XFree86 Drivers For Solaris

tnorbye writes: "On Sun's Intel site today there's a link to a new XFree86 porting kit. Essentially, you can download binary XFree86 drivers which run with the Solaris X server! So any graphics card you can use with Linux you can now use with Solaris. Sure makes Solaris x86 more widely available!"

Comments

This can be a good thing...

[Doctor_D]

I'm sure from some of the postings that I've read thus far for this article, is that people wonder why Sun bothers with Solaris x86.

Well from my experience there seems to be a few answers....

1) Some large customers want to run Solaris on cheaper hardware (ie PC's), but want the power of Solaris and leverage their other Sun investments.

2) Works great for Sun Field Employees who are given laptops. I'm one of those. I despise the idea of trying to work at a customer site and having my hands tied by Windows. Yeah, I'm one of the lucky field guys who happens to have an older (supported video) laptop, which can run Solaris x86. Then I can download applications and tools to my laptop and use them at a customer site. These tools and apps just frankly don't exist for Linux.

Besides, when I walk into a customer site, I'm representing Sun, and I open a laptop running windows? What kind of message does that send? I'd prefer to send a message like this: "Look, I like Solaris enough that I run it on my laptop."

3) Students or people who want to learn Solaris need something to tinker with. Solaris x86 is a cheap way to tinker around. Personally I'm happy because then I can finally run Solaris on my home desktop that runs perfectly happy under Linux, but didn't have a Solaris supported video card. (Of course I'll be getting my hands on a used SPARC, so it's a moot point anyway.)