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Sun Solaris Vs Linux: The x86 Smack-down

Posted by Hemos on from the battle-to-the-finish dept.

JigSaw writes "Tony Bourke put together a long article, benchmarking File System, System, Compilation, OpenSSL and Web Performance for both Linux and Solaris on x86 hardware. While SPARC's Solaris is said to be more optimized than its x86 counterpart on the other hand so is Linux 2.6 compared to 2.4. Solaris-x86 performed well in the tests, but Linux 2.4 seems to win most of the tests and the overall impressions."

10 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. Sorry? by Sir+Haxalot · · Score: 1, Interesting

    While SPARC's Solaris is said to be more optimized than its x86 counterpart on the other hand so is Linux 2.6 compared to 2.4
    Maybe for computers with multiple processors, for regular computers Linux 2.6 is comparitively slower.

    --
    I have over 70 freaks, do you?
  2. um... by GoNINzo · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Who bothers to use Solaris on x86? Oh yeah, idiots who don't understand the 'right tool for the job' philosophy.

    Go with OpenBSD or Linux on x86. If you want to run Solaris correctly, get some ultrasparcs already. You always lose something when you skimp on your infrastructure to save a few bucks.

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau
    "Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
  3. Re:Totally Serious Post by brennz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't think this is Sun bashing.

    It is widely known that Sun has waffled on x86. Now because their market share is being eaten up, they are reconsidering years of mistakes...I was one of those admins that had to struggle with Solaris x86.... I woke up though, and went with GNU/Linux + *BSD.

    Can Solaris compete with Linux/*bsd on x86? Try a modern distro, and form your own opinions...

  4. How to look scalable... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    There's an old trick to appearing scalable: Make your single-processor performance suck. Then almost any parallelization overhead will disappear, and you'll "scale" linearly.

    Many papers make this mistake. If you ever see scalability comparisons without pure time comparisons, don't trust the results.

  5. Red-headed Solaris by SARSpatient · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Neither Sun nor Sun resellers really push Solaris x86. This includes during their presentations to customers interested in high performance x86 clusters solutions. Yes, the alternative is always there, showing the Solaris logo along with a RedHat one under available operating systems. Even with clients where Solaris x86 might make sense, Sun salespeople skirt around the issue of O/S and never press their own version. Aside from Sun support (which IMO is really good), would there be any benefit to switching to Solaris? Everyone knows that it's not a core product or moneymaker for Sun, even their own sales associates who definitely know which products to push, and which to let slide. For now, I would leave Solaris x86 as a novelty, at least until Sun itself proves it has feature enhancements outperforming a Linux installation (especially on their own hardware).

  6. Re:Sun on x86 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    They weren't very serious about Solaris 9 on x86 -- the product wasn't even publicly released at first. Sun only made it available after an outcry from Solaris shops.

    However, Sun says that it's getting more serious about Solaris x86, and that future versions will be more competitive with Linux. (Something they shoulda done 4 years ago...)

    For example, the Sun 'Java' desktop runs on Linux, but future versions will run on Solaris instead.

  7. Re:bah by Lumpy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Who the heck runs Solaris on a crappy dual-processor machine?

    Ahh the rant of a non-knowing person...

    Thousands, if not tens of thousands use Solaris on dual and ...GASP! Single processor systems!

    In fact the company here has 12 sun workstations running solaris as data collection servers that are going to be replaced here in 180 days. (giving me a few Sun UltraSparc toys to play with as I see fit later)

    Solaris is used mostly for single and dual processor systems. there are significantly less 8 processor and up solaris systems in existance.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  8. Ehhhh ... wasn't that impressed with the review by netglen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Stepping outside of the Solaris --vs-- Linux article, I just didn't come away very satisified. It looks like the author only performed a few shoestring tests while I was expecting an exhausting barrage of tests. IMHO I wouldn't take anything to heart from reading this article. Maybe if the author goes back and expands the number of tests it would be an interestig article. Just look at all the comments from our fellow posters. There are so many people pointing out various issues that the tester neglected. I think the author should take all the feedback and perform a new test with an imporved set of criteria and hardware platforms.

  9. Re:yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Just because you are used to compiled binaries of the RPMs does not mean that us seasoned *nix admins should be forced into such an elementary procedure. Have you even read AMPS? I could teach a 10 year old how to install PHP on Solaris with that document.

  10. See Register article on new TCP/IP stack by grigori · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Hey this just came out at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/61/33440.html
    "The new TCP/IP stack - code-named Fire Engine - has 10 gigabit and 100 gigabit Ethernet networks in mind." Available for testing download now

    Sun is quoted:

    "we did work to efficiently handle many NICs, so combinations of NICs and CPUs scale. The upshot of all this stuff is that customers will notice quite measurable differences in latency and bandwidth improvements in networking on existing machines. It shows up in internal benchmarks, and it shows up in real-world workloads from the smallest uniprocessor on up. Also we focused on CPU utilization. One of the little secrets of networking is high speed interfaces can in fact pump lots of bits, but they chew up lots of CPU, which means you aren't doing other things. We worked hard on efficiency, and we now measure, at a given network workload on identical x86 hardware, we use 30 percent less CPU than Linux."