This article illuminates many reasons why Sun faces an uphill battle in keeping enterprise customers interested in it’s operating system, describing a large enterprise customer choosing Linux over Solaris and IBM over Sun.
Bank throws out Solaris for Linux
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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LOL. They are expecting better ROI from mainframe that from Sun gear running Solaris? What are they on crack? I bet IBM GS were doing the ROI calculations for these poor schlobs. I bet Solaris 10 running on a couple of 6900’s could have given them an order of the magnitune lower ROI than this proposed setup with mainframes, you can’t argue with that — you can stuff probably thousands of virtual servers (zones) into a 6900 without much hussle. Zones is a much more efficient virtualization technology than LPARS, so you can squeez out more out of the same hardware. Plus Sun hardware is much cheaper than anything IBM is putting out — you can save a ton of money by going with Sun than IBM, I have first hand experience with that. The only thing that this article prooves is that the biggest obstacle in Sun’s way is people’s ignorance and lies being shoved down the customer’s throats by IBM. Best of luck to First National Bank of Omaha because IBM has their wallet now.
From the article “said he had been weighed down with the costs of managing nearly 600 servers, including 30 Sun Solaris boxes, running multiple operating systems.” My guess is the other OS is Windows.
I wonder how much of their “ROI” is going to be chewed up by the zOS administrators they had to hire to actually run the mainframe! Linux only runs in an LPAR (Logical Partition) on a zSeries mainframe. And of course the article fails to mention the “up front” costs such as purchasing all of the software they previously had for Windows and Solaris, and recompiling in-house applications. They probably replaced their engineers with developers, yeah that’s going to save them money.
This is just more FUD.
I’m a really big Linux advocate. But my feeling is that Solaris is a more sophisticated system and better established and supported. I agree that their cost savings would be limited in the long run. If you have a well-established Solaris shop, I think that it would be intelligent to stay that way and work with the wonderful technology that Solaris provides.
So, the other comment is valid as well. What are all of the other installations? Seems like the article is misleading.
I think the key quote is “Linux gives me the option to scale up, down or across platforms — mainframe, midrange, PC desktop. And, it’s more cost-effective,”.
Linux has passed the tipping point where it’s advantages as a open standard with many trustworthy suppliers are more important than Solaris’ current technical advantages. Large enterprises know SPARC Solaris is too expensive and counting on x86 Solaris is a risk. The only question remaining in customer minds is Windows or Linux.
The pseudo-open CDDL Solaris is too late and a bad strategy for Sun. Sun will keep shriveling until they’re forced to Linux – but by then the McNealey/Schwartz anti-Linux anti-GPL propaganda will have made that impossible. If Sun had embraced Linux like IBM a few years ago, they would have had more credibility than IBM in the open world. But now it’s too late.
> MVS & Z/OS are here to stay
Give me a break, mainframes can no longer justify their enormous price as midrange and highend Unix boxes can do pretty much everything mainframes can do, only at a fraction of the price. Sun Fire midrange gear has got all redundancy and high availability features of IBM mainframes only at quarter of the price. With mainframes If you factor in all the ultra-expensive and required maintenance and support and than add some phenomenally expensive storage than can work with mainframes you’re going to end up with configuration that is a several times more expensive that similarly capable Sun setup. The only reason people hold on to the mainframes is because they are so locked up by IBM they can’t move — the ultra proprietary technology you get with mainframes doesn’t leave you with a whole lot of options, which works pretty well for IBM. Remember that it is IBM who invented the words “proprietary” and “vendor lockin”. IBM in inventing these weird concoctions like “Linux on mainframe” as last attempts to keep mainframes alive. Mainframes are on the way out.
> Compare IBM’s largest enterprise customers to Sun’s largest enterprise customers.
Err. Sun is present in all Fortune 500 companies and so is IBM, so your point is…
You people should lighten up. Remember you’re basing your opinions on a half-page article from computerworld – how many months of analysis went on in the company before making this move. I mean this isn’t ‘mymomsbasement.com’ we’re talking about.
Sticker prices on IBMs can be much higher than Sun’s but IBM is also known to give out substantial discounts when trying to win over new customers.
The article also mentions they’re consolidating 600+ servers, only 30 of which are Suns. God only knows what legacy crap was among those (NT4,OS/2?) And I also disagree that LPARs are less efficient than zones, besides how many companies do you know that have Solaris 10 already out in a production environment ?
It seems these new Linux servers will be doing mostly webserving wich lets face it can do just as well as any Solaris box and those zSeries should be rock solid.
disclaimer: my workplace contains both Pseries, Sun and Zseries machines, no Linux though (unless you count embedded)
> Large enterprises know SPARC Solaris is too expensive
You smoked too much of that IBM crack, didn’t you? Sun’s UltraSparc gear in 4+ CPU space costs cheaper than even similar x86 gear and much cheaper than IBM Power gear. Sun is the lowest cost vendor out of all tier 1 vendors in the Unix enterprise server space and that goes for everything from the hardware to OS to storage and middleware.
> and counting on x86 Solaris is a risk.
What the hell are you bleating about? Why is it a risk? Sun has put Solaris x86 at the very core of its business and explicitly committed to delivering the x86 version of Solaris on par with the Sparc version. Don’t read in too deep into IBM supplied FUD.
> If Sun had embraced Linux like IBM a few years ago, they would have had more credibility than IBM in the open world.
LOL. IBM mastered the art of herding gullible and opensource crazy sheeps like you. IBM don’t give a flying f*ck about open source, they just use the Linux flag waving as a way to dupe people like you into buying their ultra-proprietary gear and software. If you had at least half a brain you could have seen through the real IBM strategy — use Linux as a bait and sell the mainframe, AIX on pSeries and WebSphere with a ton of chargable effort in “integration”. Open Source and Linux are more of an effective PR comaign for IBM. I talk to IBM sales people regularly (they always try to sell their stuff to our shop), so I know their strategies through and through. It is Sun who is the real friend of open source, it is Sun go is giving the real gems to open source movement, not the dead roadkill that IBM is giving out just to attract media attention.
Sun’s UltraSparc gear in 4+ CPU space costs cheaper than even similar x86 gear and much cheaper than IBM Power gear
You also get less bang for you buck. This is especially true when compared with the latest generation Power5’s.
> and counting on x86 Solaris is a risk.
While it has been around for a while Solaris x86 definately hasn’t been battle tested like it’s Sparc counterpart. Therefor it should be approached with caution.
> And I also disagree that LPARs are less efficient than zones
Zones are much, much more efficient than LPARS. LPARS are too coarse grained (1 or 2 LPAR per CPU) to be even compared with Zone, so uPARS (micropartitioning) is probably a more equal contender to zones. Zones has it in spades all overy uPARS as well.
First, there is no processor overhead on the hypervisor that can be very high if you use micropartitioning. IBM uPAR virtualization consumes considerable amount of system overhead controlling its virtualized hardware. The Advanced POWER Virtualization on IBM Eserver p5 Servers Architecture and Performance Considerations Redbook, http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/pdfs/sg245768.pdf, page 116:
4-way SMP (4 cores) 1.00 relative performance
4 partitions dedicated (1 core each) ~1.05 relative performance
4 uPARs (2 cores each) ~.96 relative performance
2 uPARs (4 cores each) ~.90 relative performance
4 uPARs (4 cores each) ~.75 relative performance
This IBM chart shows the effect of not only systems overhead for MicroPartitions, but breaks it down into smaller, very significant parts; the effect of the number of virtualized cores in a uPAR. On page 115, of the same IBM reference, it states the reasons for this enormous overhead involved. It is summarized as follows:
* The inability to guarantee the availability of sets of physical CPU cores into the virtualized uPAR space, dispatched at 10 millisecond intervals
* Cache thrashing when multiple virtual threads compete for cache lines
* SMP lock contention on dispatching boundary
* Simultaneous Multi Threading (SMT) only makes this worse, which partially explains why POWER5’s SMT is sometimes turned off in some benchmarks
IBM’s own reference strongly suggests POWER5 systems with more than several uPARs, each with several cores, may require so much overhead that it may drag system performance well below 50% of full SMP mode. Extrapolating IBM’s data from IBM’s chart from 4 to 8 cores in 4 uPARs, results in a relative performance of 35%.
Second, with LPARS and uPARs you run independent instances of OS which means you incur all the overhead of a running an independent OS innstance (CPU, memory, etc.). Zones on the other hand don’t do that, so comparitively speaking you will always be able to get more out of the same hardware with zones.
Third, all separate zones in Solaris setup actually form a more or less cohesive whole making it easy to manage therefore reducing maintenance and saving you $$$. Managing LPARS or uPARs on the other hand is more like managing absolutely separate machines, so you still incur the same administrative overhead as if you had a bunch of small servers.
Solaris Zones win hands down.
> While it has been around for a while Solaris x86 definately hasn’t been battle tested like it’s Sparc counterpart. Therefor it should be approached with caution.
So, if you follow your own logic, Linux on Power hasn’t been battle tested either, therefore it should be considered a risk and approached with caution?
“Large enterprises know SPARC Solaris is too expensive and counting on x86 Solaris is a risk.”
Solaris x86 is here to stay. And, Solaris–x86 and SPARC–are now free for the taking. All they will charge for are the hardware and the support costs. This year, Sun has priced themselves on par with any Linux vendor out there (free for no support, pay for support).
“The pseudo-open CDDL Solaris is too late and a bad strategy for Sun. Sun will keep shriveling until they’re forced to Linux – but by then the McNealey/Schwartz anti-Linux anti-GPL propaganda will have made that impossible.”
The CDDL is an Open Source license, you cannot deny this. Sun cannot be forced to Linux, as they already sell it! Sun is not anti-Linux or anti-GPL. Nothing that Bruce Perens says will make that true. OpenOffice.org is available as GPL. Sun’s contributions to GNOME are GPL. In fact, Sun uses lots of licenses ranging from Apache to GPL to CDDL to Sun’s own home grown ones, etc.
> It seems these new Linux servers will be doing mostly webserving wich lets face it can do just as well as any Solaris box and those zSeries should be rock solid.
Using mainframe as a web server platform, that has to be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Speaking of ROI, I bet they could have saved some serious bucks if they used anything but the mainframe.
While it has been around for a while Solaris x86 definately hasn’t been battle tested like it’s Sparc counterpart.
Just how different do you know that Solaris/x86 is
from Solaris/sparc?
Apart from the cpu-specific code, the codebase is the same
for sparc, i386 and amd64. The cpu-specific code accounts
for less than 4% of the codebase.
Solaris is Solaris, it doesn’t matter which cpu you run it
on. You’d probably be surprised to find out that there has
been Solaris running on i386 family chips since Solaris 2.1
which takes us back to, oh, 1992 or something.
Solaris has been battle tested for more than a decade now.
Get your facts straight and don’t post FUD.
The key phrase would actually be
But when he began hunting for a way to consolidate his infrastructure in 2003, Sun had nothing to offer in the way of blade servers or Linux.
I find it interesting that the author did not ask the question:
If you were starting the evaluation process now, might you be deciding differently?
Tp.
Sure brought out the SUN lovers!
> and counting on x86 Solaris is a risk.
What the hell are you bleating about? Why is it a risk?
It is a risk because Sun once before introduced Solaris x86 and then discontinued it to force people to buy overpriced SPARC gear. Given Sun’s precarious position in the stock market, they are very likely to try the same trick again. Everybody’s smarter than they were in 1999, so it won’t work.
> It is a risk because Sun once before introduced Solaris x86 and then discontinued it to force people to buy overpriced SPARC gear. Given Sun’s precarious position in the stock market, they are very likely to try the same trick again. Everybody’s smarter than they were in 1999, so it won’t work.
Err, 2001 called, they want their FUD back. Solaris x86 is now at the very core of the company strategy, they’re actually betting the house on it, there is absolutely no way Sun will pull Solaris support for x86. And If you’ve been reading the news lately, the company’s stock market situation is now much improved as many financial analysts alreay rate Sun’s stock as BUY. The worst days are already behind Sun and the road ahead should be quite bright if you look what Sun has to offer in the near future.
Err, 2001 called, they want their FUD back. Solaris x86 is now at the very core of the company strategy, they’re actually betting the house on it, there is absolutely no way Sun will pull Solaris support for x86
Err, a historical fact IS NOT FUD. Sun has _already_ proven that they can and will do this to their x86 customers. Do doubts. Sun’s not betting a thing (much less the house), just counting on finding some suckers dim enough to fall for a trick twice.
This is a large bank. These people know how to count their dollars and cents. They found that IBM Mainframes and blade servers running Linux are cheaper than Sun. You Sun zealots can argue all you want, but looks to me like Sun is definitely the loser here.
(Hopefully this will also end all the Sun zealot “companies aren’t switching to Linux” argument).
> Err, a historical fact IS NOT FUD. Sun has _already_ proven that they can and will do this to their x86 customers. Do doubts. Sun’s not betting a thing (much less the house), just counting on finding some suckers dim enough to fall for a trick twice.
Yeah, and the fact Sun ships more Opteron powered servers than any other vendor out their and the fact Sun is the #1 preferred Opteron partner for AMD doesn’t tell you anything? Sun is not pulling any sucker punches on x86 crowd, Sun is actually becoming successful in x86 space and Sun really needs Solaris x86 to be more successful. Do you really think that Sun will just turn away from potentially massive revenue opportunities out there? Come on dude, you’re stretching really thin to make even a half logic argument here.
> This is a large bank. These people know how to count their dollars and cents. They found that IBM Mainframes and blade servers running Linux are cheaper than Sun.
Give me a freaking break, probably what really happened is the CIO of the bank got so brainwashed with FUD by pinstriped suites, so he was happy to sign the contract. There absolutely no freaking way you can save money on running mainframes compared with UltraSparc and Solaris. Message to the CIO of the First National Bank of Omaha — you really screwed yourself by basically handing out your wallet to IBM, prepare yourself for being constrantly screwed by IBM GS in the forseeable future.
And we are to believe “Anonymous” who mostly spends his/her time posting about how wonderful Sun is instead of a bank? I’m gonna have to go with the bank.
If it makes you feel better, listening to you rant about how bad IBM is and how wonderful Sun is makes for great laughs.
> Yeah, and the fact Sun ships more Opteron powered servers than any other vendor out their and the fact Sun is the #1 preferred Opteron partner for AMD doesn’t tell you anything? Sun is not pulling any sucker punches on x86 crowd, Sun is actually becoming successful in x86 space and Sun really needs Solaris x86 to be more successful. Do you really think that Sun will just turn away from potentially massive revenue opportunities out there? Come on dude, you’re stretching really thin to make even a half logic argument here.
What other mainstream vendor even sells Opteron servers? It’s not tough to be #1 when you’re the only one in the race. Fact is, Sun pulled Solaris x86 and given how totally schizo they tend to be (how many times have they said they’re going to Open Source Java now?) I would not be the least bit surprised if they pulled the carpet out from under people again. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you.” Sun has a serious credibility problem outside of Sun zealot land.
It is Sun who is the real friend of open source
Ah so it’s *friendship* that explains Sun funding of SCO’s fraudulent legal attacks on Linux. It must also explain obvious Sun FUD nonsense like Schwartz saying the Red Hat Linux kernel was proprietary. Please.
> listening to you rant about how bad IBM is and how wonderful Sun is makes for great laughs
Look, I have been working for a financial institution, a place swarming with IBM Global Services contractors and I’ve delt with IBM first hand, so I know a thing or two about IBM tech and how IBM does things. All I’m trying to do is to give credit where it is due, that’s all. If you’ve got a logical counterargument to what I’ve said, let’s hear it, but don’t try to attack a person behind the argument.
> Ah so it’s *friendship* that explains Sun funding of SCO’s fraudulent legal attacks on Linux.
Oh please, where did you pull that argument from, your ass? The only thing Sun paid to SCO is the money for IP needed to open source Solaris, may be you should read news once in a while instead of gossip and drivel posted on slashdot. Sun has absolutely nothing to do with SCO’s lawsuit. And still fact remains, Sun is the absolute biggest contributor to open source out there, like it or not.
> It must also explain obvious Sun FUD nonsense like Schwartz saying the Red Hat Linux kernel was proprietary.
First of all it did not have anything to do with kernel per se, it was about Red Hat as a distribution and Red Hat’s ability to bend the rules because they are by far the most dominant player in the Linux market. I actually think Schwartz’s argument has quite a bit of merit to it, may be he should have worked a little bit more on it delivering that argument more appropriately. But yes, open source distribution controlled by one company does not necessarily mean open standard. You can experience as much of a vendor lockin with RedHat as with AIX or Windows for instance, the fact that it’s Linux doesn’t buy you much — you can’t easily change distributions without incurring major costs.
> how many times have they said they’re going to Open Source Java now?
Sun never said they will open source Java, this qestion was on the table a couple of times, but Sun never made any promisses to open source it. BTW, while we’re still on the topic and you seem to be a big IBM supporter, why don’t IBM open source their own version of JVM? Practially all IBM technology based on Java is still closed and proprietary, why IBM is not making any moves to open source their Java tech? I’ll tell you why, IBM is just bunch of hypocritical bastards quick to point a finger at Sun and paint Sun as a scapegoat, while IBM chooses to sit on their hands instead.
Well I wouldn’t consider a bank’s IT decision as something that should rock the world. I would assume most CIO’s at banks are far removed from the technology they choose. As long as the numbers look good is usually the main consideration. And when you have IBM global services calculating the ROI of course the IBM solution looks great. Funny though, I wonder where IBM gets the money to pay those guys. BTW from my experience most senior execs will out more weight on a nicely dressed IBM guy than their most trusted techs and managers.
BTW I run Solaris on x86, Sparc, (I run Redhat on Dell and Solaris on Dell and every conceivable combination). The Sun hardware is cheaper when comparing apples to apples.
“Ah so it’s *friendship* that explains Sun funding of SCO’s fraudulent legal attacks on Linux. It must also explain obvious Sun FUD nonsense like Schwartz saying the Red Hat Linux kernel was proprietary. Please.”
You must also believe in alien abductions and that Ronald Reagan was a cyborg. Sun had to deal with SCO over legal issues with Solaris and for device drivers. Everything I’ve read about this deal says that. The reason Schwartz calls Red Hat proprietary is that it is effectively so, even though it is open source. Can you take an application compiled for RHEL and just drop it onto another distro and have it run unchanged and with minimal cost? Would vendors like Oracle or BEA approve of this when you call for support? The fact is that changing platforms costs time and money, even if it is Red Hat.
Your hatred for Sun is obvious and very likely personal. While Sun has been pretty stupid on a few occasions, I just don’t see them being so malicious as to warrant such animosity. Most people don’t dislike Sun itself but their occasional bone-headedness. Solaris 10 on Opteron clearly shows they’re learning.
Ehh. Try CentOS (spelling) or Whiteboxlinux or any Caos. They are rebuilds of the OS Redhat calls RHEL, and surprise, they provide the srpms on their ftp site, which they do not have to do. Of course, if you could afford to license Oracle for your enterprise needs, the cost of Linux is not your biggest worry. You are more worried that teh damn thing may not run on your distro, not because of some conspiracy, but because you want to make sure your have the right set of required packages, patched to the right levels, and that bugs have been ironed out. Your are probably going to feel a lot better knowing that Oracle is running their database on the very same distro you are using 24/7 to make sure it works there, than on some random Gentoo distro, and that Oracle is probably working with Redhat engineers to make sure the two play nice together. I think Redhat should enjoy the fruits of their labour here (profit). In short, Sun is spouting FUD and it is not hatred of Sun to point out that they are obviously misleading when they claim that RHEL is proprietary.
“[…] OpenOffice.org is available as GPL. Sun’s contributions to GNOME are GPL. […]”
LGPL. And OO.o is dual-licensed.
The only thing Sun paid to SCO is the money for IP needed to open source Solaris, may be you should read news once in a while instead of gossip and drivel posted on slashdot.
LOL. I read SEC documents, like the SCO filing where in regards to the Sun license they say they ‘granted a warrant to the licensee to purchase up to 210,000 shares of our common stock, for a period of five years, at a price of $1.83 per share.’
Doesn’t sound like a simple driver license deal to me- sounds like a way to share the profits from Linux FUD in exchange for Sun’s up-front money. If Sun sold SCOX at the top of the scam ($22/share), they made millions.
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1024633.html
Why don’t we all just get along?
Is the site osnewsed or what?
In the recent past (say a year ago) Solaris x86 was pretty much second fiddle at Sun but in the last year they’ve really ramped it up; their support is getting better and better and Solaris 10 is really, really great. Its a free download if you want to try it. The installer is much friendlier and the hardware support better. JDS 3 is pretty awesome.
Let us all guess here. The anonymous pro Sun/Solaris poster here loves Sun and Solaris, and absolutely everything else sucks in comparision? Right?
To get his/her feelings correct, here’s a sumation:
IBM servers suck
Linux sucks
IBM services suck
IBM is the enemy of Open Source
Solaris is the greatest piece of software to ever grace the human race, and everything else pails in comparison, and anyone under any circumstances would a complete fool not to use it.
Sun is the greatest IT company in the history of humankind, and is wonderful and virtuous, and the greatest friend of Open Source.
The bank in the article did not do their homework, and foolishly chose IBM servers/mainframe with Linux over Solaris and Sun servers.
Does that sound about right? 🙂
LOL
Anonymous, you are such an obvious Solaris fanboy, and perhaps even an astroturfer. But whatever. I have a serious question:
Do you care to back up your claims of Solaris/Zones/Sun Server superiority with actual empirical data, based on benchmark tests from unbiased third parties, or at least anecdotal evidence from real world implementations?
Solaris might indeed be the better choice in many circumstances (I have nothing against it and recognize it as very good technology), but Linux might be a better all around TCO/choice in many other circumstances. It’s easy to people to mouth off here saying this is better than that, but the proof is always in the pudding.
Just how different do you know that Solaris/x86 is
from Solaris/sparc?
Well obviously I can’t look at the code. But I work with a lot of Solaris admins and I hear these guys complaining that Solaris x86 doesn’t do all that great from them. I trust that over code comparisons any day.
The cpu-specific code accounts for less than 4% of the codebase
I’m assuming you’re talking about the Solaris source proper. However how’s the driver code ? In my experience this is the greatest factor in system instability due to software.
Solaris has been battle tested for more than a decade now. Get your facts straight and don’t post FUD.
I was talking about Solaris x86. I know Solaris (Sparc) can handle mission critical applications as I have have seen this in action. However I can’t say the same for Solaris x86. As you mentioned the code for the OS is pretty much the same , but we’re looking at the entire platform here : hardware, OS, drivercode and applications.
Oh and I may be only a lowly sysadmin but stating the facts as I understand them doesn’t make them FUD.
Using mainframe as a web server platform, that has to be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Speaking of ROI, I bet they could have saved some serious bucks if they used anything but the mainframe.
No, that’s not how it works. They’ve got a bunch of consolidated servers and they are running a mainframe and other services off them. The mainframe itself is just a service. They’ve saved themselves money by consolidating the mainframe, because try as anyone might, companies still can’t get rid of mainframes these days because they are so widely used and have been used so critically for so long.
Zones are much, much more efficient than LPARS.
Ok, I agree LPAR and especially uPAR have greater overhead than zones (no need to beat me over the head with statistics) Also I don’t remember mentioning uPAR – why don’t you throw in the virtual IO server too, it will make the figures even more convincing.
Second, with LPARS and uPARs you run independent instances of OS which means you incur all the overhead of a running an independent OS innstance (CPU, memory, etc.). Zones on the other hand don’t do that, so comparitively speaking you will always be able to get more out of the same hardware with zones.
You get al the benefits of a seperate OS instance too though. What happens if the OS containing al your zones goes down, needs to be patched, whatever. There’s a lot to be said for the greater level of seperation that comes with LPARs.
Third, all separate zones in Solaris setup actually form a more or less cohesive whole making it easy to manage therefore reducing maintenance and saving you $$$.
Strange, I feel like I’ve heard that line before … from just about every vendor ever … every time they release a new product. Seriously though, when you’ve done an indepth study detailing your experience post it to the site and I’ll give it my full consideration.
Finally both zones AND uPAR are new technologies and I’ll be damned if I’ll be the first that gets burned by them. Maybe in 1-2 years.
Ok, I have seen enough bashing about Sun here. Lets point out a few facts about Sun and its contributions to the Open Source Community.
1) Star Office —> OpenOffice
2) NFS & NIS —> Release specs to the World
3) Gnome development support
4) Mozila development support
This is just to name a few things that Sun has done for the community.
Yeah, and the fact Sun ships more Opteron powered servers than any other vendor out their and the fact Sun is the #1 preferred Opteron partner for AMD doesn’t tell you anything?
Sun sells more Red Hat and Suse on those Opteron servers than they do Solaris – and they’re quite nice. Sun and Opteron does not mean x86 Solaris.
That’s why Jonathan Schwartz was desperate to get IBM to support Solaris on their Opteron servers, simply because they realise that if x86 Solaris doesn’t break through significantly all Sun are at the moment is an x86 reseller. Given that Solaris on x86 is in such a minority, there’s just no reason for that to happen.
No, that’s not how it works. They’ve got a bunch of consolidated servers and they are running a mainframe and other services off them. The mainframe itself is just a service. They’ve saved themselves money by consolidating the mainframe, because try as anyone might, companies still can’t get rid of mainframes these days because they are so widely used and have been used so critically for so long.
Let’s see you attended an IBM Mainframe hiring seminar. They gave me the same spiel to try and get me to join thier OS/390 DB2 group. I laughed then and still am. I turned down thier offer by the way.
I bet the IBM Koolaid tasted really good, right. Never underestimate the power of IBM marketing and Sales force.
Sun sells more Red Hat and Suse on those Opteron servers than they do Solaris – and they’re quite nice. Sun and Opteron does not mean x86 Solaris.
i have a sneaky suspision that is about to change with Solaris 10.
That’s why Jonathan Schwartz was desperate to get IBM to support Solaris on their Opteron servers, simply because they realise that if x86 Solaris doesn’t break through significantly all Sun are at the moment is an x86 reseller. Given that Solaris on x86 is in such a minority, there’s just no reason for that to happen.
Hunh…..
That’s why Jonathan Schwartz was desperate to get IBM to support Solaris on their Opteron servers, simply because they realise that if x86 Solaris doesn’t break through significantly all Sun are at the moment is an x86 reseller.
Schwartz asked for nothing of the Sort. He asked them to port thier middleware and Apps, that they already have for Soalris Sparc,` to Solaris 10. That too because customers complained that IBM was stonewalling thier requests by saying “you are the only one asking for this”, to multiple customers.
Did you think for a second that may be IBM is stonewalling because they are afraid Solaris 10 on x86 will actually take off. And that if they port thier Apps to it they can’t lock people with mixed IBM and Sun enivronments in to buying stuff from IBM becuase thier middleware is not available for Solaris.
Of course, you didn’t, I didn’t think you would anyway.
Sun sells more Red Hat and Suse on those Opteron servers than they do Solaris – and they’re quite nice. Sun and Opteron does not mean x86 Solaris.
No one will jump on a new OS same day it were released. Give Solaris x86 a year and then check numbers again.
if x86 Solaris doesn’t break through significantly all Sun are at the moment is an x86 reseller.
That’s big IF, my friend.
– File Server
– DNS Server
– DHCP Server
– Web Server
– Mail Server
You can run all that on Solaris 10, on x86. Righ now. With IBM commited to Solaris or without.
Now, considering anarchy behind many free (of charge) distros, considering kernel APIs changing every time Linus sneezes, considering ingenious Red Hat Service Agreement which forces you to pay for all Red Hat server installations you have even if you only want to pay for services for just one or two, considering that GNU is not UNIX- once again, what benefit Linux gives to the enterprise comparing to Solaris?
Other than “support will go away any time” FUD, any technical merits to choose Linux over Solaris x86?
Given that Solaris on x86 is in such a minority, there’s just no reason for that to happen.
It took Linux 10+ years and tons hype to get to the 3% of desktop and double digits in the server room, and even server room was an easy target: Windows or overpriced UNIX.
Solaris will have to battle Linux, it’ll take Sun more than just free (of charge) proudly UNIX OS to win the market.
I am optimistic: Sun will win. After all, Solaris is UNIX for the price of Linux, but Sun can do it.
I would expect that by the end of 2005 we will start to see stories of companies going Solaris 10 on x86.
Let’s see you attended an IBM Mainframe hiring seminar. They gave me the same spiel to try and get me to join thier OS/390 DB2 group. I laughed then and still am. I turned down thier offer by the way.
That’s the way it does work – not quite as advertised as is everything with these things, but it does work. Labelling it as Koolaid doesn’t change that I’m afraid and such comments show just how desperate some people are.
i have a sneaky suspision that is about to change with Solaris 10.
Why?
Schwartz asked for nothing of the Sort. He asked them to port thier middleware and Apps, that they already have for Soalris Sparc,` to Solaris 10.
That is exactly what he asked for – for IBM to support Solaris 10, especially on x86.
That too because customers complained that IBM was stonewalling thier requests by saying “you are the only one asking for this”, to multiple customers
I’m afraid you and Sun are rather deluded if you think anyone was asking for it. Sun desperately need it to happen to make Solaris work, hence Jonathan Schwartz’s rather strange request.
Did you think for a second that may be IBM is stonewalling because they are afraid Solaris 10 on x86 will actually take off.
If IBM doesn’t support Solaris 10 it simply won’t take off. IBM won’t support it and it won’t.
And that if they port thier Apps to it they can’t lock people with mixed IBM and Sun enivronments in to buying stuff from IBM becuase thier middleware is not available for Solaris.
Well done. However, considering the IBM does the same stuff as the Sun stuff anyway from a customer perspective what’s the point of asking for Solaris 10 support? Jonathan Schwartz’s request simply came out of desperation.
That’s big IF, my friend.
The inverse would have been a big if – if Solaris 10 does breaks through.
– File Server
– DNS Server
– DHCP Server
– Web Server
– Mail Server
You can run all that on Solaris 10, on x86. Righ now. With IBM commited to Solaris or without.
Errr, that’s what everyone is doing with Linux right now and has been replacing their Unix servers and Solaris with. Linux has the support of a software stack like IBM’s. Solaris 10 doesn’t have that support and Sun knows that they need it, hence Jonathan Schwartz’s rather strange blog entry.
Red Hat Service Agreement which forces you to pay for all Red Hat server installations you have even if you only want to pay for services for just one or two,
How do you think Sun’s been making their money for many years?
once again, what benefit Linux gives to the enterprise comparing to Solaris?
You need to be phrasing this the other way around. Since Linux already is in the Enterprise what benefit does Solaris, and Solaris 10, give to the enterprise compared to Linux? The answer is not enough to move to it, that’s for sure.
Other than “support will go away any time” FUD, any technical merits to choose Linux over Solaris x86?
x86 Solaris support has already gone away – many times.
And yes. On small x86 servers and the SMP systems most people will run, and Solaris’ target market, a Linux installation still dumps on Solaris for performance. You only need to look at the previous MySQL tests to see that.
Either way, the Sun and Sun fanboys’ line of “Linux will not be able to compete on performace with Solaris 10” is obviously total crap.
I am optimistic: Sun will win. After all, Solaris is UNIX for the price of Linux, but Sun can do it.
Solaris is Unix for the price of Linux (a market which Linux has already cornered), and Unix usage is diminishing. Sun will not win anything on that basis as they are simply trying to compete on an equal basis.
It took Linux 10+ years and tons hype to get to the 3% of desktop and double digits in the server room, and even server room was an easy target: Windows or overpriced UNIX.
Pardon? You’re equating the position Linux was in ten years ago to Solaris now? Solaris is an established OS (Linux as a whole wasn’t ten years ago) and has been for some time, and it is diminishing and has been for some time.
I would expect that by the end of 2005 we will start to see stories of companies going Solaris 10 on x86.
That’s your opinion. There’s nothing there to suggest anything like that will happen – quite the opposite.
I am optimistic: Sun will win.
Nice way to show your bias, here. Meh, it’s not as if anyone was still unaware of your anti-Linux bias…unfortunately, I think it’s clouding your judgement and pushing you towards wishful thinking.
There are two problems that Sun must overcome: Linux’s “momentum” and Sun’s own schizophrenic attitude towards Linux.
The Linux momentum is clear for anyone whose vision isn’t obscured by anti-Linux or anti-FOSS googles. There is a fabulous momentum not only in server room adoption, but also in development – simply said, Linux is developing much more rapidly than Solaris. This is due in part to the much larger developer (and tester) community, in addition to having more large corporations (such as IBM, HP, etc.) contributing to Linux. Mindshare is the issue here, and this is much more important than the actual performance of either OSes. Do you remember BetaMax vs VHS?
The other problem is Sun’s ambivalent attitude towards Linux. One day they support it, going so far as to put on a penguin suit. The next day, they spread FUD about it. One day they proudly announce their own Linux distro. The next day they finance SCO under the table to limit it. Basically, the company competes with itself by offering both Linux and Solaris – in other words they split their own market share.
What signals does it send to companies who’d like to do business with them? Sun management appears undecisive, shaky, unsure where to go next. This does not inspire confidence in potential buyers, who don’t want to buy something from a shaky company. Remember, it’s mostly perceptions that count in this business, not reality. Sun may or may not produce a better OS, it’s irrelevant. The company looks unstable – just look at its stock market price for the last couple of years: up and down, up and down (after a BIG down five years ago).
If you were a realist, you’d realize that Sun can’t win, because it has neither momentum nor a clear vision of its future.
That’s the way it does work – not quite as advertised as is everything with these things, but it does work. Labelling it as Koolaid doesn’t change that I’m afraid and such comments show just how desperate some people are.
Sure it does…. if you say so. Saying things with out facts is desperation, you are exhibiting desperation.
i have a sneaky suspision that is about to change with Solaris 10.
Why?
Why not?!!!
That is exactly what he asked for – for IBM to support Solaris 10, especially on x86.
Wrong. He asked them to port thier Apps to Solaris 10 on x86, not Solaris 10 on IBM’s opteron boxes as you sated.
I’m afraid you and Sun are rather deluded if you think anyone was asking for it. Sun desperately need it to happen to make Solaris work, hence Jonathan Schwartz’s rather strange request.
The only persons with delusions is you. I have proved that beyond doubt in previous discussions. It is getting very tiring.
If IBM doesn’t support Solaris 10 it simply won’t take off. IBM won’t support it and it won’t.
Who’s being delusional? Solaris 10 doesn’t need IBM to help it take off.
IBM will support anything that will make it money, mark my words. IBM will eventually support Solaris 10.
Well done. However, considering the IBM does the same stuff as the Sun stuff anyway from a customer perspective what’s the point of asking for Solaris 10 support? Jonathan Schwartz’s request simply came out of desperation.
I won’t pretend to guess what and why customers want something. It’s thier choice, But apparently you pretend to know what every customer wants. If that was the case you wouldn’t have the time nor the inclination to post here on every Sun related post, you would have lead a very successful company and made billions.
So given the fact that you are here and have the time to post countless rants against Sun I know for a fact that you wouldn’t know what customers want if they told them to you. Kind of like IBM. is’nt it.
And yes. On small x86 servers and the SMP systems most people will run, and Solaris’ target market, a Linux installation still dumps on Solaris for performance. You only need to look at the previous MySQL tests to see that.
Right.,… The MySQL tests were very unbaised right. Let’s see take a prerelease build of Solaris 10 (Build 69) the shipping release is build 74 I think. Take gentoo( A disro specificallt optimized for the target machine because it is compiled to be installed) and post comparos. Very professional indeed.
Most CIOs wouldn’t dream of running gentoo in thier enterpirses. Where is the Redhat, SUSE and FCS Solaris 10 comaprison.
Given the fact that a pre realease build of Solaris 10 stacked well against the most optimized linux distro( which no enterprise will dream of running) is far more meaningful.
Either way, the Sun and Sun fanboys’ line of “Linux will not be able to compete on performace with Solaris 10” is obviously total crap.
The only person here full of crap is you. You wouldn’t know how to read into a benchmark other than looking at the pretty pictures. Why should I trust your notion of performance.
Let me illustrate the fact that you can’t read a statement and fully comprehend it and make a logical conclusion out of it.
It took Linux 10+ years and tons hype to get to the 3% of desktop and double digits in the server room, and even server room was an easy target: Windows or overpriced UNIX.
Pardon? You’re equating the position Linux was in ten years ago to Solaris now? Solaris is an established OS (Linux as a whole wasn’t ten years ago) and has been for some time, and it is diminishing and has been for some time.
The original poster said it took linux 10 years to get 3% desktop market. How one can misread that as being 10 years ago is mind boggling. Especially a person who tries to correct grammer and spelling when he is losing an argument.
From the MySQL article:
Before you skip ahead to the results section, bear one thing in mind: the question this article asks is “how would MySQL perform on these operating systems?” It is not, “Which is the best operating system?” In any benchmarking test, there will winners and losers, but the highest performer in one category for a limited set of tests does not a “best” operating system make.
I think they were specifically talking about you.
One of the key points in the article is this “The bank expects to complete the project by April and said much of the savings will come from a reduction in the number of systems engineers from 24 to eight.” If they could outsource the administration of the systems they probably would (I am sure a number of US regulations about banking security prevent this). I am always leary about personnel cuts to “save money” because it has been proven to be a short-term money saver for any company.
This is not so much about the technical merits of one platform versus another, but cost of operating said platform. The cost of Linux in this case is irrelevant because of the cost of the hardware (price available upon request) is in the millions of dollars. I have never bought the argument that cheaper is better, and just because Linux is “free” doesn’t necessarily make it better. Is it the “right tool for the job”, for the amount of money spent on a “free” OS I hope so.
“Nice way to show your bias, here…unfortunately, I think it’s clouding your judgement and pushing you towards wishful thinking”
I can say the same about you. Word by word. So, lets not waste time checking whos bias is bigger, and focus on the article.
simply said, Linux is developing much more rapidly than Solaris
It is because it has to catch up with Solaris and corporate UNIXes.
“This is due in part to the much larger developer (and tester) community”
100 Linux kernel developers. Everything else can be ported and can run on Solaris just fine. JDS is just a customized GNOME, I was told, and I can tell you that Firefox starts on Solaris as fast (or as slow) as on Red Hat ES 3.0 and runs well.
OpenOffice is fine on Solaris x86, too. In fact, Solaris x86 comes with StarOffice, nice bonus.
“Mindshare is the issue here, and this is much more important than the actual performance of either OSes”
Agreed, but it works both ways. Would you like to run, for the same TCO:
A) Professional grade UNIX OS named Solaris 10;
or
B) A hobbyist community OS named GNU’s Not UNIX/Linux?
Just talking about mindshare here.
“The other problem is Sun’s ambivalent attitude towards Linux. Basically, the company competes with itself by offering both Linux and Solaris – in other words they split their own market share.”
No, not really. They compete against Red Hat. Sun sells Red Hat Linux on its x86 hardware- gets only hardware sale. Sun sells Solaris 10 on its x86 hardware: gets hardware sale and Solaris service sale.
It is no-brainer that Sun will be pushing Solaris: it is where the money (in services) is.
“What signals does it send to companies who’d like to do business with them?”
Simple: Sun is not in business of selling Linux. Sun is in business of selling Solaris.
“If you were a realist, you’d realize that Sun can’t win, because it has neither momentum nor a clear vision of its future”
They have OS to offer: Solaris.
They compete against Red Hat.
They plan to make money on SOlaris same way Red Hat does on Linux: selling services.
They are in a better position that Red Hat is: they have better OS, it is UNIX and not “kinda UNIX,” they also sell hardware but Red Hat does not (so they can offer full hardware+software service).
Sound like a clear vision to me.
As I said at the begginning, your own words describe your position the best: I think your bias is clouding your judgement and pushing you towards wishful thinking.
I feel sorry for you, but finally Linux has a real competitor which is not afraid to win and which can not be brought down just by the FUD, zealotry and DOJ.
And while you are still singing praises to Linux, I already run Solaris 10 on my desktop, and company I am employed by is planning to put Solaris 10 into test environment before the end of March.
I am sure I am not alone.
“You need to be phrasing this the other way around. Since Linux already is in the Enterprise what benefit does Solaris, and Solaris 10, give to the enterprise compared to Linux? The answer is not enough to move to it, that’s for sure.”
Pardon my English, David, I am not native English speaker.
I did not want to imply that Solaris will replace Linux servers already in the enterprise. Not overnight, at least.
Solaris will compete with Linux on new servers installed. I want to add Sendmail server to the pool of servers I have, for the price of hardware. Until today I had only Linux (and FreeBSD) to choose from. Now I can consider Solaris 10, too.
We know that 58% of Fortune 1000 companies run IIS on Windows as their Web servers. If some of them want to move to the UNIX platform, they are going to choose between Red Hat and Sun.
Let see whose marketing department works better.:)
More than that, corporate world that runs proprietary UNIX, that part of it which was hesitant to move to Linux because of its “hobbyist” label (doesn’t matter how true that label is).
They can move to Solaris 10 now. Not to Linux.
It will accelerate move from proprietary UNIXes to Solaris on x86. It will give Solaris some %% of the market.
“Linux has the support of a software stack like IBM’s. Solaris 10 doesn’t have that support and Sun knows that they need it, hence Jonathan Schwartz’s rather strange blog entry.”
My personal experience: a company I am working in runs over 400 UNIX and Linux servers. Servers, not desktops.
Company runs five Oracle DBs on Red Hat ES servers, a bunch of Sendmail servers on Solaris (SPARC) and Linux (x86), a bunch of Postgres and LDAP servers on Linux, few FreeBSD boxes at the corner doing not very many people remember what, and 100-200 of these 400 servers run Linux and company coded software on top of it.
Our company could easily standardize on a single OS (Solaris), and only keep Red Hat for Oracle for the time being. If our company wants to, of course.
I am giving you this real life example to demonstrate that IBM support is irrelevant for the success of the Solaris in the enterprise.
What you have seen in the blog is just marketing ploy. Like Lindows blaming evil Microsoft for not letting Lindows keep its company name. At the end, everyone dislikes bad big Microsoft and feels sorry for Linspire.
Same here: bad, big IBM. Few bonus points for Sun, slightly more embarassment for IBM. Nothing personal, strictly business.
I can say the same about you. Word by word.
No you can’t, because I don’t have an anti-Sun agenda and I don’t go making wild predictions about Sun’s future based on that. I have nothing about Sun, but it’s clear that they are in a position of weakness in the current marketplace.
[simply said, Linux is developing much more rapidly than Solaris]
It is because it has to catch up with Solaris and corporate UNIXes.
Irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that development momentum is much greater for Linux than for Solaris. The momentum won’t just stop when Linux catches up (and in many area, it already has caught up).
Agreed, but it works both ways. Would you like to run, for the same TCO:
A) Professional grade UNIX OS named Solaris 10;
or
B) A hobbyist community OS named GNU’s Not UNIX/Linux?
Just talking about mindshare here.
The problem is that Linux is no longer seen as a “hobbyist community OS”. Because of involvement from such heavyweight as IBM, HP – heck, even Sun! – Linux is now seen as a professional grade OS. I know you don’t like it, and you refuse to admit it, but you’re in a very small minority. Not only that, but it is Solaris x386 which suffers from the “not mature” image (whether it’s true or not, it’s the common perception).
Sorry, Russian Guy, but once again you’re letting your personal bias cloud your judgement. Just read the computer press, and the mainstream press: Linux has the mindshare advantage – Solaris isn’t even in the picture.
Simple: Sun is not in business of selling Linux. Sun is in business of selling Solaris.
But in reality it sells both. Therefore it’s sending mixed signals. Again, it’s a problem of perception, and in this competitive business perception is everything.
Sound like a clear vision to me.
Of course it does, as it reinforces your bias. But in the real world, Sun is sending mixed signals that they don’t know which strategy to pursue: Linux or Solaris? After all, they wouldn’t offer Linux if it wasn’t a good OS…
As I said at the begginning, your own words describe your position the best:
Very imaginative of you. Except that you haven’t offered any valid counter-argument to prove that you’re right and I’m not. So drop the rhetorical ping-pong and just admit that Sun doesn’t have Linux’s momentum, and that its ambivalent attitude towards Linux is a serious liability.
I feel sorry for you
Don’t. I really don’t care if Sun survives or not, but right now it doesn’t look as if they’ll be taking any market share away from Linux (except maybe from themselves…)
but finally Linux has a real competitor which is not afraid to win and which can not be brought down just by the FUD, zealotry and DOJ.
No, it will be brought down by its own ambivalent position vis-Ã -vis Linux, and by the fact that it will not be able to rally as strong a community as Linux nor will it gain Linux’s momentum. This is obvious to anyone who takes an impartial, rational look at the current market trends.
And while you are still singing praises to Linux, I already run Solaris 10 on my desktop, and company I am employed by is planning to put Solaris 10 into test environment before the end of March.
I am sure I am not alone.
Alone, probably not. One of a small minority, certainly.
Linux has the mindshare, the momentum, the community, the freedom, as well as powerful corporate support. Solaris x386 has little mindshare, no momentum, a smaller community, a license that doesn’t guarantee freedom of code (which will keep the community small) and only has Sun behind it.
I’m sorry, but this is a classic case of wishful thinking (which you admitted when you said you were “optimistic”, by the way). Take an objective look at the situation and you’ll see that it’s too late for Sun to overtake Linux (especially when they offer it as part of their product line).
I’m assuming you’re talking about the Solaris source proper. However how’s the driver code ? In my experience this is the greatest factor in system instability due to software.
The Solaris source “proper” includes the device drivers.
I and the people I work with write these drivers and make
sure that they pass standards compliance tests, do not panic
a system, are hardened against memory and data integrity
issues, do not suffer regressions and perform really, really
well.
In my experience supporting customers over many years, the
majority of driver-related problems that I’ve seen are due
to issues (bugs and misinterpretations of easy-to-understand
standards such as SCSI and FC) in third-party drivers.
I was talking about Solaris x86. I know Solaris (Sparc) can handle mission critical applications as I have have seen this in action. However I can’t say the same for Solaris x86.
Well I can. Solaris on i386/amd64 is in use for mission-
critical applications and environments and has been for
years.
People just keep predicting the doom of Linux, whether it’s Solaris, the Mac Mini or even Windows as the cause. Keep predicting people, meanwhile it continues to spread….
> I’m afraid you and Sun are rather deluded if you think anyone was asking for it.
Err, GM, probably the biggest IBM customer, was explicitly asking IBM to support Solaris x86. GM even went to press for that, which is something that rarely happens. IBM lies as always.
> The other problem is Sun’s ambivalent attitude towards Linux. One day they support it, going so far as to put on a penguin suit. The next day, they spread FUD about it.
There is no ambivalence toward Linux. Sun is the biggest desktop Linux vendor out there, bigger than IBM and RedHat. Don’t confuse Sun attacking RedHat with attacks on Linux in general. Again, Linux is social movement, RedHat is just a company.
Sure it does…. if you say so. Saying things with out facts is desperation, you are exhibiting desperation.
Blah, blah, blah.
Why not?!!!
Saying it doesn not make it so. There’s no evidence to suggest that.
Wrong. He asked them to port thier Apps to Solaris 10 on x86, not Solaris 10 on IBM’s opteron boxes as you sated.
IBM doesn’t have Opteron boxes, and I stated no such thing. Sun asked IBM to support Solaris 10, specifically on x86, with IBM’s software stack. They aren’t going to.
The only persons with delusions is you. I have proved that beyond doubt in previous discussions.
I’m afraid not.
Who’s being delusional? Solaris 10 doesn’t need IBM to help it take off.
So why did Jonathan Schwartz ask IBM to support it? None of IBM’s customers is asking for Solaris 10 support.
But apparently you pretend to know what every customer wants.
Customers have already spoken. I don’t speak for them.
If that was the case you wouldn’t have the time nor the inclination to post here on every Sun related post, you would have lead a very successful company and made billions.
I do browse the net occasionally for amusement
. What I do now provides very well thank you.
Kind of like IBM. is’nt it.
Nope. IBM, and me, are gaining customers not losing them
.
Given the fact that a pre realease build of Solaris 10 stacked well against the most optimized linux distro( which no enterprise will dream of running) is far more meaningful.
A stock install of Gentoo is far from being optimised as a whole. Being a compiled from scratch distribution counts for little. The kernel within Gentoo is a stock Linux kernel – it hasn’t got any optimisations, and it wiped the floor with a fully put together Solaris 10 OS. Suse and Red Hat have optimsations of their own that won’t be there.
There would have been some indication in there that Solaris 10 was going to wipe the floor with Linux. There wasn’t, however much the fanboys want to whinge.
The only person here full of crap is you. You wouldn’t know how to read into a benchmark other than looking at the pretty pictures. Why should I trust your notion of performance.
Read what’s in front of you. You know – those bar charts where Linux (using both kernels) is higher than Solaris 10 on everything. There was nothing in there to suggest any final version of Solaris 10 will beat any Linux distribution.
The original poster said it took linux 10 years to get 3% desktop market. How one can misread that as being 10 years ago is mind boggling.
Obviously you’ve got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning and have left your reading glsses there. The original poster talked about it taking 10 years for Linux to get to 3% market share (for some reason) and equated it to the position Solaris 10 is in now.
Seriously – are you for real?
From the MySQL article:
Before you skip ahead to the results section, bear one thing in mind: the question this article asks is “how would MySQL perform on these operating systems?” It is not, “Which is the best operating system?” In any benchmarking test, there will winners and losers, but the highest performer in one category for a limited set of tests does not a “best” operating system make.
I think they were specifically talking about you.
Errr, that’s the politically correct statement I pointed out that the author had made when he realised that Linux had wiped the floor with everything and he realised the flame wars that might ensue. Put it this way – if Solaris 10 had made such a good showing you’d have shouted from your rooftops.
Either way, the figures speak for themselves.
If some of them want to move to the UNIX platform, they are going to choose between Red Hat and Sun.
Let see whose marketing department works better.:)
And Novell’s marketing department, and IBM’s…….
They can move to Solaris 10 now. Not to Linux.
Why?
It will accelerate move from proprietary UNIXes to Solaris on x86.
Solaris on x86 is a proprietary Unix.
Our company could easily standardize on a single OS (Solaris), and only keep Red Hat for Oracle for the time being. If our company wants to, of course.
Or they could standardise totally on Linux like everyone else is doing – Red Hat or otherwise. From what you’ve described there you’ve only got Sendmail running on Solaris!
I am giving you this real life example to demonstrate that IBM support is irrelevant for the success of the Solaris in the enterprise.
Jonathan Schwartz doesn’t agree with you.
Same here: bad, big IBM. Few bonus points for Sun, slightly more embarassment for IBM.
It only made Sun look embarrassed as it made it look to everyone that they needed IBM to make Solaris 10 work. IBM must have laughed quite a bit.
You’re not a developer, so how would you know about developer momentum?
It’s called intelligence. Linux and its surrounding components are open sourced and have community momentum, Solaris currently isn’t open sourced and doesn’t.
No, anun he moos. It’s only non-technical people like you that suffers from not knowing Solaris x86 is mature, because 96% of the code is architecture-neutral. If you mean drivers – then that’s another story.
Put it another way – 96% of the code of Solaris depends on the core kernel, components and those drivers. Ever seen a layered system?
Result? Not mature.
Sun will sell anything because it’s all about hardware and services.
Then they can sell their Linux boxes then, because that’s all they’re selling on x86 these days. The Solaris 10 stuff isn’t helping them.
As long as Solaris is open sourced before Sun dies then it doesn’t matter if they survive or not.
For Solaris 10 to survive all of it, and its core, needs to be open sourced. If it isn’t than its too much work to fill in the gaps for any community in view of the fact that they have their BSDs and especially Linux.
You “hope” that Solaris will not take market share away from Linux – but that’s just “hope”.
You’re logic is from another dimension mate. If Linux has the market share (as you’ve admitted) then Solaris taking market share away really is a hope.
Solaris has to go out there and do it – Linux, in any form, does not simply because it is already out there.
I know, I’ll dismiss everything as a hope and hope people think that I have an argument!
Amusing. I know it might be hard to understand because of your limited technical knowledge, but Linux is just a kernel.
The generic term of Linux means the kernel and its surrounding components – which indentally are open sourced and free software. But then you know that, right?
Sun already has many kernel engineers to bootstrap “the community”.
Whatever the hell that means? You do not bootstrap any community – you have to engage one.
He talks in touchy-feely terms like “mindshare”, “momentum”, “community”(always gotta love that one), and “freedom”(even more hilarious since the GPL is about the most non-free open source license out there), but doesn’t understand that Linux is just a kernel and all the userspace out there is not the “linux community”.
Because a community is important, as is the right license to ensure enough goes back in – just look at the BSDs.
You’re wishful thinking is that you could be objective, but you’re nothing more than another FSF pawn who is incapable (like the others) of imposing a redefinition of the word freedom on rational people.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Again, the GPL works spectacularly well in the case of Linux and no other kernel and OS has come close. Whatever I feel about the GPL or Richard Stallman personally, hey – it works!
> IBM doesn’t have Opteron boxes, and I stated no such thing. Sun asked IBM to support Solaris 10, specifically on x86, with IBM’s software stack. They aren’t going to.
IBM does have Opteron servers and IBM is interested in supporting Solaris on x86, since Solaris is #1 deployment platform for practically entire WebSphere and Tivoli software suites. IBM is deliberately spreading the FUD that customers don’t want Solaris x86, because IBM is getting scared of Solaris potential. I’m practically positive that IBM will anounce support for Solaris x86, because otherwise WebSphere will be dumped in favor of BEA or Sun in many places. It is still a fact that Solaris presents a much stronger business case than Linux on pretty much every territory and this is what matters to businesses — Solaris is cheaper, more full featured, better performing, more scalable, more stable, and more mature than Linux. Now tell me why the hell whould you pick Linux over Solaris? Companies that have at least a little of business sense and not poisoned with some hippy rhetoric from penguin lovers will pick Solaris. It just makes more sense, period.
Note to you David, may be you shouldn’t try to impress us with the volumes of your mostly meaningless and emotional writing, put down straight facts and not emotional spurts bleating with mostly empty space fillers like “momentum”, “community involvement” and make-believe pseudo-facts straight from the RMS handbook.
This discussion is really amusing… Solaris has been declining and people, for some weird reason, think that Solaris 10 will in some way overthrow Linux…
Linux has the mindshare, performance, community (please, stop the “userland isn’t Linux” bullshit, it’s very very clear that most of the Linux userland is “Linux support first, other *nixes later, if ever”).
The big boys (IBM, HP, etc.) have long threw Linux’s “hobbyist” label out of the window. Face the truth, please, Linux is running in mission critical environments _today_.
And OpenSolaris is a joke, it won’t be the full Solaris 10 source, and no community will build around a crippled OS. Hey, the stuff they threw out recently can’t even be compiled! If you throw code into the open like trash, nobody will pick it up.
Those of you who think “engage” is a buzzword, simply don not understand that most people have to be shown strong reasons and appeal before they jump in some “OpenSolaris community”. Most of them don’t give a shit about Solaris already… that’s that.
Solaris has its own merits, and won’t die off anytime soon. But everyone knows (the Sun fanboys too, they just hide it) that Solaris won’t get beyond the “BSD stage” compared to Linux (not offending the BSDs).
Sun and their fanboys are living in some fantasy land, and they know it.
Can you post some numbers showing how many Enterprise Level Linux installations have taken place in the last year over Solaris, over AIX, over HP-UX? If you are going to make statements like that, I hope you can back them up with facts and not FUD. I believe in the “right tool for the job” and in the environments I work in (DoD), Linux does not meet the security requirements (EAL4). In my last job, I was responsbile for getting rid of Linux because it would not meet EAL4 requirements (part of the certification process for the site). It was replaced with Solaris x86.
And the “benchmarks” David refers to, if they are from Tony’s article, I wouldn’t use the results because the test in my opinion is invalid. I would like to see Tony run the test again on Solaris 10 GA and OpenBSD 5.3 STABLE to see if the results are the same. If nothing else at least level the playing field to “production ready” operating systems.
And considering Open Solaris is in its beginning phases of development, how can you(or anyone else) call it a joke? It would be different if it was readily available for download and nobody could use it because it was broken.
Let’s keep the focus on the facts, and not make stuff up as we go along just to support your argument.
# of “Linux” hits on Google: 222,000,000
# of “Solaris” hits on Google: 19,500,000
(Interesting note: out of the first 10 hits for Solaris, 4 of them – including the first one – have nothing to do with the OS…)
On Google News: 7,780 hits for Linux, 1,500 for Solaris.
On Google Groups: 23,500,000 hits for Linux, 2,610,000 for Solaris.
On Yahoo! Search: 70,500,000 hits for Linux, 7,620,000 for Solaris.
On MSN Search: 97,953,953 hits for Linux, 7,580,758 for Solaris.
How about this little gem: IDC reported that 71% of x86 servers shipped by Sun in 2004 were shipped with Linux – not Solaris.
Sun faces a uphill battle against Linux. Sooner or later, you’ll have to face that Solaris doesn’t have the momentum, the mindshare or the community that Linux has. Our personal preferences are completely irrelevant to this fact.
From HP’s web site:
“In 3CQ04, IDC reported that Linux on x86 worldwide outshipped Sun’s Solaris on x86 units by 113.5 to 1 on worldwide unit basis.”
Can you actually provide links to the articles rather than quotes. And the number of hits on various search engines is irrelevant. And I wouldn’t take too much interest in any numbers from HP considering their whole Unix product line is in trouble due to “betting the farm” on Itanium. They will probably say anything to deflect their troubles considering Sun and IBM are taking full advantage of HP’s uncertain future.
The bigger question about your first quote is, does those boxes still run Linux? Just as I can buy a thousand servers from Dell and they ship with Windows doesn’t mean they have to run Windows.
Can you actually provide links to the articles rather than quotes.
Do a Google search on the quote, and you should find the page without too much trouble.
And the number of hits on various search engines is irrelevant.
Not when discussing the two OSes’ mindshare (especially the search on Google News, since it represent recent exposure in the media).
And I wouldn’t take too much interest in any numbers from HP considering their whole Unix product line is in trouble due to “betting the farm” on Itanium.
Well, according to their web site, they still sold more servers than IBM (almost 2x) and Sun (around 5x) in 2004. Mind you, you can have good sales and bad profits. But the fact of the matter is that Linux market share in the server room is in fact rapidly growing year after year. We’re talking double-digit growth, here.
They will probably say anything to deflect their troubles considering Sun and IBM are taking full advantage of HP’s uncertain future.
As a publicly-traded company they can’t just “say anything.” In any case, the proof is in the pudding: HP sells Linux. IBM sells Linux. Sun sells more Linux than Solaris x86. Your own example, though valid (because of the EAL4 requirement – though Linux is close to achieving this, I believe), is anecdotal. The truth is that Linux has taken its place in the server room, and isn’t about to leave.
The bigger question about your first quote is, does those boxes still run Linux? Just as I can buy a thousand servers from Dell and they ship with Windows doesn’t mean they have to run Windows.
That doesn’t make any sense: why would they purchase Linux servers from Sun, then install Solaris on them? That would surely cost a lot more than buying servers with Solaris already installed!
I think we can be pretty confident that if people buy Linux servers from Sun, it’s because they want to use Linux on them…
Regarding the damning statistics I posted, and which have obviously hit a sore spot…
All you’re showing to me that’re a lot of numbnuts like you chitchatting and gloating about Linux on forums that get indexed by search engines. Pick something more meaningful instead.
Take a look at the Google News results. Now consider that Google News does not index forums, blogs, or any other non-media site. It only indexes actual articles. This meaningful comparison tells us that, at the very least, Linux has 5 times the mindshare that Solaris has.
Meanwhile, the millions of “numbnuts” (very mature) chatting about Linux on forums represent that community that Solaris is lacking, and one of the reason why Solaris doesn’t have the mindshare nor the momentum that Linux has.
Okay, now you can resume insulting me.
IBM doesn’t have Opteron boxes, and I stated no such thing. Sun asked IBM to support Solaris 10, specifically on x86, with IBM’s software stack. They aren’t going to.
Here is your post verbatim:
http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=9689&offset=30&rows=45#334566
That’s why Jonathan Schwartz was desperate to get IBM to support Solaris on their Opteron servers, simply because they realise that if x86 Solaris doesn’t break through significantly all Sun are at the moment is an x86 reseller.
So why did Jonathan Schwartz ask IBM to support it? None of IBM’s customers is asking for Solaris 10 support.
Where is your data?
A stock install of Gentoo is far from being optimised as a whole. Being a compiled from scratch distribution counts for little. The kernel within Gentoo is a stock Linux kernel – it hasn’t got any optimisations, and it wiped the floor with a fully put together Solaris 10 OS. Suse and Red Hat have optimsations of their own that won’t be there.
Did you run the benchmarks? How do you know what installation the author used?
No linux didn’t wipe the floor with a fully put together Solaris 10.
Read what’s in front of you. You know – those bar charts where Linux (using both kernels) is higher than Solaris 10 on everything. There was nothing in there to suggest any final version of Solaris 10 will beat any Linux distribution.
There was nothing there to suggest there wouldn’t be either. Let’s read the results.
Bar graphs translated to numbers (approximately).
1 cpu sysbench 1M rows
Linux 2.6 92 transactions
Linux 2.4 98 transactions.
Soalris 10 (build 69) 89 transactions
2 cpu sysbench 1M rows
Linux 2.6 140 transactions
Linux 2.4 139 transactions.
Soalris 10 (build 69) 133 transactions
1 cpu and 2 cpu sysbench 10M rows
Linux 2.6 24 transactions
Linux 2.4 26 transactions.
Soalris 10 (build 69) 21 transactions
You call that wiping the floor , LOL. That too a prerelease build of Solaris.
Seriously – are you for real?
More real than you are. You can’t see facts that are in front of you.
Errr, that’s the politically correct statement I pointed out that the author had made when he realised that Linux had wiped the floor with everything and he realised the flame wars that might ensue. Put it this way – if Solaris 10 had made such a good showing you’d have shouted from your rooftops.
Here is you post again verbatim. You made no reference to any politcally correct satement.
And yes. On small x86 servers and the SMP systems most people will run, and Solaris’ target market, a Linux installation still dumps on Solaris for performance. You only need to look at the previous MySQL tests to see that.
Either way, the Sun and Sun fanboys’ line of “Linux will not be able to compete on performace with Solaris 10” is obviously total crap.
That’s the problem, you never post facts and always pretend to know others intentions even if they have never made it clear.
Either way, the figures speak for themselves.
Yes they do and they are speaking in my favor, in case you haven’t noticed.
Anyway this is getting tiring and boring…
Your Linux hippy rhetoric matters only l33t hacker wannabes dinking with their Linux desktop in their mom’s basements.
Our favorite sun fanboi (.dyn.iinet.net.au) has been reduced to this! LOL. Dude, did you even read the article? The First National Bank of Omaha doesn’t sound like a l33t hacker wannabee. Neither does IBM or HP, for that matter. Fact is, Sun’s getting crushed in the technology market, the stock market, and the developer mindshare market. When Sun hucksters are reduced to bleating “don’t run away, we can run Linux apps in our compatibility layer”, even you should be able to see that it’s over.
> Now consider that Google News does not index forums, blogs, or any other non-media site. It only indexes actual articles.
Right, only Google does index forums, blogs, mail lists, you name it. So, using Google as some sort of a measure of popularity means absolutely nothing.
Unfornately, SUN is in trouble. Linux is getting more market share, on the desktop forget it, that’s a fight that should and will be fought by APPLE vs M$. On servers, there are many contenders. I’m over 30 years old, and the older you get, more you learn, and you see history repeat itself. I see SUN now like DEC(Digital), it had the best OS ever, VMS, great hardware(Alpha) and software, great engineers(hey NT was created by Dave Cutler, the creator of VMS, that left DEC to work on M$), that flew all over to other companies. I love SUN because they are competent, but when a company has too many technical skills, and poor comercial and market skills, time to get worried. So if SUN doesn’t learn how to be fake like IBM is doing to this moronic Linux users, it will probably be overtaked.
SUN has to think small, that’s the other side, they always think BIG, scalability is the best, but these days Linux(simple and small), MySQL(same), are things that are hurting sales from more sofisticated products, for being more simple and cheaper. It’s just very difficult to compete. Solaris will gain market share, but I agree with the other post, will be like a BSD. THey share the same thing, both are superior to linux, but people stick to simpler solutions, because they think BSD or SOlaris, are too complicated,(Not True). Enough of crap. I hope I’m wrong, SUN has given the world lots of good stuff, like NFS, openoffice, netscape->mozilla-<firefox, java, etc. And Solaris source code is one more amazing thing that they are releasing, but they can’t back pedal that up, if they do it’s all over, they have to really open the box, and DONATE, to get on people minds, like linux is now. The grid ideia is cool, I like it, and I would use it. SOlaris emulates linux, that has to be a killer feature on solaris x86, the better it performs, the better are the chances linux will be irrelevant, like nothing more than an open API, and especification, that what I think about the future of Linux.
And about using mainframe with linux, hum, I don’t know, IBM is a bitch, they save money for you in the first year, and then they charge 3 times more, the years to come. IBM is not trustable.
And to the morons that don;t get that IBM IS EVIL, why don;t they release source code to AIX? DB2? OS/400? etc? Don’t they “embrace” open source? What a fu**ing joke. SUN is releasing Solaris, and people please reconigze it, it’s a noble effort, and respect it.
TO finish it up, that’s exactly what SUN needs, to RESPECT LINUX. It’s hard, but that’s how IBM got their hearts. IBM doesn’t say AIX is better than Linux, like SUN does, so they don’t get angry with IBM. SUN should just shut up about linux, and adopt a different strategy(AIX and Linux are crap ;-0 in my opinion. Mostly because THEY ARE NOT TRUE UNIX).
> Dude, did you even read the article? The First National Bank of Omaha doesn’t sound like a l33t hacker wannabee. Neither does IBM or HP, for that matter.
Look, both IBM and HP support Linux not because they hearts of gold and share the love for the freedom. They both support Linux because it is the only OS they can control that can run commodity hardware. There is also M$ of course, but IBM chooses the lesser evil and sticks with RedHat/SuSE while pushing the Linux PR agenda to suckers like you. Of course Sun doesn’t want to support RedHat, why would they, they have their own superior product developed completely by Sun. I respect Sun for having balls to stand up to the competition for its own products and not to sell out to some fad that just happens to play well for IBM/HP. Sun is doing the right thing and I think it will pay off just like in the mid ’90s when all other Unix vendors (IBM, HP, SGI included) ran shitless from M$ dropping their own products in favour of Windows NT. Sun was the only company that had the balls and stood up for its own OS and refused to bulge to the popular opinion that NT will kill Unix — the result, Sun bacame the absolute undisputed leader in the Unix market place. I see the same thing happening now — IBM and HP instead of developing their own products are reducing development of AIX and HP/UX and are feeding the second Microsoft in form of RedHat instead. They both are going to get burnt just as with M$, pretty soon IBM will need RedHat more than RedHat will need IBM. Actually I already see it happening now, just talk to an IBM sales person and more than likely they will recommend SuSE/Novell over RedHat — RedHat is becoming more of a competition to IBM than a parter because they already have their own middleware suite and database.
Hum
They both support Linux because it is the only OS they can control that can run commodity hardware.
I think it’s the opposite, LInux is impossible to control, because is a mess of dists that don’t talk to each other. That’s why I use FreeBSD since version 2.0.5 / 1994.
. Sun is doing the right thing and I think it will pay off just like in the mid ’90s when all other Unix vendors (IBM, HP, SGI included) ran shitless from M$ dropping their own products in favour of Windows NT. Sun was the only company that had the balls and stood up for its own OS and refused to bulge to the popular opinion that NT will kill Unix — the result, Sun bacame the absolute undisputed leader in the Unix market place
It’s nice to see SUN being the only other 100% pure choice, choice is always good, see M$ effect.
But this time is different, SCO with x86 grew a lot in that period too, you forget to mention, and that’s why they are desperated, Linux killed SCO, because it’s free… and better than SCO, for a lot of things, since kernel 1.x
IBM and HP instead of developing their own products are reducing development of AIX and HP/UX and are feeding the second Microsoft in form of RedHat instead
Nonsense. You get it right further down in your rant where you see IBM play off SuSE against RedHat. Microsoft can lock you in because they own the source. RedHat/SuSE/Mandrake/IBM/HP…none of them can become Microsoft because once someone gets too greedy (RedHat) the alternative (SuSE) gets more attractive – and there’s *nothing* RedHat can do to stop it but compete better. This is the genius of the GPL-based business ecosystem.
It’s too late for Sun. Where you see courage, I see doddering old-school stupidity. Sun dreams of the old days where they can lock people into their closed hardware and software stack but that era is over. Linux has made these low levels of the stack a commodity and nothing will change that.
I’ve heard the same argument on all the blogs. If Sun had rolled over and taken our Linux out to lunch we’d be eating in the same bistro today. Imagine, now you’re in business. And a friend says take a look at Linux. And you say, yeah, it’s great and I can throw my company (Solaris) down the tubes, embrace it and then watch me compete with IBM. But no, Sun insists, to the dismay of HP/IBM/MS/Dell/Intel that they will go it alone. What fervor. What balls. Hey, if you want to ring it up with the same chant about late to the dance you might as well hack into a mainframe running Linux and see if DEC’s Risc is running because nothing compares to Solaris. I never understand how anyone can have the nerve to call Linux open source today anyway. Take a look at Wall Street: Red Hat, Novell, HP, IBM, Dell. Is that open source? So Sun came late, never mind the whole industry had a run in with a melt down. Now they have a product and you’re too proud to even take a look. Hey if you like blue pin stripes wear-‘m. Be cool, don’t come running to Sun for help. You’ve got it all figured out. Go to the one size fits all shop.
IBM does have Opteron servers and IBM is interested in supporting Solaris on x86, since Solaris is #1 deployment platform for practically entire WebSphere and Tivoli software suites.
No, customers are not beating down the door for Solaris 10 support. If Sun had a half-decent software stack then people might actually use theirs instead of IBMs.
>>Let see whose marketing department works better.:)
>And Novell’s marketing department, and IBM’s…….
Yes, David, but now one can choose between Linux from IBM, Linux from Novell, Linux from whoever- and Solaris.
Monopoly is bad, my friend, even if it is a Linux OS monopoly. Choice is good, is not it?
>>They can move to Solaris 10 now. Not to Linux.
>Why?
Because, silly, they were brainwashed into believing that Linux is hobbyist OS created by Stallman and Co as a vehicle of their blatant communist-like ideology.
While their beliefs are true or not- irrelevant. Suddenly, instead of going with “hippie Linux” they can consider Solaris.
Ask yourself, the bank that has Solaris on SPARC servers and wants to go x86, IT department of that bank- will it push to free of charge Solaris on x86 or Linux? Which transition will be easier?
>>It will accelerate move from proprietary UNIXes to Solaris on x86.
>Solaris on x86 is a proprietary Unix.
I don’t remeber saying it is not. This is what I said: It will accelerate move from proprietary UNIXes to Solaris on x86.
Business does not care about ideology behind the product it buys, it cares about TCO. If you believe otherwise- just go shopping and see how many goods are made in Communist China.
Business does not care very much what level of proprietarity OpenSource purists attach to the Solaris. The question is: how much does it cost upfront, how much in service charges, how long support is available and what is the exit plan if vendor ceases to exist and support is not available.
>Or they [Russian Guy’s company] could standardise totally on Linux. From what you’ve described there you’ve only got Sendmail running on Solaris!
Exactly! You see, my point is: now we have a choice. Before- we did not. So, now we will be comparing two OSes by their merits, TCO and etc. Guess what will be favored by the IT department running Sendmail on Solaris?
Strangely enough, when it is choice- you get upset and almost sound like a pro-monopolist. Why choose anything else, you almost ask, if an OS we have now is good, everyone runs it, and everyone in the process of standardizing on it?
Mind you: Apple has 3-5% of desktop market and doing well. Solaris x86 could get 10% of server market and bring a profit to Sun.
Nobody says that Solaris will replace all of Linux. But it could, if Linux “community” and developers do not stop behaving like they own the server room and can do what they pleased.
>Jonathan Schwartz doesn’t agree with you.
Why should I care? If it were the cult, I should bend for him and Solaris kernel developers, and shall say that Solaris has no bugs and Solaris will bring freedom to masses.
But it is not a cult, it is just a software with the potential.
I would love Jonathan to corner IBM and either admit it is not about choice but about Linux or start supporting Solaris.
Yes, it is fun to watch but is irrelevant for most companies deciding which OS is to go with.
>It only made Sun look embarrassed as it made it look to everyone that they needed IBM to make Solaris 10 work. IBM must have laughed quite a bit.
So, when Opera blamed MSN for incompatible web pages, that was Opera in dare need of Microsoft to support it, and Microsoft was one that laughing?
Not quite true, my friend.
I must admit that it is fun to watch how pro-Linux propaganda tries to find how to counter the Solaris on x86.
The following will definitely not work:
-Linux is inherently more secure than Solaris;
-Linux does not have bugs- Solaris does;
-Linux is guaranteed to have lower TCO than Solaris;
-Linux is secure OS from the ground up, build on UNIX principles- Solaris is not.
So, what is left, boys and girls? Solaris needs IBM blessing to survive? Weak. Solaris does not have a community? Weak. One day you wake up and find that support for Solaris x86 dissapeared? FUD.
Guys, pro-Linux advocates, I know you can do better than that. Try your best before young kids start calling Linux a grandpa’s OS and Solaris a next best thing.
First I wrote this:
“Meanwhile, I agree with pretty much everything you say, which means that Lumbergh will once again indulge in his unhealthy obsession and lump us together as part of RMS’s fan club.”
And of course, Lumbergh did oblige:
You two can go on consoling yourselves now. Maybe Stallman will give you group hugs.
Lumbergh, you’re so predictable it’s not even funny. You sound like a broken record “…GPL not free…RMS is a whackjob…FSF fanboys…”
Anyway, it’s at least comforting to see that you had no counter-arguments to offer (not that I was expecting any). I’ll take these predictable jabs as your admission of defeat.
Right, only Google does index forums, blogs, mail lists, you name it. So, using Google as some sort of a measure of popularity means absolutely nothing.
*sigh* Could you read what I wrote again, with added emphasis, please?
“Now consider that Google News does not index forums, blogs, or any other non-media site. It only indexes actual articles.”
Google News, not Plain Old Google. Google News does not index forums, blogs and non-media sites. So, using Google News as some sort of a measure of popularity is actually very meaningful.
Come on, are you really going to argue that Sun has a bigger mindshare than Linux? Come on!
IBM and HP instead of developing their own products are reducing development of AIX and HP/UX and are feeding the second Microsoft in form of RedHat instead.
RedHat, the second Microsoft? Do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you say things like that? For starters, RedHat isn’t the dominant Linux force you make it to be. On the desktop Mandrake, Debian (and its derivatives) and others are putting up a good fight. On servers, expect Novell Linux (and SuSE) to challenge the champion.
That’s the beauty of Linux, and the reason why Solaris can’t get the same mindshare and community behind it: no one controls the OS, it is truly Free Software.
I never understand how anyone can have the nerve to call Linux open source today anyway. Take a look at Wall Street: Red Hat, Novell, HP, IBM, Dell. Is that open source?
Is the source open, easily available, freely redistributable? Well, then it’s open source.
Monopoly is bad, my friend, even if it is a Linux OS monopoly. Choice is good, is not it?
Of course it is. No one argued otherwise.
But it could, if Linux “community” and developers do not stop behaving like they own the server room and can do what they pleased.
Uh, I think you’re mistaking us for Microsoft. After, they’re the one with the largest market share, and who act like they own the server room…
So, when Opera blamed MSN for incompatible web pages, that was Opera in dare need of Microsoft to support it, and Microsoft was one that laughing?
That’s not the same thing at all. For starters, the Opera CEA was blasting Gates (not MSN) for talking about the importance of interoperability (i.e. adhering to standards) while at the same time taking decision that would make interoperability harder. In other words, he was exposing Gates’ hypocrisy in the matter.
Here it’s quite different. IBM does not have to port any of its software to accomodate a competitor’s OS, just like MS doesn’t have to port Office to Linux if they don’t want to. No hypocrisy, just business.
I must admit that it is fun to watch how pro-Linux propaganda tries to find how to counter the Solaris on x86.
It’s not propaganda, it’s the truth. Sun is in trouble, and they face an uphill battle. Before the Linux community feels the need to “counter” Solaris x86, it must first become a threat. It hasn’t.
Solaris does not have a community? Weak.
I didn’t say it doesn’t have a community, simply that its community pales in comparison to the Linux community, and that in turn doesn’t give it the momentum to beat Linux.
Let’s get one thing clear: I agree with you that choice is good, and I hope that Solaris x86 does carve out a niche in the server room. However, if you read most of the pro-Solaris posts here, they are saying how Solaris x86 will overtake Linux, that everyone with a brain will use Solaris instead of Linux, etc. From the get go, our australian friend attacked the bank for going with Linux instead of Solaris – where’s the “choice is good” attitude in that?
So perhaps you should be consistent with what you’ve said, and try to explain to Anonymous and Lumbergh that choice is indeed good, and that choice includes Linux as well as Solaris. Unless that olive branch you seemingly offered was simply a rhetorical ploy to make you look impartial (something which you’ve done before, IIRC)…
“That’s the beauty of Linux: no one controls the OS…”
Speak, please. More you talk, less attractive you make Linux for businessmen.
Until today they had no choice: go Linux or pay money in license fees. Now they do.
Now they will start taking slogans like yours into consideration, because they can choose.
Be careful what you tell people who make decisions. You may be OK to fly airplane nobody controls design of, but most people don’t.
Speak, please. More you talk, less attractive you make Linux for businessmen.
Businessmen don’t make decisions based on posts in Internet forums.
In any case, I’m not here to sell Linux, but to tell the truth. And the truth is that no one controls Linux (the OS) the way MS controls Windows or even the way Sun controls Solaris.
Until today they had no choice: go Linux or pay money in license fees. Now they do.
That’s not true: you forget about the *BSDs. They didn’t require license fees, and are true UNIX OSes, like Solaris. And yet that didn’t stop Linux’s momentum. I fail to see how Sun – who also sells Linux, and therefore endorses it – would do any better.
Now they will start taking slogans like yours into consideration, because they can choose.
Nonsense. They have always been able to choose, and I didn’t write a “slogan”, but simply stated the truth. Are you saying that the truth is a bad thing to say?
Be careful what you tell people who make decisions. You may be OK to fly airplane nobody controls design of, but most people don’t.
Be careful when making false analogies like this one, because people may no longer take you seriously.
I agree with you that choice is good, and I hope that Solaris x86 does carve out a niche in the server room. However, if you read most of the pro-Solaris posts here, they are saying how Solaris x86 will overtake Linux, that everyone with a brain will use Solaris instead of Linux, etc… Where’s the “choice is good” attitude in that?
Lets turn tables a little, shall we? I do not remember you defending choice while Linux zealots were saying how Linux will overtake Windows, that everyone with a brain will use Linux instead of Windows, etc.
I did.
Not dismissing Linux as an OS, I was trying to dismiss zealotry around it. Linux is good enough OS, but not a savior of the world and not the second coming, and still has to prove itself on desktop after all these many years.
So, next time, teaching me how to be honest supporting the choice, just take a look at yourself and teach yourself how to support the choice. Then teach others.
Until today they had no choice: go Linux or pay money in license fees. Now they do.
You’re not terribly well informed. The BSD family has been available to IBM, HP, etc. for years. Those businesses were smart enough to see that using the BSD model would have led to a repeat of the fractured propriatory UNIX marketplace. The GPL prevents this which is why it is such a great base for commodity layers of the stack.
Lets turn tables a little, shall we?
Why, because you don’t want to answer my questions?
I do not remember you defending choice while Linux zealots were saying how Linux will overtake Windows, that everyone with a brain will use Linux instead of Windows, etc.
Not true. I’ve stated many times on this site that I was in favor of a diverse ecosystem, where each major OS would have a roughly equal share.
If you’re going to try to corner me, you’re going to need to work harder than that. Now, let’s put the tables back where they were and answer my original questions. Will you acknowledge that most of the pro-Solaris posters here did in fact imply that Solaris would overtake Linux? That the australian guy said the bank manager were stupid to choose Linux? Will you admit that this attitude is not compatible with your “choice is good” spiel?
Answer these before turning any more tables, please.
Not dismissing Linux as an OS, I was trying to dismiss zealotry around it.
Sure, as long as you try to dismiss zealotry around Solaris x86 as well. Otherwise you’re just biased, and therefore a zealot yourself.
Linux is good enough OS, but not a savior of the world and not the second coming, and still has to prove itself on desktop after all these many years.
I believe we are talking about servers in this thread, not the desktop. From what I hear, Solaris has more to prove on the desktop than Linux, so going in that direction is not a good idea…
So, next time, teaching me how to be honest supporting the choice, just take a look at yourself and teach yourself how to support the choice. Then teach others.
Oh, but I support choice. As I have already reminded you, I’ve always been in favor of a diverse OS ecosystem. At home I have a mixed Linux/Windows LAN. At work I use a Windows workstation. I’m considering buying a Powerbook. I have both a Xbox and PS2.
Choice is good. Unfortunately, that’s not really what we’re talking about here. What we’re talking about are the chances that Solaris x86 has of overtaking Linux. In my objective opinion, regardless of my personal preferences, I don’t think Solaris has the momentum, the mindshare or the community behind it to beat Linux, though I’m sure it will not be a complete failure either.
My precise point was that it’s the australian Solaris fan who doesn’t seem to think that choice is good, and therefore he’s the one you should be arguing with. 🙂
“Now, there is a difference between advocating the use of Linux and saying that people should abandon MS altogether. Hey, I still use MS Office even though I’m on Linux. I’m not an idealist, I’m a pragmatist with long-term vision. And to me, in the long-term, an abusive MS monopoly is not good for anyone but Microsoft. However, that doesn’t mean that MS should be eradicated – I just think it should no longer be a monopoly. I’m all for a diverse OS ecosystem, where no player has more than 30% of the market.”
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=9172&offset=225&rows=236#…
“The best scenario, from a security point of view, is to have a diverse OS ecosystem. This would slow down worms and virus propagation, and there wouldn’t be one big single target.”
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=7436&offset=30&rows=45#25…
“As it happens, proponents of a diverse OS ecosystem like interoperability”
http://www.osnews.com/moderation.php?news_id=7462#252407
(That last comment was moderated because I used the expressions “MS fanboys” and “astroturfers”.)
No, customers are not beating down the door for Solaris 10 support. If Sun had a half-decent software stack then people might actually use theirs instead of IBMs.
And you know this information how? What are you credentials? do you work of IBM in any capacity to know this information first hand?
The answer is NO. Suns volumes have increased over the years, so people are using Suns. Sun putsells IBM in the unix market.
Look at the other article on OSNews , Solaris 10 downloads have crossed 420K, with Solaris 10 x86 being 2/3 of that number.
Well as I said this is getting tiring.
You can try to read into Sun’s SEC filings, you can claim that Sun is “doddering old-school stupidity”, and that the BSDs were on par with Linux in completeness and their license was the only reason companies passed them up. However, if Sun is such old-school stupidity, then why have they re-formed their entire product catalog to be the same price or better as anything Red Hat, IBM, or Microsoft can offer? Why are they open sourcing Solaris to their customers? Why are they now selling some of the best performing systems available with Opteron/Solaris 10? Why would they have even bothered with DTrace or Containers or Grid?
I’m sure you will come up with some desperation story and how Sun is on their last legs, but the fact is that Sun has been in the sights of the doomsayers, like Apple, everytime the markets take a turn and they always seem to come around. They did it when expensive workstations evaporated, and they are doing it now in the face of expensive software evaporating as we speak. They are a hardware and systems company, so they’re probably estatic about opening Solaris now that their lawyers can clear it. They say they’ve been working on OpenSolaris for five years–that’s before GNOME hit it big and even before Linux 2.4 was released.
I noticed the only thing that you responded to was your continual lying that Solaris will not be open sourced.
It still hasn’t been open sourced – nor does anyone know the extent of it. They can’t open source all of it.
David says that GPL works spectaularly well in the case of Linux and NO other kernel and OS has come close.
Microsoft aren’t open sourcing NT or the kernel any time soon, are they? If you open source it, the cycle of development needs to work.
The answer is NO. Suns volumes have increased over the years, so people are using Suns.
Yer – we all know how much Sun’s revenues have increased over the years as a result of the fact that they’re selling more than ever. Come on son – you can do better!
Look at the other article on OSNews , Solaris 10 downloads have crossed 420K, with Solaris 10 x86 being 2/3 of that number.
Oh wow! Some people interested and curious about Solaris 10 have downloaded it for free. This has no relevance to the above.
Well as I said this is getting tiring.
You’re making yourself tired.