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Sun Negotiating With Wal-Mart Over Java Desktop
An anonymous reader writes "According to an EWeek article, Sun is challenging Microsoft on a new front: the consumer market. Believing its Java Desktop System is "a more effective home and retail solution," the company is negotiating with major retailers Wal-Mart and Office Depot to include the Java desktop on consumer PCs and laptops."
As soon as Linux scales well to 128+ CPUs with full binary compatibility (no recompile) and has hot swap CPU/MEMROY/Motherboard support. People who think that Solaris must suck becuase it lacks a cool interface are missing the point.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
"Javascript" was originally LiveScript and the name was changed by Netscape as a marketing ploy, not Sun.
blah blah blah....
drightler@technicalogic.com
128 cpus? 2.6 kernel
no recompile? awww, shucks, I'm running a 128 cpu box and I don't know how to recompile!
If you're running a 128 CPU box, lack of knowledge will not be your problem, SLA's will be. If Linux is in there, you *will* only get to use an 'enterprise' flavour of Linux or you're on your own. Redhat or SuSE. You can't recompile your kernel even if you wanted to (not that you would) or you'd lose support.
Is Sun selling Solaris separate from 128 cpu boxes? Or are they installing Solaris on those boxes when setting them up for customers? Is IBM setting up linux on their 128 processor boxes? Or are they selling 128 processor boxes and handing the operating system to customers in boxes, requiring customers to recompile?
Hot swap? Who gives a rat's ass? Haven't you seen the latest sales? Big iron is out, clustering is in. You don't need hotswap anything when clustering, that includes drives. Just ask Oracle.
Let me tell you as someone who has just spent the last 3 weeks evaluating Oracle RAC for a major outsourcing company. My recommendation will be: stick to plain Oracle on mid-range Sun hardware with FOM software, this stuff is waay too immature and it sucks badly for even moderate OLTP workloads. Extended distance clustering? Forget it.
You pick the absolute smallest part of the market, 128 cpu boxes, which in some quarters absolutely no company sells, and use that to slam linux over the entire server market? Get a life.
The smallest part of the market has the most money to spend and are often extremely loyal. No one in their right mind deploys mission critical applications on a Solaris instance with that many CPU's because CPU's have about the worst MTBF after disks and PSUs - stick 128 CPUs in there and you'll be rebooting every few months! You deploy these boxes underspec'ed, partition them and dynamically add and remove boards between them as the business requires.
Let us know when Solaris fits in less than 1 MB of space, when Solaris is running on cell phones, when Solaris is used as device drivers, when Solaris is used in routers, when Solaris is used in mesh networks, when Solaris is used in embedded devices, when Solaris is used in consumer electronics, when Solaris...
Solaris isn't designed for those applications. Neither is windows (just look at the train wreck that is PocketPC), neither are the BSDs, neither is Linux. Is kernel 2.6 going to fit in 1MB? I'd be surprised, it was hard enough getting a 2.4 kernel with PCMCIA and soundcard support + libm and mpg123 onto a 1.4MB floppy disk 3 years ago.
You're confusing open source with open systems. The interfaces *must* be open, the source is nice to have open. You'd be mad to deploy an enterprise UNIX on consumer devices and even madder to do the reverse.
# init 5
Connection closed.
Oh...