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Solaris 9 Support On x86 - But With A Price
choka writes "According to this ZDNet UK article, Solaris 9 will return to x86 platform for $99 instead of being free. There will also be a $20 early access version for testing. Support and update will cost $75 per month. However there is no mention on the Solaris web site yet." There's more than just not being free -- originally, rumor had it that Sun was not going to be supporting, in a major way, Solaris 9 on x86 at all -- that decision has now been reversed. See our past article for information about the original decision.
I think I'm going to adopt Sun's policy on this one and start charging all my QA testers instead of paying them a salary.
All this will do is make people buy SUN gear USED on EBay. SUN might think this will cause people to buy their overpriced new hardware, but there is a glut of nice used machines out there.
Bad move, JMO
Support and update will cost $75 per month.
So if I purchase Solaris 9 and want to keep current as patches are released, I have to pay $75 a month? Or am I misunderstanding?
I am a little disappointed that Sun has decided to charge for the x86 version of Solaris, but I guess it's better than the alternative of not having one at all. Besides Solaris is quite the advanced operating system and I for one would rather pay $99 for a copy than pay the current price for that Redmond made OS.
Now the $25/month for updates, that worries me.
Signatures are for Nerds!
I STILL forget that you need to edit 2 files to change the IP. (/etc/ifconfig and /etc/nsswitch).
/etc/hostname.if0 (where if0 might be hme0, le1, qfe3 or ge0) and maybe /etc/hosts. If you want to change the lookup policy (ie use DNS instead of NIS) you need to edit /etc/nsswitch.conf (and maybe /etc/resolv.conf). You don't need to touch nsswitch.conf when you change the ip address.
What the fuck are you talking about? If you want to change the ip on a box, you need to edit
idiot. using solaris for a decade? what a joke... you must work for boeing, or be one of those useless military contractors.
The price of Windows, the applications of Unix. Why would I want to run it? If I want an x86 *NIX, my choice is *BSD. Now, if Solaris could run Windows apps, or even if it could run MacOS X apps it'd be more than worth it.
Paying for maintenance or "subscribing" sucks too. That's why I won't downgrade to XP. They are trying to move people towards the subscription model. I'm holding out for MacOS X for x86, or a *NIX that can run Windows apps. Running Windows apps a major release back (ie, Win2k apps now, WinXP apps by 2004) would be just fine. If the price is one-time $99, I'm sold.
Does anybody have what it takes to get Windows apps running in less than 2 years? Wine couldn't do it. I wager that a large company like AOL or IBM could do it if they made the commitment. They wouldn't become "the new Microsoft" but they would be like generic drug makers--not household names, but still a good business.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This is... bizarre.
I don't know anyone who runs Solaris on a x86 because they like Solaris on an x86, but it's a very good platform for keeping current on your Sun sysadmin and netadmin skills or prepping for the cert exams.
And that, in turn, affects our employer's decision on which hardware to buy when they need honking big servers.
Microsoft, for all of its other faults, does understand that the developers and admins are key people to get in the loop. These programs can be a real pain if you're a small consulting firm, but if they think you're large enough to be throwing business their way you can get access to a lot of software so your familiarity with it may be a line item when the CIO decides which package to purchase.
So why is Sun pissing on the SCSAs and SCNAs? They don't need to worry about the people who are already using Solaris-on-Sparcs at work, they need to worry about the people who are using HP/UX or AIX or Linux or *BSD and might not remain current on what Solaris offers unless they have that low-cost box to play with.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
This is just my opinion - I could be wrong - but as x86 machines have gotten faster and faster, there seems to be a push to move away from big Sun machines towards x86. Well, if the suits tell you that the company can't afford another Sun box, and the suits probably won't go for Linux either, then Solaris 9 on x86 seems to be a good compromise. As far as suit-friendly OSes go, I'd take Solaris over Windows any day.
-- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
This is a serious question!
What's the reason to run Solaris on x86 instead of Linux or Free/Open/Net BSD? From what I've heard it's slower and has much less support for hardware, besides the fact that it's so conservative that I often bang my head on the desk and install GNU stuff on all Solarisboxes we have at work..
The only reason I can think of is to learn it so one can put "Solaris" on the "list of things I know" when looking for a new job...
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
If you check Sun's focus on Solaris they threw in the towel as of version 2.6 to stop being a workstation OS and focusing on being a server OS. Solaris has the best threading around, its taken Sun years to perfect. But it is causes applications to load slow and single applications don't appear to run fast. But the benefit as a Sun server gets busy you don't see it bog down, it's keep running and running. That why Solaris is a great server OS.
The point is not that people are actually running Solaris x86 on a high end server box. They're (me included) throwing it on one of the hundred or so old P3 500's you have in the back room(thanks to the dot.com layoffs) to add another service to an existing Sun environment. I run a small web development farm, consisting of 5 Sun Netra T1's and X1's. No big whoop. But you should hear the laughter from Up Above when I need to roll out, say, a Proxy server, and ask for $2000 + for another Netra. Why bother, when I have all those P3's gathering dust.
Sure, I could throw Linux on them, but keeping the same OS across the board was important.
I just got my Solaris 8 Admin I cert, and guess which platform I did the majority of my studying on? x86, right. No one cares if I kill test servers left and right. Hearing the screams from Up Above when I accidentally down the development Oracle DB (or Weblogic App server) for our $2 million dollar app is not cool. (Granted, I did have to come in on weekends to learn the OpenBoot PROM crap, but whatever.)
So the point, (from Sun's perspective?), of Solaris 9 x86 isn't that its going to be doing hard-core production work right next to your Sun 220R screamers. No, its that you: a) use it to get more familiar / get certified with the SPARC version, b) deploy it on cheap and already available machines, for low-end projects, and proof-of-concept projects.
i don't think sun is aiming this at nerdy-home-geeks watching for hardware on ebay.
most people, and corporations, DON'T buy used hardware as much cheaper it could get.. especially not from ebay, ever heard about corporate buying decision based on ebay availability?
also, show me the sweet sun machine going under 100$ that's got plenty of power by todays pc standards?
the 'solaris available on x86-> people run to buy sun hardware from ebay with older solaris' thought chain doesn't work. it's like saying 'people can play n64 games on pc-> people run to buy used n64's. '
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.