Sun Releases Solaris 9 for Intel

nairnr writes "Sun has announced that it is releasing Solaris 9 for Intel. Any takers? According to Sun, it extends the 'enterprise class OS to the X86 market'. How nice of them. Non-commercial usage is available at no charge, while commercial pricing starts at US $99; attractive OEM pricing is also available. Source code for Solaris will now be available. It seems they are after Microsoft, not Linux. More Power to them."

Comments

Whoohoo!

[Hanashi]

I've been waiting for this. Solaris for Intel gets too little love. I tell you what I like about it: On my (relatively cheap) PC at home, I can run it in a VMWare session and test out things that I will later use on the SPARC version. It should be great for OSS developers, who can compile and test their applications on their desktop, even though they don't have the SPARC hardware. It's source compatible, baby!

Also, I write about system administration and security topics, and it's nice to try out certain procedures. I don't have a SPARC at home, so using the Intel version under VMWare is a lifesaver.

Re:Whoohoo!

[slashdot_commentator]

It should be great for OSS developers, who can compile and test their applications on their desktop, even though they don't have the SPARC hardware. It's source compatible, baby!

What are you babbling about? How can you even imply that you're a programmer?

You can't really use Solaris x86 as a testbed for Sparc platforms. They are binary incompatible and aren't even 100% structurally compatible. You can't get a threaded piece of code to work on x86 and expect no problems when porting it to Sparc. Hell, I don't think Sun even offers an x86 version of their C/C++ compiler. You'd have to develop with gcc, and that will run like a dog on Sparc (compared to a Sparc specific professional product written by a competent programmer).

Also, I write about system administration and security topics, and it's nice to try out certain procedures.

Now THAT is the only selling feature of x86 Solaris.

I don't have a SPARC at home, so using the Intel version under VMWare is a lifesaver.

Why are people so intent on running their machines so slow? Hasn't anyone ever heard of dual-boot?

Re:Whoohoo!

[f0rt0r]

Have you ever heard of speeding development/testing time? Running 2 other OS's in VM's plus having your main OS to up and running all on one machine saves a lot of time.
Think about it, if you want to test your code ( say OS neutral Java code )across systems, would you rather A) Copy the .jar file over the virtual network connection in VM and then run it on each OS and see the results in a few minutes without ever shutting down the Java IDE, B) copy the code to a commonly available media ( cd, floppy, network share, etc ), reboot into other OS , login, and test, then repeat the process for each OS? Personally, I would take choose A) , and even better than A) would be to have separate system running each OS.

Btw, (off-topic ) does OS X run in VMWare?

Think about it.

Re:Solaris is better than Linux.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, imagine GNU without all the BS involved.

My boss asked me the other day if I was a socialist! I said no, but I do use linux. I like it for scp/ssh/co$t is all. Not big on the idealogical crap that comes with it.

Keep the battle for an open minded society alive!

Re:Solaris is better than Linux.

[awa]

I respect your views but, as a longtime solaris AND linux user, I have to say I disagree. Solaris is much better than Linux in certain aspects and viceversa. For most of my needs Linux is the best choice (price, feature and performance-wise). For some applications, though, Linux does not come near the scalability and stability of sun boxen with solaris ( GNU/Solaris :-) ? )

It all boils down to selecting and using the appropriate tool for each and every task and associated circumstances - including luser and sysadmin comfort.

How negative...

[PincheGab]

According to Sun, it extends the 'enterprise class OS to the X86 market'. How nice of them.

Ok, so what is going to actually please this person? Sun gets closer and closer to the Open Source idea, and all we can have is sarcasm in the post? We should be CELEBRATING! Thanks, SUN!

Re:How negative...

[ajs]

I'm going to go out on a limb here: You cannot approach being open source.

This can be compared to the statement that you cannot approach being pregnant. You simply are or you are not. To quote Yoda, "There is no try, only do."

How's that? Well, quite simply, unless your source code is available for modification and you can run the software wherever you need it, and you can contribute your changes to whatever maintainer you please (note that I just excluded, for example, qmail), then you cannot build an open source community around the software. You can certainly have a strong and dedicated community (Windows even has one), but you cannot build a community that has the same benefits. You cannot have the people who need to scratch the itch scratch it at will for themselves and anyone else with the same itch.

Ultimately Sun will decide who can collaborate on their own versions. They will maintain a centralized set of priorities, and contributors outside of Sun will be viewed as submitters of bug-reports that compile, not co-workers.

This is not open source. This is a company, faced with extinction via open source, trying to hide in the tall grass. Hint: it's not going to work. I say this being a big fan of what Sun did for the industry in their day. It doesn't matter. The more they say, "look, we have the benefits of open source too," the more people will begin to ask, "why not just go with truly open source software?"

Linux, BSD (amusingly, Sun's old source code base), and many other smaller-niche free systems are rapidly eclipsing the proprietary operating systems. You look at MS and see very little movement, but that's because they're so large and move in different circles for now. When you look at Sun or HP you begin to see the devastation that these upstarts are creating in the industry. Why? Because collaboration with your peers is powerful. Collaboration between customer and vendor is almost always not.

Re:Free?ish

[PincheGab]

Hey, it'd be cool if they gave the $20 to free/OpenSource software products, no? At least eh $20 acts as a filter, the downloads will probably be faster because only mildly serious people will be using up the bandwidth...

vs. Microsoft

[Sogol]

I can hardly see how this will affect Microsoft.
Windows attracts a large user base of non-technical users, who don't care about volume managers, ssh, etc. If Sun are seriously trying to dig into Microsoft's market share, they better include ported versions of Deer Hunter and Solitaire.

Re:vs. Microsoft

[bmetzler]

I can hardly see how this will affect Microsoft.

Really now. Microsoft might have started out with selling cheap consumer desktops, but those margins are starting to get mighty thin. I think that Microsoft wants to see some of those larger margin server deals.

IOW, they want to start competing for the market of those who *do* care about volume managers, ssh, etc.

-Brent

Re:Solaris is better than Linux.

[grub]

My boss asked me the other day if I was a socialist! I said no, but I do use linux. I like it for scp/ssh/co$t is all

Then why not use OpenBSD? After all, it costs the same and they are the ones that wrote the OpenSSH package you find so useful.

Screwing who?

[Anonymous Coward]

You wouldn't pay a lousy 20 bucks for a mature, rock stable open source operating system? Jeebus. Scrooge should worship you.

Foobar.

Sun unintentionally getting killed by Linux

[ntaylor963]

This just shows that Sun is reacting to getting killed by Linux. Linux is shooting at Microsoft, but hitting Sun with friendly fire.

The simple fact is that Linux is most suited to Sun's core market (realiable servers), and Sun is losing market share big time to Linux. On the other hand I believe that last year Microsoft went from 92% to 94% of the desktop market.

Re:not exactly

[Mr_Silver]

The software is free...

Their bandwidth isn't, its $20 for the bandwidth to download it.

Nice way of trying to appear nice, but still screwing you...

For crying out loud, it's $20. For that you get something which many thousands of man hours have been used to produce you such a thing. Sure, you would have loved to get it for free - but once you accept that it isn't going to happen, you'll see it isn't that bad a deal.

Sure, you can download Linux for free. But don't begrugde Sun for asking $20. Hell, it's not as if they're charging you lots of money for it and they'll quite happily let you make copies of it and give it to your friends - unlike some companies. All they want is twenty lousy dollars!

Remind me not to get into buying rounds of drinks with you if that sort of amount is that big a deal to you.

Why the download charge for Intel ?

[timlewis_atlanta]

I don't understand why they're charging $20 for Intel but not for Sparc. It can't be for covering the bandwidth (do you seriously think it should cost $20 to download a few gigs of data ?), so there must be some other reason.

Putting a charge onto a "free" developer version doesn't seem like a good way of encouraging developers to download and try it out.

Sun should also consider that the fewer developers who are using the "free" version on small Intel boxen, the fewer developers there will be to work on projects using the commerical version on large scale hardware. Limiting access to your products is not a good way of making them popular !

Re:Free?ish

[bmetzler]

Hey, it'd be cool if they gave the $20 to free/OpenSource software products, no?

Maybe they *do* use the $20 to continue to invest in their free/OpenSource software products. They do have quite a few of those, you know.

-Brent

Give Sun a Break- $20 for a server class OS..

[wegster]

The subject says it all. While it would be certainly _nice_ to simply download the ISOs for free, think about this:
1. Sun's come a pretty far way towards at least being more 'open source friendly,' and making free downloads available for products that would normally go for (IMHO exaggerated) prices otherwise. Java, SunONE (used to be Forte), etc. Contrast this to Microsoft if you'd like- has anyone seen MS make a version of Windows free, even opened the source to (agh!) Win3.1, or given a free version of MSVC/C++? I think not. Redhat and others sell their free versions of Linux on CDs and have increased prices over the years. Companies DO need to make some money, and no matter how much we wish _everything_ were free (I do as well), I highly doubt that at $20/download they will ever come close to even recovering 10% of their investment in Solaris 9/x86.

2. It isn't a bad OS. The x86 versions of Solaris have some definite differences from the Sparc/UltaSparc version as far as development goes (some library differences), but it's a pretty stable, decent OS, and most Solaris open source software can be made to build on it fairly easily. You'll need to go to GCC/G++ for development obviously. It's quite stable, even if earlier versions (I've run x86 Solaris 2.6, 7, and 8 previously) don't have near the HCL that Linux does.

3. It's another step in the right direction for Sun. Bearing in mind that they won't make any $ at all off of the x86 line, all hey're really doing with it is trying to gain a few more supporters in the 'new to Unix' camp, which may help in Solaris/Sparc sales down the line, and get some good will in the open source/tech community. Not a bad deal all around.

Ok, ranting off. Lest I be 'attacked' for any sort of anti open-source, anti-Linux, or anything else, I've been pushing Linux at every company I've worked for as developer and admin, as well as open-source options where they're available. I've replaced many a Windows server in my time...but do realize that companies do ultimately need to regain _something_ on their investment...so those of you that still buy RedHat or Suse on CDs in order to 'give something back' to their respective companies...$20 isn't a bad deal at all.

modern hardware?

[MellowTigger]

I tried to install Solaris 8 for Intel. I really wanted to make it work, but I simply ran into a dead-end trying to find any graphics or network cards available locally that would work with it. I finally gave up and shelved my cd's.

Someone already posted the Hardware Compatibility List, noting that it doesn't seem to be updated. That was my same problem with Solaris 8, the equipment all seemed to be too many years old.

Are there any rumors that Solaris 9 includes new drivers for more recent equipment? Has anyone successfully installed it with modern video/ network equipment? I'd like to hear a success story before I try again.

Re:Solaris is better than Linux.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, didn't anyone tell you that size doesn't matter? ;)

But seriously, something being in development for a long time is not a measure of how good it is. For instance, take Mozilla. Sure it's good. But did it warrent the amount of development time? Contrast this with Opera 7. A complete rebuild pretty much. Just as cross platform as mozilla, smaller, faster, etc. etc.

The advantage that proprietary developer have over open source is focus. They can move faster (smaller team of more talented peopl), devote all their working time to their task, and of course communicate easier.

During my undergrad in computer science, we had two main undergrad servers. Comparable in hardware power, one ran Linux and the other rand Solaris. From the words of the admin himself, "We have to reboot the Linux server four times a day, we never have to touch the Solaris server." Don't take this as a flame against Linux, but don't discount something just because it's not "open source".

Solaris has a *long* track record of proven stability. That's why it's known as big iron in the industry. It probably won't get you much on the desktop over Linux though, the big differences show up only under heavy load.

Re:What is Sun's Business Plan?

[LarryRiedel]

My guess is that Sun thinks of Solaris as a very good operating system which they have dozens/hundreds of talented people making better all the time, and which seems to perform better on 8+ CPU sparc systems than any other OS.

I think Sun respects that some customers want to have the same operating environment on their x86 machines as on their sparc machines, and rather than make those customers run Linux on sparc, they provide the capability to run Solaris on x86. A side benefit is letting people with x86 machines try Solaris and develop applications for it.

I think sometimes Sun tries to succeed by giving customers what they want, rather than trying to gain advantage through manipulation.

Larry

You said it, brother!!!

[fmaxwell]

Nice way of trying to appear nice, but still screwing you...

Yeah! Why should I have to pay them for the bandwidth that I use? In fact, I think it really sucks that they won't pay the cost to FedEx the CDs to me. Cheap bastards.

And they conveniently don't mention that I have to pay for the blank CDs after I download their ISOs. First screw me out of $20 for gigabytes of bandwidth and then I find out I have to supply the blank CDs. Assholes.

Why can't they follow the Mandrake Linux model where they give away their product AND supply the bandwidth for free? It seems a shame to abandon that business model just because it drove Mandrake into bankruptcy.

Too little and too late for suntel

[Billly Gates]

All the major big vendors have left solaris on intel fearing its dead thanks to McNeal mentioning solaris 8 is dead and they will no longer support it. Now they are doing an about face.

The vendors will not come back now fearing Sun can still kill it at any time and Linux is a less risky decision. Linux totally ate all of the early solaris on intel marketshare.

The only thing you can run on it today are OSS apps. Kind of expensive for just this not to mention FreeBSD and any Linux distro have both the OSS apps and commercial support and they are cheaper and more supported in hardware. Also solaris is optimized for the sparc so performance is not so good on intel anyway.

Sun already has their own Linux distro for their Lintel servers. They have lost millions already for solaris on x86 and they should relise that its already dead and its a sunk cost investment because McNealy opened his big fat mouth.

Re:Solaris is better than Linux.

[ceswiedler]

Solaris certainly has its advantages in code maturity. But one of the biggest advantages Linux has is that they care not a whit for binary compatibility, and can therefore rewrite things from scratch when they want to, keeping only source compatibility (and often not even that). Solaris and other commercial OSs, for obvious reasons, must make sure that they provide easy upgrade paths for existing customers and applications. Therefore, they must keep legacy code and interfaces around, and must avoid making changes which might cause incompatibilities.

It's certainly annoying that you can't depend on code to run across Linux kernels without recompiling; it makes commercial software (particularly driver) development a nightmare. But it allows Linux to make extremely rapid changes and fix mistakes. It's highly unlikely that any commercial OS could have changed as rapidly as Linux has over the last twelve years. That speed of development, combined with the fact that Linux is consciously modelling itself after another OS, has probably equalled or exceeded the extra time and resources Sun has put into Solaris. At this point, Sun's only real advantage is their ability to produce both the hardware and software, and not worry about portability.

but there's no software!

[DuckWing]

I maintain several Solaris systems, both sparc and 40 intel systems (our Unix Lab). The problem with Solaris is there's no software for it! no Java 3d like on Sparc, no SVG plugins for Netscape or any other SVG software used in our computer graphics course here at the University. Hardware compatibility is abismal, only supports limited Nics and video cards, no DRI, limited sound card, and so forth.

Sun does not do any marketing to entice companies to port their applications to Solaris x86. Even sun doesn't provide decent support, no Java3d, have to use Mesa for OpenGL, no Journalling file system like Veritas for Sparc.

I'm sorry, but I just can't take this seriously until Sun gets serious. Anyone that says Solaris is better than Linux on Intel Hardware needs their head examined.