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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.
I don't know what you are talking about. I only have a dual 3.7GHZ system with 2 gigs of RAM and it seems all right to me. It's not snappy, but I wouldn't call it slow.
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
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
We can all throw out our 32-bit DOS extenders now that Sun has graced us with an x86 UNIX.
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 thought the whole idea was to get people to try Solaris, and then if they like it to get them to 'upgrade' to Sun Hardware? (You know, the first hit is free...) Or is Sun going to actually support x86? I think it would be wish for Sun to get behind Hammer... Or I think it might just loss out to the lower cost x86-64 based hardware suppliers....
Actually, it isn't. The $99 for the initial cost is not bad, Windows and Mac OS X run for over that. The catcher is the support. Is the support for the testers or just in general? It seems to be ambigious. If its in general then it isn't too bad, that is if you know Solaris. Otherwise, its a bad idea.
It also seems that Solaris is coming to the x86 platform alittle late. Intel is moving away from the x86, and AMD also seems to be moving that way with the bridge with their x86-64.
The time may be wrong, and I don't think many mainstream users (non-Solaris know-how people) will attempt to start to learn it with this move.
Who knows, there may be some network admins that go and get it for their home pc.
both x86 versions and Sparc (I have an Ultra and I run x86 on a Dell Optiplex). Solaris is SLOW on x86 because of I/O. But as a server, it runs like a champ. The funny thing is, It takes a lONG time to get a usable system with Solaris. A default install is practically useless. It takes hours to install GNU tools, Apache and any other tools I need. I've been using Solaris for about a decade, and I STILL forget that you need to edit 2 files to change the IP. (/etc/ifconfig and /etc/nsswitch). I always thought that was dumb. I only remember that I screwed up when CDE no longer works. Oh well. I will not upgrade to x86_9 unless it has REAL benefits.
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
Do I read this right? I can buy and run Solaris 9 for only 99 bucks? Is anyone doing this?
Is there a catch?
Yeah, there's a catch. Solaris 8 for i386 is $20.
Solaris has always been just another argument for buying sun servers - that you get support and free updates to the os when you buy the hardware. I mean, if you make your own/buy other unix-based x86 server, what's the point of later buying solaris for it? It won't offer anything more, then, say, linux. Now sun has made their x86 servers look more expensive - that you've got to pay for the updates + service too.
Solaris only makes a real difference on sparcs - and that's where they can charge for it, because if you already have a sparc server, then you are much more likely to pay money for a solaris update, then if you have an x86 server and the ability to switch to other OSes without losing performance or compatibility.
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I think the $99 price is for uni and two processor SPARC desktop machine, although that could be for the media kit, and the license is free if you can dig up the disks yourself. I believe the price starts at $249 for up to two processor servers, and increases as you increase processors. If you still have Solaris 8 CDs, the old free license for anything up to 8 processors still applies, but you can't download the isos from Sun. They might still be available on some of the less checked mirrors.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Why pay uberbucks for Solaris on x86 instead of using Slackware or OpenBSD for free? Its like when you continue to drive your 1988 Cutlass, which is in the shop for repairs every other week, when your brand new prowler sits in the garage gathering dust.
0xfeedface
Which begs the more obvious question:
Why pay uberbucks?
*sigh*
Calling the Sword of Truth uber is one thing, but uberbucks? Do you even know what you are saying?
Anyway, you would pay regular dollars (perhpas something else w/ exchange rate) for Solaris, as opposed to superdollars (worth more?).
--
Win? Lose? I don't even play the game.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
I presume sun would have to reverse the decision to support Solaris 9 on x86, seeing as the LX 50 uses x86 hardware.
I used to work in the group at Sun that promoted Solaris on Intel. There is a core group of morons that is very good at dodging layoffs, signing large contracts that don't deliver revenue, and bitching to Scott McNealy that Solaris on Intel really isn't dead. This leads to all sorts of pathological decisions.
Solaris is an operating system, and a pretty good one. Solaris generally has oddly optimized drivers for large boxes that make it very useful for large sites. Also, Solaris is the vehicle for pushing Sun's special talent; networking more processors more effectively. Solaris on SPARC works well.
Solaris on Intel is the bastard child of an unresolved angst over controlling the client desktop. Sun has never figured out that it has a special weakness against making a decent client. Sun has never turned around to the niche market and embraced Apple clients, or PC clients, or anyone else. The wierd waffling on Solaris on Intel is a sickness from a lack of decision.
The problem will not go away until the group is fired. Deal with it.
Solaris on x86 is like putting perfume on a pig. Any IPC/IPX will run circles in IO performace next to a pentiumII. Any modern sun system will absolutely spank any x86 hardware.
By the time you get done buying all the parts for your high end x86 solaris server with an adaptec 29160, 5 drive array, 2 gigs of ram, and a 2 gigahertz processor you could have bought a modern sun for the same price with half the ram and half the processor speed, but three times the memory and disk IO so it really evens out.
How will this make people buy used Sun gear?
Given the choice between buying an new x86 machine (or using one of the ones I already have) and running Solaris on it, or buying more expensive, used hardware with an old version of Solaris. I'll stick with the x86 option any day.
I think that it's far more likely that people will just move away from Sun and Solaris in favor of Linux or *BSD solutions.
Signatures are for Nerds!
As soon as this story was posted, this discussion forum seemed to turn into a Solaris-bashing free-for-all, filled with a bunch of uninformed attacks on the performance of Solaris and a bunch of trolling about how Linux or BSD performs so much better. These are the same kind of people who complain about Microsoft spreading lies (FUD) about Linux, but these hypocrites have no problems doing the same regarding Solaris, because it doesn't fit into their open source ideology.
I have been a Linux user for years, and I love Linux for lots of reasons. But I make my living doing parallel/numerical computing research and I know from runnings lots and lots of performance studies that Solaris beats Linux handily in several situations. I have seen vastly better performance under Solaris (compared to Linux) with some of my codes because of better cache management, superior mmap() implementation, and better job scheduling in the presence of system memory shortages. Solaris isn't just a unix that is for people "too stupid" to use a free OS. There is a huge amount of manpower devoted to its development, and in many respects it is quite clever. For certain categories of codes, it outperforms Linux handily. I'm not saying that Solaris is better than Linux. I am saying that it is foolish and ignorant to bash the performance of Solaris simply because it is not open source.
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"?
Uh, never? WalMart mainly targets the general public. Solaris is mainly developed as a workstation and server OS for use by businesses and organizations. So unless the general public starts wanting to set up and configure their own workstation and server environments...
slashdot!=valid HTML
It's usually Linux eating up Solaris' market share, not the other way around.
The Raven
The Raven
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
How about an application's compatibility with the kernel however that doesnt just go over to another OS
Umm... can you please show me an example of a server-oriented application that only works on solaris and doesn't have a substitute on other systems?
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You missed the boat. Version 8 was absolutely free for x86. That's the catch. This isn't good news, this is bad news, since it used to be free, and now it's not.
Maybe you should do two seconds of research before you try to spread your FUD.
slashdot!=valid HTML
Here's the Heliopod blurb *cough*shameless plug*cough* from Oct 4:
By the way, TechTarget.com posted an interview with Chris Baker, Sun's Product Manager for Solaris x86. They discuss quite a few aspects of the OS, including support, driver development, and pricing plans. If you run x86, it's probably worth checking out.-- null
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.
That's a beast of a system. By it not being "snappy" on that machine, yes, I'd call it "slow" in the world of real computers.
>> Why pay uberbucks for Solaris on x86 instead of
:)
>> using Slackware or OpenBSD for free?
>Its like when you continue to drive your 1988
>Cutlass, which is in the shop for repairs every
>other week, when your brand new prowler sits in the
>garage gathering dust.
So, Slackware would be the Prowler, and Slowaris would be the Gutless?
We've finally converted all of our Solaris machines to Slackware. Slackware seriously outperforms Solaris on the same machines. I'm talking identical. We'd copy off the client data, and install Slackware.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
How many guys do you know running slowaris on thier laptop? I can't think of anyone.
Remember back in the day when it was a right of passage just to get Linux on your laptop (with X)? We can now have those days again. Hardware support, who needs it. Real men write thier own device drivers. For $99 I can have bragging rights and show my domanance as the alpha geek. Oh yeah, I'm in.
Works for me, although to be fair I did hack about with it a bit. I'm guessing you had problems with Rutgers boot strap code? Give us a shout if you're serious and I'll see if I can help you get it working...
Tim Brown
I was only joking. I only wish I had a system like that. Truth be told, I have never used solaris on an x86. just on sparc hardware.
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
With Solaris on the commercial side and FreeBSD on the free side, both technically superior and more stable and linux 2.0, 2.2, 2.4, 2.5, 3.whatever, linux distros spiraling down the path of no return into oblivion for setting back the state of computing by 10 years reinventing a wheel.
but they'll give you develpment tools so you can make your own! only for $99
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.
not for solaris. But here's an example of a patch to the linux kernel for postgres.
Well, this only shows that all applications that are needed for a server can run on anything else just as well as on solaris - any kernel-issues are resolved with a patch. And besides the example you gave is about inter-architecture compatibility, not kernel-compatibility - the patch is for posgresql to work on ia64. We are talking bout x86 systems only. Perhaps I misunderstand your point...
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If they couldn't decide if they should even release it (Solaris 9) on x86 then what happens when Solaris 10 comes around? Are we sure that we are going to have the same type of upgrade path that most Linux Distros offer? I was running Solaris 8 on x86 until SUN said they would no longer support Solaris on x86, now should I jump back in and take a risk or stay with Redhat who I know will be around for quite some time to come?
if common sense was common, wouldn't everyone have it?
Even when it was "free" they charged $40 for the CD's and something like $75 for the CD's including docs and trialware.
It's worth $90 to me in order to keep my skills sharp on one of the top UNIX flavors.
I wish HP and IBM would provide a similar service.
A good one too... hahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahaha hahahaahhaaha
I don't get why slashdot geeks are giving this the thumbs down. At the end of the day, it's one more choice for a hardened geek and as such can only be a good thing.
:>
In addition to the choice angle, Solaris on x86 is there for 3 key reasons:
1) A proportion of us that opposed its death would be quite happy to offer payment to continue its existance - there are a reasonable number of developers & admins with time and money already invested in Solaris on x86 for one reason or another.
2) There will be those who take Solaris on x86 as a chance to learn before they jump in to the world of Solaris on Sparc - For example, it may be better than investing in a Sparc just to pass your exams.
3) For those who want to push Solaris on Sparc, it may be an easy way to prove to management that Solaris does have the advantages, again without buying the Sparc kit - hell you could even sneak it in in just the same way BSD and Linux advocates do, under the radar.
Sure, Solaris on x86 isn't perfect and certainly doesn't perform as well as on the Sparc architecture but is this any great surprise - Sun are trying to hit a moving target when it comes to modern PC hardware - if you stick to whats supported you should be fine.
The other criticism is that you need to install additional tools, but isn't this the case with any OS. These days, Solaris is supplied with most of the key open source tools. Additionally, resources like Rutgers RPM archive + apt-get bootstrap kit along with SunFreeware make getting a Solaris box up easy.
As I see it, this news has 4 (i/c the aspect of choice) positive points and 0 negative. Having said that, the news is moot to me, I run Sparc
Tim Brown
I haven't used Solaris on Intel since the free binary licence for Solaris 7, which I found to be quite sluggish and in many ways different from Solaris implementations for Sparc.
One solution to ready (not to mention cheap) access to a Sun platform is to purchase some of the cheap Sun hardware which another poster pointed out is readily available at places like Ebay. For the cost of X86 Solaris 9 you could pick up an Ultra-5 and download Solaris 9 Sparc for free.
Personally I went for an Ultra-30 with 760Mb of ram and a 21" Sun badged Sony Trinitron monitor for £GB500.
Sun sells tin, I don't expect to be paying for Solaris any time soon.
Not that I'm complaining. I ordered the Solaris 8 for Intel media pack and was extremely impressed with what you got for that price, but, er, "free"?
This is fodder for those who think that, for instance, 10-10-220 is right to advertise selling that you can use its service to get a 20 minute phone call for under $1. NO YOU CAN'T. There is no physical way of spending less than $1 to get a phone call over 10-10-220.
Likewise, if you're charging $20 minimum for giving someone access to an operating system, you're not giving it to them for free.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I haven't heard "Slowlaris" since the mid nineties. I guess the System V vs. BSD debate is still going strong. Or, more likely, the poster just thinks the term has a nice ring to it.
/.'ers.
History of the term "Slowlaris" (according to me):
A long time ago there was a mobo named SUN, the Stanford University Networking board. Some folks took this tech and turned it into a product.
They needed an OS for their computer and, after losing their way initially, they eventually stopped upon unix, the Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD). They used BSD as the base and created their OS, which they called, unimaginitivly enough, SunOS.
Time passed, Sun made more and more products, and eventually deciding on a multiprocessor architecture for their workstations. This decision ate up huge amounts of silicon and resulted in a dog of a machine called the sparc 10. The main problem was that there were no multithreaded applications for the multiprocessor hardware. That and the concentration on multiprocessor hardware meant that the cpus, on their own were pretty slow, AND, not to mention the fact that the cpus and mobos were so expensive, owing to the smp arch , that most clients could only afford 1 cpu.
Anyway, around this time Sun thought that, going forward they needed a better kernel to support all this smp shit, so they started on a new kernel, and, why stop there, a new layout to the entire OS.
About this time there was the BSD-SVR5 holy war going on. Most people probably don't realize that before MS, people actually used to argue about which unix was best.
So they renamed SunOS to Solaris 1 and then introduced a new SVR5 OS called Solaris 2. Nobody likes change and Solaris 2 didn't exactly make your sparc 10 run any faster, so most users kept on running SunOS (er. Soalris 1).
This is where the term "Slowlaris" came into vogue, the BSD'ers who didn't like the switch to system 5, talked up the fact that Solaris was sooo much slower than SunOS. Which was not entirely inaccurate, but the real issue was more likely the shitty software they were running on top of the OS.
And then NT and the MS marketing machine hit like an atom bomb and, if not for Sun and Gnu/Linux would probably have moved unix onto the os scrap heap with cpm, amiga, and all those other "speedy" os's loved by
Often time when I read Slashdot articles I get the impression that many of you think that any company that tries to sell software for money is bad. I just don't understand why you would make a big deal out of something not being free. The reason I use open source software isn't because its free.
Stop being such cheep bastards and start paying for software. It helps open source companies out. The more money in the open source companies the better.
I don't really care if you buy Solaris though. Its not open source.
No, I actually paid $0 for my copy of Solaris 8. Don't remember how or why, but I did. Actually got a bunch of abuot 6 CD's with a bunch of stuff on 'em, like Open Office, etc.
Maybe 10 years ago your statement would have been true...
But go on e-bay and you will find a ton of old sun boxes, i've seen IPC's for 5 dollars, 5 fucking dollars for a system that was not engineered to be a "Genereal Purpose" box.
Here's a few links randomly grabbed from e-bay. (Note this is better stuff than IPX/IPC's..)
Sun
Ultra Enterprise 2 200 MHz 256 MB Server $61.00
Sun
Ultra Enterprise 2,1024MB,2x300MHz,9GB $405.00
Sun
Ultra 10 Workstation w/ 21in Monitor $575
Yeah, 10 years ago, I would have totally agreed with you. But today, sun hardware is easy to get, and why fuck yourself with hardware that isn't going to retain it's resale value or less than server class construction? Why even bother with desktop 3 layer process motherboards that needs heatsinks up the ass for overclocked, overworked IO glue chips when you could have something that was built right the first time for the same price?
You must buy a lotta crack with that Solaris cert you got, cause your reasoning makes me think you're crack smokin.
And don't knock knowing Solaris resume-wise.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
>It is cheaper and it is Solaris.
>
>RH has a price of $149.95
Or it has a price of $39.95 (http://www.redhat.com/software/linux/personal/).
Or it has a price of $0.00 (ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/8.0/).
>so I don't see any price advantage for Linux.
Still not seeing the price advantage?
Matt
This is the first port of a major OS to x86 in years really, yes?
I assume this a clumsy attempt at sarcasm.
It's not a new port. Solaris has been available (in various states of usability and support from Sun) since version 2.1-x86 in 1993.
# init 5
Connection closed.
Oh...
Solaris does not particularly target the desktop user any longer, and hasn't seriously for a long time. So bitching about Solaris being "clunky" in that kind of usage (which is what it appears you're talking about, ditching Solaris on the desktop), is ludicrous.
Tell that to Sun Marketing.
Solaris desktop isn't the only area where solaris is clunky. It is also clunky in a number of server configurations (e.g. database server, etc.) where Linux, FreeBSD, and others shine.
You may not like the fact that your favorite operating system isn't terribly well suited for a number of applications, applications for which it is often marketed by its seller, but that does little to change the fact that it remains less well suited than others, or that the areas where it does shine are areas that only a few specialized applications have any real use for.
You may also not like the fact that businesses and companies, including the one I work for, have found it in their strategic interest to deploy open and free(dom) operating systems and products wherever feasable, or that the turnaround on fixing problems is typically faster than Sun (who is BTW a great deal better than Microsoft in that respect), so much so that it, more than anything else, became a deciding factor when my bosses chose which direction to go, and which operating system to deploy.
Indeed, you may not much care for anything I've said on the subject (your rather trite post certainly seems to indicate that), and certainly Sun probably doesn't like to hear it (and when it has been brought up to their sales representatives, you could almost see their hands go over the ears and their lips begin to move in the "I can't hear you, I can't hear you" refrain), but that does absolutely nothing to negate the fact that, for the vast majority of common tasks to which computers are used in many, many corporate and small business settings, Solaris ins't nearly as well suited as other alternatives such as FreeBSD and Linux, nor does it negate the fact that Sun's unwillingness to listen to its customers on this subject has played no small role in their shrinking marketshare.
Of course, your contention that 2-cpu unix configurations isn't relevant to the discussion shows an immense ignornace of the hardware offerings Sun itself markets, many of which are precisely the clunky, slow, and ineffecient architecture you yourself dismiss in lauding their 64 and 128 cpu solutions, which the vast majority of us have no use for.
Finally, I recommend you look up the word 'attack', then look up the word 'criticize.' There is a difference that your idealogical adherance to Sun appears to have blinded you to, much as Sun's sales representatives have been blinded as they've watched their accounts dwindle toward zero. Hint: I was criticizing Solaris, and rightly so based on my not inconsiderable experience with the product (indeed, I work with it every day). Your interpretation of that as an attack says a great deal more about your bias than it does about mine.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Security Patches have been available for free at sun's homepage, I hope this is still true.
;-)
However, I'd be even more interested in a Trusted Solaris 9 Release for x86. TS 8 was available for x86, at a price of about $ 2500,- (this is for a 2-way machine, there is no single-cpu license for TS; thanx god i've wasted my money for an smp machine, so i don't have to waste money for an 'oversized' license
IMHO, Trusted Solaris is the ultimate combination of scalability and security on x86 - at least I did not find anything comparable on the x86..
(ok, maybe except Solaris with Pitbull, which is pretty similar to Trusted Solaris anyway...)
Sun's 32-bit unix costs as much as 32-bit dos(winshit cripple edition) while my 64-bit unix (Debian/PPC) was free.
Actually, the above is innacurate. Let me rephrase:
M$'s 32-bit DOS costs as much 3 copies of Sun's 32-bit unix. Sun's unix has an inifinite lifespan whereas M$ will do everything in their power to force an upgrade upon you within 1-2 years.
So M$'s "solution" costs $300/2 or $150 a year while Sun's "dealy" costs $100/infinity or $1/infinity. Making Sun's "dealy" a lot better than M$'s "solution".
GNU's "Not UNIX (only respective to licensing)" costs $0. We all know that 0
Not to mention that 64-bit PeeCee(Linux/DOS/Solaris) hardware costs much more than 64-bit Mac(Linux/OSX) or 64-bit Sun(Linux/Solaris).
In all seriousness, continue to buy PeeCees with winshit installed so that Intel and M$ don't accuse me of being an "anti-capitalist" terrorist.
(I am in no way a "damn commie". I hate totalitarianism in all forms, whether by the government(true democracy), the people(communism/socialism), or the corporations(Earth).)
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
1. Good Solaris/HP admins can make serious $$$$. If you can add Veritas software and Oracle to that, it goes up substantially from there.
2. Solaris (SPARC version only, of course) will scale almost linearly when moved above 8-CPU's. It was designed to comfortably run on systems of 100 CPU's and above. If I remember right, x86 doesn't really scale well past 4 processors.
3. If it wasn't for linux, there'd be no way that I could've even touched Solaris. Without Solaris x86, there's no way I would have been able to learn it without going out and purchasing a sparc machine. I will help support the Sun x86 community in this and will purchase a production release copy for $99 when it comes out.
I use linux for just about everything I have at home (PA-Risc linux, familiar linux on my ipaq, yellow dog on my mac, linux for mips on my Playstation 2), but I also use Solaris x86 as my primary server at home.
If I didn't like it, I wouldn't complain - I just wouldn't buy it.
Ain't variety wonderful? It's all pretty much unix, people - can't we all just get along?
give credit where it's due, this is originally a microsoft policy.
Since when was solaris free for any type of production environment?
Sure, you could get a personal copy and play with it.. but that's useless to the business world.
You've almost gotta wonder if they sat around in some board room somewhere and said:
bonehead1:"What we really need todo is drive more unix users into the arms of linux!"
bonehead2:"I know, we'll charge an obsurd price for our x86 version of solaris!"
bonehead1:"Yeah! In fact we'll even charge for the crippled only one user can login, disables the ethernet after 24 hours beta to discourage people from even testing it!" (*note: I'm not sure that's true, it just sounds funny so I made it up...*)
bonehead2:"I am in awe of you!"
bonehead1:"What can I say, I am god.."
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
As I said in my other post, We can buy PCs for CPU power that Blow away even new suns..
Secondly you could buy a brand new 2ghz machine that'll have IDE but still beat a dual ultra 2 machine for 425.00 (what the auction ended at)...
BTW, Ultra 10 has IDE pal, so no scsi defense on that one...
Also what happens if sun goes out of business tomorrow (yeah, small chance but still) Or they decide to stop supporting the equipment... (IPX's are no longer supported on solaris 8 even)
Also what happens if something breaks on it? Have to wait to go on ebay and buy a new part and wait for the auction to end...
And finally if you're a large coportation and worried that much about resale value you could always lease equipment, whether you lease PCs or Sun's it doesnt matter...
For the small time user, as long as you don't buy bleeding edge you don't loose much on your investment.. and I really don't think an Ultra 2 is bleeding edge either...
We still use ultra 2's where I work, but typically they aren't purchasing any new ones... Most of our farm equipment is all newer, faster stuff such as Blade 1000's and Sunfire 280R's
Also, Please stay away from the Sunblade 100's.. that was Sun's attempt to "save YOU money".. hah...
The $99 for Solaris x86 isn't new. Solaris 8 x86 was also $99; I know because I bought it to upgrade my Solaris 7 x86 box (which was free because Sun was trying to get everyone to develop in Java, so they set out boxes of Solaris 7 x86 and a bunch of software like Java IDEs). And there also wasn't _any_ people-support for this unless you paid for it, as is being advertised now for Solaris 9 x86. You got free support from the web site and support sites, but not phone tech support. (Updates are no doubt free for download.) So, doesn't look like anything is new now, unless the monthly support cost has changed.
Oh, and in case people are wondering why someone might want Solaris x86, the answer was very easy for me: it's a reference platform. If your socket code works on Solaris it's pretty much going to work anywhere else just fine. If you want the real sh in an environment that actually expects sh (instead of bash, for example) then you go with Solaris. This is extremely handy for writing OS independent sh scripts. I can't afford a SparcStation, but I can afford Solaris x86, and it means I can do Solaris development and testing (okay, not really low-level stuff that is endian-important) at home.
I have played with Solaris for some time now. First was when they had the free Solaris 7 x86 promotion back in 98. I payed some 19 dollars for my media kit and installed it on a Compaq Deskpro 4000. Years later I aquired a SPARCserver5, a Ultra 1 and tried it for real. With the Ultra 1 I was impressed how fast Solaris ran in 64 bit mode. Now I am in the process of getting a Ultra 80 and can't wait to try it on some real hardware. Since then, my preference for cheap comsumer grade x86 hardware has deminished greatly.
Be lucky that Sun has decided to bow to it's consumers and released a x86 port of Solaris 9. If all you are going to do is complain then go buy Sun hardware and do it right the first time... Besides, it stimulates the economy and dosen't contribute to the Microsoft tax.
"Mere mortals, I laugh at your 32 bit clunkers"
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Hint: If you need it, xfree86 2d driver support runs exactly the same on solaris as it does on linux/bsd/xyz
I've been using Solaris for about a decade, and I STILL forget that you need to edit 2 files to change the IP. (/etc/ifconfig and /etc/nsswitch).
Err.... you mean one file (/etc/hosts), right?
You've been using Solaris for how long?
- A.P. (it's 2 files to change the system name...)
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
OK normally I don't bite on stupidities committed by the editors, but...
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.
First you say "rumor had it..." and then you say, "that decision has now been reversed."
There was no rumour involved here. Sun had press releases, and a FAQ about the damned thing! Then they changed their mind. That's not a bloody rumour.
OK, rant off.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
OK, I'll rise to the bait...
First of all, consider Solaris in the generic (i.e. Sparc, x86 versions both).
Solaris is simply a better OS than Linux. Stability, reliability, scalability, and a track record that Linux can't yet touch. Solaris and Linux are both far more _advanced_ OSes than *BSD. Consider that FreeBSD isn't that much beyond SunOS 4.1. Given a choice, I'd use all three of them in different situations.
Now Solaris on Sparc? You have a hardware-specific OS running on...that hardware! There is nothing that runs on a Sparc as well as Solaris, if you count 'better' as meaning predictable, fast, managable, standardised, solid, reliable, non-tweaky, well established, and supported.
Finally, you don't have to pay for Solaris Sparc! When S8 was the current version, it was a free download and free to use on anything up to (and including) eight processor machines. Solaris 9 is now a free download, and free to use on single processor machines. (And in fact will work fine on any number of processors, but if you're in a production environment, don't count on support if you don't have it licensed).
And while community support is oftentimes invaluable, it's also unpredictable and unreliable. When you have a problem at 3:00am that HAS TO BE FIXED RIGHT NOW!!!, who would you rather turn to for help: The informal community of Aurora Linux hackers, or professional trained engineers, specialising in your particular combination of hardware and software?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Not only is Solaris a very kickass server OS, but the perceived problems you mention can be addressed by changing the time scheduling class of the process. There is a specific class of task scheduling designed for, say, sitting in front of the machine and doing interactive stuff. There's another for real-time scheduling, but I don't think anything uses that by default out of the box.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Sun and Apple seem to be taking lessons from each other. It seems like one week Apple is touting new software, only to have to buy a new machine to run it on.
Sun seems to follow the same pattern, IMHO.
I'm a hamker. Hams, hackers, same ethos, different medium. == 73 de KB0STG
I sure didn't.
Sometime in the past few months, Sun had a form on its website offering a free copy of Solaris for x86. The form was featured on Slashdot and everywhere else on the net. I don't know anyone who ever got the media.
As much as I admire your relentless accuracy, I'm worried that the boredom from which you're suffering is approaching dangerous levels.
I'd suggest doing something USEFUL fast, before it really gets the better of you. Just some free advice from another well meaning person.
All generalizations are false, including this one. (Mark Twain)
Yes, no fud here... We received them directly from sun and started a pilot program (I'm talking about 1 hundred (100+) SunBlade 100's.. the first revision had alot of problems with the motherboards and also the memory.. They would lock up at random times.. It got to the point where I HAD to enable logging by default because of all the lock ups... The EU's (in this cause CAD/Layout people) would be stuck with a down machine costing company alot of money..
I guess the newer revisions are better, but overall I can honestly say the 100's still lock up the most out of all of our Sun's in general..
Yes and I understand that the SunBlade were supposed to fill the light desktop void that Sun never filled.. And yes I understand it was supposed to be the cheaper solution.. but I think they initially cut a little too much out...
Patching and enabling logging helped, but overall I wouldn't recommend a Sunblade.. In this case I would buy an ultra 2 off of ebay.. heck, even a descent dual Ultra 60 would cost about the same and I would buy one of those over a SunBlade 100...
It was a minor nuisance to install the RAID driver for a Compaq DL-380, but once I found the Solaris drivers (yes, they existed!), it was just like installing on a sparc machine.
It was even easier to take a discarded workstation and turn it into a temporary DNS server. No real cross-platform issues - additional software came from sunfreeware or was compiled from source.
It was also funny seeing people trying to run i386 binaries on sparc servers or vice versa - you do need to make sure that you keep compiled code in a distinct place.
Unless I need to compile code, I generally don't notice the difference - which I would have if I had installed a BSD or Linux on them.
Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around
the sun. At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when
evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can
doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact. That all present
life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is
as firmly established as Copernican cosmology. Biologists differ only with
respect to theories about how the process operates.
-- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life".
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