The 90 day evaluation JDS for Solaris 9 x86 can be downloaded (registration required).
Sun JDS for Solaris 9 x86
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Eugenia Loli
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How does this differ from normal Solaris 9?
Is it just me, or do others feel, too, that this is Sun’s first step towards a Solaris-based client, in fact, a departure from using Linux for JDS? I -always- thought Sun could do this, they don’t need Linux for the desktop.
This is all just speculation, and in any case, the Linux-based JDS wil certainly be around for a looong time still, but it looks to me, Sun will beef up Solaris 10 for desktop performance. One version for the servers and the other for the desktop.
Hello,
I’m watching pretty closely what happens at Sun and I think I can see the direction where Sun is going in the middle term future.
Sun started with the workstations with Motorola 68k processor, then they switched to SPARC. Later on, with the internet boom they discovered the need for UNIX based servers, so their OS and their processor perfectly satisfied the demand. Now they see that x86 processors like Opteron are enough for workstations and small servers. That’s why they will switch in the long term from SPARC to Opteron in their entry server and workstation market. Their announcement about open-sourcing Solaris fits perfectly to this strategy. It does not make sense to open-source an OS, which only the owners of expensive SPARC-based hardware can use, but the base of Opteron users is increasing daily, so they might be interested to have another BSD flavour, which is supported by a well-known company (same story as Apple with their Darwin). Todays announcement also fits in this scheme. Sun has recognized that on workstation Solaris is hopelessly behind Linux in terms of usability and that they are loosing their workstation market. But with JDS on Solaris and the ability of running Linux programs on Solaris x86 and open sourced Solaris, they have a chance to win back worksation users.
But how is the situation on server market? x86 processors are not right suitable for servers with more then 8 processors, Linux isn’t ready for this iron as well (please do not mention Altrix, because this is a special case). The open-sourcing of Solaris will not change much in this market, because the supporting this kind of hardware is not possible for the community, (port to zSeries was also not possible without great help from IBM), so they don’t lose anything. So SPARC and POWER processors will concurate on this market (don’t think Itanium will play an important role in the next future here). If you look at the processor raodmap of SPARC, there are no workstation processors (why does a workstation processor need 32 parallel entities as it is the case in Niagara processor?)
So I’m very interested, how Sun will proceed. I believe that this scenario is simple, viable and has a great potential. I hope the SUN is rising again.
Anton
So, it seems that Sun is preparing to burn Linux. I bet someone at MS suggested this.
Well, your vision is very short. I saw this coming since Sun first introduced JDS. But this has absolutely nothing to do with MS.
– Sun has a powerful and adaptable OS; why not use it? They certainly have more expertise to support Solarsi-based desktops, better than anyone else, for sure. That means, they can offer better support for less money, to support a Solaris-based JDS.
– MS is equally dismayed at a Solaris-based desktop as it would be at a Linux-based one. It hurts the same, since neither is Windows.
As someone who uses solaris x86, anything is better than what they have for a current UI. CDE, barf and the gnome they include is so oudated as to not be funny. Just makes sense for them to use jds on solaris x86.
Divide and conquer.
Seriously.
As someone who uses solaris x86, anything is better than what they have for a current UI. CDE, barf and the gnome they include is so oudated as to not be funny.
Agreed. The version of GNOME currentl included is so crappy, I head back to CDE everytime I try it for more than 5minutes. Everything seems VERY slow when running GNOME on Solaris, however, CDE is very responsive; it doesn’t make any sense, oh well.
Solaris 10 is really moving forward, IIRC, it now finally includes AGP support up to 8x instead of treating the AGP slot as a mutated PCI slot (which reduces performance), so as a result, XServer performance should increase. I don’t see huge amounts of drivers being made available, however, what you will see is those workstations and servers from SUN and other vendors deemed “Solaris compatible” will be better supported than Linux (don’t argue with that! its a fact, try finding a fully feature complete driver for a piece of hardware, you’d be VERY lucky if you found one).
please understand that. JDS is just the *desktop environment* and was always so since the beginning. it just happened to be implemented on the linux platform first.
in any case, i wouldn’t recommened using solaris 9 at this point when you can download solaris 10 which should already come with jds.
in any case, i wouldn’t recommened using solaris 9 at this point when you can download solaris 10 which should already come with jds.
It would be nice if they had a low cost subscription plan for Solaris, I understand there is one, but it isn’t well advertised. Anyone know if such a programme exists? if so, whats the price? not necessarily with technical support, just one that sends out the latest version on CD onces available.
Sun has an odd love-hate relationship with Linux, and it’s no secret they hate that they needed to use Linux for their JDS. The problem for them was that Solaris wasn’t nearly at a point where it could be a viable x86 desktop. That’s changing however, and they’d love never to deal with Linux. That’s why they called it the JDS, and not LDS.
“I think he did a little too much L-D-S”
No point in using Solaris x86 in many situations though, especially when you need 3d hardware support. Linux, Mac, Win32 platforms are the only major viable options for workstation class 3d right now.
I -always- thought Sun could do this, they don’t need Linux for the desktop.
Since Sun uses Gnome, which is the basis of JDS, and most Gnome developers use Linux, they do need Linux. To make JDS run well with Solaris they will have to do a lot of in-house development and testing away from the community. In terms of things like Network Computers and Java Stations, they were so bad at this it wasn’t believable.
Really I don’t see what would they need Linux for. Porting between Linux and Solaris is simple. Linux applications run great on Solaris, natively. But of course, they will need a few dev workstations running Linux, too.
In terms of things like Network Computers and Java Stations, they were so bad at this it wasn’t believable.
I don’t understand what you mean.
However, the SunRays are wonderful. A fantastic product, really useful and convenient.
Wow why bother to read the FAQ with Prediction skills like that!
<blockquote>32. Q. Which Operating Systems does Java Desktop System work with?
A. The Java Desktop System is a complete, integrated desktop system that includes everything from the OS to applications. The integrated Linux OS is based on SuSE SLED and is the only Linux distribution which is supported at this time. Future versions will extend platform support to the Solaris SPARC and x86 platforms.</blockquote>
If you want Linux, run JDS on Linux. If you want Solaris, run JDS on Solaris. I happen to run it on Linux for now (and I’ll probably switch back-and-forth between the two for my own education).
Why does there have to be only one? Read the blog I just posted today. I am running Java Studio Enterprise 7 and NetBeans *on JDS/Linux*!
From a percentage of employees aspect, I bet that Sun run’s more open source code on the desktop than IBM, HP and Dell (probably combined). That includes both Linux and Solaris (as we run both). Most of us run Gnome today on our Sun Ray desktops (altough the code runs on the server).