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Sun Solaris 9 for x86 for Evaluation
Rune Tønnesen writes "Sun has listent to their costomers, they have a released Sun Solaris 9 x86 for test and evaluation purposes, it can be downloaded ($20) as part of their OE Customer Early Access software.""
If I understand correctly, Staroffice isn't free anymore, because when it was free, people believed it was inferior to the expensive Microsoft Office suite. This isn't an issue for Solaris, however. And Solaris 8 was available for free download. So when it's out of testing, could Solaris 9 for x86 be available for free?
Does Sun make most of their money with their really nice hardware? If that's the case, what are the chances they could be considering opening the source for Solaris? I admit I'm fairly ignorant about Solaris, but it seems like this is a good example of a company that could benefit from opening the source of their software by, perhaps, generating a bigger demand for their hardware.
Well the Solaris 9 x86 version is probably for their entry level LX50 servers
l
http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/lx50/index.htm
what do you think ?
I found Solaris/X86 (2.6->8.0) pretty stable.
In fact, it has been rock solid.
More so than Linux (Mandrake 8.2) on the very same hardware (serverworks mobos).
why spend $20, LINUX IS FREE.. isnt that what this is all about? =x
No, stability is what it's all about. $20 is a small price to pay.
Guess not. I liked their scheme with sol 7 and 8 better. I'm not paying $20 for something I'll probably test once.
So, it makes sense to run Solaris on cheap x68 hardware to get some trainning if you are going to apply for one of these jobs. It is much more fun than sysadmin'ing Win* boxes, and whenever the company switches to Linux/BSD you are already working there and you get to do real cool work ;-)
They paid for the massive bandwidth used by those that downloaded it.
It ran on hardware that they did not sell, so they made no money there.
Sun probably cannibalized sales of lower-end (e.g. Sun Blade 100) systems. Those who wanted to run Solaris could do so without having to buy anything from Sun.
All of the risks and no profits. Sun had no quality control over the hardware, so if Joe Blow had a system with flaky RAM that crashed all of the time, he'd probably blame Solaris.
It took a tremendous investment on Sun's part to make a version of Solaris that worked on such a large subsection of x86 boxes. This probably took money and time away from profit-making ventures.
Solaris clearly will not be a serious competitor to Windows or Linux in the x86 market. Sun should never have released it in the first place and charging for it is the only rational compromise between doing the smart thing -- discontinuing it -- and appeasing the masses by giving it away for free.'
I don't know if Sun can be said to make money on the software, or the hardware, or whatever. It seems to be more about the whole package. They make everything work together.
I used to have a business that used Sun, and the level of support we got (mostly from our vendor, admittedly) was incredible, and we never got that "pass the buck" sort of thing where the software people blame the hardware, and the hardware people blame the software.
I have a friend who works for sun doing support. He had a solid academic background and a number of years of experience doing system administration at fermilab before he joined the company. He spent most of his time supporting clustered systems. The point is that if you have problems and a high level support contract, you talk to smart people.
I know that they used to have (and probably still do have) Oracle gurus on staff, because if you're a big customer you don't want to hear Sun say, "Call Oracle" and the Oracle people say, "Call Sun." You want it to work.
And I remember once I had a system die on me, and I didn't have a spare. My vendor, who usually dealt with much larger customers, kept an inventory of stuff preboxed at an overnight shipping facility. He could call them up and tell them to ship something out as late as 8p or so, and get it there the next morning. I called him in the evening, and he got it there in the morning. He said, "We'll talk about billing later, let's get this shipped before the deadline passes."
It's a whole different world when you have problems. That's what Sun sells. But obviously, it's a lot more expensive than taking a commodity pc that you built for $500 and putting linux on it.
The problem Sun would have with an Open Source Solaris is that people would change it, and that would make support a lot more difficult.
Sun's problem isn't that Solaris is missing features that open source developers could contribute, or reliability issues that volunteers could help them work out. Their problem is that they're caught in a pretty small niche, and other people with a lot of money are coming at them all the time.
And the fact that linux is solid, and that it can be made to work creates a new problem, because it creates the possibility that another company (like RedHat) might be in a position soon to offer the same kind of "we make it work" service that Sun offers.
I don't think there are any easy answers to these problems. Sun seems like a viable company, but they definitely have some challenges ahead.
If you don't have a support contract, if you're a guy with a couple of sparc servers and no lifeline, Sun doesn't make so much sense. You're better off with the commodity hardware and linux. I think that tends to color the way linux guys look at Sun.
Sun says Sol9 is Linux compatible. They also include many of our favorite Open Source apps, and many of those are Sun supported.
If we didn't need SPARC binary compatibility for some of the libraries we don't have source code for I could probably convince the Powers That Be to take a look at this at work, especially since I could build a dual CPU Athlon 2400+ development box for cheap. (I have one at home. Real MP 2400+ chips should be available later this month, saving you the nuisance of hacking XP series chips.) Being able to use the same GTK+/GNOME GUI source for both Linux and Solaris development is very, very interesting. Windows has probably already won where I work, but who knows?
Sun only allow payment via VISA, MasterCard or AMEX. Most people who would make use of the Solaris 9 OS would be students or hobbyists such as myself. I don't have a credit card so I have no way of downloading this software as a result - cheque and postal money orders are available if I spend over US$195.
I wouldn't expect many students to download this one as a result, so we'll have less people with experience with Solaris 9 once they graduate. Guess what? They'll all use Linux.
Also, downloading this OS with an Australian broadband download cap is prohibitive, too, which would add extra costs as well.
Good work, Sun!
I sorta disagree.
Sun probably cannibalized sales of lower-end (e.g. Sun Blade 100) systems. Those who wanted to run Solaris could do so without having to buy anything from Sun.
Not really. People don't buy Sun stuff just for Solaris, they want the package. They wanted (allegedly) stable Sun hardware on (allegedly) stable Sun software. I doubt if Sun lost any money to speak of because people were buying Solaris and running it on their Dell's (I personally know of 0 companies running x86 Solaris in a production environment, I do know some that use to as a cheap developers box).
Solaris clearly will not be a serious competitor to Windows or Linux in the x86 market.
I agree, but you're missing the point that it was never meant to be. Sun already had a x86 port when they came out with their i386 boxes years ago. They were just leveraging that work by keeping the code base portable. It's always been a red headed step child and always will be. But generally I don't think it's that massive a drain on their resources.
"Disk space: 600 MB for desktops; 1 GB for servers"
I can see taking up 600 megabytes for desktops: office software, X windows, games, pretty pictures. But what is installed for a server that requires that much space?
1 GB = Desktop Install - Office Crap - X - Games - Other junk + n megabytes for server stuff?
How much shit could the server software possibly take? Anyone know? Unless it is just a desktop install + server software. I wouldn't want all that crap on my server.
20 is high for testing versions.. Regardless of their good track record of RELEASED versions of Solaris..
"Media charge" would be more appropriate, until the final product hits the road..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Sun should never have released it in the first place and charging for it is the only rational compromise between doing the smart thing -- discontinuing it -- and appeasing the masses by giving it away for free.'
Well, yes and no. They gave it away on the same basis that they give deep discounts to educational buyers - they more people who know and like Sun equipment, the more people who will recommend buying it when they start work. Sun never intended people to do production work on Solaris x86, it was just a way to get students hooked early.
Now, the cheap hardware is good enough that you can do useful work on it, and you are right, at the low end, SPARC kit is competing (and in many cases losing) against high-end PC kit.
If Sun do want to give Solaris x86 away, it should be under a strict license that precludes it from being used for commercial work.
Apple is already starting off well in the Server market. What if they bough (or merged with) Sun and incorporated Sun compatibly into Mac OS X Server?
Wouldn't that really give Apple a nice jump into the Server market? Additionally, wouldn't that give Sun some kind of a future?
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
with all that software, they will have to call it Gnu/Solaris.
Is to run it on their bulletproof Sparc servers.
Why degrade the product with the x86 platform?
Opinion of course.
- open source
- java
- hardware
- proprietary software
- fight Microsoft
That would be ok if they were making money in each of those "fields". But I don't think they are. It seems like they are being pushed back from every direction.I think x86 Solaris is a symptom of their problems; it is not a cure.
Sex - Find It
Why would I pay to test when I should be paid to test?
consistantly
Taco's Law: Anyone criticizing a spelling or grammatical error on the Internet is likely to make an error of the same sort himself in the critique.
May we never see th
While getting training on Solaris is invaluable for any *nix sysadmin worth his/her salt, it's my belief that when it comes to experience helping secure a job getting that experience on x86 hardware lies somewhere between "next to useless" and "better than nothing" on the usefulness scale. Anyone that wants Solaris software experience will also want Sparc hardware experience (disk arrays, remote mgmt cards, sbus legacy stuff, etc -- things you don't normally see on commodity PCs). They'll probably want someone who knows enough "Sun" to know what the difference beween an E420 and a SunBlade is and won't get surprised to discover that one of them doesn't have anything more than a console attached to it.
If you want Solaris experience for a job, then you'd be better off buying an old Ultra 5 for 80 bucks than paying for beta x86 software. You'll at least be able to say during your interview that although you don't have any "real world" Sun experience, you have been playing with an old Ultra in your spare time in order to get up to speed or round out your professional experience. I've seen a few people get jobs this way in fact.
You have a much better chance if you get an old Sparc, stick it in the corner, hook up a serial cable to it and run BIND on it for internal DNS or something than playing with x86 Solaris on a PC.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
He just gave you a free dollop of information, and you're bitching about his presentation? I mean, STFU already.
May we never see th
Can you give me any reason why should I use Solaris instead Linux on x86?
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, some of you should stop representing yourselves stupidly. "Sun has listent to their costomers"? Stop reading Arcane CLI Commands Vol III, put on a fresh Queen Amidala T-shirt, and go learn some English.
Agreed. Very few people run sun software on x86 hardware in a production environment. Most of it is for testing, and/or just checking it out to see what it's about.
Don't run solaris on x86 arch because it's supposedly better. On x86, there are much better OS's. If you really want an SVR4-ish nix, use a bsd or something. I don't know of any popular ones other than solaris. Whatever.
Solaris hardware - I don't know about it being stable - it is as much as anything else, but it lasts forever and is hard working as crap. We still use Sun IPC's at my job, they're 12 mhz, late 80's or early 90's I think, and they still work great. Some of them the batteries have gone out - imagine that - the (soldered in) cmos battery goes out before the motherboard/proc/ethernet controler, etc fail. They're great for console access - if they don't detect a keyboard and monitor, output straight out the serial port.
Solaris hardware doesn't run D.net fast, but it sure does compile things fast. Startelingly so. We have a Dual-Pentium III 1.4 Tualtin with 3 gigs of ram, and it compiles things significantly slower than our 4x300Mhz Ultra II with 1GB of ram, despite being "twice as fast".
This is the advantage of sun. The hardware rocks. The software is built to match the hardware. I think it was more of them saying "yeah, well, if you guys want it on x86, here you go, but be aware it sucks." It might have actually made them money in that people would buy sun hardware after trying it on x86 and giving up on the crappy hardware.
sig?
If you really want an SVR4-ish nix, use a bsd
Huh? That's like saying "If you really want an apple, have an orange."
-- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
And thats the way I like it.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
I seriously doubt that anyone is using X86 Solaris in a production environment.
It depends on what you mean by "production environment." If you are referring to massive database servers, then you are probably right. But I have seen it used on development machines and in labs. There is no magic in a Sun box and a decent Dell or Compaq server offers a wonderfully stable platform on which to host Solaris.
Ah, but you're forgetting the last rule of debates: if you can't attack the opponent's arguments, attack the opponent's character.
Some people come here treating everyone like opponents.
Get off my launchpad!
OK, the O/S on IPC/IPX range is Solaris 1.x. I don't think you can put 2.x on them at all. This is SunOS 4.x which is the old BSD-based version.
The O/S on more modern hardware from the 50MHz Sparc 10 to the Ultra III belongs to the Solaris 2.x series. Solaris 7,8 and 9 are really Solaris 2.7, 2.8 and 2.9 respectively.
I don't think Solaris 9 support the Sparc 10/20 series anymore.
It is still rather scalable, as you say.
C'mon people - a decade ago you'd be questioning the validity of Yet Another DOS or NOS and why anyone would need it.
Why do I need yet another Unix clone for Intel and why would I want to waste any time learing it or supporting it, particularly a version from a company that is ambivalent, at best about it.
IRIX has a number of assets that Linux does not have, even in the kernel space -- including scalability (support for up to 512 CPUs, 512 GiB RAM), advanced file systems (XFS journaled file system, XVM volume management), advanced networking (Clustered XFS, SAN), standards compliance (POSIX, DII-COE, Trusted IRIX), and a Unix (BSD+SysV) heritage -- that place IRIX in a different league from Linux and *BSD. It's not that these features could not be added to Linux, but at this time Linux and IRIX have different target markets.
AIX and Solaris also have features not found in Linux, I'm just not sure why you singled IRIX out. Don't forget that SGI has also developed a reputation, particularly for high-performance systems and cutting-edge hardware.
That said, many Unix companies do seem to be adopting Linux to some extent. Who knows what SGI will do?
I mean hey they happen. Even if TWICE in one artcle, and goes thru the moderators. Even this is statistically possible. Forcus on content please.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Here is a shocker! I do not know if you have heard of it but there is an os called Linux!
Linux is the only free SVR4 unix on the pc available. If you want to blow $300 for a client licensed crippled version of SVR4 that is rock solid, then try Unixware. Its the real unix from Bell labs. There is also sco openserver but it really blows from what I heard and is dying.
*BSD is a BSD version of unix obviously. I prefer slackware, debian, or gentoo if I want a more unix like environment. Redhat and SUSE put all the config files in the wrong places and is not very unix like in my opinion.
http://saveie6.com/
As for my Danish, that's irrelevent. Slashdot is an English site. If English isn't someone's first language, I have no problem with that. However, as long as the editors (who are all native English speakers) are going to read it and post it, I think they should take the extra five seconds to correct the more blatent errors.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Whilst towards the end they got their act together, the inital response was the same (perhaps even more dubious) than any other vendor. First, deny any problem exists - then try and cover it up (some customers had to sign non-disclosure agreements about the problem, apparently in return for Sun's commitment to fix it in a timely manner). Lastly, claim that the problem caused "no data loss" and was someone elses fault anyway.
If your Compaq server is giving you problems, in the worst case you can ditch it for another brand, eg Dell. If your Sun hardware has an endemic problem, and all your software is build around Solaris, where do you go ?
This is not a tirade against Sun, in general their hardware is a lot better than most, and Solaris remains one of the benchmarks against which other *nix's are judged. It is just a reminder that even the big boys can have quality control and/or reliability problems.
but linux isn't SVR4, it was coded from the ground up. BSD was sort of forked from SVRx, but had every single piece of code rewritten by the folks at berkley.
One thing has certainly improved with WebStart since the last time I tried it. Kiosk mode includes a web browser that is active throughout the main part of the install/upgrade. So, I hear about the early release from Sun on Slashdot, run off to give my 20 bucks to sun for the ISOs, download them (RCN rocks!), burn them and start the install. Then I log on to Slashdot to record my impressions while the installer is doing its thing.
One thing hasn't changed, however. The installer is still slower than dried guano on an iceberg. I mean, my dual PIII 800 is slow by today's standards, but Linux goes on in a jiffy. They obviously aren't trying to compete with Tux with this product anymore, so there's no incentive to compete feature-for-feature. But I still wonder why this thing takes three hours or so, not counting downloading/burning.
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
Not sure what planet you live on but Solaris x86 has always out performed Redhat on my hardware. My latest comparisons are based on desktop-oriented tasks and server-oriented tasks both on the same laptop and workstation. Granted what is lacking is the latest device drivers that Linux is so quick to get, but since I only use IDE drives and 1-year old video cards, that has not been an issue. The laptop is a Pentium 166 w/ Chips&Technologies that needed XFree86 build to use full 1024x768x16bits possible. The workstation is a P3/733 w/ Nvidia TNT 32MB and no extra build of X was required to get 1600x1200x24bits .
.
The desktop feel was clean and fast on both OSes when idle. When not idle, even doing the cheapest disk task, Redhat graphic response really slowed down. Any significant background operation would really hit Redhat8 bad with Netscape7 performing really poorly. On Solaris9 the negative effect was barely noticable. The worst background jobs to hit Redhat were large filesystem operations, with a good mix of node and data I/O. When building XFree86 on both OSes in the background, it really hurt Netscape7 performance on Redhat, and was not even noticeable on Solaris.
The effects were consistent on both the laptop and workstation. The laptop simply exaggerated the effects more.
Now for Java. No comparison of anykind. Hands down, Solaris9 smokes Linux when it comes to running Java apps. I tested thread-crazy real-world servers where threads are not just token objects but are live and kicking expected to produce results. Not only did Solaris launch the threads faster, it's sycnrhonization across threads was much more optimal. I could easily saturate Redhat with a lower workload and see 100% CPU, while exact same workload on Solaris was 40%. These threads have a high amount of sychronization going on, and was the single largest contributor to the performance gap. Bottom line, big stuff runs better on Solaris. When not running big stuff, there was simply no noticable diff.
Granted I don't need all this OpenGL stuff or gaming, so that might be where Redhat outshines Solaris. Also probably video playback too but for that I use WindowsXP
Here's stuff I built...
gcc 3.2.1 (bootstrapped from SMC Solaris8 pkg)
GNU* array of make,fileutils,sh-utils...
netscape7
XFree86 4.2.1
XFree86 4.2.99.2
top, lsof, sudo
windowmaker 0.80.2
cvs
what native binary packages?
jdk 1.4.1_01
Acrobat reader 4.05
so what is Solaris x86 missing? Honestly all it needs is a god community packaging effort. Something like *BSD ports system wherer you can
install prepackaged binaries to well known (opt) location, or build them yourself to same or well known location, all with auto-dep recursive binary packge grabs or builds, as required.
Give the community that, and Solaris x86 will become more popular. Not everyone has the desire to build stuff.
i have the Solaris 8 Kit, and the 9 Kit. They both expressely state they are not for commercial use. Always have.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Yes, the Pentium IV PCs certainly look good compared to high end Unix workstations.....found some nice charts here Still, I prefer to admin and work with Unix workstations over Wintel PC's (and by the way, the Sun Ultra 5 and 10 and other PC-architecture machines are crap, avoid them!) As to what is cool about them? one cool thing is that the boot PROM will let you boot into any partition or from any mass storage device.....ever boot your PC (with empty hard disk) from a tape? Or booted and installed a system from another over network with no boot media on new virgin machine? Also, can hook terminal or PC to serial port and have full console access to boot PROM. How about dual 3D graphics cards for CADD or scientific visualization? No problems getting device drivers for native OS. No need to buy seperate SCSI card because built in (except in PC-type crap systems)! And Linux and *BSD support most of devices because there just aren't as many (admins like this). Also, end user has much more difficult time bringing game CD or floppies or other such crap from home to screw up system!
Wrong, Solaris x86 has been available since 1993.
While it was available for x86 since version 2.1, it was not distributed for free. Making a free version probably took hardware sales away from the low-end Blade line.
That said, I agree with your points about its stability and proven track-record. And I will add that the single-company vision behind Solaris means that it has a consistent look, feel, and installation that is so sorely missing from Linux. I wish Sun all the luck in the world.
You are correct. For some reason I was always under the assumption that SO was a Java app. Actually, for me this is even worse news as SO always felt ponderous and I always had chalked it up to being a Java app, no it has no such excuse.
What companies have you been looking at? Plenty of companies have Solaris x86 boxes in production
;) I work in the CRM/call center market so I do get a chance to see a lot of decent sized setups where uptime is everything. Lots of Sun/Solaris, more and more PC/WinNT, a few IBM/AIX (and even one or two OS/2) and of course plenty of other misc setups. I don't doubt that there are other industries that might use them, but either way not a large part of Suns big picture.
I said that I personally knew of 0 companies, I wasn't exactly going out of my way to look for them though
We use Solaris x86 at my current job, running on 4x4 Dell boxes and 2x1 no-name boxes
Just out of curiosity, what type of work are these boxes doing?
...........Well in theory, generaly speaking the liquidators aution off everything to cover their fees.
The question is... did they update the installer for Solaris on Intel or does the user still have to use a version of fdisk which was also part of MSDos 1.0 ?
And does it support multiboot or not?
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
BSD was sort of forked from SVRx, but had every single piece of code rewritten by the folks at berkley.
Huh? Go and check your Unix history. When Berkeley got their first license for Unix, there was NO SysV. Version 7 ( and 32V for the VAX) Unix is what BSD is based on. Here is a nice little chart of the Unix bloodlines.
BWP
I should have been more specific, i guess. What I meant to say was 4.4BSD-lite had every single piece of code rewritten by the folks at berkley after the lawsuit, while previous versions were "enhancements/modifications" of the origional UNIX source.
What I was refering to was "if you would like an SVR4-ish OS on an x86 platform". Trying not to say Linux. Trying to say if you wanted an SVR4 on x86, I don't know of anything other than Solaris, and I thought BSD had been forked from an SVR4 tree somewhere along the line. Solaris is def. not anything like a posix system.
sig?
Heh.
It's running Red Hat 7.2. Because the customer wanted to run Plesk. Which, on that machine, is administoring something like 8500 domains. Don't get me wrong, the box rocks... and most problems we have with it are poor programming in plesk... but yeah. The Solaris box is running Solaris 7, and the other box (the P-III) is running RH7.2 with a 2.4.19 kernel, with a bunch of patches (low-latency, pre-emptive, etc.).
Linux on a Sparc box sux, by the way.
sig?