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Anything that runs on linux will run on solaris!

I think that falls into the "...or do we have to do everything by hand?" category from the parent-post ;)

There is a package-management system for Solaris, it's probably some way from BSD's ports, though. Checkout pkg-get - it'll go some way to saving you from hand-compiling every single piece of software. Blastwave also have a selection of pre-built packages.

http://www.blastwave.org

Sun should be doing this themselves - the Solaris package format is inferior and automatic dependency resolution should be expected.

Blastwave CSW

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Not really, Sun was a major workstation company in the mid and late '80s, long before the .bomb days. Sun made a lot of many during the .com craze, but they were a major player before that as well.

As for Solaris/x86, I'm sorry, but the facts just don't back you up. When Sun most recently tried to kill Solaris/x86, it was the user community who compalined to Sun to get it back. See the thread here for more info. Further, if you look at Blastwave's main mirror stats, you'll see that the x86 packages are downloaded quite a lot (granted, not as much as the sparc packages). See here and here.

As for Linux on SPARC, I have tried it. Over the years, I've had about a dozen SPARC machines, both 32- and 64-bit. Some versions of Linux were slightly faster on older 32-bit machines, but even on something as old as an Ultra 2, Solaris is a faster, especially the newer versions.

Not really, Sun was a major workstation company in the mid and late '80s, long before the .bomb days. Sun made a lot of many during the .com craze, but they were a major player before that as well.

As for Solaris/x86, I'm sorry, but the facts just don't back you up. When Sun most recently tried to kill Solaris/x86, it was the user community who compalined to Sun to get it back. See the thread here for more info. Further, if you look at Blastwave's main mirror stats, you'll see that the x86 packages are downloaded quite a lot (granted, not as much as the sparc packages). See here and here.

As for Linux on SPARC, I have tried it. Over the years, I've had about a dozen SPARC machines, both 32- and 64-bit. Some versions of Linux were slightly faster on older 32-bit machines, but even on something as old as an Ultra 2, Solaris is a faster, especially the newer versions.

Not really, Sun was a major workstation company in the mid and late '80s, long before the .bomb days. Sun made a lot of many during the .com craze, but they were a major player before that as well.

As for Solaris/x86, I'm sorry, but the facts just don't back you up. When Sun most recently tried to kill Solaris/x86, it was the user community who compalined to Sun to get it back. See the thread here for more info. Further, if you look at Blastwave's main mirror stats, you'll see that the x86 packages are downloaded quite a lot (granted, not as much as the sparc packages). See here and here.

As for Linux on SPARC, I have tried it. Over the years, I've had about a dozen SPARC machines, both 32- and 64-bit. Some versions of Linux were slightly faster on older 32-bit machines, but even on something as old as an Ultra 2, Solaris is a faster, especially the newer versions.

But the ability to run Linux apps natively on x86 hardly seems to matter, when you can just download GPL'ed source and compile away with good chance of success.

You've never heard of CSW?

What is blastwave.org?
blastwave.org is a collective effort to create a set of binary packages of free software, that can be automatically installed to a Solaris computer (sparc or x86 based) over the network.

We (CSW) don't provide "Linux apps", but we natively compile and package software for Solaris.

Will the power of Linux apps put Solaris back into the running?

The power of free software compiled natively for my SPARC has returned Solaris to being my primary desktop. (Now if only I could afford a Blade 2500....)

I've only ever used it on Solaris 9/Sparc. However they claim that builds are targeted at Solaris 8 on both Space and x86, with special Solaris 9 versions built as required. Given the quality of the system I see no reason not to believe them.

So to install SSH I just typed "sudo pkg-get install openssh" and off it went. It handles dependencies so installing KDE would automatically download and install Qt. Much nicer than the default Sun packages.

I suggest you check out Blastwave. They've created a Debian-esque wrapper around Sun's package format and have a network-aware installer. So, to install, say, PostgreSQL, you just do `sudo pkg-get install postgresql` and it will connect to a repository, fetch pgsql and its dependecies. You can also upgrade all of your Blastwave packages by doing a `sudo pkg-get upgrade'. It's pretty nice. They've got a decent amount of packages available.

Sun has announced that GNOME will be their new default desktop. In fact, I believe they are porting Java Desktop (which is GNOME with a Sun theme) to Solaris.

Regarding speed, have you checked out Solaris 10? It's a lot faster than 8 and 9. Sun is making the betas of 10 available for free - check out Solaris Express.

Also, an Ultra 5 is hardly an ideal system to use. It's about 7 years old, and even then was extremely low-end. I used to use one as a Kerberos server. It worked fine as a lightweight server, but I'd never use it for interactive work. Linux is probably faster than Solaris on it, but Solaris is hardly optimized for that level of system.

I suggest you check out Blastwave. They've created a Debian-esque wrapper around Sun's package format and have a network-aware installer. So, to install, say, PostgreSQL, you just do `sudo pkg-get install postgresql` and it will connect to a repository, fetch pgsql and its dependecies. You can also upgrade all of your Blastwave packages by doing a `sudo pkg-get upgrade'. It's pretty nice. They've got a decent amount of packages available.

Sun has announced that GNOME will be their new default desktop. In fact, I believe they are porting Java Desktop (which is GNOME with a Sun theme) to Solaris.

Regarding speed, have you checked out Solaris 10? It's a lot faster than 8 and 9. Sun is making the betas of 10 available for free - check out Solaris Express.

Also, an Ultra 5 is hardly an ideal system to use. It's about 7 years old, and even then was extremely low-end. I used to use one as a Kerberos server. It worked fine as a lightweight server, but I'd never use it for interactive work. Linux is probably faster than Solaris on it, but Solaris is hardly optimized for that level of system.

Solaris is a pain in the ass if you're looking to use many typical open-source software. If you can't find a prebuilt package at either Sunfreeware or Blastwave (my fave), you have to build it yourself. Then comes the problem of having very long $PATH's to various third-party package "bins". /opt/sfw/bin, /opt/csw/bin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin - and becomes a bit of a nightmare when having to specify library paths and header locations.

Here is a very informative article not only describing Solaris Zones, but also showing it in action. From what I can see, it seems similar to UserMode Linux, but nicely integrated into the OS, and supplied with a good set of administration tools.

Personally I find blastwave more useful than sunfreeware. Also has a nice package management system that integrates well with the built-in one

http://www.blastwave.org/pkg-get

(think "apt-get")

blastwave.org - Community SoftWare for Solaris

The package should be updated to 1.4 before long.

so what is Solaris x86 missing? Honestly all it needs is a god community packaging effort.

Well then, if you think that, and are willing to put in a little shared time yourself, come join in the fun!