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Interview With Solaris Kernel Engineer Andy Tucker

Posted by timothy on from the isn't-that-from-sun dept.

Gentu writes "OSNews hosts an interview with Andy Tucker, Distinguished Engineer of the Solaris kernel. They talk about the internals of Solaris, the competition and how the OS compares to Linux/BSD/other-Unix and also about its future."

21 comments

  1. Solaris Thread Scheduling by dthable · · Score: 4, Interesting

    An example is the two-level thread scheduling model, where thread scheduling happens both at user level and in the kernel. Although this approach had some theoretical advantages in terms of thread creation and context switch time, it turned out to be enormously complicated, particularly when dealing with traditional Unix process semantics like signals.

    I'm glad to see that someone also thinks this was a bitch to work with.

  2. Still a respectable beast the UNIX by mnmn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I couldnt completely eliminate FreeBSD or Linux from my OS options while installing servers, each had strengths I needed.. until I ran into Solaris.

    There are cards that have drivers for Solaris but not Linux or FreeBSD. There are tools and functionality in Solaris that I couldnt find in the others and had to use Solaris for some things.. such as SNAT between an ethernet and tokenring card. All linux kernels crashed after a while of doing this and so did FreeBSD with its lone Olicom driver support. Solaris held on. In other places, FreeBSDs performance just beat Solaris out of the water (no Java thrashing the harddisk like its Baghdad).

    I can understand why theres little enthuisiasm for Solaris around the slashdot circles, its not free and it makes money for someone else. But just as we laugh at Microsofts lack of quality, we must laud a good product. Theres no denying the graphics capabilities of OSX and Irix, network and system admin tools of Solaris, huge features and ports of Linux and rock hard stability and efficiency of BSD.

    Solaris especially makes a great package with a 64-bit Sparc CPU like the cheap used Ultra 5 systems. They still need to work on the scheduler, IDE speeds and hopefully theyll put virtual terminals back in Solaris10.

    I havent used AIX, HPUX or OS/360/390/400. Does anyone know of their strengths and edge over other OSes?

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
    1. Re:Still a respectable beast the UNIX by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I havent used AIX, HPUX or OS/360/390/400. Does anyone know of their strengths and edge over other OSes?

      Yeah, their main strength (from their maker's standpoint) is that you get to pay IBM $1000's per hour or HP hundreds per hour in consulting fees for the priviledge of using them.

      Really, unless you must use software or hardware that only runs on/with HPUX or AIX, don't bother. Even IBM is getting away from AIX for a lot of stuff.

      Some of the biggest issues we've had are integrating with other companies who are running the above. I spent two days at an IBM facility for a conference to design how we were going to communicate with a business partner user MQ Series, since that was their IBM influenced "standard". The end result was to use MQ for "small" messages and a DIFFERENT proprietary solution for "large" messages like image files. This all because they had an IBM AS/blah blah culture.

      In contrast, we spent about 30 minutes each getting all the other partner companies setup with some SSH2/SCP2 scripts to communicate with our Solaris box (even if they were running NT/2000, just had to change the version of what we sent them) and they've proven to be much less of a headache.

      In summary, simplicity and standardization in Solaris, Linux or *BSD, etc... enables a lot of time and cost savings that the AIX/HPUX/OS of the world have missed.

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    2. Re:Still a respectable beast the UNIX by Zephy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      AIX's best strength is (IMO) the volume management. It's a very good system, and is sensible and very very stable, and also system config on aix is much simpler than other commercial unixes, as there's just one tool (smit/smitty), and everything (even raid card tools) plug into the one tool.

      Really though, these days, the unified config tool is the only thing that linux can't do out of the box (although webmin is a very capable alternative, if a bit slow on older kit), as the hardware support for the power3/4 systems is pretty good. Though there's some stuff that linux can't run on ( some dpx20 Bull kit, and some motorola stuff ), that older versions of aix do.

    3. Re:Still a respectable beast the UNIX by secolactico · · Score: 1

      hopefully theyll put virtual terminals back in Solaris10

      In the meantime Screen is your friend.

      --
      No sig
    4. Re:Still a respectable beast the UNIX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HPUX has excellent SNMP support, thier Openview products are very strong.

      I am told that AIX among other things is a good development platform as it's debugging tools are quite strong. Again, this is what I have been told.

  3. Solaris Kernel? by ptaff · · Score: 1

    Did they, too, stole code from SCO?

    Nobody is able to do as well as us, so they must have stolen the code

    Somebody had to build on the paranoia.

    1. Re:Solaris Kernel? by sander · · Score: 1, Troll

      This just shows you both can't read and don't know anything about Unix history - Sun 'paid off' SCO at a time when Caldera didn't exist yet and Linux was not at 1.0 yet. Which make you just a stupid troll, so hopefully somebody will mod you down to -1.

    2. Re:Solaris Kernel? by amorsen · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Look here.

      "You chose Unix as your network computing platform because you knew you were in it for the long haul," Sun said in an ad that appeared in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday. "You'd expect your IT partner to show the same kind of commitment."

      "Unfortunately, our friends in Blue have a problem with licensing contracts that could make things very expensive for anyone running AIX. Fortunately, Sun is ready to help."

      Sun has certainly made a commitment to one side.

      --
      Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
    3. Re:Solaris Kernel? by rusko · · Score: 0

      this is not 'picking a side'. it is called competing. sun being in a position it is in right now will take any clients it can get by (almost) any means available. i cant blame them - this is how you do business in the big leagues.

      i still like sun, their hardware and solaris - that is some solid engineering right there. i just wish they hadnt unleashed java on the world =]

      paul

    4. Re:Solaris Kernel? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

      Sun paid 10 Million for a perpetual source-license to SysVR4. This was not to SCO, but Novell, before they abandoned "UnixWare" as a strategy, and sold to SC0 in '95.

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    5. Re:Solaris Kernel? by ccp · · Score: 3, Insightful


      It's just me, or McNealy has a terminal case of McBride envy, and is entering the final lap on the road to self-destruction?

      The difference being that SUN has some value remaining, so maybe is time for shareholders to organize and depose the loony before is too late.
      This man seems to view SUN just as a mean to enter pissing contests with companies he personally hates, and must be stopped.

      I would hate to see SPARC going the way of Alpha.

      Cheers,

  4. Wet fire? by pmz · · Score: 4, Informative

    Do the articles have to be flamebait, in order for people to post replies?

    This was actually a very good interview. For example, the Mad Hatter desktop might be out before the year is over (good stuff: Linux, GNOME, plus Microsoft filesharing and Exhange interoperability). Sun is one company who could sell something like this, because they are a very well known brandname along with an ability to offer big support. Sun is also one company who has an interest in promoting Solaris, Linux, and Windows interoperability without keeping an ace in their sleeve. If they are successful, nearly everyone benefits.

    --
    Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
    1. Re:Wet fire? by NaveWeiss · · Score: 1

      I was meant to complain how old the desktop looks. So will things look better with Mad Hatter?

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      Slashdot community, please notice: I am looking for a girlfriend.
      Nave H. Weiss
  5. Sun's bazaar by Chalst · · Score: 2, Informative
    The answer to the fifth question is interesting: Andrew argues that there is a Bazaar-like quality to Solaris development, since much code is contributed by non-OS development teams at Sun.

    An important aspect of Linus' management is his anti-roadmap approach to leadership. I wonder how this compares to Solaris?

  6. Had to drop this remark once, by Pflipp · · Score: 2, Insightful

    why not here.

    If you see a bazaar as a place where everyone sells his own small product, and a cathedral as a result of often loosely planned and re-planned work of many ages and many men, with many different skills involved... ...then, actually, who is the Cathedral, and who is the Bazaar?

    --
    "We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
    1. Re:Had to drop this remark once, by LouisvilleDebugger · · Score: 1

      Ditto...next to "What Color is Your Parachute" this was the most head-scratch inducing title I had seen in years. Good article though.

      (I was disappointed that "What Color" wasn't a puzzle book...after all, it was shelved in the reference section -- with trivia, but also with resume guides.)