using Linux for several years and I’m real comfortable with it regardless of distribution. (Slackware, Debian, RedHat, etc..) I have also tinkered with FreeBSD and it seems pretty “modern” as well. I’ve just never had a compelling reason to switch to *BSD over Linux.
I download Solaris 9 x86 a few months back [when they were still charging $20 for it
] and in my admittedly *limited* experience with it, I wasn’t that impressed. Like the reviewer pointed out, it’s hardware support is very limited. The NIC I had in the machine to begin with wasn’t on the HLC but fortunately I had a Netgear NIC lying around that was, so I used it instead. After downloading the drivers for the card and after a great deal of trial and error, I was finally able to get the system online.
I played around with variosu things on it for a few days but I was just left with a feeling that it was a “classic” (dated) *nix in terms of usability. I personally don’t believe that easy of use == suck. This is 2003, not 1973.
The system is probably highly stable and secure (I woudln’t know) but I don’t see any compelling reason to use it unless – like the reviewer said – you have an existing *need/requirement* for it.
That’s my 2 cents anyway. And again, I’m not a reviewer or a System Administrator (any more), so my opinion is pretty worthlesss really. But I’m still entitled to it.
It’s not a “terrible review.” I had NICs that should have worked with Solaris according to the HCL but didn’t; this is not an issue of inexperience but of an improperly documented HCL. After speaking with the Solaris product manager I’ve edited the article to add more information and resources that have changed within the past 24 hours.
-Jem
Sparc is expensive, so the JDS is going to get deployed into the fastest growing economy in the world (China) on AMD64. In addition, Microsoft will own AMD, so by extension, Microsoft is part of the Sun contract with China.
…and ofcourse Solaris is part of the JDS on the server side. So Microsoft will sell it’s hardware through Solars. Ironic?
Which hardware ?
AMD.
Okay here it is:
The operating system layer is not as profitable because it is not as flexible as it used to be, things have changed. Now Microsoft has generalized. They have considered that SUN has landed a contract with the fastest growing economy in the world (China), and by purchasing AMD, they are now part of the largest contract in the history of computers. They have generalized to the hardware layer, which is actually a low level software layer. Now there is also the middleware layer which is the new desktop and services infrastructure of an integrated solution which allows data to be generalized across a product line.
Don’t be fooled into thinking about an ‘operating system’ anymore, because the operating system is wrapped into the broader product line. The operating system is the small part of the product. That’s one of the reasons actually why Linux is positioned to be a leader in the future, because vendors product lines can be easily decoupled from the operating system layer and reach a larger audience.
I never really saw the point of the Solaris 9 x86 port. Granted, it will make much more sense (hopefully) with their upcoming release of Opteron based servers but otherwise, why would you go with Solaris? Linux/BSD alternatives are generally going to be almost as stable, atleast as secure, but support a far greater swath of hardware and software out there.
Now, at my place of work we have quite a few Sun boxes and the SD guys who use them generally love them. They’re much more stable than the XP boxes (even our XP boxes can generally run for weeks on end without a restart but we do a manditory one every week) and have a good enviroment to work in.
However, they aren’t for the kiddies (like me) to play in
security thru antiquity?? lmao
Any thoughts on reviewing Solaris 10. I know it is preview software, but it is freely downloadable and maybe it would offer a glimpse into how Solaris plans to compete with Linux and other operating systems in the near future?….
For Jem,
To get a Solaris machine on the Internet the following has to be done:
1. Define your router/gateway, this should have been done during the installation if you had a network card that the installation program recognized. Or if all else fails create the file /etc/defaultrouter and specify the IP address of your router.
2. Ensure that /etc/nsswitch.conf under hosts shows files dns.
3. Create /etc/resolv.conf and add the IP addresses of two of your ISP’s DNS servers.
4. Reboot the system.
With all the information available on Solaris (both x86 and Sparc) the problems you encountered should have been easily solved.
For BFG,
Solaris 10 (Solaris Express) is under an NDA and anything written about it other than what Sun releases has to be approved. Hopefully my article on Solaris 10 will be approved and you will be able to read it here!
I really loved this line:
That’s when it occurred to me that Sun sells subscription support contracts; this explains why there is no manual, I suppose.
Imagine the smoke filled room with filled with BigCorp Executives in tuxes holding brandy snifters cackling and rubbing their hands together as they scheme up ways to screw the user for a buck.
That seems to be how this guy views the world.
I suppose he didn’t go here: http://sun.drydog.com/faq/ , or here: http://www.solaris-x86.org/ , or even here: http://docs.sun.com/ of all places.
Just about every nuance of lore on this system is online someplace, just like Some Of Those Other Unix-esque creations.
Perhaps he should spend some more time browsing the Sun web site for starters before being determined that The Great Evil That Is Sun’s sole goal is to screw him out of a dollar.
I dunno, my favorite part was:
Migrating data was much more difficult than I expected because non-Solaris hard drives could not be mounted without completely reformatting them. That means that I couldn’t move my data internally; to transfer data I’d have to move it to removable media or put it on a network file system
Oh God! I hate FTP transfers of data, why oh why can’t I boot down the machine, take it apart, install my old hard-drive, boot it back up and take the files off. It’s so much easier than typing ncftp xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and telling to get the files and going to dinner.
OR . . . if you already had the drive in there I suppose you could just follow these directions:
http://www.unixguide.net/sun/x86faq/9.24.shtml
Old 3com nics seem to be well supported by most OS, and I’m pretty sure solaris does too. In my future dream box, i plan to have at least one of these. My linksys nics are not supported directly by Solaris 8, but there are third party drivers available. I think these driver sources are mentioned in the x86 faq, if not google it. There may be hope for ur card even if it’s not on the HCL.
PPP is a PITA to configure on solaris. The built in one sucks on x86 8 at least. Possibly bring the (gnu?) pppd over and use that. The solaris x86 faq covers this also.
“Imagine the smoke filled room with filled with BigCorp Executives in tuxes holding brandy snifters cackling and rubbing their hands together as they scheme up ways to screw the user for a buck.
That seems to be how this guy views the world.
I suppose he didn’t go here: http://sun.drydog.com/faq/ , or here: http://www.solaris-x86.org/ , or even here: http://docs.sun.com/ of all places.
Just about every nuance of lore on this system is online someplace, just like Some Of Those Other Unix-esque creations.
Perhaps he should spend some more time browsing the Sun web site for starters before being determined that The Great Evil That Is Sun’s sole goal is to screw him out of a dollar.”
If you’d taken the time to read the article, you’d find that I posted these resources at the end of the document. There was no offline help available in the form of a paper manual, which means that if Solaris were the only OS I had, I would have to call Sun to get help. A website does no good when, as I mention in the article, the network cards I had wouldn’t install properly.
I realize you’re a troll and all, but I want to make this clear for others who are going to read the comments before (or instead of) the article.
-Jem
Despite suffering a big bump during the BSD->SYSV (Solaris 1.x to 2.x, SunOS 4.x->5.x), Solaris *IS* Unix. It *IS* NFS. It is quintessential UNIX. I’ve seen this OS deployed en masse. Diskless workstations, common image environments, extremely high performance NFS (even before Netapp existed.)
I have used Solaris x86 for three years on the CVS/NFS/SMB/DNS server at one of my clients. Never patched it ONCE. The only time it has ever been shut off is to MOVE it in the rack to another location.
UFS+Logging. Rock solid file system. Coherent. Well documented. Automounter that actually works.
You see, if you get hardware that it supports, it runs rock solid. If you bring a lot of trash hardware to it, it doesn’t like it. Its not designed to be accommodating, its designed to work.
Using it as a gnome desktop is counter to its primary purpose. A high performance network server. As far as I can tell it is exactly that. Plus you can rollback updates, it is supported VERY well on a quarterly basis, and gets basically daily/weekly Recommended rollups.
Solaris is trick down. It is meant to run on huge machines, and then trickles down to the low end. Responsiveness to Mozilla is NOT a design goal. Sorry.
Ballmer was once overheard saying to Gates that MSFT was lucky that the “wrong UNIX” ended up on top. Linux. If you ever had to deploy a ton of a hardware, you might understand what he means. Nothing beats good hardware/software integrations. Really. It is not about 3DMark or how good your SPEC_FP and SPEC_INT are. There is a lot more to it than that. It is about quality support, great software discipline, coherence with itself and good documentation.
I have adminned a number of Unix in my stay on Earth. I must say, I have a love for FreeBSD and even have a Solaris 1.x box running (4.1.4) because that to me is Unix. But after the evil was hashed out of Solaris 2.x (2.5.1/2.6 was the turning point), it is always good to sit down at a Solaris box. Take a survey of uptimes on fairly busy machines and you’ll see.
Also, read the Linux Kernel Mailing List. Just read it. It is classic bazaar mentality. I think its going to catch up with them in the end. Too much going on at once. Solaris and FreeBSD represent the Cathedral, a well built and architected system. You do feel the difference when using them all for various purposes.
I am literally dying to see the Opteron Solaris 10 native port. Solaris 10 has TCP offload (ever seen Linux abuse CPU with 2 or more gigabit network cards going at once?). It will have ZFS, a commercial grade filesystem. It will have “flick of a switch” Trusted Solaris. The only problem with Opteron boxes right now is they don’t have OBP. Real debugging. Rational products for Solaris are great (Purify). DTrace is coming to enhance this as well.
Don’t get me wrong, Linux has uses. I will always consider Windows and OS X worth paying for, and Linux not worth paying for. Linux’s only allure that it could be downloaded and used for free. Barring that, it is useless to me. Even RedHat Enterprise Taroon 3.0 or whatever cant convince me of this. I must have access to Sunsolve. It’s worth every penny. When RedHat stopped giving up2date for free, I immediately started moving away from it wherever possible. Why deal with Linux with Solaris is free? Why?
Also, DUMP actually works on UFS – well. To quote Linus on dump:”
“Note that I think all these arguments are fairly bogus. Doing things like “dump” on a live filesystem is stupid and dangerous (in my opinion it is stupid and dangerous to use “dump” at _all_, but that’s a whole ‘nother discussion in itself), and there really are no valid uses for opening a block device that is already mounted. More importantly, I don’t think anybody actually does.”
Great “boss”. Real professional. Dump is stupid and colloquial expression such as “‘nother.” This man also believes Linux will unseat OS X and Windows and does basically desktop changes to the kernel while leaving scaled and server performance languishing, something RedHat and SuSE have to break their backs patching the thing wildly to even get it to be competitive.
I can only say this. I honestly believe that Linux is the best thing that ever happened to MSFT. Check out how much money they have made while Linux has been “destroying” them. Tons. Its psychotic that for the price of being a bit more traditional to configure people don’t use Solaris and Solaris x86 more often. They pay the price and won’t tell you how.
It also must be noted that Sun holds the world record on supporting Linux. RedHat 6.2 is roughly what Cobalt OS is for the RaQ4. The fact something that old is still supported is wonderful! I have several clients still using that “junk” just fine.
So, if you come and complain about Solaris or FreeBSD because it doesn’t have wizards and requires you to know what you are doing to use it (just like a 747 has a very, very HIGHLY trained Pilot), go somewhere else. Preferably, get OS X and Windows and leave Unix to the people who like it for what it is, not what it could be in a Tele-tubby world. I don’t care about a USB storage key working. I care about NFS working perfectly, I care about support. I care about uptime. I care about documentation. I care about things being coherent. I care about the fact that the discipline that a standards based platform like FreeBSD and Solaris force developers to make code that tends to be more easily ported. The development tools for Solaris are not free, rather they are expensive, but they are worth it. Every penny.
Well, the article was not meant to compare Solaris 9 x86 with FreeBSD or GNU/Linux, although to make some points about low-end Unix in general it is unavoidable.
The point of the review was to look at Solaris 9 x86 in the context in which it will most often be deployed: as a workstation operating system. As mentioned at the start of the review, Sun has more than 60% (almost 70%) of the 64-bit workstation market. That means that they sell more high-end workstations than anyone. Yes they also sell a lot of servers, but they’re mostly SPARC-based, with the exception of their new low-end light duty IA32 machines, which are being bundled mostly with GNU/Linux, not Solaris 9.
What you’re talking about primarily is Solaris/SPARC, not Solaris/x86. The goal of the review was to show what Solaris 9 x86 was about — SPARC is a separate review for the future.
The HCL is gaunt, at best. I didn’t have $60 to go out and buy a 3COM network card just for the review, especially since my Realtek 8139 and Intel EEPro100 should have worked just fine. I would hardly call my hardware “junk,” especially being that it is excellent workstation hardware (Athlon 64, Asus K8V Deluxe, Radeon 9800 Pro) that would be considered a viable $1000 alternative to an expensive UltraSPARC system like the Blade 1500 ($4000 retail). Ironically FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE can handle most of this hardware and 5.2-BETA can use all of the hardware in my system.
The result of my testing suggests that Solaris 9 x86 is not ready to really be a force in the Unix world as far as workstation OSes are concerned. Sun says, “we’re working on it!” and I believe them. I think Solaris 10 will fix many of the issues I had… Sun said that over 150 engineers were working on Solaris to improve hardware compatibility and to make improvements to its interoperability with other Unix filesystems and binaries.
-Jem
I was a bit surprised by the “clunkiness” of the Solaris 9 x86 installer when I had a brief run of it on my PC (P4 2.0Ghz). It has a strange way of selecting options in its text mode (cursor to the line, press Enter to select and THEN f2 to actually perform that task…huh ?), didn’t recognise some of my hardware (e.g. a Geforce 4 MX 460 card) and then dumped me into an unfriendly fdisk program that didn’t expand my extended partition to show me my 3 Linux distros I had there already.
Basically, as the review says, unless you have a Solaris partition on the drive already, it won’t play nicely with Linux partitions, which I think rules it out completely for home use really unless you happen to have a second hard disk available.
I gave up the install somewhat bemused, especially when I selected “exit” from the fdisk utility, typed “shutdown” (something it appears the Sun folks didn’t try) and laughed when the OS struggled to shut down (plenty of problems cos of the RAM disk system plus it eventually went to a white screen and hung, not properly shutting down…).
If you’d taken the time to read the article, you’d find that I posted these resources at the end of the document. There was no offline help available in the form of a paper manual, which means that if Solaris were the only OS I had, I would have to call Sun to get help. A website does no good when, as I mention in the article, the network cards I had wouldn’t install properly.
So, basically, you’re using a completely atypical scenario (a non-enthusiast, non-professional newbie user installing Solaris x86 on largely unsupported hardware) to try and bash Sun and/or Solaris.
You clearly aren’t knowledgable in Solaris, yet you’re allegedly attempting to meanginfully review it. You tried to install on non-HCL hardware and appear to be surprised when you have problems. You mysteriously blame the non-OSS nature of Solaris on being unable to tell if a driver has loaded and a network card detected.
Wouldn’t it have been quicker and easier to just write “Solaris is teh sux0r, Open Src r0x0rs” ?
These “reviews” are getting to be beyond a joke. When a “reviewer” can’t even get a product installed and operating to a basic level of functionality, how can he possibly claim to have written a “review” of it – or even consider himself competent enough to do so ?
The result of my testing suggests that Solaris 9 x86 is not ready to really be a force in the Unix world as far as workstation OSes are concerned.
This may come as a revelation to you, but “the Unix world” is not primarily a bunch of OSS zealots running Debian with a 2.6-test kernel on their cobbled-together, second-rate hardware in their parent’s basement.
Also, read the Linux Kernel Mailing List. Just read it. It is classic bazaar mentality. I think its going to catch up with them in the end. Too much going on at once. Solaris and FreeBSD represent the Cathedral, a well built and architected system. You do feel the difference when using them all for various purposes.
Amen.
<i<Great “boss”. Real professional. Dump is stupid and colloquial expression such as “‘nother.” This man also believes Linux will unseat OS X and Windows and does basically desktop changes to the kernel while leaving scaled and server performance languishing, something RedHat and SuSE have to break their backs patching the thing wildly to even get it to be competitive.[/i]
I have to disagree here. Linus doesn’t really believe that at all – he’s just an engineer tinkering with code. It’s all the other twits that have hijacked his name and used it to promote their agendas that you are complaining about.
So, if you come and complain about Solaris or FreeBSD because it doesn’t have wizards and requires you to know what you are doing to use it (just like a 747 has a very, very HIGHLY trained Pilot), go somewhere else. Preferably, get OS X and Windows and leave Unix to the people who like it for what it is, not what it could be in a Tele-tubby world. I don’t care about a USB storage key working. I care about NFS working perfectly, I care about support. I care about uptime. I care about documentation. I care about things being coherent. I care about the fact that the discipline that a standards based platform like FreeBSD and Solaris force developers to make code that tends to be more easily ported. The development tools for Solaris are not free, rather they are expensive, but they are worth it. Every penny.
Preach on, brother
.
IP: —.58.23.170.proxycache.rima-tde.net
You and I would get along great!
Such a breath of fresh air to read your post. I wholeheartedly agree with everything you say and I feel the SAME way. The tech world needs more hardcore in-the-trenches types like you (and I). I suggest EVERYONE to read and re-read that post and to understand the stuff between the lines.
Too many tinkerers and young guns spouting off about MS crap, linux “RuLZ”, blah blah. Everyone is a ‘Computer Expert’ nowadays without having even paid their dues or been in the trenches (deadlines, low risk setups that work, UPTIME for clients, etc).
To 99% of others that post here: Go d/l the latest linux distro fad at Distrowatch, go waste more time tinkering with “source-based” installs, and go benchmark some more mp3 latency, whatever. But just don’t show up at my company for an interview. (Sadly though there are plenty of other companies out there that will hire you).
eE
I got Solaris 8 when it was free for download.It did not install at all.I booted the installation CD,installation went
fine up to a point and then it rebooted all by itself for no
apparent reason.I expected more from a highly regarded operating system.My chipset is Intel i845 and is not on HCL.
However I’ll give it one more try with Solaris 9.People who have used it say it is a bit slower then windows,but when you
do two or three jobs at the same time you don’t notice any difference.Requirement of expensive hardware is a minus. If
good old Windows works fine on cheap hardware so should Solaris.
However I’ll give it one more try with Solaris 9
I humbly propose your time would be better spent elsewhere.
>> If good old Windows works fine on cheap hardware so should Solaris.<<
Why? Windows is a desktop OS and Solaris a server OS. They’ve traditionally been targetted for two completely different hardware setups.
John
I understand the intention of the review (reviewing an operating system from the naive user’s perspective), but it reads a little bit like an eight year old reviewing the cockpit of a 777. Where’s the review of SVM? (Now included in Solaris 9.) How about the review of multiple pagesize support? (Another important new feature.) At the least I would expect a shout-out to useful commands like pargs and preap… Sadly, the reviewer doesn’t appear to have read the What’s New document. For those interested in what S9 actually does offer, see: http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/816-7173/6md6rliqd?q=what%27s+new&a=…
And someone, somewhere please tell me that at least one review for S10 will review what we’ve actually done, and not just confirm the incompatibility of hardware not on the HCL…
You and I would get along great!
Such a breath of fresh air to read your post. I wholeheartedly agree with everything you say and I feel the SAME way. The tech world needs more hardcore in-the-trenches types like you (and I). I suggest EVERYONE to read and re-read that post and to understand the stuff between the lines.
Too many tinkerers and young guns spouting off about MS crap, linux “RuLZ”, blah blah. Everyone is a ‘Computer Expert’ nowadays without having even paid their dues or been in the trenches (deadlines, low risk setups that work, UPTIME for clients, etc).
To 99% of others that post here: Go d/l the latest linux distro fad at Distrowatch, go waste more time tinkering with “source-based” installs, and go benchmark some more mp3 latency, whatever. But just don’t show up at my company for an interview. (Sadly though there are plenty of other companies out there that will hire you).
Where do you people hide?
The places I frequent are filled with ignorant computer users who wouldn’t know a shell from a web browser, going around spouting off about how “Gentoo is the bestest UNIX evar!”
And as much as I’d love to have some flesh and blood colleagues, I’m stuck with internet communication because its impossible to find anyone in my area (rural SW Iowa) who shares the same enthusiasm for learning Real computer systems. So I’m stuck using Linux for most of my desktop work, slowly learning Free/OpenBSD on servers, and–recently–working on learning Solaris 9.
If you can point me to a good forum/irc channel where I can meet more people like you, I’d be grateful!
“it knew the difference between a GNU/Linux partition and a BSD slice”
There is NO difference. It’s just different terminology for the same thing. And if the Install referred to them differently based on the installed OS, I’d take off a few point for lack to consistency.
“I care about documentation.”
And in this case, there was none. Not even enough to setup a network card to get to the rest of it.
There is a big difference between [GNU/]Linux partitions and BSD slices.
Linux uses the old PC partition table directly, limiting you to four partitions unless you subdivide them into extended partitions (in DOS terminology).
BSD treat the PC partitions as slices, and puts a disklabel on each slice, containing what it sees as partitions.
The normal way to install Linux is to have some number of partitions in the PC partition table, and if you want more than 4 partitions, have some of those subdivided into extended partitions.
The normal way to install BSD is to create a slice covering the entire disk and putting a disklabel on that containing the actual partitioning information. The role of the PC partition table is usually only to allow the BIOS to find the first stage of the bootloader or to separate the BSD slice from other operating systems installed.
Old 3com nics seem to be well supported by most OS, and I’m pretty sure solaris does too. In my future dream box, i plan to have at least one of these. My linksys nics are not supported directly by Solaris 8, but there are third party drivers available. I think these driver sources are mentioned in the x86 faq, if not google it. There may be hope for ur card even if it’s not on the HCL.
PPP is a PITA to configure on solaris. The built in one sucks on x86 8 at least. Possibly bring the (gnu?) pppd over and use that. The solaris x86 faq covers this also.
1) Regarding ASPPP which is used by earlier versions of Solaris, the new PPP software is now pppd from ANU (Australian National University). You edit the appropriate files in /etc/ppp; there are instructions and templates in there for you to put your information into.
2) Solaris hardware support sucks not because of any voodoo but because there is an unwillingness by people to port drivers from FreeBSD to Solaris. Solaris would be a great workstation if the hardware support wasn’t so crappy and they made JDS available for Solaris x86.
Jem; Your article borders on plain wrong, and outrageously harsh on a near-perfect server and network operating system. My Solaris has an /etc/resolv.conf and it works fine. The media kits have plenty of documentation. In fact Solaris has been the way it is for so long most UNIX clones are modeled after Solaris 1.x or 2.x, take your pick.
You didnt follow the x86 HCL. And you complain about hardware problems.
How many x86 workstations does Sun sell? ZERO. Sun offers several x86 Servers though. Makes sense they don’t have much workstation head support. Also crappy NICs like a RealTek aren’t top priority on Sun’s core engineering teams plate. Get an iprb for gods sake. How much is an 8255x?
As to compatibility? Get the companion CD, install half of GNU, or get GCC (on companion CD), or go to http://www.sunfreeware.com (for inferior packages) or buy the Sun compiler and compile your own. Real hard. It’s a server. All the tools you need to make it such are on the install and companion CDs. You have a problem using the companion CD or using GCC?
I’ve never seen the X-windows based install fail. Even on skeezy hardware. So this is probably a complete exaggeration or an unstable BIOS from your cheesy board not programming the APIC and other things correctly.
Installation does not take that long. Also, if you aren’t using SCSI, you aren’t reading. That is basically not supported using the IDE for anything other than CD-ROMS and other garbage hardware. After all, its a garbage bus.
As to not installing with Linux infections and ext2, its a server OS, not a toy to be dual booted with Linux.
You’d have to pry Solaris out of my cold dead hands before I’d use Linux in its place. I think your review is horribly unfair to a company and a product that has done so much to define and help Unix survive.
My Solaris x86 box has been running DNS for years on a dual P2-450 / ASUS P2B-DS. Never had a single problem. And the Matrox card works just fine. So, all this ranting about how “bad” Solaris is is your fantasy.
One of my other rigs is an Ultra 80 – So I know just how good Solaris is:
Sun Ultra 80 UPA/PCI (UltraSPARC-II 450MHz), No Keyboard
OpenBoot 3.33, 1024 MB memory installed, Serial #xxxxxxxx.
Ethernet address 8:0:xx:xx:xx:xx, Host ID: xxxxxxxx.
Rebooting with command: boot
Boot device: disk File and args:
SunOS Release 5.9 Version Generic_112233-10 64-bit
Copyright 1983-2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.
configuring IPv4 interfaces: hme0.
The system is coming up. Please wait.
starting rpc services: rpcbind done.
Setting default IPv4 interface for multicast: add net 224.0/4:
syslog service starting.
volume management starting.
The system is ready.
beast console login: root
Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.9 Generic May 2002
/ on /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 read/write/setuid/intr/largefiles/logging/xattr/onerror=panic/dev=8000 00 on Sat # prtconf
System Configuration: Sun Microsystems sun4u
Memory size: 1024 Megabytes
System Peripherals (Software Nodes):
SUNW,Ultra-80
Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.9 Generic May 2002
# cat /etc/release
Solaris 9 12/03 s9s_u5wos_08b SPARC
Copyright 2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.
Assembled 21 November 2003
Where do you people hide?
If you can point me to a good forum/irc channel where I can meet more people like you, I’d be grateful!
alt.sysadmin.recovery
We don’t hide anywhere. In fact, in the Bay Area/Si Valley, certain other large metro areas and certain Universities, UNIX mavens are abundant. I personally have taught what little I know of Unix (pretty much everyone knows “little” compared to guys like Ritchie, Thompson, Kernighan, Joy etc.) to as many people as possible. I find “Unix people” generally very helpful because there is nothing to be defensive about in Unix, its monumental. None of it is very intuitive, but its very powerful.
Find a place to work that uses Solaris exclusively, or better yet, try to get a job with Sun. Look for open “ops” jobs, or work in a trading company. A lot of stock broker companies use a lot of Unix.
Usenet, EFNet/IRC and a few other sprinkled places have “good guys” lying around here and there. Don’t look too hard.
You have a nice piece to circular logic going, bud. If it does not work on Solaris, it’s crap. And if it’s crap, Why should it work on Solaris? Please, give me a break. You must realize how much of your anger come from a blind devotion to Solaris. Even the most rightious zealots of anything I’ve ever seen have been able to admit that their drug of choice is not perfect in every way.
What is the state in Solaris 9 of Sun’s goal for 100% binary compatibility with Linux applications? (I.e., without re-compiling.)
I presume the lxrun utility was included with the install.
John
alt.sysadmin.recovery
I’m now subscribed.
I thank you for your help!