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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!!"
all seven Solaris x86 users are jumping for joy. ;)
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Or as robust ;)
dude, Xenix has been out for years!!
Microsoft reliability with UNIX(tm) price. unbeatable.
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.
Not only will Solaris 9 run on x86, but Sun's new LX50 server is x86 based. And the really cool thing is you can get it with either Solaris or Sun's new Linux distro. This marks an interesting turn for Sun, throwing support to both x86 processors *and* linux.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
Already been done. Check out the RoadRunner series of computers from Sun. Granted, it's not a true IBM PC compatible, but it was Intel based. It was killed in favor of the 68K/SPARC architectures.
Apparently, Solaris for x86 is not going to be GA like Solaris for SPARC is.
It appears to only be available as a shipping option on the x86-based LX-class servers...
Cheers,
Ken
to make my x86 run like a (x-1)86.
four-oh-four
Because Solaris is too "heavy" for the smaller hardware (think desktops) and Linux is too "light" for the big hardware (think E10K+) Solaris has a huge tool-set for hotswapping, clustering, etc.
Who is John Galt?
Do penguins like sun?
because, you know I thought they didn't.
Sun Microsystems announced the Sun LX50 today at LinuxWorld. They also are again shipping Solaris 8 for x86, the cost is $45 for the CD or $20 to download the CD image. They have not yet released Solaris 9 for x86 for general availability, as far as I can tell.
The LX50 is intended for edge computing. For example as a web or proxy server. It runs "Sun Linux 5.0", although I can't find out much about what that distro is. It appears to be based on the UltraLinux distro.
Since Solaris 8 for x86 was one of the fastest and most stable UNIX releases for Intel platforms I would venture to guess that the 9 release will be also. The usual problem will be the lack of ISV applications for the product. Although numerous open source packages will be available, making it a great web server or email server.
In my universe I'm perfectly normal, it's not my fault you don't live in my universe.
I'm hearing it will cost around $20 to download and $45 for the media kit. Hopefully when they make their announcements the price will stick. So far prior versions have been released around those prices.
Heck, you can still download Solaris 8 2/02 for $20 (x86 and Sparc) though I'm waiting for version 9 personally.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Don't get excited yet, According to Infoworld the new Solaris x86 will only run on Sun hardware such as the Sun LX50. You won't be able to download it for free and use it on any system as in the past.
They are only doing this for the admins who want cheap Solaris hardware to mix in with their SPARC stuff. No more free lunches.
Why would I want to run Solaris x86 over Linux or BSD? I have used Solaris on Sun boxen but never have touched it on the x86.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I don't realy see why I would run solaris on an x86 system. Sun hardware combined with solaris is great, because you get a good OS and very well tested stable hardware. On an x86 based system however, there are better options for servers with were made natively for x86 and not ported, such as windows 2000. Personally I find native x86 OS's more reliable than ported ones. If you use sun hardware however, solaris is great and the only real option to use.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
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-
For instance, I personally used Solaris 8 x86 for this purpose. I loaded it up on an old 200Mhz system that I had laying around. Granted the installation took way to long, the boot process took way to long. However, in the end, I had a functioning Solaris running box to play with.
I started learning the Solaris commands. The files in
Why knock Solaris x86 as slow? As a Solaris learning platform, it is more than perfect for someone on a budget who may have a spare PC, but little dough to blow on Ebay. Personally, I wouldn't use it in a production environment, on the hardware that it came with.
I am quite certain that it will be faster with specially provided drivers for hardware that has the "blessing" of Sun.
If you ignore a tool for the other uses it has, does that make the tool less usefull or you less usefull?
-.-
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
I worked for a company that had quad 486 SCO boxes, rather good boxes for a couple hundred people doing customer tracking and parts ordering, each with 3-4 telnet sessions per person. This is when I learned about Merge that allowed our Admins to run SCO/Win311 boxes. (Ok, it was a long time ago!)
I know a few people who run Solaris x86, mostly for firewall use, they seem to like it. It seems to support pcmcia, so 2 nics and a older laptop and you have a portable firewall.
why risk a reputation of stability on hardware configs they havent tested well? This way they can build and sell x86 machines with hardware configs they know WILL work stable.
-
Is the phrase "Going Forward" the 21st century equivalent of the telegraph statement "STOP"?
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
well, Solaris 9 for SPARC can be d'loaded for free (as in beer), so I hope similar treatment for x86 is in store. See http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/binaries/get. html
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Don't forget (Free|Open|Net)BSD! These have a genuine UNIX heritage.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
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.
Sun has excellent products in both the hw and os arenas, but Sparc/Solaris isn't for everyone.
By not fully embracing Sparc/Linux and x86/Solaris, Sun was cutting its own throat.
Sun ought to make the new software products as Free as they possibly can in order to gain some mindshare. For example, I think they should give us an easy, free download of x86/Solaris for non-commercial use.
I'm pretty sure they're referring to the return of Solaris to the x86. Solaris 8 was available, then they cut off Solaris 9 and announced it was for SPARC only.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
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.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Am I the only one that doubts that there is (or, at least, wasn't) any such word as "Productization"? They used it *twice* in the article. [ahbadee-ahbadee-ahbadee (the sound made by a toon when shaking his head to clear it!)] :)
Just look at the benchmarks... Slowlaris is blown away by Linux.
Benchmarks? I don't see any benchmarks in your post.
Solaris and Linux are different beasts. It is fair to say that Solaris and Linux are optimized differently, where Linux may win on small computers, and Solaris shines as the number of processors, disks, or peripherals increases. Quite honestly, Solaris probably just gets better and better as the computer gets bigger. As it should if a 212-CPU Sun Fire 15K becomes possible next year.
Also, Solaris incorporates features that only IBM will be able to put into Linux: Dynamic Reconfiguration, for example.
At its core, Solaris is meant to be a very robust high-throughput high-uptime OS. Remember, there is more to life than single-user workstations (not that it does really badly on single-user workstations, anyway.)
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
You've been running Solaris X86 on your systems since the early 90's and would have a training and support hassle if you tried to switch now.
Though I suspect, given sun's dabbling in the Linux realm, that they will be moving away from Solaris X86 in the long run. As long as money spent on keeping it up to date is less than they are bringing in from the sales and support contracts they'll keep at it, but Solaris X86 seems silly these days with so many unix variants on the market.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
After further research, it appears that Sun will only be offering Solaris x86 as an option on their own line of x86 hardware. Thus, many of my concerns voiced in the previous post are moot.
Just shows that I should have gone to The Register rather than trusting a half-assed Slashdot rumor.
I don't know how good this new Solaris will, now that it includes George Clooney.
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.
http://saveie6.com/
The first 4 versions were the various base operating systems in the Cobalt appliances...
Different definition of "stable". Sun means "once up, will run until the nearest star is a lump of cold, dark coal". Sun also has some very nice hardware to support all this uptime.
They have a reputation to maintain, and a bunch of people saying "Linux is stable" is different than the extensive testing Sun has done.
YES, Linux is stable, but right now, Sun has much better support for hot-swap hardware and other "forever-up" features.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
So ... what could Sun put in as "value-add" to justify the cost of $2800 for their P3 1U server?
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Prices for the Sun LX50 start at $2,795 and rise to some $5,295 for a richer configuration. The systems will be generally available on Aug. 26, O Brien said.
I guess Sun won't be giving out free copies of its version of Linux at LWE tommorrow...?
Is Danese Cooper reading this comments thread?
If they are shipping Linux Sun distro, why bother making Solaris?
In many cases, Linux is simply not a drop-in replacement for Solaris. Linux is suitable for the small servers, but it lags behind Solaris in features for maintaining small to large servers in a corporate environment.
Only Solaris has been so highly tuned for Sun's UltraSPARC platform.
There are many many people out there who grew up with Solaris and strongly prefer it.
There are many many people out there who have a lot invested in Solaris and have no practical reason to give it up.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
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.
Change a few words in this..and..
For the Linux crowd, FreeBSD has a level of stability, maturity, and unified feel that Linux simply lacks. It's a single vision of how a Unix OS should work and, while I don't always agree with them, the consistency is refreshing.
Sounds exactly like why I stick to FreeBSD these days rather than Linux, unless I'm working on a desktop machine. I dealt with Solaris machines for a couple years (on both Solaris 7 & 8), and while they did their jobs just fine, admin'ing those boxes was definitely not as well thought-out and easy as admin'ing any of the FreeBSD boxes--and the Solaris machines provided no additional benefit in uptime or stability, while costing about $2k more a piece at the time. Rightfully so, of the couple hundred or so machines I've been tasked with setting up in the couple years since, not a single one has been a Sun box.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
Apparently you've never compiled software before....
SunFreeware
If there's not a Sol8 package for you, try backwards. Generally, outside of gcc (because of header files) and kernel structure dependant stuff (top) everything is forward compatible.
I have a poor, dejected Cobalt Qube that I don't even use anymore because the software on it is so full of holes that it would be suicide to use it as a server.
I'd be happy to take that off your hands, if you really can't use it. I certainly could =)
Get off my launchpad!
Other than the OS and the very few applications that came with it, there was nothing else I could do. So what good is an OS on any hardware if it doesn't come with any real world applications to run on it, be it for free for for $$$.
If this is really true, then it should be a simple matter for you to certify for Slowlaris admin - and then get paid to do "nothing", right?
Get off my launchpad!
What made you choose NetBSD? I currently have OpenBSD installed on my IPX. Even with the Weitek it's extremely slow.
Get off my launchpad!
Um, Sun said it had to stop the Slowlaris port to Itanium because Intel stopped giving them needed documentation, etc.
I'm sure AMD could exploit this to offer Sun some handholding with the Opteron.
It's all spelled out in a Register article or two - I just don't have the time to find those URLs again.
Get off my launchpad!
Well, my last job involved me playing with a few old SCO boxes (SCO UNIX is what Xenix evolved into, even still has the Microsoft copyrights on it). We were replacing one old server with a fancy new one (about a billion times faster), and I believe this was the first time the box had been down since it had been installed four years previously.
Not bad, if you ask me.
If you want reliable UNIX on x86, SCO's your bitch, not Solaris x86. If only it didn't have such a slooowwwwww TCP/IP stack.
I think their distribution will be based on "Red Hat Enterprise Server". here may be some slight tuning for the exact hardware they will be shipping (although it dosn't look anything special) and I dare say the menus and splash screens will be customised, but that's it.
If you look at the product line for Sun ONE software (formally iPlanet), you'll see that most of it is becoming available for Red Hat Linux, which is a good thing but a bit of a set back for those of us hoping for more applications for Uniited Linux, I guess we can keep lobying...