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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."
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.
Check out my eclectic infosec blog at InfoSecPotpou
Non-commercial usage is available at no charge
Thats cool and all, but you still have to pay $20 to download the ISOs.
I guess it's a good deal. Free would be better though.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
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.
--Moo
As much as I like Sun, I have to admit that Linux is better than Solaris. Probably because the Linux community values politics and ideology in addition to technology.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
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!
The press release is new, but Solaris 9 x86 has been available on Sun's site for a while now. Also, only the SPARC version is free, the x86 version still costs $20 to download or $95 for the media kit. However, since they were originally planning on canning Solaris x86 altogether, this is great.
Solaris is a neat system, and I've enjoyed playing with x86 version 8, though it couldn't replace Linux on my desktop. I have seriously considered using it on my servers though.
Does anyone know if Solaris 9 will run on Connectix Virtual PC and VMware?
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
I can hardly see how this will affect Microsoft.
Windows attracts a large user base of non-technical users, who don't care about volume managers, ssh, etc. If Sun are seriously trying to dig into Microsoft's market share, they better include ported versions of Deer Hunter and Solitaire.
My boss asked me the other day if I was a socialist! I said no, but I do use linux. I like it for scp/ssh/co$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.
Trolling is a art,
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.
The Solaris 9 x86 download is a $20 charge. The SPARC download is available at no charge. Also, the source was available for free for Solaris 8 as well, so that's not something new.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
The software is free...
SCSL is not a free software license by the GNU definition, nor is it an OSI approved open source license.
As to whether the Solaris 9 operating environment for the x86 platform qualifies as gratis with a $20 shipping charge, it depends on whether Sun has licensed it for free redistribution to any third party.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Well...if someone would be so kind as to provide an MD5sum of the actual image, so we could test it against the ISO files that are going to show up on P2P networks...
What's this Submit thingy do?
Here is the Intel based HCL list, but nothing about Solaris 9 yet.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
Despiting being a big fan of Solaris x86, I'm pretty sure it's the latter. :)
You wouldn't pay a lousy 20 bucks for a mature, rock stable open source operating system? Jeebus. Scrooge should worship you.
Foobar.
Last year, Sun really, really wanted to drop Solaris for Intel.
Speculation was that it was for one or both of two reasons:
1) Not to dilute their SPARC-oriented business,
2) Not to dilute their Sun-Linux business.
At a conference I attended, as well as some Sun presentations, some Sun employees were begging customers to demand Solaris 9 for Intel from their sales reps. Seems that there was still a "Solaris for Intel" faction inside the company. Also, the inside scoop was that they already _had_ Solaris 9 for intel, but the higher-ups didn't want to release it.
Customer demand was heavy and it changed the original plan to nix Solaris 9 for Intel. Now it's out.
No big secrets here, just a little historic perspective.
caveat: i have not seriously used solaris since 7, but at that time it was my 40-hour-a-week os:
if solaris is to be considered "better" than linus it is because of two things:
1. sun hardware. if you complain about "price-performance" on sparc boxen then you don't need those extra couple of point-001s on your performance and should stick with yr hp pavillion. people run solaris because the purple boxes are bulletproof.
2. service. yes, it's outrageously expensive - but when the gbic card on yr database server makes a gentle popping noise and ten million bucks worth of data drifts away like an untethered boat from the pier, you will appreciate that one phone call will have some ubergeek in tweed show up with a bag of pro bono hardware and a shoebox full of patch disk and make everything alright.
this release offers neither of the above points. yes, it's free. yes, it runs on your mom's machine. but unless you need to spend fifty grand on a bulletproof solution, solaris is a waste.
2 1337 4 u!
Yesterday I was driving past a hamburger stand and they had a sign out "2 Chesseburgers for $2". Bastards are screwing me all to hell I figure. $2 for some cheeseburgers. I swear I get screwed like that every time I drive by some store that has signs.
Flipped open the newspaper this morning. The damn grocery store was advertising buy one get one free cans of beets. My big problem was with the 'buy one' part. That kind of hook is just a set up to screw a guy. Indeed, I think I was being screwed right then and there, while reading the paper. They act all nice with the 'get one free' part but behind your back they're standing just there just screwing away.
I say we stand up for our rights. No longer should we let people screw us by asking us to enter into a completely voluntary retail contract where in return for a price determined by the market we receive some good or service. That kind of shit has to stop somewhere or next thing you know web sites will be asking you to give them money in exchange for not serving you ads. I don't want to live in that kind of world and neither do you.
Cunning linguists
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.
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.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Woops, sorry Sun.
On the other hand the continually growing Unix presence in the world, largely fueled by Linux (I like BSD too, but it has had nothing like the success of Linux) has made it possible for Sun to once again start taking some accounts away from Microsoft (who has been gaining ground on them since NT's release.) This is an especially crucial time because until now the only 64 bit operating systems have been Unix - NT/Alpha doesn't count because of its narrow distribution. Windows on 64 bit is now going to become downright inexpensive with the release of Hammer. There is NO TIME TO LOSE in gaining some ground.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
is that "free" as in "free beer" or "free" as in "costs US$20"?
I don't get why sun is releasing solaris 9 to the intel platform. I thought they were supposed to be a hardware company?
By releasing solaris for free on the sparc platform they increase the value of their hardware business. By releasing solaris for the intel platform they are decreasing the value of their core sparc platform, because they are giving users the choice of going with cheaper hardware companies. All of sun's engineering talent and effort is going to waste.
What they should be doing is making operating systems like OpenBSD and linux as easy as possible to port to the sparc platform. This way potential sun hardware customers would not need to have these stupid "which unix is better?" debates.
It seems that sun does not want to make any money.
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.
Scott
Unix Developer, Admin and Linux Freak/Geek at Large
Good questions, and well asked.
:P
:P
Is Solaris a graphical OS?
Yes, very much so. It uses an X for hardware management, and for many years has used CDE (Common Desktop Environment) for mime-type association and related activities, which KDE was based off of. Gnome has gotten into the market, however, and is to be the new desktop environment for future releases of Solaris. For many years Solaris has competed with the likes of AIX and IRIX. Solaris supports stereo-3D graphics (read: Virtual Reality, VRML, CAVE, OpenGL) and high performance SVGA, PAL, and NTSC graphics configurations. Because it supports things like multi-head, multi-processor, and multi-threaded applications and configurations, movie studios and game-design companies often use Solaris workstation and server solutions to design and render special effects for Hollywood movies and the like (I may be mistaken, but I believe that Industrial Light & Magic is a Solaris shop... ever see Jurassic Park?).
Is it easier to use than Linux?
Yes and no. It's easier to design special effects for movies, install virtual reality caves, and run scientific data analysis with Solaris. They are both flavors of unix, so the difficulty is about the same, in terms of learning arcane commands and stuff. It's probably easiest to say that Solaris is as easy as Linux... just different. (Your questions is like asking whether or not vanilla icecream is warmer/colder than chocolate icecream...)
And, most importantly, is there any way I could run Windows games on it?
Sure. You could install WINE libraries on your machine, I suppose... But if you get a Solaris box, and download your OpenGL and Java3D libraries, why play Windows games, when you can design your own games? Why play windows games, when you can play VR games?
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.
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.
http://saveie6.com/
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.
-- DuckWing
Could it be that they are charging $20 just to be able to see how many out there acctually cares about Solaris on x86?
Management: Lets discontinue Solaris on x86.
Techie who want to keep his job: Oh, no! Please no!
Management: No one want to buy it.
Techie: Eh... Well, lets give it away for free then?
Management: But what good will that do if noone uses it?
Techie: Hm. We can charge like $20 so we can count how many that cares.
Management: Mmmm, money. Good.
Techie: Phew.