The Return Of Solaris 9 For x86

The Pi-Guy writes: "Hoping that I won't screw up again about Solaris 9 on x86 again, this time I'm sure I got it right... eWeek is covering that indeed, Sun will be shipping Solaris 9 for x86 after all!!! Also in that article, they note that Sun is shipping a x86 based server, which will ship the 26th. It will be running a Sun Linux distro... Many surprises from Sun today!!"

Comments

From the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Sources close to industry insiders at slashdot say that Sun will be releasing Solaris 9 for x86.

Is it bad when an article uses a source that is using the original article as its source.

In other Sun news: LX50 behind the times

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun is releasing their LX50 today as well, their first general purpose Intel 1U server.
http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/lx50/

I actually participated in the beta and was very underwhelmed.

This machine is nothing more than an identical clone of the: http://www.penguincomputing.com/store/relion-125.p hp

Which in turn is an OEMed Intel server:
http://www.intel.com/design/servers/acces sories/sr 1200/index.htm

Very pathetic, Sun is becoming another Dell! I guess they realize that their market for "boutique" servers with SPARC CPUs is no longer profitable, at least at the 2 range.

The part that annoys me the most is that they are taking RedHat advanced server and re-branding it Sun Linux 5.0...they will waterdown thrid-party ISVs support by doing this IMO.

I'm happy, but why are they doing this?

[fmaxwell]

As a Solaris x86 user, I'm happy that Sun is releasing Solaris 9 for x86, but I continue to be puzzled as to why they are doing so. It makes no business sense to me. A modern x86 running Solaris 9 will spank a Sun Blade 100, so providing an x86 version of Solaris seems likely to hurt sales of lower-end Sun workstations. A decent x86 box is blindingly fast, in fact, and I would not be surprised to see them even hurt sales of low-end UltraSPARC servers. From a business standpoint, I think that Sun should have stuck to their guns and told the world "if you want to run Solaris, you will have to buy a Sun computer."

For the Linux crowd, the Solaris OS has a level of stability, maturity, and unified feel that Linux simply lacks. It's a one-company vision of how a Unix OS should work and, while I don't always agree with them, the consistency is refreshing. No, this isn't flamebait or a troll. I have removable drives with Mandrake 8.2 and Solaris 8 and I'm not bashing Linux, but I'd sooner choose Solaris for a mission-critical application.

Re:I'm happy, but why are they doing this?

[bungo]

A modern x86 running Solaris 9 will spank a Sun Blade 100, so providing an x86 version of Solaris seems likely to hurt sales of lower-end Sun workstations. A decent x86 box is blindingly fast, in fact, and I would not be surprised to see them even hurt sales of low-end UltraSPARC servers

Well, maybe, but I don't think so.

In places where they are not already a Sun shop, or only have x86 PCs and no unix servers, then I could see a company choosing x86 over a low end ultra - but really, how many companies like that would be seriously considering a low end ultra anyway.

I have a Sunblade 100 on my desk. The reason? It runs the EXACT software as the really big suns in the computer room. In fact, the computer room suns are really not very big - just a cluster of 4-processors E4500 (I think, something like that). The company I'm working for also has alot of big old iron, but they chose Sun for some specific tasks, and want the same sort of hardware dependability as they're use to.

I'm sorry to say, but even the best x86 boxes cannot compete against something like the multi-processor SunFire range (hot swapping of CPUs, etc).

No, I think that this is more likely going to open up more of the really low end market to help Sun get their foot in the door to when the customer wants to scale up, they're already there ready to sell.

Solaris x86 = for the shorties

[Skyshadow]

When I was in college, I put together a group of CS majors who wanted to learn practical computer usage, UNIX-centered development, networking and etc. -- topics definately not covered in CS classes.

We took over the student ACM, weaseled an unused facilty office from the CS department and went to work on assembling a small lab based on the UPL at UW-Madison (we stole their name, too, which really frosted them and nearly earned me a beating from a guy with a crowbar, but I digress).

The real trouble was getting machines to run "real" UNIX distros on.

Given that, the Solaris x86 distribution was an attractive alternative. In the end, we didn't go with it because $99 was prohibitive (hey, we were *college* students). However, if I knew then what I know now (how good Solaris use and admin is on a resume), I would have insisted we spring for it on the second machine we put together from donated bits -- as it was we just used Linux.

So, there's your roundabout answer: It's for people who can't afford Big Iron but want to learn Solaris.

Re:This is what Solaris x86 should be used for...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a stepping stone for those geeks that want to learn and work on Solaris, but are unable to afford real Sun hardware and don't want to take the risks associated with second-hand-could-be-missing-important-pieces-of-h ardware Sparcstations from Ebay.

So much bullshit. First, if you want to learn Slowlaris, you need to use sparc hardware. What few good things there are about the OS are really benefits of the hardware. Second, the hardware you can buy on ebay is cheap (much cheaper than any pc) and surprisingly fast. As for missing parts, I've bought sun systems and parts on ebay for over 3 years and have never had any problems. It's cheap, fast, effective, and the best way to get real hardware to play with. If I can buy a sparc20 for $200 that's as fast as a ppro-200 but has management features, decent firmware, all-scsi i/o, and an artistic package, why would I want to spend $700 on a cheap peecee with a faster cpu but none of the other features?

All that aside, why would I want to run solaris at all? Its only advantage is on boxes with more than 8 CPUs, which you won't find on ebay or at fry's, with any kind of processor. And you won't find x86 boxes with that many CPUs at all.

Solaris is only the right choice for the job if you have a Ex500, Ex800, or E10/15k with lots of CPUs. Otherwise, use Linux. It's just better.

solarisx86 is already considered dead

[Billly Gates]

All the big application vendors left solaris x86 fearing it is dead. Sun should of watched their mouths. I doubt they will come back because everyone else already left and the herd mentality is in. Why risc an investment in a platform in which everyone else already left?

Most of the big name vendors whose products were only available on solarisx86 and solaris-sparc have been ported to Linux except for a few cad apps. Solarisx86 is used as a server and not a workstation anyway so it wont matter. Linux might be a better alternative to a nervous IT manager who has a budget only for cheap x86 hardware.

I think sun should just let it die or opensource solarisx86. They are throwing money away and a now dead product thanks to the false annoncement they made on the death of solaris8 on x86.

Re:Quick Question...

[DNS-and-BIND]

Typical linux idiocy..."Waah waah Solaris is hard, it doesn't ship with GNU utilities...let's replace it with linux."

This isn't flamebait - this is the real attitude! I've seen it dozens of times, if someone is used to linux, they'll never like Solaris, due to Solaris' emphasis on the kernel and OS, rather than spending time on a nicety-nice administrator environment. Say what you want, you can drop a ton of bricks on a Solaris box and it absolutely will not go down. They're real machines, without niceties, intended for real work, and real men work on them. Flame away.

my deep doubt

[bryam]

Is Danese Cooper reading this comments thread?