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

Woo! Great

[krog]

all seven Solaris x86 users are jumping for joy. ;)

Re:Woo! Great

[Ratbert42]

Oh great. My Solaris 8 install just finished last week.

Re:Real UNIX for x86

[Frothy Walrus]

dude, Xenix has been out for years!!

Microsoft reliability with UNIX(tm) price. unbeatable.

Sun LX50 Servers

[jaaron]

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.

Re:Sun LX50 Servers

[irregular_hero]

No, Gateway didn't buy Cobalt -- they just sold relabeled Cobalt equipment for a time. Sun bought Cobalt quite a while ago, although there wasn't a whole lot of fanfare around the purchase itself.

And, frankly, the Sun Linux distribution isn't really a distribution at all. According to Sun, it's only available (now) on the LX50, which is pretty much par for the course for the old Cobalt equipment. What _is_ new about the LX50 is that it's built to be a general purpose server platform as opposed to a Web server (Cobalt's mainstay product lines -- the RaQ series).

I know there are a bunch of people out there that think that Sun has a motive for releasing their own distribution. I've even seen a few people claim that they might be doing this to stratify the Linux marketplace. I don't buy it. Cobalt has been shipping their units with a "distribution" called Cobalt Linux for years -- and from what I know of the LX50, it's pretty much the same thing.

Interestingly, back then, Cobalt Linux was basically a hybrid Redhat distribution. I expect that Sun Linux is exactly the same thing -- the next permutation of Cobalt Linux.

As it is, I've stopped being all that interested in the Cobalt platforms after they have wholesale _stopped_ putting out Security fixes for their older platforms. 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. The last updates to the unit were posted by Sun in 2000.

That being said, now that Sun has its nameplate on the front of the unit and its moniker on the issue.net, maybe they'll be more proficient about updates.

Re:Sun LX50 Servers

[pmz]

What are the real differences between Linux and Solaris as server OSes?

Solaris has:

- extreme CPU, disk, and peripheral scalability
- mature 64-bit support
- multiple scheduling and VM algorithms
- fine-grained patch management
- Dynamic Reconfiguration (allows partially-broken servers to continue running)
- easy hot-swapping
- Dynamic System Domains (multiple OS images)
- multipathing for networks and disks
- bundled management software (SMC, Disksuite, etc.)
- fairly easy installation (similar to Red Hat's install but much more robust)
- JumpStart automatic installation
- sccs (minor detail, but I like it)
- really good bundled documentation (enough to get a sysadmin cert. using it)

And I'm sure there are many more. One thing that is frustrating sometimes is that the Solaris vs. Linux vs. Windows arguments lose many of these details. Most people mindlessly regurgitate benchmarks or marketing-speak trying to justify their basically-religious feelings when an objective analysis would pose a much different argument.

Re:The big news is

[Craig Maloney]

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.

Re:The big news is

[ericman31]

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.

Re:cost??

[u-235-sentinel]

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.

Big Bear only

[Mooset]

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.

Re:Big Bear only

[jeffy124]

not quite. according to the article on eweek (linked above):

On Monday, Sun CEO, Chairman and President Scott McNealy will also unveil a new, general-purpose x86-based server, the Sun LX50, ....
[emphasis mine]

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

[cnelzie]

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.

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 /etc. How to configure it for a network. How to setup services. A variety of things that I simply would have been unable to do, if Solaris x86 didn't exist.

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?

-.-

Re:Real UNIX for x86

[pmz]

Don't forget (Free|Open|Net)BSD! These have a genuine UNIX heritage.

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:yeah but...

[JabberWokky]

Galapagos penguins live right on the equator, thus getting plenty of sun. Since the colony on the north coast of Isabela Island is just north of the equator, it is not quite true that penguins all live in the southern hemisphere, a "fact" that is stated quite often in zoos and on animal shows on television. Austrailia also has quite a few penguins. All quite sunny places.

Plus you have the giant eletric penguins with tenticles that you have to watch out for when you're in the Sahara... plenty of sun there.

--
Evan

Return of Solaris

[yeoua]

I don't know how good this new Solaris will, now that it includes George Clooney.

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.