Solaris 10 for SPARC/x86 is now available for download. Get it while it’s hot.Here’s the new license:
Licensee/Company: Entity in receipt of Software from an authorized source
Beginning Date of License Term: the date of receipt of this Entitlement
Software: Solaris 10 3/05
Permitted Use: Commercial Use
License Term: Perpetual (subject to termination under the SLA)
Licensed Unit: Registered Computer System
Licensed unit Count: Unlimited
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Are they functionally the same? And what’s the difference between Solaris 10 vs. Solaris Express vs. OpenSolaris? Does one contain more features than the other? Is one more tested than the other? And does one come with more commercial support, etc? Thanks.
Linux has been outperforming Solaris in every respect for the past 5 years.
Huh, that’s funny, because in the past five years Linux copied the SLAB allocator, 1:1 threading, and the constant time scheduler from Solaris, among other things…
OK, is that why RedHat installed Open Motif so that RHEL can be certified for use with Common Operating Environment applications for the Department of Defense? The use of Common Desktop Environment (which by the way ships with all major Unix vendors (Sun, IBM, HP)) because of requirements specified by DoD (a major customer). Sun has provided an alternative GUI for years, OpenWindows, Gnome, and now Java Desktop System. CDE will still ship with Solaris 10 because customers want it.
The argument that Linux out scales Solaris is also getting old, remember machines like SGI’s Altix are Massively Parallel Processing machines (supercomputers). That means the application has to be compiled specifically for the hardware, these machines are not used for general purpose computing, so you won’t be running Oracle and SAP on a MPP machine. The best recent scalibility article I have seen for Linux is running some distro on a HP SuperDome with 64 CPU’s. That is a far cry of the maximum number of CPU’s for the SuperDome (128 CPU’s). And for a machine that cost over $1,000,000.00 I would expect to use the ability to support hardware partitions, which Linux DOES NOT support. So why would I want to run an OS that does not support hardware features I might find useful (and need).
Sun in many ways is like Apple, both OS’ run on specified hardware for the best performance. The hardware might not be the latest or greatest, but it works. If you want SATA support, use Linux, if you want Enterprise Level Features like Domains, IP Network Multipathing, Zones, Cryptographic Framework, Privileges, and Solaris Flash you use Solaris.
@Basule
Huh, that’s funny, because in the past five years Linux copied the SLAB allocator, 1:1 threading, and the constant time scheduler from Solaris, among other things…
Now, now. Let’s not spread misinformation. Linux has M:N threading at last check, but can also do 1:1, and since they didn’t have SUN’s code, you can’t use the word “copy”.
You could say, Linux like now has some of the same features that other operating systems have had for a while.
Saying otherwise isn’t fair to other Operating Systems.
Now, now. Let’s not spread misinformation.p/i]
Tell that to phredd…
[i]Linux has M:N threading at last check, but can also do 1:1
NGPT was M:N, and abandoned in favor of NPTL, which is 1:1. The only OS still using M:N threading is FreeBSD…
and since they didn’t have SUN’s code, you can’t use the word “copy”.
It’s a bit of hyperbole about Linux adopting technologies which Sun pioneered. In the case of the SLAB allocator though, there is no question… the name itself is taken from the allocator in Solaris.
You could say, Linux like now has some of the same features that other operating systems have had for a while.
Yep, but Linux zealots will continue to insist that Linux was better than Solaris 5 years ago when it didn’t have the technologies necessary to even put it on par with Solaris…
Maybe you should have a bone to pick with phredd more than me?
First off: Solaris 10 != OpenSolaris. As some have suggested to look at Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris like StarOffice and OpenOffice, or perhaps OSX and Darwin.
Solaris 10 is licensed and you need to register your license with Sun, but it’s “Free as in beer”.
Solaris 10 is not the shot across the bow of the Open Source Community, it’s a shot across the bow of the commercial Linux distributors. Linux doesn’t have to worry about Solaris 10, but Red Hat does.
If you don’t want to go through the reg procedures and what not, then you’ll have to wait until OpenSolaris is released, which will have a more liberal license and be easier to get.
The differences between Solaris 10 and Solaris Express are about 4 internal builds. Mostly bug fixes and such.
Multiple CPUs:
Sun says that multi-cpu machines are legal. In the past, they weren’t.
Basically right now the cost of Solaris 10is the price of telling Sun how many machines you’re going to run it on, and whether they’ll be used for Commercial, Devloper, Education or Evaluation.
If you want it “more free”, then you have to wait for OpenSolaris.
I see.. Thanks for the clarification!
Another question. Where is Sun going to be making money with Solaris 10? Are they going to be charging for commercial support subscriptions like Red Hat? And if so, how do those subscribed users differentiate from the users who are licensed through the web signup and downloaded Solaris 10?
“The only OS still using M:N threading is FreeBSD.”
and NetBSD
There are 4 different “user levels”. The free users of Solaris 10 only get security patches. Then there’s a 100 US$ subscriton where you get additional updates an can make requests. The top two levels are more expensive and get support incidents and training.
So JDS is packaged with Solaris 10 now? X86 and/or Sparc versions? <rubs hands in anticipation>
Yes. JDS3 ist part of Solaris 10 on both x86 and sparc.
Nope, no problems. I had a problem with Ubuntu though on the first restart.
My motherboard is an Asus K8V Deluxe SE with an AMD 64 3200+ processor. I know that Ubuntu has some problems with that combo (read the Ubuntu forums on that), but FC3 worked fine.
I am not an expert, but try verifying the CD’s/DVD before going through the installation. I know Fedora gives you that option on install, and that might be the problem.
Rebo wrote
Another question. Where is Sun going to be making money with Solaris 10? Are they going to be charging for commercial support subscriptions like Red Hat? And if so, how do those subscribed users differentiate from the users who are licensed through the web signup and downloaded Solaris 10?
Sun is going to make money from support contracts and
selling hardware, just like it always has done.
Sun has always charged for commercial support subscriptions,
as has IBM, HP, MS,…. RedHat is doing the same thing.
Those users/entities with support contracts have identifiers
which they can give to Sun over the phone or via web forms.
If you don’t have a contract, you don’t have a relevant
identifier.
But anyway, why do you care? If you’re going to fork over
money for a support contract, great! If not, just use the
forum on bigadmin or groups.google.com….
If you come across a bug but you don’t have a support
contract, please do not assume that the problem won’t get
fixed. There are plenty of Sun employees who track forums
and newsgroups etc and will assist you.
Cosmo wrote
Probably, I guess for them it’s a convenient way to enforce flamewars.
What on earth do you mean by that? Sun employees participate
in fora like this one for many reasons. If posting from a
work address then it’s almost certainly to provide some
semblance of a Sun perspective to a topic. (Yes, like me).
You need to remember though, that we aren’t providing what
might be called “official comment” — that’s for the PR,
marketing and executive folks to do, just as you would
expect.
Sun employees participate
in fora like this one for many reasons. If posting from a
work address then it’s almost certainly to provide some
semblance of a Sun perspective to a topic.
I think its cool that you guys are here posting! But be careful with this crowd. You are judged by the domain you use to post here. At one point when i was working a DoD contract in Kuwait i was posting from a US Army domain …kuwait.army.mil and somehow i was responsible for invading Iraq. The other time i was working for IBM and now sometimes labeled a evil IBMer.
Jesus Christ man, it was just an honest question. Maybe you are getting yourself too deep into the Sun/Linux debates. And with all the flames going, you can probably no longer differentiate what is ill-intentioned vs. one that is simply curious. If I knew it would annoy you that I simply want to know how a company whose software I plan on using wants to stay afloat, I probably wouldn’t have asked. And just in case you are wondering, I have nothing against a company charging for support contracts.
I *KNOW* RedHat charges for support contracts – and that is how they plan on staying afloat. Hell, when they moved to that position – I commended them for it. As I will do for Sun. Companies need to make money to stay afloat, and that’s why I asked. I don’t want to use software from a company who is freely giving software away and has no plan on making money. In my opinion, money speaks louder than words.
Obviously, Sun isn’t that stupid – I was just curious if they were doing it any different from RedHat. Now, I don’t know what part of my question pissed you off to snap “Why do you care?” But I personally do not see anything wrong with my post. To answer your question, I care because I want to know how your company stays afloat. It’s the same reason I don’t use some various Linux distributions, they can die any time. If a company is making money, you know they’ll be around.
And since it’s tax season, let me use it as an example:
If there was a tax preparation software firm that was giving it’s prepartion software for free, and you were considering to use it for your tax clients, wouldn’t you want to know where it’s income is coming from? Or would you just blindly trust that they will stay afloat? When it comes to choosing critical software like that, I want to know – before I spend time learning to use their software – that they will exist in the following years and my investment time spent using it won’t go down the drain because they didn’t know how to maintain their company.
I couldn’t care less if they’re software is free as in freedom. Money speaks louder than words and I want a company who understands that. If it’s not clear by now, I asked because I *WANT* Sun to charge for support contracts or have some way to make money. Because if they are making money, they are staying around, and the software I use will be more reliable because of it. And if it’s also not clear by now, while I am a supporter of open software, I am even a bigger supporter of commercial companies using open source software – ala Red Hat, SuSe, and now.. Sun.
Having said all that, your post answered my question. But I think it could have been done without the attitude. Like I said, you seem you entrenched yourself too deep into all the flamewars and have become quite a bit defensive. With all the GPL fanboys throwing flames your way, I guess I can’t blame you. Just remember, not everybody hates Sun.
Sun should abandon the registration charade and allow people to mirror the isos. I don’t see why they need all the info they collect. Are they going to sell our emails to spammers ? I doubt it. Are they going to contact us and try to sell us some hardware ? I’m not sure about that. Do they need to prove that Solaris 10 is in high demand ? Nope. Do they fear somebody will start selling Solaris CDs somewhere in Paraguay or Uzbekistan ? Sounds ridiculus to me. Users can provide false info about the number of computers they possess. So, why bother about that too ?
The lack of mirrors is already being felt. Last night, I downloaded 9 isos with little fuss. Now, I can’t get the last 3 because Sun servers are in a swamp. They’re suffering from a self-inflicted DDOS. Sun employees are considered to be smart. Why aren’t they able to dig themselves out of this one ?
From P2P networks to legit ftp sites, there are countless people who would be glad to host Solaris for free. It’s up to Sun to make the first step. I guess I’m only venting my frustration 😉
Ah, I see. I found the business model overview page on their site. Thanks. Here’s the link for anyone else who wanted to see them: http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/ssbmodel.html
NGPT was M:N, and abandoned in favor of NPTL, which is 1:1. The only OS still using M:N threading is FreeBSD…
LinuxThreads, which has been around forever, was a 1 to 1 threading implementation (more or less, there were a few control threads as well but they were an implementation detail). NGPT and NPTL were both replacements for LinuxThreads because LinuxThreads were not POSIX compliant (the biggest issue was that signals were sent to a thread, not to the process). The development of NPTL also increased process scalability of Linux. And NGPT wasn’t abandoned; it was never actually part of the kernel. When it came time to use NGTP or NPTL, NPTL was decided to be the better choice. There were also several user space libraries with which you could build an M:N threading implementation, but you could use those same libraries on Solaris. There has never been an M:N kernel space threading implementation in Linux that I’ve heard of.
As for the rest of your post, I agree with the parent, Linux didn’t copy any of those things. Linux is only 13 years old, is still evolving. It has used ideas from many different OSes in it’s implementation. Taking an idea and using it, however, is a long cry from copying it. Or are you contending that every single idea used in Solaris was created by Sun employees?
Ah, I see. I found the business model overview page on their site. Thanks. Here’s the link for anyone else who wanted to see them: