Solaris Archive

"Sun's primary focus continues to be on Unix -- the Unix product portfolio," says IDC research director Al Gillen. But that may be a risky strategy. "As Linux grows, if Sun's not riding that wave fully, they leave themselves open to losing part of the market.". The article is at NewsFactor. We recently wrote a related editorial about it too.

Sun Microsystems released the Solaris 9 4/03 Operating System for the SPARC and x86 platforms. The third update to the Solaris 9 Operating System, Solaris 9 4/03 offers enhanced data storage scalability, allowing Solaris sites to use larger storage systems than ever before via the Solaris Volume Manager. Read more for additional features.

Lack of hardware and application support eclipses OS' potential benefits. When it comes to Unix, Sun Microsystems' Solaris operating system shines on the company's 64-bit SPARC processors. Unfortunately, the picture is less bright for the version of Solaris written for Intel's 32-bit Pentium family.

This article examines the differences between the Solaris 8 Operating Environment (Solaris OE) Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Client and the Solaris 9 OE Secured LDAP Client, and explains how to support them on the same directory server. In addition, this article details troubleshooting tips for common implementation problems.

"When I interviewed Sun chief engineer Rob Gingell last August, he hinted at a blurring of the lines between Linux and Solaris, if not an outright merger. Said Gingell: "Five years from now, when all the tribes intermarry, who is going to know what's Solaris and what's Linux, and who's going to care?" Read the editorial at ZDNews.

It's still a ways off, but when Solaris 10 arrives, Sun Microsystems will ship the OS with a new type of partitioning technology called Solaris Zones. Read the report at TheRegister.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today delivered on its redoubled commitment to the UNIX platform, extending the full benefits of the Solaris Operating System, to x86-based servers with the Solaris 9 x86 Platform Edition. Non-commercial usage is available at no charge, while commercial pricing starts at US $99; attractive OEM pricing is also available. Source code for Solaris will now be available.

We spoke with Bill Moffitt, Product Line Manager for Solaris at Sun Microsystems. The second update to Solaris, called Solaris 9 12/02, was released this month. (Sun puts the month and year of the release date after the version number. Apparently, it was "released" in December, but don't ask why it was only made available a few days ago). In addition to bug fixes and updates that you would expect in a release like this, Sun has included a couple of big extras for capability and performance.

Jim wrote in to tell us about Sun posting the latest update of their Solaris/SPARC OS. The update, dated 12/02, is downloadable from the sun website here.

CNN is running a review of the latest Solaris Release, calling it "stylishly cryptic" -- as fitting a description of the leading commercial UNIX OS as I've ever heard. Oh, wait a second . . . Steven Soderbergh? Oops, never mind.

This document details the configuration, hardening, monitoring and vulnerability assessment of the Solaris OE. It can also be used as a configuration standard, providing a baseline to audit against.

Sun on Friday will announce plans to release an unbundled version of the Solaris 9 operating environment for non-Sun x86 hardware for $99 for a single CPU system. After months of indecision, Sun will now ship Solaris 9 x86, unbundled, supporting both the Sun hardware platform, for both current and future products, as well as the same list of all hardware supported for Solaris 8, according to Sun officials in Palo Alto, Calif. Early access to the Solaris 9 bits will come in the next four to eight weeks, and the final product will ship in the January time-frame, they said.

Sun Microsystems Inc.'s refusal to release Solaris 9 for non-Sun x86 hardware could backfire and drive developers and users to Linux or even Microsoft Corp. platforms, users said. Disgruntled x86 community developers and customers charge that Sun's refusal to reach a compromise is effectively making their investments in non-Sun x86 hardware obsolete. Supporters are so irked by Sun's intransigence that last week they placed an open letter in The Mercury News, of San Jose, Calif., accusing Sun Chairman, President and CEO Scott McNealy of taking the developer community for granted.

Sun Microsystems made two strategic moves Monday to answer calls from its user base, by announcing the company's first general-purpose server to run Linux and bringing back a version of its Solaris operating system that runs on Intel chips. From September, Sun will offer Solaris x86 8.0, alongside Linux on its new 'Big Bear' Intel hardware that it will announce this morning in San Francisco. And from early next year, Solaris 9.0 for Intel will be an option, too. Read the news at InfoWorld and TheRegister. Our Take: It seems that the SecretSix team made it! x86 Solaris 9 is back!