Solaris 8 & 9 Free for x86 Once Again

REBloomfield writes "The Register is reporting that after nearly two years, Solaris x86 8 & 9 is once again Free (as in beer) to download for x86 users." You can download it if you desire. Gives me college flashbacks.

Comments

Now I have a reason to switch...

[trp642]

Wow that's cheaper than buying a Linux license from SCO! I'm switching to Solaris right away!

Now if only they would GPL the code to Solaris...

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[Micah]

Of course, if they GPL's Solaris, you can bet that SCO would be after them quick for IP violation. :/

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if only they would GPL the code to Solaris...

Not going to happen. They can't.

It is however the finest commercial SVR4 around. Certainly puts a certain company from Utah's offering to shame.

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[larien]

Yes and they would be right to; Sun doesn't own the full rights to all the Solaris code (cat /usr/bin/clear for one example) and doesn't have the legal right to release it under the GPL.

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[Anonymous Coward]

Darl, is that you?

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[GridPoint]

For those of you who don't have access to a Solaris system, /usr/bin/clear is a shell script that contains the following: (notice that there are only 2 lines of code, but 13 lines of copyright information...)

#!/usr/bin/sh
# Copyright (c) 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 AT&T
# All Rights Reserved
# THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF AT&T
# The copyright notice above does not evidence any
# actual or intended publication of such source code.
#ident "@(#)clear.sh 1.8 96/10/14 SMI" /* SVr4.0 1.3 */
# Copyright (c) 1987, 1988 Microsoft Corporation
# All Rights Reserved
# This Module contains Proprietary Information of Microsoft
# Corporation and should be treated as Confidential.
# clear the screen with terminfo.
# if an argument is given, print the clear string for that tty type

/usr/bin/tput ${1:+-T$1} clear 2> /dev/null
exit

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[larien]

The main point of amusement is that those two lines of code (one of which is exit) contain "Proprietary Information of Microsoft Corporation", presumably dating back to the work it did on Xenix in the 80s.

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[Anonymous Coward]

Think that's bad? How about /usr/bin/true:

#!/usr/bin/sh
# Copyright (c) 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 AT&T
# All Rights Reserved

# THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF AT&T
# The copyright notice above does not evidence any
# actual or intended publication of such source code.

#ident "@(#)true.sh 1.6 93/01/11 SMI" /* SVr4.0 1.4 */

The entire script is just a copyright notice

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[greed]

Also note:

- It consumes an extra process slot by doing command followed by exit (rather than exec command). This also prevents a program from finding abnormal termination status from the command (i.e., signalled instead of exited).
- It hides any error messages from the user.
- It does not handle an argument with spaces or other Weird Characters in them.

Pretty bad, 3 errors for 2 lines of code. No wonder they want to keep it confidential.

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[Anonymous Coward]

No wonder it's Microsoft's code...

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[dokebi]

here is the FreeBSD version. Same thing, but more Free!

#!/bin/sh -
#
# Copyright (c) 1989, 1993
# The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
#
# Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
# modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
# are met:
# 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
# notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
# 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
# notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
# documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
# 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
# must display the following acknowledgement:
# This product includes software developed by the University of
# California, Berkeley and its contributors.
# 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
# may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
# without specific prior written permission.
#
# THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
# ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
# IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
# ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
# FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
# DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
# OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
# HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
# LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
# OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
# SUCH DAMAGE.
#
# @(#)clear.sh 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
#

exec tput clear

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[MGS Hartman]

how about?

while : ; do ... ; done

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[i.r.id10t]

Good news is that you can still download the 126.3mb service pack 14 for it from their website.

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[camateg]

Even though I know you're joking, they did release (partial?) sources for Solaris 8, although it's no longer in effect for the average person. As others have noted, though, it wasn't and couldn't be GPLed.

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[SpaceLifeForm]

And now that you posted it on Slashdot,
it's no longer 'UNPUBLISHED'. ;-)

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[SpaceLifeForm]

Hmmm, revision 1.6 with only *four* obvious changes can only lead one to conclude that one of the revisions was to correct a bug.

Using the code from 'false', we should be able to reverse engineer the code in violation of the DMCA, and determine what the bug was.

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[aled]

In fact by publishing it you are violating the DMCA or something. And made all us readers too! Thanks a lot!

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[veldstra]

Damn, no wonder SCO can lay claims to Linux, even if their current bla bla is just about the kernel. If a simple empty script is copyrightable, I guess a 'touch whatever.sh; chmod +x whatever.sh' creates a copyrighted work.

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lameness filter screwed me, why I had to modify the caps of the comment:

# This is UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF AT&T

If putting it on slashdot doesn't constitute publication, I don't know...

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[fractaloon]

Wait a second! They own the copyrights to nothing? Does that mean if I'm sitting at my cube doing nothing I'm infringing on their work?

I'm sure there must be prior art to this. Someone somewhere must have done nothing before 1984 and documented it.

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure there must be prior art to this. Someone somewhere must have done nothing before 1984 and documented it.

But once you've documented doing nothing you've done something and thus you can't use it.

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[markxsd]

# ln -s /usr/bin/clear /usr/local/bin/clearlyridiculous

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[Anonymous Coward]

can you or s.o explain what it does & what tput is ?

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[Haeleth]

Does that mean if I'm sitting at my cube doing nothing I'm infringing on their work?

Fortunately 'true' doesn't just do nothing, it does nothing successfully. So you're only infringing if your boss doesn't mind.

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[bro1]

Oh no, I will not be able to create empty files as they are copyrighted. :(

/usr/bin/touch obviously infriges the copyright...

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[rob_ert]

...just for completeness here is a diff of /usr/bin/true and /usr/bin/false ... ;-)

xxx@xxx:~ $ diff /usr/bin/true /usr/bin/false
9c9,10
< #ident "@(#)true.sh 1.6 93/01/11 SMI" /* SVr4.0 1.4 */
---
> #ident "@(#)false.sh 1.6 93/01/11 SMI" /* SVr4.0 1.3 */
> exit 255

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[4of12]

How about /usr/bin/true:

The entire script is just a copyright notice

Most assuredly.

But at least it's true :)

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[Anonymous Coward]

Although you can purchase the source code for Solaris if you are a qualified educational institution:

http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/source/

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[Anonymous Coward]

Although educational institutes can purchase the source to Solaris - surely if they can sell it they could GPL it??

http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/source/

However, have you ever seen how much a Solaris 9 license for a 106 CPU Sun Fire 15K costs? *cough* $400,000! Now thats an expensive bit of paper! ref:

http://store.sun.com/catalog/doc/BrowsePage.jhtm l? cid=82431&parentId=82426

So, if they ever GPL'ed solaris how would they re-coop the loss from this revenue stream??

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[JCholewa]

(from "man tput" on my company's FreeBSD server)

DESCRIPTION
The tput command makes terminal-dependent information available to users
or shell applications. When invoked as the clear utility, the screen
will be cleared as if
tput clear
had been executed. The options to tput are as follows:

-T The terminal name as specified in the termcap database, for exam-
ple, ``vt100'' or ``xterm''. If not specified, tput retrieves
the ``TERM'' variable from the environment.

The tput command outputs a string if the attribute is of type string; a
number if it is of type integer. Otherwise, tput exits 0 if the terminal
has the capability and 1 if it does not, without further action.

If the attribute is of type string, and takes arguments (e.g. cursor
movement, the termcap ``cm'' sequence) the arguments are taken from the
command line immediately following the attribute.

The following special attributes are available:
clear Clear the screen (the termcap ``cl'' sequence).
init Initialize the terminal (the termcap ``is'' sequence).
longname Print the descriptive name of the user's terminal type.
reset Reset the terminal (the termcap ``rs'' sequence).

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[sglines]

Well so much for Proprietary and Confidential information. I wonder if there are any patents being violated too.

For what its worth I long ago realized that the only contribution Microsoft should have made to unix/linux is the "cls" command to clear the screen. the "clear" command is so ... Microsofish. I always make a link between clear and cls on all systems I touch. Can I copyright that?

Re:Now I have a reason to switch...

[christophersaul]

If you buy an F15K the licence comes with it, there's no separate charge.

Free is nice

[fsandford]

Free is the best price I can think of.

Re:Free is nice

[MoonFog]

And what if free comes with a price ?

But seriously, this is great, now I can try Solaris and play around with it without having to buy it. I'm just interested in learning more about it.

Re:Free is nice

[rockclimber]

true for beer!

Re:Free is nice

[sik0fewl]

Well, I think it would be even better if Sun *paid* me to use Solaris. I mean free is greater, but this would definitely be greater.

Re:Free is nice

[Anonymous Coward]

HAving solaris on x86 is nice if you want experience for your resume - lots of shops use solaris.

I used to have solaris 7 on my x86 box, but replaced it with FreeBSD. One nice thing I can say about solaris is that their XWindows client has display postscript (like NeXT used to).

I do recommend installing gnu tools (bash especially).

Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[LazloToth]

I'd be curious to know why, myself. But then, all I code for is bash, anyway.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[Anonymous Coward]

I would guess that they added up all the money they made on the $20 downloads and $100 media kits and realized that the free advertising and mindshare grab they would get from making it free was worth a lot more than the chump change. And it's not free for businesses to use as production servers... just students and developers--people who generally won't pay for it anyway.

But then, all I code for is bash, anyway.

Then you're missing the wonderful world of Korn?

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[LazloToth]

Hmmmmm . . . well, I've read about korn - - wasn't that a pretty early *nix shell?

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[Anonymous Coward]

that's sort of like saying, isn't bash a faily early shell (just Bourne, again). actually, korn is part of the POSIX standard. Development is still active on it. It was open sourced in 2000. I'm not familiar with the capabilties of bash. I stopped at Korn when I found out it had vi editing mode, i.e. use vi motion commands to go forward/back, replace words, all on the command line, ESC-k to go up to last historical command, ESC-j to go down to next historical command, etc. Plus, associative arrays are handy, too.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[LazloToth]

Maybe I need to go back and have another look. Thanks for the tip. You know, come to think of it, I have a beat up old copy of "Voodoo Unix" (Ventana Press) that taught shell tricks using Korn. This would make a good /. survey, don't you think - - of the *nix users here, which shell do you prefer? Probably been done before . . . .

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[Anonymous Coward]

it would make an interesting survey... I think it would show that 93% of slashdot readers use bash because it's the default shell on linux. 5% use korn because they've had experience with a SYSV Unix, 1% use csh because that was cutting edge in 1982 when they went to UCB, and 1% use something else because bash/linux is too mainstream for them.

Maybe more interesting would be a breakdown of *why* people use the shell they use. I used to be part of that 93% until a friend clued me in to korn & solaris... never looked back.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[Jim_Maryland]

I tend to use ksh too. Do use sh when writing startup scripts (tends to be available earlier in the bootup process). Definitely like the "vi" like command history. Guess I'll use whatever shell is available on the system. They all have their pros/cons so use the correct tool for the job. Haven't actually dealt much with Linux. Do push for it at work, but most of our work is Solaris and an occasional IRIX system. Have to work with what our customers use. OS of choice though is Solaris, as most software vendors (not necessarily open source) tend to develop on Solaris and port to the others UNIX flavors.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[lga]

and 1% use something else because bash/linux is too mainstream for them

I don't know about that, I use tcsh because it's pre-installed on IRIX and better then the csh.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[680x0]

1% use csh because that was cutting edge in 1982 when they went to UCB

Actually, I use tcsh because I got used to csh when I used BSD4.2 on a VAX in 1983-84 and SunOS4 on a Sun3 (1989-92) and a SparcStation 1 (1992-95). Then I discovered that tcsh had the same syntax plus command line editing (I happen to prefer emacs key-bindings).

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[Anonymous Coward]

So your the asshole that puts #/bin/sh on top then hides bashisims inside your scripts!

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[sethgecko]

i would count csh/tcsh as the same, possibly unfairly. Irix lists csh, ksh, sh, and tcsh, in that order, when adding a new account. I'm curious why tcsh is your first choice on Irix.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[LazloToth]

#!/bin/sh, even.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[Sexy Bern]

ksh for scripts every time. Works properly with every commercial Unix I've used, and it's not likely to go away any time soon.

Interactively, it's zsh all the way for me. Though I'm a die-hard 'vi' fan, I use 'bindkey -e' as I preferred the rapid line editing of emacs mode in older versions of zsh and I'm very nifty with it now.

For ksh on Linux systems, you can make zsh look and behave near 100% compatible with ksh (88?) by invoking zsh as 'ksh' (via a symlink/hardlink), and there's also the 'pdksh' package.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[sethgecko]

there's also the real kornshell for linux. Not too many people seem to know it, though.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[IM6100]

I use NetBSD/csh because it's remained stable and essentially the same for the entire time I've used it (four years). Also it's truly cross-platform, whereas with Linux it's only 'cross platform' in the sense that there are fourty or fifty different forks that work on a handful of different architectures. All that holds 'Linux' together is a kernel, and there are dozens and dozens of distros all wandering this way and that. There's no consistent userland, there's no consistent source tree beyond the kernel. It's essentially a mess unless you narrowly focus on one distro. And the 'dominant' distros are either commercial or political beyond imagination.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[jrnchimera]

I used TCSH when I was back in college because it had a few nice features ( I've forgotten them ) but now I use bash ( on Linux ) because I don't really do anything all that special with the shell anyways.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[wackybrit]

ESC-k to go up to last historical command, ESC-j to go down to next historical command, etc.

Well, gee, in bash I just use the up and down arrows. But hey, if you want to press two keys to do the job of those already on your keyboard, be my guest.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[Guido von Guido]

Bash has a nice superset of the features of the Bourne and C shells. The one thing I really like about the C shells is the ! command: !! to repeat the last command, !cmd to get the last command beginning with cmd, !?cmd, etc. I install it on all my Sun or AIX machines.

Zsh is nice, too, with possibly even more features than bash. The one downside is that it's not installed on a lot of servers I use and it's annoying to change gears, so I don't use it too often.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[Sexy Bern]

Oh, the irony of calling somebody an "asshole", at the same time using "your" instead of "you're".

Oh, how we chortled. Chortle, chortle!

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[lga]

I'm curious why tcsh is your first choice on Irix.

Because tcsh has filename completion and it's history can be recalled with the arrow keys. I have Bash installed now as well, but it gets confused because my home directory is shared between an IRIX machine and a Linux machine and some commands don't work on both.

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[Anonymous Coward]

do you use pico over vi because you can use up and down arrows? poor guy...

Re:Now for some "Why Bother" posts

[wackybrit]

Uh, I use arrow keys in vi as well. Page Up and Page Down work nicely too.. you don't /have/ to use the arcane methods.

Of course, this may be a bash/Linux specialty.. but since I don't use vi on another other platform, it works fine for me.

Hardware Support

[rf0]

Worth reading the hardware compatibility list before installing

Rus

Re:Hardware Support

[irokitt]

Absolutely-they only list a handful of devices on the HCL. Only 2 modems, on of which is PCMCIA, only 4 video adapters (ATI is obviously favored here). It would appear that this is biased towards people who bought systems versus people who made one...

Re:Hardware Support

[joe_bruin]

has anyone tried this under vmware?
does it mostly work?

Re:Hardware Support

[Carnildo]

This is hardware that people have reported to work. I'm sure that more hardware is supported than is actually listed. For example, they only list two modems, but I'm sure any Hayes-compatible hardware modem will work. They only list a few CD-ROM drives, but any ATAPI CD-ROM will work. I don't see any PS/2 mice listed, which may be a problem -- or it may not.

Re:Hardware Support

[Anonymous Coward]

sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowly, yes. if you want to play with solaris, it really is worth it to get a sun machine to do it on (e.g a ss5 for ~$100)

Re:Hardware Support

[StandardDeviant]

Possibly worth mentioning would be the solaris xfree86 driver kit, which allows Sun's X server to use xfree86's video drivers. (Video cards being one of the most frequent sources of hardware incompatibility...)

Re:Hardware Support

[mog007]

I dunno about that, but the vaporware runs great!

*Runs back to Duke Nukem Forever*

Re:Hardware Support

[KillerHamster]

And check hardware revision numbers carefully, too. I seem to recall a certain Ethernet card (maybe a Linksys LNE100-TX?) that was listed but only for certain revisions later than mine, and Solaris 8 wouldn't find the card I had, so I had to locate another card.

Re:Hardware Support

[PierceLabs]

Mod parent up - very important!

Re:Hardware Support

[oldmanmtn]

Much more hardware works than is listed on the HCL.

Some things aren't supported out of the box, like the ethernet controller (VIA Rhine) built into my motherboard, but there are a surprising number of third-party drivers available online. Wheel mice are also supported by non-Sun drivers.

One real shortcoming is in the area of video drivers. Fortunately, XFree86 works on Solaris x86, addressing that problem rather nicely.

The biggest problem I've run into thus far is a lack of support for Serial ATA. I expect that this is just a result of Solaris x86 being put on hold for a year or so. I can't imagine this wouldn't be available by Solaris 10 (or whatever they end up calling it).

Re:Hardware Support

[Stonent1]

Yes, it works in VMware. It correctly detects the PCnet32 network card in vmware but not the video card. You have to do a text install (abort the x configuration) otherwise it will come up at 640x480 and the dialog boxes will be off the screen. Then use XFree86 to select the vmware video card. Other drivers are here:

Sound drivers for onboard audio and pci sound blasters

some usb devices

Network drivers Solaris should autodetect the video in Microsoft Virtual PC because it uses an S3 TRIO32/64 chipset, but it uses a Tulip network chip, so you'll need the nic drivers above.

Re:Hardware Support

[daniel23]

As for the video under vmware, I was lucky with theese:
xf86

however, up to now I still have no luck with network (vmware 3.2, solaris 9 x86, vmware OS==other)

Then again, I#m a complete solaris newbie and may need some research.

Re:Hardware Support

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the same problem with that card under Windows. Solution is to avoid shitwads like Linksys that use two completely different chipsets for the same model number.

Re:Hardware Support

[Stonent1]

I think the network card is pcn0.

Re:Hardware Support

[mistshadow]

One real shortcoming is in the area of video drivers. Fortunately, XFree86 works on Solaris x86, addressing that problem rather nicely.

Another option is the Driver Porting Kit. which lets you use the XFree86 drivers with the Xsun (Sun's Xwindows server)

Re:Hardware Support

[daniel23]

Yes it is and googling on "pcn0 ping solaris x86" found a number of reports of similar problem. Solaris appears to skip sending a certain interrupt and this leads to failures under some configurations ( like acpi activated in bios or like running in a vmware machine )

I'm writing this on solaris 9/vmware 3.2 right now so there is a solution but it is bizarr: The virtual NIC works only on a freshly powered on vm while rebooting the OS inside the vm will cause it to fail.

I found this out following info at this link:
Hint for Solaris 9

When you start the virtual computer the very first time it seems to be mpossible to contact the machine in any way over the network. The interface pcn0 is set up correctly but it is not possible to even ping the real machine from the virtual one or vice versa. [...] you just have to power off the virtual machine one more time. Note that it is not enough to just reboot it. Instead you must shut down, power off, power on and boot again.
Afterwards the network should work.

Re:Hardware Support

[daniel23]

the link is:

http://www.jan.exss.de/vmware/solaris/en_install _t our_4.html

Re:Hardware Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun has a "driver developer kit" for Solaris x86, in spite of being called a "driver development kit" it has useful drivers for many GF-cards.

http://bolthole.com/solaris/x86-laptops.html#gra ph ics
would be a nice start

have a =) day

What advantages ?

[frodo from middle ea]

What advantages does solaris offer over linux/*BSD when running on x86 platforms ?

Any info against what least common denominator the binaries are compiled for ? 386 , 486, pentium ?

Re:What advantages ?

[metlin]

I'm guessing advantages pertaining to legacy and portability issues.

But more particularly, I think it serves to function as a glorified ad campaign (no pun intended).

Re:What advantages ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What advantages does solaris offer over linux/*BSD when running on x86 platforms ?

It lets you be an elitist snob who looks down at linux/*BSD as being "not real UNIX".

Re:What advantages ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Java is guaranteed to run slower on this platform...

Re:What advantages ?

[mrpuffypants]

Well, at least it's not illegal or dying...

Re:What advantages ?

[PizzaFace]

Solaris is known for its efficient threading mechanism, and it's said to be an excellent platform for database servers. I don't know whether the x86 is as good this way as the Sparc version.

I paid $65 for the "free" x86 version of Solaris a couple years ago, when you had to buy media because Sun didn't offer a download, and it wouldn't run with the video card in my computer. Then sun dropped x86 Solaris, then my database vendor dropped support for x86 Solaris, so now I think Sun is coming around too late. Linux and even FreeBSD are making strides with their threading designs, so I don't see a compelling technical reason to use Solaris on Intel.

I can see a market for it among people who want Solaris experience for their resumes.

Re:What advantages ?

[javiercero]

Well, Linux is an UNIX like OS, and BSD already lost the ability of calling itself UNIX a while back.

So neither OS is UNIX or a real UNIX.

Re:What advantages ?

[AgentPhunk]

The main advantages I've personally experienced with Solaris on x86 are:

* as a study platform for the Sun Certified System Administrator exam. At my last company I could reboot and crash my x86 boxes all day long and not have to touch the Netra T1's, X1's and 420R's that we're being used by the developers for staging/production. Granted, some of the hardware aspects are completely different (the BOOT rom, etc) but I could learn that on the X1's during off-hours and weekend.

* As a way to keep the number of OS's in your environment down. Again, at my last place we had Micro$oft on the desktops, and Solaris as the staging/production environment. I had PLENTY of x86 desktops that I could install Solaris on and use as, for example, a squid proxy server, Snort IDS, Apache for employee's personal web sites, etc. It didn't make sense to run Linux/*BSD for those boxes since we were already a Solaris shop.

* Proof-of-concept for a new app and/or service before asking the Boss a real Sun server.

Nowadays, though:
* I don't know how many people are taking the Solaris exams, and perhaps Sun is giving x86 away for free in order to stimulate this area of revenue and interest.

* More people know and are comfortable with Linux than before, so finding admins that know Windows, Solaris, AND Linux (e.g. Redhat) isn't as hard (or expensive) as it used to be.

Just my .02 worth, and I know this was a slightly off-topic answer to your question.

Re:What advantages ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like linux, but proprietary and sucky. :)

Re:What advantages ?

[gantrep]

Basically, it's more l337.

Re:What advantages ?

[tigga]

Well, Linux is an UNIX like OS, and BSD already lost the ability of calling itself UNIX a while back.

About BSD - it's not exactly so. Considering UNIX is a trademark it is matter of money to get certification from Open Group for particular BSD version.

Re:What advantages ?

[dohcvtec]

Any info against what least common denominator the binaries are compiled for ? 386 , 486, pentium ?

I don't know what the binaries are compiled for, but I can tell you that Solaris 9 doesn't support 486 at all (i.e. it will not let you install.)

Re:What advantages ?

[tigga]

It's like linux, but proprietary and sucky. :)

It is better than Linux in many areas and worse in some other..

Saying 'sucky' means you are do not know what you talking about.

Re:What advantages ?

[np_bernstein]

Solaris has lots of feature that are beginning to exist in linux (may exist, but not widely implemented) and the bsd's. One example dynamic reconfiguration. Getting some ram errors? Cool, swap it out. (while you're running) Real access controls work, i.e.: "setfacl -m user:mongo:r-- test"; the user mongo has specific (read only) access to the file test. yesm you can patch your kernel, but it's in solaris by default. Solaris containers are pretty cool too: think userspace linux w/ the expense of multiple kernels crossed w/ openmosix crossed w/ linux-HA.

Solaris may go a way. Solaris may become a legacy OS. There are some *really* cool things in solaris that do not exist in linux yet, though, and if they keep up the R&D, by the time mainsream linux has them, then they will have other really cool stuff. Does that mean that people will pay lots of $$ for them when they can install freebsd or linux for free? I don't know. I think that a lot of the stuff in there *is* worth it, and if the trend in the linux market place goes the way redhat wants it to, where you're going to be spending $300 for a copy of the os/server anyway, then I definitely think solaris is worth a look.

Re:What advantages ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also a matter of adding missing APIs that are considered required by Open Group.

Re:What advantages ?

[KidSock]

What advantages does solaris offer over [FreeOS]?

There are several seemingly small things that are actually pretty important. I'm sure others will chime in with the usual stuff but let me point out one that I find very important; process shared sepaphores and condition variables. Many serious applications are much more sophisticated than the traditional model of launching a process with all of the state it needs and then letting it run to completion. Today's applications need to coordinate access to data in shared memory between processes. You can do this with threads but then you cannot use different locales or uids in different threads. So basically LinuxThreads suck. That's been admitted and they're trying to fix that. But even the new implementation (based on their userspace file lock "Futex" thing) isn't up to snuff yet either. Solaris supports process shared semaphores and condition variables and it scales to many more than 4 processors which is about the limit of Linux (don't know about *BSD).

Re:What advantages ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you understand.

• All hardware sucks
• All OS's suck
• All software sucks

Therefore Solaris sucks and Linux sucks. The only point of debate is how much they each suck.

Re:What advantages ?

[Skweetis]

Disclaimer: I've only used Solaris on Sparc.

The SunOS kernel and base libraries (libc, threading, stuff like that) are very good. The patching system is very good, but you do have to patch it a lot. I don't like:

• I've been spoiled by Linux/BSD. A basic install of Solaris is bereft of all the great free utilities and dev tools, so it takes an extra day of installing stuff to make it useful.
• A lot of the basic userland stuff is ridiculously out of date. I guess that's what happens when you fork an ancient version of BSD Unix and fall behind the development curve on some stuff.
• I'm a minimalist when it comes to servers. Solaris is just too damn bloated for me. I want finer-grained control over what I choose to install. Example: Yes, the Sun NFS server is top-quality. No, I don't want it on all my machines.

YMMV, but there must be some reason why Linux is eating away at Sun's market share, and it can't be all based on price. Companies usually still feel better about paying too much for this stuff...

Re:What advantages ?

[x0]

'A basic install of Solaris is bereft of all the great free utilities and dev tools, so it takes an extra day of installing stuff to make it useful.'

This may have been true with Solaris 2.6, but many of the GNU tools have been included since Solaris 7.

'A lot of the basic userland stuff is ridiculously out of date.'

Again, replacing the userland Sun tools is as easy as installing either the included GNU tools, or setting up the install to include the sunfreeware versions of the tools.

'I'm a minimalist when it comes to servers. Solaris is just too damn bloated for me. I want finer-grained control over what I choose to install. Example: Yes, the Sun NFS server is top-quality. No, I don't want it on all my machines.'

You can always tell the 'admins' who don't understand Jumpstart, don't use it, or haven't configured it properly. There isn't anything you can't preconfigure exactly the way you want it to be either by 'deleting' the package from the profile, or by modifying with a pre or post install script. I can go from a freshly racked server to a running Oracle instance in less than two hours (depending on the network and disks installed in the server. YMMV.)
About the only machine you have to configure manually is the first one, everything after that can be customized with profiles on the Jumpstart server. Need a new configuration? Modify a profile, type 'boot net - install' at the OBP, then sit back or work on other projects.

Re:What advantages ?

[Skweetis]

'A basic install of Solaris is bereft of all the great free utilities and dev tools, so it takes an extra day of installing stuff to make it useful.'

This may have been true with Solaris 2.6, but many of the GNU tools have been included since Solaris 7. I'd be happy with GCC at least. Still not in Solaris 8, haven't used 9 yet, is it there?

Again, replacing the userland Sun tools is as easy as installing either the included GNU tools, or setting up the install to include the sunfreeware versions of the tools.

I know about this stuff. I just have a pipe-dream of Sun including this stuff in the default install and eliminating their old utilities.

I also know about Jumpstart (it doesn't make any sense for me anymore, I only have one Sun server left). The bloat issue is really another pipe-dream of mine. I want Sun to make it easier to have a minimalist system without installing things I don't want in the first place.

These things are actually all just gripes. None of them are impossible, or even difficult, to work around, it's just something I'm picky about.

The deal closer

[OffTheLip]

Solaris 8/9 and CDE, what could be better...

Re:The deal closer

[ViolentGreen]

not a fan of the CDE... It was on the UNIX machines at the university I attended. The interface was poor and just seemed archaic compared to the modern linux environments.

Re:The deal closer

[ChaseTec]

>>Solaris 8/9 and CDE, what could be better...
Solaris 9 and Gnome...oh wait that's been standard for the the last couple of releases of 9.

And before people whine too much about hardware support...
For a port of XFree86 drivers to Solaris(even the VESA driver) please see: here
For nic drivers see here(I helped get the Realtek driver building with the Solaris/sparc version of gcc, previously you had to buy Sun's compiler to build the driver for a 10 dollar nic)
Or you might want to look here for links to other Solaris drivers.

Hot and Cold

[Space cowboy]

Blowing that is.

I know large companies have multiple objectives, sometimes competing, but does it seem to anyone else that Sun isn't *that* large... You can't port Java. You can port Java. Linux is dead. Our new desktop is Linux (oh, +Java). Solaris x86 is not free ... ... (wait for it, it took a while) ... Oh, yes it is, actually....

I guess there are Sun-only places where this might be a big deal. I'm also guessing that they're in a minority, so what does Sun see in it all ? It must be a reasonably large cost to maintain another OS for a company, so there has to be an upside... Answers on a postcard, please :-)

Simon.

Simon.

Re:Hot and Cold

[Carnildo]

I guess there are Sun-only places where this might be a big deal. I'm also guessing that they're in a minority, so what does Sun see in it all ? It must be a reasonably large cost to maintain another OS for a company, so there has to be an upside... Answers on a postcard, please :-)

It's only free for non-commercial use on single-CPU machines. Commercial installations, or installations on multi-processor machines, need to pay for a license.

Re:Hot and Cold

[Cujo]

What I want to know is can you take C++ code you've developed under SPARC Solaris and port it to x86 Solaris with a reasonable chance of compiling first try?

Re:Hot and Cold

[spinlocked]

I guess there are Sun-only places where this might be a big deal. I'm also guessing that they're in a minority, so what does Sun see in it all ? It must be a reasonably large cost to maintain another OS for a company, so there has to be an upside... Answers on a postcard, please :-)

Practically nobody uses Solaris x86 commercially (yet) - this was the reason they were planning to drop it a couple of years ago. Times have changed, Sun have a couple of newish Xeon based boxes out (really intended to run Linux not Solaris, but they'll do that too) plus some blades. The boxes to watch are the Opteron based systems coming out next year. I have reason to believe they will be priced *very* competitively.

Solaris is 95+% platform independent, porting to a new architechture is not that big a deal - keeping up with the fast moving ecosystem of x86 hardware is a real pain, which is why they've not really been interested in x86 to date. Sun makes their money on selling tin not software.

Re:Hot and Cold

[Bobke]

I'm guessing this is just a move to position there "java desktop system" above Solaris, confirming there linux path.

Re:Hot and Cold

[IM6100]

keeping up with the fast moving ecosystem of x86 hardware is a real pain

True, but I doubt if Sun is worried about capturing the games-playing hotdog market with their 6 month graphic controller buying cycle.

Re:Hot and Cold

[spinlocked]

Not the only fast moving hardware developments going on sadly.

Actually video cards are OK these days (not out of the box - you need the Linux XFree86 compatability kit). The real problem is things like WLAN cards, scanners, ADSL modems, USB printers, PC cards etc.

Re:Hot and Cold

[JoeBuck]

Depends on whether you are a competent C++ programmer or not, and understand things like big-endian vs. little-endian.

Re:Hot and Cold

[IM6100]

There was a window in time when Solaris 8 was first distributed freely when they didn't have the Uniprocessor restriction. I acquired my license and downloaded it during that period. The license I am bound to allows me to run it on my SS10 with dual processors. Which I do.

Re:Hot and Cold

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing this is just a move to position there "java desktop system" above Solaris, confirming there linux path.

You really need to learn the difference between "there", and "their". This mistake makes you look like an idiot, even more than many other common grammatical errors do. I'm not trying to be cruel here, but there is no way anyone with an education can take you remotely seriously, no matter how strong your ideas.

Re:Hot and Cold

[oldmanmtn]

Absolutely. Unless you've done something stupid like hardcoding some endianness assumption. (of course, that would kill you on any OS.)

Re:Hot and Cold

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's not as if they have to maintain a whole other OS. Solaris for SPARC and Solaris for x86 share upwards of 95% of their code. So the cost is somewhat less for that reason.

Plus, it's important to note that Sun has a line of entry level servers that have Athlons or dual Xeons (depending on the model) and run Solaris. So Sun is already paying the cost of maintaining the x86 version of Solaris.

If you take that as a given, then what is the most reasonable thing to do about making a version available for download? Well, Sun has decided it's worth it to make a version available apart from the one that comes installed on their hardware. One reason for this is that it gives hobbyists a chance to get their feet wet with Solaris. Also, shops can potentially choose Solaris x86 for servers and then buy bigger Sun hardware when the need to scale up arises.

So, given that they're making it available for download, should they make that free or charge money? I think the main reason they made it $20 to begin with, honestly, was to discourage the large numbers of people that would say "Solaris is cool, I'm going to try it out", then download a few ISO images, burn a CD, and forget about it. Plus you make a few bucks off the $20 fee. If 100,000 people download it, that's a couple million that can go to improving device drivers and whatnot.

By the way, Sun seems to be pretty committed to x86 Solaris these days. They are rumored to be reworking their commercial compiler suite to generate code heavily optimized for the Opteron. And they are supposed to have announced a deal to make Opteron based (entry-level) servers.

Re:Hot and Cold

[Bobke]

lol, idd i saw it too late. It was already posted. Not everybody is an american/brit on these boards, weetje wel.

Re:Hot and Cold

[bolthole]

The "Linux XFree86 compatibility kit" ?
Err, no.

the *XFree86* compatibility kit. XFree86 runs on linux: it does not BELONG TO Linux.

Re:Hot and Cold

[aled]

atwh do uyo anme ?

Re:Hot and Cold

[Minna Kirai]

that would kill you on any OS.

It never bothers my friends with Microsoft(tm) Windows(r)! at least until they make the mistake of writing in Java...

Re:Hot and Cold

[keithdowsett]

The upside is getting Solaris into lots of geeky student systems.

Todays geeky students are the people who will be making purchasing decisions in 10 years time. If they are already familiar with Solaris they will be much more receptive to moving their Oracle DB onto Sun systems.

Definitely a long term game plan.

Keith

Re:Hot and Cold

[doodzed]

>>What I want to know is can you take C++ code you've developed under SPARC Solaris and port it to x86 Solaris with a reasonable chance of compiling first try?

Works here. We are doing several projects that required a recompile to port from sparc to x86. The biggest problem seems to be the 2gig barrier or x86 and getting the same versions of all the utilities. That is more of a managemnet/sys-admin problem though.

I've asked before --

[Eberlin]

SUN -- are you doing Solaris or are you doing Linux? Is the Java Desktop going to migrate from Linux to being Solaris-based? Why not do SUNBSD while you're at it?

At the end of the day, I'm sure I'm asking what most of their investors probably are too -- SUN, where are you going with all of this?

Re:I've asked before --

[MoonFog]

SUN -- are you doing Solaris or are you doing Linux?
How about both? AFAIK, IBM and HP both release both Linux and Unix servers. I know Sun also makes the hardware for Sparc servers, but releasing Solaris for x86 doesn't seem that strange to me.

Re:I've asked before --

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, perhaps they finally (for the next month or two) feel that Solaris on X86 is worthless and give it away. Then, when they get tired of not selling Sun Java Desktop, they say Linux is childs-play crap again and take Solaris on X86 off the free software rack again.

Perhaps if they focus on a few things they do REALLY well instead of trying to do everything, they will turn around. I wonder how much longer their share-holders will put up with this "business strategy" of trying to be a swiss army knife. If I'm not mistaken, Sun rose to where they are (well, were) by producing excellent hardware and software for their hardware. That covers a lot already, why try to cover everything in the computer world?

Re:I've asked before --

[I_am_the_man]

You are a total idiot. If Sun is trying to be a Swiss Army knife then what are HP and IBM? If anything Sun this is Sun putting their big toe in the water. They are still a Sparc/Solaris/Java company that happens to also have a few solution for the X86 world. If you think the the Java Desktop System is about Linux (I know you did not mention it; this is for anybody who reads this) then you are sadly mistaken. Anybody who think Linux is an integral part of JDS is a fuckwit. Sun will replace Linux with Solaris and there will be no difference noticed to the user. It is a desktop, an interface, a set of applications. The OS does not matter. In fact OS's are not gonna matter a shit in about 5 years.

Re:I've asked before --

[Misao]

> Why not do SUNBSD while you're at it?

Uhhh... they've already _done_ that :) Admittedly, it was long ago, now.

-m

Re:I've asked before --

[Brandybuck]

Why not do SUNBSD while you're at it?

They already did. But Sun decided for some reason that they wanted to be SysV.

Re:I've asked before --

[Anonymous Coward]

Even in 2003 BSD still sucks on multiprocessor boxes. That's your reason.

Re:I've asked before --

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a total idiot.

But, of course, you, being "the man" clearly are a total non-idiot. I can see from your history of posts that when the word Sun is thrown into a setting light you quickly rise to flare (pun intended) back. I'm glad you love Sun. I hope your love gets you money from them for your staunch supporter. Maybe, if you're good, Scott McNealy will personally let you give him a blow some day :)

Re:I've asked before --

[I_am_the_man]

I do love Sun and I do tend to post when people who don't know jack shit about them try to expound on what Sun is and is not. Forgive me for only speaking out on a subject that I know. As for your post, you did not respond to a damn thing I said.

Mod him up -- Re:Who cares.

[Anonymous Coward]

mainly because he has a damn good point and I can't think of any reason for this release of Solaris except to "bring back old memories".

Somewhat related query

[neuph]

How does it perform on an x86 platform, as compared to a Sun platform?

Re:Somewhat related query

[metlin]

Depends on what is it you are using it for.

We have Solaris here at GTech GVU on both Sparc and IA. But we use Sparc here for a lot of graphics because while the SPARC and the Intel architecture have roughly the same performance on most integer operations, SPARC is better at floating point operations (don't remember the numbers - 30% I think).

I guess the overall performance would really depend on other things like your intent.

Re:Somewhat related query

[Telastyn]

There's not really any good metrics given the differences in platforms. IIRC though, Solaris runs much better on sparc, but x86 hardware is *MUCH* faster than any sparc you can get these days, and is still cheaper.

That said, sun hardware is generally rock solid, and getting solaris x86 working is a PITA.

re: performance between solaris x86 and other free alternatives:

The performance gains [which IIRC there aren't any for most circumstances] aren't worth the compatability losses. For most people, solaris x86 is just a good way to learn the differences between BSD/linux and Solaris for when you get to a job with larger SPARC machines.

Re:Somewhat related query

[frodo from middle ea]

Interesting you mention about the floating point operations.

Is sparc a RISC based system ? Or does it just have a better FPU than x86 ?

Re:Somewhat related query

[metlin]

If I'm not mistaken, both. SPARC is definitely an RISC based architecture, think its origins go back to the original work done on RISC at Berkeley.

Newer SPARCs also have deep and ordered pipelines as well as support for tagged arithmetic that make them a idea for graphics apps. Sure you can do that with good enough cluster but there are some things that you can do with a SPARC that can't be done just like that on an Intel (in comparison).

I'm not too sure about SPARC's FPU specs, but don't think they're anything special. But they were better than IA, atleast the last time I checked.

Re:Somewhat related query

[Billly Gates]

"But we use Sparc here for a lot of graphics because while the SPARC and the Intel architecture have roughly the same performance on most integer operations, SPARC is better at floating point operations (don't remember the numbers - 30% I think)" ...as to what a k6 circa 1997?

All the spec benchmarks show embarrasingly leads towards intel. This is why Dreamworks is fading out Unix and moving towards Linux. Not even the latest sparc III processors have the third of the power of a wallmart system.

Re:Somewhat related query

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC though, Solaris runs much better on sparc, but x86 hardware is *MUCH* faster than any sparc you can get these days, and is still cheaper.

Not only that, but GNU/Linux actually outperforms Solaris on Sun's own SPARC hardware, so you can install it on all your legacy SPARCs until they can be replaced by commodity hardware (or better yet, by PowerPC 64).

Re:Somewhat related query

[nexex]

"SPARC was invented in the labs of Sun Microsystems Inc., based upon pioneering research into Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) at the University of California at Berkeley. The first standard product based on the SPARC architecture was produced by Sun and Fujitsu in 1986; Sun followed in 1987 with its first workstation based on a SPARC processor."

From this.

Re:Somewhat related query

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, Sparc is considered a RISC architecture.

the x86 has a FP register stack of 8 registers (things are access in a stack-way: ex: pop f1, pop f2, add them push result).

In general, RISC architecture tends to perform better at floating point than intel.

Don't know about about Sparc. But PowerPC has 32 double precision FP regs. MIPS has 32 regs also, but for double precision 2 are used.

So it may be easier to implement a faster FPU on RISC CPUs. Yes, intel has only 8 integer regs, but they probably worked on it a lot to make int ops very efficient.

Interesting thing about Sparc arch is its register window. The CPU have maybe over 200 (I'm guessing) int registers and provides a subset of 32. When you call a function you get new regs. It's kind of cool but I never got a chance of playing with it, don't have a Sparc :(

Re:Somewhat related query

[bolthole]

That said, sun hardware is generally rock solid, and getting solaris x86 working is a PITA.

Depends on your hardware.

If you have intel-everything, then its as simple as dropping in the CD, following the prompts, and you'll get a working system in 1-2 hours. The less intel, or 100%-intel-compatible, stuff you use, the more of a roulette wheel it is.

I hear that athlon, and even dual-athlon, systems work with it. but it depends on your motherboard, etc, etc.

Re:Somewhat related query

[Minna Kirai]

In general, RISC architecture tends to perform better at floating point than intel.

That's the opposite of true. Traditionally, CISC (like Intel) tries to create many powerful instructions, and for example has opcodes which multiply or divide a floating point number in one step.

But RISC was designed with the realization that floating point math isn't very important- most computer programs can get by fine with integers alone. So the original RISC systems were worse at fp (forcing compiler developers to emulate multiplication in their own code), concentrating on integer speed instead.

Re:Somewhat related query

[turgid]

I hear that athlon, and even dual-athlon, systems work with it. but it depends on your motherboard, etc, etc.

Indeed. I have a dual P4 Xeon running Solaris, an Athlon XP2400+, some SPARC boxes and some 4-way Dell PIII and P4 Xeons all running Solaris. Most of them have pretty standard chipsets and peripherals, nothing terribly fancy or expensive. I even have one with accelerated NVidia graphics. We also have some multi-way Opterons running Solaris.

There's an awful lot of anti-Solaris FUD about.

The cool things about the Opterons is that the intel compatibility is so good, existing 32-bit OSes run totally unmodified and withoud problems on them.

What about PPC users?

[Carthag]

Solaris x86 8 & 9 is once again Free (as in beer) to download for x86 users.

Can we download the x86 version for free? ;)

Re:What about PPC users?

[ChaseTec]

>>Solaris x86 8 & 9 is once again Free (as in beer) to download for x86 users.
>Can we download the x86 version for free? ;)

No, it requires the use of the right mouse button.

Re:What about PPC users?

[Anonymous Coward]

"PowerPC" does not mean "Macintosh".

Re:What about PPC users?

[diamondsw]

"Macintosh" does not mean "one-button".

Re:What about PPC users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not, you require the "Windows Key".

While this is nice for hobbyists...

[dnaumov]

While this is nice for hobbyists, the people who *NEED* Solaris surely could afford 20$ for a copy for a long time now.

Re:While this is nice for hobbyists...

[bash-2.02$]

i think the point is that it is for hobbyists or students like myself. this way, i can manage a solaris box w/o needing to find a cheap old sparc box or spend way too much money on a newer one. i can just install this for free using vmware(yeah, i downloaded it for free too, i plan on buying a copy when $ is available).

i bet students are the main reason for this. sun wants to get more young people using their OS.

just my opinion

Re:While this is nice for hobbyists...

[Mr. Roadkill]

While this is nice for hobbyists, the people who *NEED* Solaris surely could afford 20$ for a copy for a long time now.

Indeed. ISTR the reason Sun gave for the $20 download fee was to stop kiddies with unlimited broadband plans slurping it up and not doing anything with it - they had a phenomenal number of downloads, but nobody was actually using it. Bandwidth costs somebody money, and Sun needed to have access to a lot of it and a lot of huge boxes in order to serve up all those ISOs that got looked at a couple of times and then binned because the kidlets couldn't figure out how to install Solaris. On a slightly different note, I haven't checked out the licence in depth but I did notice the options on the download page (Educational use, Development use, or 60 day trial). ISTR that Solaris 8 was free for use on systems with 4 or less processors for any purpose, but Sun now want to sting you if you want to use it for real work. Fair enough I guess, since they'll be selling some really beefy X86 Solaris boxes now and they won't want people whiteboxing them out of business, but they'll have to make Solaris the obvious platform of choice or people will just stick Linux on unless the suits demand that there be someone they can sue when Things Go Wrong.

Yes!

[grub]

Watch your puny single CPU i386 chips die under the crushing load of 10,000 kernel locks! MwaahahahahA!

Sun gets enough from SPARC...

[Raynach]

I would think that Sun is giving away the x86 Solaris for free because they just want to draw more users from the open source and free-as-in-speech community to look at what it has to offer...

...although they are only offering the binary for download.

Sun makes enough from licensing Solaris to big SPARC machines (that it makes) and that Solaris is originally supposed to run on. It's kind of like baiting penguins with processed tuna fish... when the penguins already know that there's fresh fish a lot more readily accessible. Some of the penguins might play with it, but they won't eat it religiously.

That was an awesome analogy. I rule.

Re:Sun gets enough from SPARC...

[CatOne]

Dude Sun is getting KILLED on Sparc machines. Who the hell wants to pay $150K for a 4-way Sparc that can get circles run around it by a $5000 Linux server?

In the boom days, maybe (it was Sun, EMC, Cisco, etc.). These days people won't overpay by 10x for a reliable brand name in the same way, when they can get a $5K box from IBM with a $5K support contract for an IBM/Linux box that kicks the sh*t out of the Sparc/Solaris machine, in performance AND reliablilty.

Re:Sun gets enough from SPARC...

[s4ltyd0g]

No they don't. Sun makes money selling hardware.

Re:Sun gets enough from SPARC...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all nice, but you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Go read a Sun quarterly report sometime. Sun doesn't make money on software. Sun makes money on hardware. They sell media kits, not licenses. Theres a distinction. The license to run Solaris on a Sun is the Sun hardware.
Idiot.

Re:Sun gets enough from SPARC...

[hbackert]

Those prices are outdated. Sun nowadays (is forced to) have cheaper models. Compared to brand-name x86-based servers they are not much more expensive any more. V440 (4 CPUs, 8GB RAM, 4 36GB SCSI disks, redundant PSU) list price US$16000.

No, it's not cheap and it certainly cannot compete with an off-the-shelf dual-CPU Xeon, but 4 CPUs are more expensive then 2 times 2. A Dell PowerEdge 6650 with 4 Xeon 2MHz and similar specs is available at US$17500.

And once you go beyond 4 CPUs, everything is pretty expensive. Sun is no exception here.

Re:Sun gets enough from SPARC...

[Horny Smurf]

no fucking way a $5000 linux server competes with a $150,000 sparc/solaris machine.

.bombs did overspend and buy hardware they didn't need, but if you do need a 4-way sparc machine, a $5000 linux server won't cut it.

Re:Sun gets enough from SPARC...

[oldmanmtn]

I would think that Sun is giving away the x86 Solaris for free because they just want to draw more users from the open source and free-as-in-speech community to look at what it has to offer...

They are re-releasing x86 support because they're customers were screaming for it. My guess is that they are giving it away to individual users because it's cheaper than trying to deal with $20 "micropayments." :) These guys are used to seeing money come in in 6-8 figure chunks. I doubt they are staffed to handle lots of tiny little transactions.

Re:Sun gets enough from SPARC...

[mihalis]

$150k? That's an exaggeration.

Sun Fire V440 Server 4 1.28-GHz UltraSPARC IIIi Processors 1-MB Internal Cache 16-GB Memory 4 36-GB Ultra320 SCSI 10000RPM Disk Drives 1 DVD-ROM Drive 2 10/100/1000 Mb/s Ethernet Ports 1 DB9 (ttyb), 1 RJ45 (Console) Serial Ports 4 USB Ports 2 (1+1) Power Supplies Solaris 8 HW 07/03 Operating System Server License Ships Within: 10 business days List Price: $25,995.00

Looks pretty nice to me.

Re:Sun gets enough from SPARC...

[Anonymous Coward]

That $5000 Linux server is nothing like high end Sun kit. It won't have hot-swappable hardware. It will almost certainly be using IDE hard drives. It will have poor hardware monitoring. It will almost certainly be using "high end" consumer grade components that pump out a heck of a lot more heat. It is unlikely to have an MTBF much better than most IBM Deathstar disks. In short; sure you can just drop $5000 on a cheap Intel server, but you'll be dropping another $5000 in a couple of years time..

Re:Sun gets enough from SPARC...

[Anonymous Coward]

Some corporations won't touch Linux.
Solaris x86 allows them to get into commodity HW for developers, get scale in production to 100+ processors for large database applications with thousands of concurrent users.

Also, support costs to Sun could be huge if they accepted payment for Solaris x86. If you give it away, people won't expect support beyond documentation already written and on their web site.

I believe they are doing this since the low end is their real area of vulnerability. Some would say on they are vulnerable on 8+ processor machines from IBM and HP - check the performance/cost ratios for all three vendors before selecting a primary development platform, if you aren't going to use Linux.

Oh, and the guy that thought a 4-way SPARC was $150k is just wrong. V440 boxes have a list price of $16k on store.sun.com.
An IBM p630 4-way lists for $26.5k on http://www-132.ibm.com/content/home/store_IBMPubli cUSA/en_US/eServer/pSeries/entry/6306C4.html

An HP rp5470 4-way lists for .... ok, their site sucks. It came back with a Quick Quote of $274k, but that isn't correct. I've bought these for around $80k (actually, L3000s a few yrs ago). HP, wake UP!!! We want reasonable pricing online - anonymous. Oh, and for a company that sells a linux product, seems you should get away from thinking everyone has EI for a browser!

Solaris...

[edubarr]

We used to have Solaris 7 on our Sparc lab at my university and I didn't think it was that good. Linux is much better for everyday use. Well, come to think of it, maybe the problem was the Sparc machines. Anyhow, I didn't have a great experience with Solaris, even tough I know people that really like it.
Then again, having a couple extra cds with another free* OS is never too much. Someday someone somewhere may need it...

*as in beer

Re:Solaris...

[gantrep]

Uhh, I'm not sure that the license allows you to just go willy-nilly burning copies for all your friends like you do with Linux. I think they want you to get it from them, going through their website, agreeing to their terms, etc.

Re:Solaris v.s FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

I ran some benchmarks 2 years ago on the same x86 hardware, and you could make them perform about the same. I expected "slowlaris" to be, well, slow. But it kept pace. One thing I really miss on FreeBSD that Solaris has is the "iowait" state. You can see right away in top if the CPU or disk is the bottleneck...

yay! but... boo!

[192939495969798999]

Yay, it's free! But, boo! How is Sun gonna make money by giving away the one product they always charged for? Help me to understand.

Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[eamacnaghten]

Although Solaris is currently ahead of Linux for multi-processor/64 bit computing, it will not be when Linux 2.6 gets into propper production. Obviously SUN is trying to deploy Solaris as much as possible, and to make it as scaleable as possible, in an attempt to stay one ahead of Linux. It is destinned to fail here, there is just too much resource going into linux now. Solaris is destinned to become a legacy OS. A better stratergy for SUN would be to provide an upgrade path of Solaris to Linux, and to ride the wave, not fight it.

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[hackstraw]

A better stratergy for SUN would be to provide an upgrade path of Solaris to Linux, and to ride the wave, not fight it.

Maybe they can license the upgrade path from SCO. No I'm not trying to be funny or trollish. SCO has a product called "Linux Kernel Personalities" for thieir UNIX OS that enables Linux binaries to be run on that platform. Can't get any more info because SCO's website because its not responding. Hmmmm.

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[buford_tannen]

Try http://216.250.128.10/.

(btw... www.sco.com resolves to 216.250.128.12) It looks like this DDoS thing was just a fraud... they just hopped IP addresses.

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[I_am_the_man]

Do you honestly think that the 2.6 kernel is going to put Linux anywhere near Solaris in scalability. Will 2.6 run on a 106 processor machine without any futzing (and the first fuck who mentions clustering, beowulf or mosix should bend over and eat his own shit). Will 2.6 do domaining/containers/zones? Will it doe dynamic reconfiguration? If Linux can scale to 32X I will be happy, but to think it is going to be on par with Solaris (Sparc mind you) you are crazy.

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[eamacnaghten]

The answer to all that is I do not know for certain.

There is talk of it scaling well to 64 processors, any more than that, again, I do not know. Certainly Linux now scales very well.

If you compare the differences between Solaris and Linux two years ago it was far greater thwn the difference between the OS's now.

Solaris on Sparc mey still be ahead of Linux 2.6 - but Linux is advancing FAST, far faster than Solaris is. At some point it will overtake it.

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[acidtripp101]

I don't get how this was modded as interesting.
1) Sun doesn't make NEARLY as much money off of its software as it does its hardware. The software is just custom made to work REALLY WELL under that hardware.
2) SUN IS ALREADY ADOPTING LINUX. It's not trying to stay "one step ahead."
3) There already is a upgrade path to Linux from Solaris... it's called "Install Linux, Install the software from the Solaris machine to the linux box, and copy over and required data"

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[Usquebaugh]

The question is not can Linux do something now, but rather, how long before Linux can do it? Or more accurately how long before Linux can do it on commodity hardware.

I'm pretty sure the new SGI runs without futzing, not sure if it's a 106 cpu box. Likewise the Stratus hardware allows for dynamic config. So maybe Linux can already do it, just not on commodity hardware.

In the enterprise sphere the question becomes does IBM want to do it? IBM seems committed to migrating all their servers to Linux. Z series on down. If IBM has the feature currently I'm guessing it will be in Linux in the next few years.

The worst thing Sun can do is throw mud at Linux, as Linux gains more features the mud gets thrown back. Where does Sun go if Linux gains all the features of Solaris?

If Sun suspects Linux is going to gain the features that sets Solaris apart Sun needs to embrace Linux now. Why would I want Sparc without Solaris? A nasty double whammy for Sun that, they lose their OS market share and as a result nobody wants their hardware.

In my mind the question is rapidly becoming what hardware should I run Linux on. The OS war is over and the damn hippies have won. The hardware thou is open, intel rules the low end, can they invade the high end or is Sun/IBM going to hold on?

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[Anonymous Coward]

A better stratergy for SUN would be to provide an upgrade path of Solaris to Linux, and to ride the wave, not fight it. I seem to remember a similar argument being used by Microsoft on more that one occasion. Funny how limited rhetoric is.

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[Serveert]

linux has a ways before it gets to the level of Solaris. If it will ever get there. I've had many weird paging issues with linux that weren't resolved by putting in other VM patches, Solaris never had such problems in the years I've been using it. No one, btw, could answer my questions on the linux kernel mailing list. It's apparantly accepted that the linux kernel grabs a bunch of memory for disk cache and doesn't let go of it even when physical memory becomes scarce. It just swaps like mad even though 30% of the memory is in disk cache and you cannot tune it without hacking the kernel.

Then there's vsar, lockstat..

And the NSA been buying their >100-way smp solaris boxes for years, Linux doesn't have that kind of recognition just yet.

On the upside for linux, you can do what purify does but for free.

So develop on linux, run your servers on solaris may be the best solution.

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[Anonymous Coward]

> Although Solaris is currently ahead of Linux
> for multi-processor/64 bit computing, it will
> not be when Linux 2.6 gets into propper
> production...

Uh-huh, sure. That's what they said when 2.4 was
released. And they'll be saying the same thing
when 2.10 (or whatever) is released. If Sun quit
working on Solaris today it would probably take
at least 10 years for Linux to "catch-up" (unless
Sun/IBM/HP take up the cause).

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[rkuris]

I think they are finally starting to compete on price instead of competing on features.

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[ameoba]

I wouldn't put too much hope in 2.6 starting out well; remember how 2.4 was supposed to be the kernel that gave Linux a legititmate media image & flawless from the getgo? Remember how it was probably the most problem-ridden kernel release since pre-2.0 days?

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's apparantly accepted that the linux kernel grabs a bunch of memory for disk cache and doesn't let go of it even when physical memory becomes scarce.

That's why I run FreeBSD.


(well, that and the fact that I got bit by a 2 gig filesize limit back in 1997 or so - it pissed me off so much I never looked back)

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[Serveert]

I was thinking of that but we're big on SMP machines, FreeBSD doesn't seem to be up to par with linux when it come to SMP. I may be wrong and times may have changed, which would be great, I wouldn't mind jumping ship to FreeBSD.

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun makes money (not much nowadays) on its sparc servers. They don't make money on Solaris alone and they will not make lots o money on the x86 market.

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[turgid]

I'm pretty sure the new SGI runs without futzing, not sure if it's a 106 cpu box

Wrong. To get SGI's "scalability" in Linux you need SGI's closed source Linux kernel extensions. That's right, they're not GPL or even Open Source. You have to complie in their own special "shim" layer into the kernel.

As for the user space, I'd imagine they have many of their own non-standard utilities to drive it all.

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[MrRay]

> Wrong. To get SGI's "scalability" in Linux you
> need SGI's closed source Linux kernel
> extensions. That's right, they're not GPL or
> even Open Source. You have to compile in their
> own special "shim" layer into the kernel.

That's sounds like a GPL-violoation to me, if
you were right ...
Where is your info from?

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[Some Pig!]

Solaris on x86 was never a strategic product for Sun. Two years ago Sun was willing to drop it altogether in favor of Linux, of which there were and are plenty of advocates within the company. Solaris 9 on x86 was cancelled.

There was a loud outcry from a small but determined group of Solaris x86 customers.

It was Sun users who dragged Sun back into the x86 space.

Since then Sun has decided to make a serious go of it. But the facts easily refute the orthodox hobbits-vs.-Sauron story.

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[killmeplease]

The threading model will far surpass the threading model that Linux uses. Solaris uses a hybrid user/kernel level multithreading that allows user level threads to receive kernel interrupt messages to interact with a user level thread scheduler. In Linux kernel level threads a blocked thread will block for its CPU time and give up when its time is done. In Solaris, if a thread blocks on I/O or something of that nature, it can give up its time to the next thread for the app currently running. This sounds like whatever and of course with all the smart programmers this should be easy to accomplish, but it is not in Linux yet and it will take a lot of years to fully reprogram the threading system for Linux to allow for Solaris's method or a better method if one comes along

Re:Solaris will become a legacy OS..

[outZider]

hahahahahaha.

Sorry, I can't moderate on this one. But that was great. :D

For those that want to run solaris commercially ..

[junkymailbox]

x86 Platform, License Upgrades

Free at last, free at last thank god almighty.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Well,

First they charge, then its "free" then its charged for again, now at last its "Free" again..

I wish Sun would get a CLUE when it comes to their product and charges/distribution channels, just like Java.

I like Solaris dont get me wrong, but a a desktop OS it is not, nor a serious server platform on x86. Sparc ...WAY different story.... but not x86....and when is x86-64 Solaris coming ?

Slashdot, redefining humour

[DenOfEarth]

Is the parent comment supposed to be funny? I really want to know...

Solaris 8/9 and CDE, what could be better...

At first glance, this sentence seems devoid of humour, the Solaris 8/9 could be considered a deal closer by some, but what's throwing me off is the CDE line. Maybe the fact that I've used CDE is why I'm struggling to understand the possible humour content of this joke.

If it's meant to be a joke, than it sure is a good example of sarcasm...if not, than I feel sorry for the guy who hasn't gotten off a box using CDE to try a different desktop enviro.

Re:Slashdot, redefining humour

[jonathan_ingram]

Not everyone hates CDE, you know -- it had a couple of good ideas behind it. If you want to see a modern re-interpretation of CDE, check out XFCE: it's actually quite usable :).

Re:Slashdot, redefining humour

[OffTheLip]

Slashdot, humor and sarcasm? Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner.

Step right up...

[CatOne]

To the Scott McNealy "Strategy of the Month" club!

Wonder how long this will last, before they have a change of heart.

I have a buddy who worked there in product management for their app server. They had like 30 middleware products that all had the same message, and the VP printed out the statements, passed them out, and asked the PMs to identify their products by the message. They couldn't do it, because it was all the same sh!t. Heh.

requirements

[musikit]

You must have:
Free disk space: 4.0 GBytes to Install Solaris 9 OS; 5.0 GBytes to Install Java Enterprise System Software
Recordable CD-ROM drive: To create CDs using the downloaded zipped files
Recordable CDs: Blank 750 recordable or rewriteable CDs, one needed for each CD image downloaded
CD labels: Required under license agreement
CD writing application: Use cdrecord for Solaris or Easy CD Creator for Windows is recommended
Download Manager: Sun Download Manager (Free version) runs on most platforms (see System Requirements for details)
Unzip application: WinZip recommended for Microsoft Windows (or use Sun Download Manager's automatic unzip feature)

you also need to "register" on sun's website. so it's as free as the NY times articles online. too bad there isn't a google cache of solaris 9

Re:requirements

[satanami69]

CD labels: Required under license agreement

Yes, that is actually part of the requirements.

Re:requirements

[raptor21]

CD writing application: Use cdrecord for Solaris or Easy CD Creator for Windows is recommended

Why not use cdrw(1) that comes with Solaris?

It is in /bin in solaris 9 and above and in the supplemental CD in soalris 8. IMHO it is a lot easier to use than cdrecord.

To burn just do: cdrw -i

Re:requirements

[Evil MarNuke]

Let see here.

You just told someone to use a solaris tool to burn a solaris iso so they can install solaris.

Right.

Re:requirements

[Mir322]

"Recordable CDs: Blank 750 recordable or rewriteable CDs, one needed for each CD image downloaded"

Those things exist ?? !! *sigh* just this week i picked up spindle of 50 700meg Sony's.

Sorry Sun, looks like i'm staying with my linux install for now.
--

Re:requirements

[Anonymous Coward]

CD writing application: Use cdrecord for Solaris or Easy CD Creator for Windows is recommended

Let's see here.

Maybe you should slow down and read. The part I've bolded would be a good start

So what?

[mac os ken]

CowboyNeal X for x86 has been free forever and doesn't get any coverage. I remember the first time I did that hefty install of 1.23mb from a double sided DVD. Ahh... memories...

Re:Who cares.

[spinlocked]

The only two relevant platforms on IA32 are Windows and Linux.

You are absolutely right. What you overlook is that IA32 is a platform which is already starting to become less and less relevant in the enterprise.

SCO Anyone?

[segment]

Oh Parodies gotta love them... I smell a lawsuit

Whats new?

[hackstraw]

So Sun is changing their mind about the cost of a product. Whats next, Sun offering an AMD processor with Linux?

These people are getting really wierd.

Re:Whats new?

[ComputatusMaximus]

Actually yes. Sun has plans to increase their AMD offerings next year, running both Solaris x86 and Linux.

Free (beer) solaris x86 makes it accessable to poor college students. Whether or not Linux is the only relevent unix-like OS for x86, exposure to various systems, ie *BSD, Linux, Plan9, Solaris x86, is a good learning experience. I'm sure many /.ers got their start in computing that way.

Gives me college flashbacks...

[Life2Short]

TI-994A's give me college flashbacks. Not that I could afford one...

ARGH

[ozzmosis]

Argh! and i just paid 20$ for it on tuesday!

Be sure to read the hardware requirments!!

Hmmm...

[Rotten168]

... so how long will it be before Sun files for bankruptzy?

Re:Hmmm...

[ron_ivi]

Not for a long time. Considering Yahoo Finance thinks they have $2.5 Billion cash, they'll be around a while. And with a market cap of > $13.8 Billion they can just buy some small company like Apple (who'se only worth about half as much as sun).

Then they'd have a BSD based OS comfortable for those of us who liked good old SunOS 4.X.

Re:Who cares.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Linux is here, now, dominant, and fits ths bill as far as
> unix operating systems for the PC. It doesn't have to be
> the cleanest, like Win 3.1 didn't have to be the cleanest
> way back when.

Hmm, can you say "Damning with faint praise"? :)

Where is this free beer you speak of?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Better college flashback)

p2p links?

[TCM]

anyone?

Why sun sucks.

[AchmedHabib]

I needed a Solaris on Intel for a project. Tried to fight it but to no avail..
So I called the reseller and wanted to order a licence. Won't go into detail on how long it took them to get a pricetag for it.. think weeks.

I checked out their website and saw I could download it for 20$ online, but i would still need a license.
So I waited almost 2 months for it. When it arrived, I got a big box filled up with that annoying shock absorbing stuff and a piece of paper which were the license, but no CDs or anything just a big empty box.
So I called Sun and got tossed around in their phone system and they managed to hang up on me 3 times. The fourth time I managed to get through to a hotline or something and I was told that Solaris for Intel was free. "oh" I said, "your reseller has just sold me a license for 500$"... oh well
"Now how do I get the software?", I was then told that I could order it or download it from their site for 20$. Damn I didn't want to do that online ordering since I had to use my own creditcard and didn't want to go though the paperwork to get a refund for 20$ from the company, but after waiting almost 2 months now I needed the software and bought a download ticket.

This was my first expirence with Sun and hopefully my last. I would have expected a better service and that they would at least act like they were interested in selling something. Other people in the company have after all bought their SunFire 12k boxes for other projects.
It is clear that Solaris on Intel has little or no focus at Sun which also shows when trying to install it. It is easier to find hardware to install FreeBSD or any other BSD on than Solaris. And installing any Linux dist. is a breeze compared to Solaris. I'd say you really gotta LOVE Solaris if you want to run other than the Sparc version on Sun hardware.

Re:Why sun sucks.

[leoxx]

If I wuz you, I'd have just installed something else "while we wait" and then never bothered contacting Sun.

Re:Why sun sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know... you're either extremely stupid or the cheapest bastard I've ever seen.

You went through all that not just to save $20, but not to do the paperwork for reimbursement? What is your time worth?

I had no problem downloading Solaris (both Sparc and x86 versions) since Solaris 7 version. Never did I have to go through a telphone goose chase with them. Did everything online and delivery was usually through FedEx overnight or two day.

My reseller is equally great. Long ago, my sales contact guy drove over to my office and hand delivered Solaris 2.51.

Re:Why sun sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so it is Sun's fault, for you getting bent over a reseller. Why didn't you deal with sun directly, and getting the media and license at the same time.

Things could have been much easier that way, considering that $20 download was not covered by the $500 license and you can only use it by the terms of the $20 personal use license.

Re:Why sun sucks.

[djs1w]

I called their support yesterday (a gold contract mind you) and was told to hang up and dial a number the technician gave me. I followed directions, only to find out that number I dialed was a pr0n hotline. Thinking I misdialed the number (and no I didn't write it down wrong) I tried again, more pr0n. When I called back I got the same technician and told him what happened, his response, "Oh, sorry, that is an old number of ours."

I didn't get my question answered, but I was told that someone was hot and horny waiting for me and my Visa card!!

Re:Why sun sucks.

[AchmedHabib]

I might not be clear from what I wrote, but I contacted our usual sun reseller and when then were unable to help me in the timeframe I had, I contacted Sun, hoping to be able to talk to someone who would just sell me the damd license. But instead I got to talk with a lot of people redirecting me to other people and back to the reseller in the end.

Re:Why sun sucks.

[AchmedHabib]

no, I couldn't care less about the money. I looked at their site and saw that I had to pay for a licence to run their os. But where I live, the site told me that I could not order the license online, only the download part so I had no choice but to do it this way.
Had the same problem when buying software online from IBM. Needed that Notes sync software for my PDA. They only accepted US addresses, but since it was only 25$ I just ordered it online for download, and found a random US address with postal number and proceeded to download.

Re:Why sun sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I used to work for Sun. I now work for a Sun reseller. Hence anonymity.

I'm kinda suprised that you got this. You own a 12k or three. That should make you a "tier-1" customer.

When the bubble burst, Sun "re-tiered" all their customers.. (which I reckoned was a dud idea.. but hey.. I'm a post-sales techy... which makes you a second class citizen in Sun. The sales guys got weekends away in Hawaii and we had our espresso machine confiscated because "we all needed to tighten our belts". Fuck that. Tech work without coffee? I left... not that I'm bitter or anything).

Anyway.. Sun divided their customers into three tiers. Tier one were the telcos and banks who had a dozen e10ks and got the first of the (then new) Sun Fire machines. You could get blown by a salesperson in your choice of colors. Pre sales tech support was plentiful and free.

The second tier were large corperations who had some Sun kit and were likely to buy more. A sales guy probably would never talk to you except if they weren't going to make quota, and then only in the last 3 days of the month. Presales tech support would do your configuration for you and then send it on to the resellers.

The third tier were those who might buy a server now and again and were relegated to deal with resellers. They had varying degrees of sucess depending on the local tech guys, but given that anybody decent already worked for Sun or one of their big clients, this was usually pitiful. Not suprisingly, many smaller customers didn't buy Sun.

As I said, I now work for a reseller, and Sun hates us. Why? Because we also sell HP and Cisco. Because we aren't an exclusive Sun shop, our margins on Sun gear are 7 tenths of fuck-all. There is no motivation for a reseller to sell Sun kit unless that is all they do, and then they only get access to un-important customers. It may be a good business model for Sun, but a reseller can't survive on those conditions.. unless you are somebody already huge.

I think this is a big mistake... not in the least because I still have SUNW shares sitting in an account praying for a recovery... but also because I think Sun will lose the loyalty of its traditional customer base through experiences like the one you had. Although its a particularly bad example, its not too far from those of many other people.

But this kit is good. Really good. I love Sun stuff. I've seen a Sun Fire 6800 fall off the back of a truck, bent and bruised, boot up first time with something like 2 failed disks. I've seen an e10k with a fucking great hole in it (due to a badly driven airport forklift) and it came up with all the boards that weren't physically damaged (obviously the centerplane survived).

Try doing that with a PC. :)

Re:Why sun sucks.

[asciiRider]

this is insightful?
cmon folks -
some guy has a hard time getting the software and that is his entire review?

This is all your going to base your future decisions on? Dude, your not going to be successful in your projects if you skip the best solution because you don't want to cough up another 20 bucks...That is darn irresponsible of you.

hey, didn't Kevin "steal" this code?

[atheken]

I wonder what Kevin Mitnick thinks about this little tidbit.

Re:Solaris v.s FreeBSD

[chefmonkey]

Yeah, Solaris got a bad rap for speed. Having played around with both Linux and Solaris on x86 and Sparc chips, though, I offer you the following observations:

Solaris x86: Fast
Solaris Sparc: Slow
Linux x86: Fast
Linux Sparc: Slow

A casual examination shows that the problem is the dog-slow processor that you usually find Solaris on, not the OS itself.

Thats Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to argue that fish are mammals. And babies come from raccoons after they've been bitten by rattlesnakes. I also like telling people they are irrelivant hummans. Why the heck should I care if you exist? Isn't everyone else alive just taking up valuable resources that I could be using? Lets face it, I am the most important man on this earth. It would be nice if everyone else finnally realised it.

PS Mod the parent up. I've never seen such skill at turning flaimbait into "informative" content!

Re:Thats Nice

[Vint Cerf]

Flamebait. FLAMEbait. FLAMEbait.

Finally

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

Something to put on the Athlon XP 1800+ which doesn't suck.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

right. have you every actually *used* solaris on intel? Solaris on US is thing on beauty. Solaris on intel sucks dead goats. Always has, probably always will. We used to ship product on it, and it was bugs and wierdness from day one. An aquaintance who worked for Sun told me: 'yeah, they (the x86 group) never get enough resources to do the job right. Release process seemed to be: kick it to the x86 group after you get it tested on sparc. Give them a couple of weeks to paper over the most glaring bugs, then kick it out the door.

Re:Finally

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

I used it on a dual-P120 back in "the day" and it was by far the best option at the time. (BeOS didn't support my video card).

Re:yay! but... boo!

[milgr]

It may allow hobbyists to develop software for Solaris. It may encourage some businesses to release software for Solaris. It may encourage som hobbyists to start using Solaris, and demand it next time their employer buys systems.

I suspect that most of the people downloading Solaris-X86 wouldn't pay all the bucks for Solaris.

I also suspect that the free version doesn't come with Suport. I suspect that if you buy a system from Sun with Solaris, you get some level of support for Solaris.

What does Sun have to lose?

It's free for Sparc now too

[martinde]

I've run across several free Sparcs, including an Ultra 2 that a friend's company was throwing away. It looks as though I can download Solaris for it for free now too! I thought about running Linux on it, but I'm not sure what the point would be since it would be slower than the x86s I've got around.

Re:It's free for Sparc now too

[IM6100]

Just don't tell them you're going to be running it on an Ultra 2. I suggest telling them you'll run it 'on an Ultra 1' instead. The Ultra 2 is capable of having two processors installed on it. The 'free' versions of Solaris are only licensed for Uniprocessor machines. They interpret it more strictly than they should. It means that any machine capable of multiprocessing cannot run Solaris under that license. I have it running on a SS10, though (ducks grenade lobbed from Sun attorney).

Re:It's free for Sparc now too

[Sxooter]

Actually, my experience with older Ultra Sparcs (1, 2, etc...) is that they are MUCH faster under linux than under Solaris. About 50 to 150% faster at most stuff. This is especially true if they've got IDE drives in them, as Sun never really seemed to do a great job on the IDE drivers in Solaris (X86 or Sparc)

Postgresql runs about twice as fast on linux on sparc as Solaris on Sparc, for instance.

Re:It's free for Sparc now too

[Anonymous Coward]

it was always free for sparc...

Re:It's free for Sparc now too

[martinde]

> Actually, my experience with older Ultra Sparcs (1, 2, etc...) is that they are MUCH faster under linux than under Solaris.

My point actually wasn't about speed; it's just that there is nothing interesting (to me) about running Linux on Sparc. It would be mostly like running Linux on a slow x86, but without the benefit of things like acroread or flash.

On the other hand, running Solaris on sparc hardware would at least be a different experience...

Re:It's free for Sparc now too

[Anonymous Coward]

Solaris for SPARC has been downloadable "for free" for a long while now. You pay for the OS as part of the machine.

You know, that's just great!

[mcc]

Why, just the other day I was looking at my x86 debian box and thinking, "You know, it's so great how on my mac and on the school's sparc machines, I can never get binaries for anything, it's a BITCH AND A HALF to compile anything, and half the time I can't get stuff to work. Debian doesn't offer anything like that. I sure do wish there was some way I could get that Darwin/Solaris sort of experience on my PC!"

And now here this is! My prayers answered! Yahoo!

[ DISCLAIMER: The above is humor. In reality, my x86 box is running Gentoo, which means that I can never get binaries for anything, it's a bitch and a half to install anything, and half the time I can't get stuff to work. ]

Re:You know, that's just great!

[iggymanz]

Try to do anything useful with Debian for Sparc on my SS 5 was like that too - broken ports, errors during compiles from source, etc.

Re:You know, that's just great!

[IM6100]

NetBSD is great on Sparc hardware. You just download the source for any packages you want once, and then you build it on any architecture where the package is supported. And that means a hell of a lot of different architectures. I tried Debian on Sparc, it just couldn't compare to NetBSD. I believe there's a strong pro-Sparc bias at OpenBSD, too. That's Theo's favored architecture.

Re:You know, that's just great!

[Alakaboo]

[ DISCLAIMER: The above is humor. In reality, my x86 box is running Gentoo, which means that I can never get binaries for anything, it's a bitch and a half to install anything, and half the time I can't get stuff to work. ]

Umm... have you tried portage? :-)

what's the installer like?

[Anonymous Coward]

How easy is it to install solaris? Will it auto-detect my hardware if it's on the list? How much software is there for it? Is there an easy way to install software? Because linux exists is there even a reason to use Solaris on an x86 box ever? I mean, sure even if it's free what advantage is there using Solaris? Let's leave Solaris on the SPARCs.

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, I wish I was 3133t like you.

What sort

[jeffkjo1]

What sort of graphical interfaces run/come with Solaris?

Re:What sort

[Anonymous Coward]

Solaris 9 comes with CDE, Gnome and best of all ... twm :)

Re:What sort

[iggymanz]

naw, best of all is vt220 terminal plugged into serial ports on the back of my Sparcstation 5 and Ultra 170e.

Re:What sort

[maharg]

CDE - Common Desktop Environment by default I believe.

Re:What sort

[Anonymous Coward]

Graphical? I suppose ncurses COULD be considered that.

Re:What sort

[TheLinuxWarrior]

Solaris 8 is CDE by default, but you can download Gnome 2 for it.

Solaris 9 has both CDE and Gnome 2 on the install disks.

Re:What sort

[Anonymous Coward]

YOu can also get a binary version of KDE from the Solaris 9 (at least on sparc). It installs in /opt/sfw, but it works.

Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

But for how long this time?

I dunno which is scarier....

[ericdano]

I dunno which is scarier, Taco posting twice or that he went to college......

Re:I dunno which is scarier....

[QLNESS]

and neither one is a dupe!

Re:I dunno which is scarier....

[IM6100]

You don't have to graduate to have 'flashbacks.'

Heck, the people with the best 'college flashbacks' (the ones in living color) probably dropped out as Freshmen.

College Flashbacks

[cyber_rigger]

My collage flashbacks are more along the line of punched cards.

Re:College Flashbacks

[iggymanz]

Well, I'm not soooo old, because my freshman year was the last year my college had punched cards for the Honeywell mainframe. After that it was high tech 3270 type terminals with that nice slow green phosphur, no interlace/flicker headaches from those babies, I can tell you. That ended the hassle of signing up for the keypunch, or standing in line at the keypunch where you could do 12 cards or less for corrections. But also during my freshman year, the physics department acquired a shiny new IBM PC with 640kb ram, dual 360kb floppy disks, and cga graphics. I did many assignments with Turbo Pascal on that rather than Fortran on the mainframe. w00t.

Re:College Flashbacks

[Anonymous Coward]

mine are similar - except the cards are talking rapidly, wearing pink underwear, and dancing around a large glowing bunny wearing sunglasses.

Re:College Flashbacks

[Anonymous Coward]

You went to London School of Development too?

Re:College Flashbacks

[CoolGuySteve]

Ya, arts students almost always seem to take the backseat to more scientifically inclined disciplines when it comes to funding. The administration just can't recognize the powerful emotive force of a good collage.

Let me guess, you went to a state college too.

Insightful? Yes, it got a +5 the first time around

[Anonymous Coward]

link

Re:Solaris v.s FreeBSD

[Nucleon500]

I'm not sure of the technical details of either statistic, but Linux 2.6 offers an iowait statistic in /proc/stat. The format of the cpu field is "cpuN user nice system idle iowait irq softirq". My recent top offers all these stats. That's Linux, and I'm not sure about FreeBSD.

What about using it on my workstation at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it free or not in that situation? I just want to use it as a desktop.

tia

C99 compiler

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there one available on Solaris?

Re:C99 compiler

[Anonymous Coward]

At least www.comeaucomputing.com claims so..
Oh, you mean native?

Re:fp??

[Anonymous Coward]

j00 suX0r :P

haha

[VAXGeek]

Yeah, good thing they made it free. Solaris x86 is worth $0 anyway. Even Sun is making their desktop system Linux for X86, with their "java" desktop. I think this will be one of the last x86 Solaris releases. Sun is basically throwing away $ every second they develop Solaris instead of their Linux distribution.

Re:Solaris v.s FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Having used solaris x86, my observation is that it has higher minimum memory requirements than linux. Eg - a PII with 32 meg works with linux in gui mode, but solaris needs VM. Of course, most modern computers have more memory than that.

The Solaris/sparc combo is slow, however, it continues to work under high loads, whereas linux/x86 would have become unusable.

Fiddling on the Roof

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun rise, Sun set; Sun rise, Sun set...

what about whales?

[Anonymous Coward]

those so-called-mammals are somehow fishy..:)

Re:Who cares.

[Anonymous Coward]

So following this line of reasoning, if I detemermine that General Motors and Toyota have the largest portion of the auto market, then Diamler-Chrysler, Ford, and Ferrari must all be irrelevant.

Hey, come to think of it, if I go back to 1995, then Linux was irrelevant. But wait...you just told us it *was* relevant!

Now I'm confused... :-(

... GNOME is available on Solaris (and better)

[dananderson]

GNOME is available with Solaris 9 out of the box (and of course a lot better than CDE :-).

Keep in mind that Solaris x86 doesn't support every hardware combination that MS Windows seems to. For details and pointers, see the Solaris x86 FAQ that I wrote.

Re:... GNOME is available on Solaris (and better)

[Brandybuck]

GNOME is available with Solaris 9 out of the box

Anything is better than CDE. I use Openwindows on Solaris, despite the warnings that I should use CDE instead.

But I think you're wrong about GNOME. Last time I did a S9 install it wasn't there. What CD is it on?

Re:... GNOME is available on Solaris (and better)

[Anonymous Coward]

gnome for Solaris is here ...

http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/gnome/

Re:... GNOME is available on Solaris (and better)

[Brandybuck]

Well yes it is. But is it on the installation CDs? That's the real question, because if I wanted to download something, I could just as well get KDE for Solaris here...

http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/freeware/s9 pk gs_download.html

Re:... GNOME is available on Solaris (and better)

[mlk]

Yeay! I am not alone (as in runs OpenWin over CDE).

Yeay!

Re:... GNOME is available on Solaris (and better)

[Brandybuck]

I don't prefer olwm because it's minimalistic. It's because CDE is just plain nasty. It's a desktop designed by a committee. Eeeew!

My preference is KDE, followed by GNOME, WindowMaker and then Openwindows. If I can't have a real desktop, then give me something very basic and minimal that still allows me to easily configure the environment. For a stock Solaris install, this is of course Openwindows.

XFCE might be a huge improvement over CDE, but it looks so damned much like CDE that I won't bother with it.

p.s. Windowmaker+GNUstep might be good choice for a Solaris desktop, but I haven't tried it.

Re:... GNOME is available on Solaris (and better)

[vrai]

May I suggest BlackBox - minimal but enough features to make it a step up from OpenWin, *very* fast, small (in both memory usage and codebase) and has no nasty dependencies (just needs a C++ compiler and X).

I run it on my Ultra 5 - KDE was as slow as EU reform but Blackbox is nice and responsive.

Re:... GNOME is available on Solaris (and better)

[mlk]

> It's because CDE is just plain nasty.

Same here, but I've never met anyone who thinks OpenWin is better (not good, just better) than CDE.

I'm not hughly keen of KDE or GNOME, but both are better than CDE (and OpenWin) ;)

AMD64 support coming soon, and maturely

[StandardDeviant]

If the word on the street is to be believed, Solaris 10 x86 will include support for AMD64 (Opteron et. al.). This is rumored to be targeted at a Q1-Q2 '04 release date (i.e. reasonably soon). It is true that some of the linux vendors/distributions are working on amd64 ports, but Solaris has been running on 64 bit cpus for years and years, so there are far, FAR fewer little "oops, you mean an int isn't four bytes????" bugs laying around to get tripped up on (I speak mainly in reference to userland here, given that it will go through a commericial QA process from a large vendor I'm not that worried about issues with the kernel itself ;)).

Not that your average web or file server will need to care about 64bit anything, but it'll be nice for those of us running big databases or scientific/engineering codes.

Overall, what's the difference in flavor between Linux and Solaris? Not a lot, really. Solaris does "feel" much more integrated (man pages that don't suck, for example.) Now, you can throw that straight out the window if you insist on things like GNU utilities and such, but it's hardly Sun's fault if you don't like the 1970s versions of tar or vi or want a C compiler for free. ;)

Re:AMD64 support coming soon, and maturely

[IGnatius T Foobar]

I call bullshit. Mod parent down please.

First of all, there is already AMD64 support in the Linux kernel tree -- if it isn't already production-quality, it'll be there long before most of us can afford an AMD64-based machine.

Secondly, what the parent post is claiming is that Solaris has been "64-bit clean" for years and Linux hasn't. This is a patently ridiculous claim. Linux has been 64-bit clean ever since the first Alpha ports! And since all the common tools that run atop the kernel are designed to run on any unix, be it 32-bit Linux, 64-bit Linux, 64-bit Solaris, or whatever ... the userland tools and apps are all 64-bit clean as well.

Yes, there are some key differences between Solaris and Linux. But this isn't one of them.

Re:AMD64 support coming soon, and maturely

[pete-classic]

GNU/Linux has been running on 64 bit systems for years.

Linux' x86 64 bit support is as mature as any.

What the hell are you talking about?

-Peter

Re:Who cares.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only two relevant platforms on IA32 are Windows and Linux.

Stop kidding yourself, there's only one: Windows.

Uhhh... So Where's SCO?

[nathanh]

Putting aside the source code issue, one of SCO's complaints is that IBM has released "UNIX technology" for free (as in beer) and this has undercut SCO's profit margins from UNIX. This is in addition to SCO's complaints over copyright infringement and trade secrets being leaked (both of which are on shaky factual and legal grounds). SCO mentions their eroding market share and their lost profits multiple times in their submissions.

But now Sun is releasing the very same "UNIX technology" for free (as in beer). So what's the difference?

SCO might say that the difference is one of trade secrets. But end-users can't be held liable for trade secrets leaked by IBM.

SCO might say that the difference is one of improper contribution: Sun has a license to put "UNIX technology" into Solaris, and IBM has a license to put "UNIX technology" into AIX, but IBM doesn't have a license to put "UNIX technology" into Linux. But that's an argument that still needs to be decided in court (plus the facts and the law are heavily against SCO).

But in terms of eroding SCO's market share, Free Solaris/x86 is exactly the same as Free Linux. There is no difference. Both products are superior to UnixWare and both are available at no appreciable cost.

So I'd like to see how SCO reacts to this. If they don't complain then what they're realling saying is that they don't mind their core product (UnixWare) being undercut by a far superior UNIX (Solaris/x86). What they really care about is that the product killing their market is Linux. And that's suspicious. Why should they only care that it's Linux?

Re:Uhhh... So Where's SCO?

[iggymanz]

Sun is the "mystery licencee" who recently gave SCO a huge pile of cash last July. SCO is therefore leaving Sun alone.

Re:Uhhh... So Where's SCO?

[Coward the Anonymous]

Sun is not giving away source, only binaries.

The SCO compliant is that IBM gave away proprietary source code that undercuts SCO's SCOSource division. No one has to pay SCO licenses since IBM gave out the code.

At least, that is my take on it. But I'm not sure if that even makes since. I need to sleep.

Re:Uhhh... So Where's SCO?

[spurious cowherd]

nice troll fanboy. get your facts correct before you start tarring Sun with the same brush you use on Microsoft

I work for Sun. It is well know within the company (yes, we have a very active & rabid linux community here in house) and has been publishid in other, respected trade journals, that the licence fees paid to SCO were for *some* SCSI drivers for Solaris that there was some question about

It was a CYA thing.

Trust me. SCO is looked at as a toy company in house. But the lawyers are notoriously paranoid

Re:Uhhh... So Where's SCO?

[iggymanz]

"Also, let me really clear about our Linux strategy. We don't have one. We don't at all. We do not believe that Linux plays a role on the server. Period." -- Jonathan Swartz, Sun VP of Software, Sept 20, 2003

"Linux is a great environment for the hobbyist, but not for corporate IT shops" -- Scott McNealy, San Fran SunNetwork Conference 2003

Documentation

[MSG]

Where can a long time Linux user find documentation on Solaris? I'd really love to find something that compared solaris administration functions to, say, Red Hat functions.

I've set up a Solaris box or two, and was horribly confused by the init system. Not because I don't understand how it works, but because I refuse to believe that sun doesn't include a tool to manage that horrible abomination. All the same, I couldn't find one.

I'd also like some sort of reference for the services that are started by default. There are a lot of them, and their names do not help anyone figure out what they're for. I'm almost as worried that they're required for normal system operation as I am that they're a security risk.

Re:Documentation

[juuri]

They include plenty of tools for managing init: different shells and vi.

You can "man" everything on solaris if you've made your whatis database.

Re:Documentation

[IM6100]

There is tons and tons of documentation available online through Sun's website(s).

There are expensive books, too.

If you download the Solaris ISOs that this whole topic is all about, you get two CDs full of documentation.

Re:Documentation

[bolthole]

http://docs.sun.com

more docs than you can shake a stick at

Re:Documentation

[Darren.Moffat]

http://docs.sun.com

Flip-flop-flip-flop-flip

[inc_x]

Ah, it's Solaris x86 week at Sun again. Does anyone now in which weeks they sell this Linux stuff?

Weird release number :-)

[adrianbaugh]

Not only do they seem to be releasing a pre-1 version, but who the hell uses fractional version numbering, especially in ninths?

Re:Weird release number :-)

[adrianbaugh]

Gah, mod parent down (by me...) I replied to the article, not the post to which it would have been a (vaguely) witty riposte.... (Something about the release of Solaris 8/9).

DOH!

Darnit! I just installed Solaris 9 U4 yeserday!

[csoto]

Oh well, gotta see what's changed. Maybe it's worth just wiping/reinstalling.

Mod parent up...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny!

Re: disagree

[Jim_Maryland]

Solaris is still a leading commercial UNIX OS if you have a serious system to deploy. As for their Java Desktop System, I think they're trying to appeal to the open source community and realize that most people are in favor of a Linux based OS in that situation. If, however, Sun doesn't get major software vendors to also develop a JDS version of their Win32 software, I don't see much success with JDS. I'm sure it will satisfy a "office" only PC, but what about organizations that deploy Win32 systems with a set of applications that only runs on Win32? Are they going to jump to JDS or any other Linux OS? Probably not.

I really wish JDS well, much like I wish any Linux flavor, but I'm not expecing major conversions here.

FYI - SPARC U5 is also avialable - burning hint

[csoto]

Solaris 9 SPARC U5 is also online for free download. Remember to use a slow write speed when you burn the ISOs, if you have somewhat older SPARC gear. I've seen on Google and run into trouble with this in the past. Yeah, it takes forever, but hey, that's what the stupid PeeCee is for, right? Does that sort of thing while I use my Mac...

Free if you can get to it

[c64k]

First, fill out form A, the register on form B, okay now re-fill out form A, now... maybe, you can download the iso's.

Jeeeebus save me.

oh well, something new to tinker with, and reaquaint myself with so I can keep Solaris on my resume.

I want my $20 back!

[Doc Squidly]

Great, 6 months ago I got Solaris 9 for $20, under the Student/x86/1 CPU license. Can I have my $20 back?
NO! Oh well. I guess thats just less beer money.
Then again, for $20 it was a damn good OS. Ran a server on it, for my Unix class.

Re:I want my $20 back!

[GiMP]

Worse.. I bought it 2 months ago, installed it into a vmware virtual machine and then got too busy on a new project to actually use it ;)

Re:I want my $20 back!

[Doc Squidly]

Thanks, I feel better knowing that someone else has sufferred worse than me.

Re:I want my $20 back!

[Koatdus]

Greetings.

Since it is now free I was thinking of installing it in a vmware machine and playing with it some. It never hurts to be familiar with different unixs.

Any tips, pointers, or howtos worth reading?

Thanks

"UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE"

[Anonymous Coward]

Not any more....

Re:It's free for Sparc now too (SuSE 7.3)

[Nonillion]

I have a Ultra 2 Enterprise with dual 400MHz UltraSparc IIs and SuSE 7.3 runs very nicely. There are some issues with the sound system but it does work. OTOH I installed Solaris 9 last night and have had problems with the DHCP client but I was able to work around it. Also the Java media player dosen't seem to work properly, it "appears" to be playing but no sound is heard and the progress bar dosen't move. As far as Solaris is concerned I have had my best luck with Solaris 7 Server, both intel and sparc that I still run to this day.

I will give Solaris 10 a try once I can download the iso images, but I'd rather install SuSE 9, altough there is no sparc port yet :(

Re:Who cares.

[Nimey]

I think this is more for people who want to learn to be Solaris sysadmins or developers, but who can't afford old Sun hardware.

Great, now I'll have to try and get a refund...

[i_r_sensitive]

Since I just had to buy a copy for a contract a recently did.

Maybe I'll just try to get them to dicount a purchase of JDS or something...

Bastahds.

Re:Who cares.

[jrc313]

What is it about *BSD that makes it irrelevant on Intel?

I'm not a fanboy trying to start a flamewar. We've recently decided to move our (W2K) web servers to FreeBSD at work - so I'm asking as a concerned individual who doesn't want to see a shit-storm starting in the office.

Admins on crack

[CaptainBaz]

Parent got modded from +1 to 0, as "overrated".

Now I really have seen it all...

Sun, your fair weather friend.

[Sxooter]

Just remember, Sun has killed it before, and they can kill it again. Just use this simple formula:

p=m1-m2

where

p = profits
m1 = money to be made by abandoning X86 Solaris
m2 = money to be made by keeping X86 solaris

As soon as p is positive, Sun will cease production of X86 solaris again.

Sun has no loyalty to you, the user, so don't count on X86 Solaris to be there when you need it. We had a dozen or more X86 Solaris servers when Sun dropped it completely a while back, and had just finished converting most to Linux when they said "oops, sorry, we didn't mean to kill it" and brought it back.

Fool me once, shame on you...

Free?

[gh5046]

Does it come with the Sun Volume Manager? If so I'm using it.

Re:MODS on crack

[CaptainBaz]

yes, I meant mods. it's late, I'm full of wine. sorry folks.

Re:Who cares.

[kylef]

I like to argue that *BSD is irrelevant on IA32 as well, but there are a lot of people who seem to have taken a hackerish love for it/them/whatever.

A lot of people like *BSD because they don't like the draconian nature of the GPL.

*BSD is totally free (for commercial use too). Linux is free, IFF you follow the terms of the GPL to the letter...

Who wants 8 when they could have 9 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone want Solaris 8 when they could have Solaris 9 ? That doesn't make *ANY* sense to me? Please can anyone think of a reason? Also, does this mean that when Solaris 10 comes it will be for free too or not?

Ah, College...

[pimpinmonk]

Gives me college flashbacks.

Are you sure you didn't just crack your back?

SMP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will my BP6 motherboard work?

Re:Who cares.

[Pieroxy]

What this guy is missing is that Linux was irrelevant in 1995. So following his line of thought, nobody should have cared. But then it wouldn't have been relevant now. Hmm, interesting.

If you care only about the relevant stuff (according to your definition, stuff that gets more than 5% of the market), then you just blind yourself for other (sometimes better) opportunities.

According to him, QNX is irrelevant and people should not even try to use it. But what do I use for my real-time system? XP?

Dont bet on that

[scsirob]

Solaris x86 is pretty limited wrt hardware support, especially when you're used to Linux, Windows or *BSD. Also the installer is very very nasty indeed. I just spent 2 days to get this to run on an AMD system for all sorts of reasons, and couldn't get it to run on a Dell Precision 410 at all.

Worse yet, I paid $20 for the download about 2 weeks ago 8-(((

Re:Who cares.

[acidtripp101]

You must be kidding...
The post that you replied to was what is commonly known as a troll.
If he/she/it honestly thinks that the only two relevent platforms on the x86 architecture are windows and linux, I guarentee that he/she/it is no older than 15.

It's like the saying goes:
"People use Linux because they hate Windows.
People use BSD because they love UNIX"

FreeBSD supports 90% of linux software with nearly NO decrease in performance (and the software it doesn't support relies on kernel specific calls). Plus, if you use the 4.* series, it's rock solid.

Your work make a great decision in switching to FreeBSD (If you ever decide to make the switch to unix on the desktop though, definatly go with linux... trust me. FreeBSD is doable, but it can be a pain).

Re:It's free for Sparc now too (SuSE 7.3)

[IM6100]

Has the framebuffer support gotten any better in the last year? I have a SS10GX (one of the nicest 'classic Sparc' boxes ever, mine has dual 24 bit framebuffers) and I gave up on finding a 'freenix' that supported greater than 8-bit color on it's xserver. I run Solaris on the box for that reason. The Sun X server is just better than any free X server on Sun hardware.

Here's another one..

[scsirob]

Guess they turned a profit, I paid $20 a few weeks back too 8-(

You are a hypocrite

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, are quite the hypocrite:

Read the original post "the man" stole from: Stolen

Read the posts where "the man" criticizes others for doing the same: Hypocrite 1 and Hypocrite 2

But I'm certain you somehow justify your existence.

Re:Who cares.

[jrc313]

You'd think by now I would have realised that asking for advice on Slashdot is an entirely futile action.

However, I'm always keen to hear all sides of the argument - one man's troll is another man's mentor :)

Not just SCO

[BiggerIsBetter]

It's also cheaper than RedHat or SuSE...

1 CPU x86 Solaris RTU = 99 p.a. (Patches are downloadable)
1 CPU x86 RedHat ES Basic Subscribtion = 349 p.a.

Hmmmm...

Re:Not just SCO

[redtape]

And how much for Sun to support you for Solaris (if you want to compare apples to apples).

Re:Not just SCO

[BiggerIsBetter]

What support? That $349 RedHat price was without support.

Re:Not just SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, are you in Canada with the blank media tax or something? Any Linux distribution without support should cost no more than enough blank CD-R media to fit it on .....

korn part of the POSIX standard?

[Ayanami Rei]

I thought korn was an _implementation_ of the POSIX standard for shells. As is bash.

Re:Why sun^H^H^Hyou suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess, when your iPod battery died, you made a movie and put up a website about how horrible Apple was, right?

One bad experience with a clueless tech support guy does not a sucky company make. How many times have you gotten a bad tech when calling Microsoft? Or Dell? HP? Gateway? Basically any other company? Every company has at least one idiot on their tech lines. They're usually the ones not bright enough to get promoted.

Re:look at me america!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, bub. You are trying waaay too hard on this whole trolling thing. Trolling is easy & fun IF you do it right.

You have to try and draw them in. make them think that it's a serious post. Then suddenly... bam! You catch them. it's like shooting fish in a bucket! Or like shooting yourself in the face! Easy! Fun! Good for society!

Re:Why sun^H^H^Hyou suck.

[AchmedHabib]

it was not just their support line, it was also the people answering the phones in the first place, the reseller. All I wanted was to get the software and I was willing to pay for it, yet everyone I was talking to was giving me problems. I talked to our usual reseller who sells sun, when they seemed to have problems delivering it to me, i called sun directly only to spend hours still getting nowhere.

A word to the wise for Linux / Irix users

[Stonent1]

Don't issue a killall command on Solaris. You won't like what it does. :)

Re:A word to the wise for Linux / Irix users

[Anonymous Coward]

I presume it does the same as in SysV?
I did that once by accident but it actually saved us time:) Normally we wouldn't have had guts to kick everyone without warning.

Re:A word to the wise for Linux / Irix users

[Stonent1]

Yeah it basically crashes the system. I mention it because seeing things like killall httpd in shell scripts on linux.

Re:A word to the wise for Linux / Irix users

[Walterk]

Use pkill instead.

oops, you mean an int isn't four bytes?

[Ayanami Rei]

What? Working on amd64 ports???I downloaded the amd64 beta of RHES (gingin) the same month Opterons went on sale! I've been working on a dual Opteron box with SLES 8 for about 3 months now: everything (including DB2, and even _mplayer_) is running full 64-bit.

You've been out of the loop! It's Sun that's dragging their feet. Even Microsoft will probably beat them to the punch. (You can get betas of 2003 if you ask the right person)

The amd64 tree has been in the kernel for ages, ever since AMD started giving away developer manuals. As for the 32-bit-isms, most of those were hammered out ever since it was ported to the Alpha 6 years ago (and later improvements by IBM to s390). Most of those 32-bit oops are in abandoned user apps written by Joe-college-student, and device drivers for consumer grade hardware.

Linux Solaris is pretty easy.

[Ayanami Rei]

Hell, I can even code cross-platform PAM modules, with nary an #ifdef. :-)

I think the number of students who studied Unix on Suns and then contributed to various parts of Linux has had some kind of effect.

So, let me get this right. .

[MrLinuxHead]

SUN shows a Linux Distro (Java Desktop) and sells it for $100 per seat (per year). China and England check it out and may buy in. Sun responds by GIVING AWAY Solaris 8 and 9 for free?

Re:So, let me get this right. .

[burns210]

yes, but the thing is, in a month they will cancel all Solaris development on x86(again), only to be yelled at, then offer it for $150 a seat.

Re:So, let me get this right. .

[Anonymous Coward]

The Linux Gnome desktop bundled with Sun's java has value: they provide support. This is true for ximian, redhat, suse, ibm and mandrake.

The solaris for x86 is cute, Crippled (no source) and more or less worthless (ever tried it?).

Why would it be shocking if Linux sold for more than Solaris. There are public companies betting their bottom line that its true.

The people that don't see this as making perfect sense don't place a value on their time. For the most part, they wont hurt the service companies by downloading and putting their own systems together. They would have just warezed their software under different circumstances.

With Linux, the customer is not the enemy. It will take customers a while to get used to not being treated like the enemy :)

two-face bastard

[danZenie]

hmm i smell a rat. sun is probably hoping to gain ground into some of those "disappointed" red hat boxes. does redhat9==solaris9? maybe some stupid end-users will get it confuse **shrug**

i said it once and i will say again, McNealy is the biggest two-faced hyprocite there is. one day i love you the next i throw you.

SUNBSD? How easily we forget.

[Ayanami Rei]

SunOS 4.x ring a bell?

Re:Why sun^H^H^Hyou suck.

[BiggerIsBetter]

It's not just you. Outside the US, Sun's sales and support network appears to suck big time. They're damn difficult people to give money too...

D'uh

[rainer_d]

Just as my media-kit arrived....

Re:It's free for Sparc now too (SuSE 7.3)

[Nonillion]

I have a Creator 3D card in my Ultra 2 and SuSE 7.3 works with it just fine. I also have the 24 bit color AFX card for my Sparcserver 5 and there dosen't seem to be any support for it as far as I can tell (8 bit color only). I actually gave up on the latter because even at 170 MHz it was still PAINFULLY slow during the install. Secondly, I had to install using "console mode" because the installer kept forgetting where the CD ROM was and kept on asking for me to insert the install disk even though it was already inserted. The iso images for SuSE 7.3 are still avaliable at the SuSE web site for the Sparc platform. I would assume you shouldn't have a problem installing on a SS10.

Solaris (8-9) Not FREE YET !!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The SUN web site does not allow you to get to
the download links without a credit card # ect.

It says free, but it is NOT...

Re:Solaris (8-9) Not FREE YET !!!!!

[REBloomfield]

erm.. yeah it is :) I just downloadeda copy. Follow the big red FREE text....

Solaris 10?

[BanjoBob]

Why didn't they also add Solaris 10 x86 under the same agreement? I've had this for some time now when it first became available.

Re:Who cares.

[jaseuk]

[++
FreeBSD supports 90% of linux software with nearly NO decrease in performance (and the software it doesn't support relies on kernel specific calls). Plus, if you use the 4.* series, it's rock solid.
++]

Most linux software is open source, open source software tends to be portable and ported and in the FreeBSD ports collection. Therefore most linux software is infact open source software usable on a variety of platforms.

The only time the platform matters is when you need to use software supplied as a linux binary, usually for a specific redhat release. At this point you can install the relevant binary compatibility mode for the redhat release required and its at this point that you can "Run 90% of [pre-compiled] linux software with nearly NO decrease in performance"

Perhaps the best bit about the binary compatibility mode is that you can run a shoddy unmaintained app for an ancient redhat release (5 or 6) in a funny little compatibility sandbox, on an otherwise up to date modern system.

All 9 of us are happy

[Billly Gates]

... it is the x86 version right?

Re:already started downloading!

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you get past the web site credit card
page ????

When I tried to follow all the download link
and continue buttons , I ended up an a page asking for a credit card

Re:requirements - Credit Card # (free really ???)

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes , and when you follow all the download
links and continue buttons you end up on a
page that requires credit card #

Re:Who cares.

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? Even if you consider that emerging stuff like IA64 or AMD64 is making x86 "less relevant", x86 is more than making up for it by grabbing market share from RISC.

Re:It's free for Sparc now too (SuSE 7.3)

[IM6100]

The secret to installing Solaris is to use the 'Install' CD as a coaster for your cup of coffee. 'Software CD 1' is a quickly bootable disk and has the fast install script on it. The Install CD is a bootable system image that pokes around unbelievably, then does a pokey eye-candy install. It's almost like they put out the 'Install' CD as bait to drive away anybody but the most determined Solaris enthusiasts.

It really isn't even worth downloading the Install CD, as you won't ever need it.

Integration Server On Solaris x86?

[moebius_4d]

Sorry this is late in the discussion, but can anyone knowledgable say whether or not Integration Server runs on Solaris x86? I see Directory does and they plan to bring over App. I am trying to put together a dev server for a small team and the client is all Sun (except weblogic). I don't need enterprise features a la Sparc and I thought I would need to dig up a copy of NT4/SP6 or Win2k/SP1 (with associated admin headaches) to support Integration Server.

Thanks for any news on this.

On Installing Solaris.

[0x1337]

The Solaris kernel, in particular, is a technological marvel and is one of the leading development platforms for new ideas in OS and Kernel development.

The Solaris system, as well, is very well thought out.

So if by chance you wind up with an UltraSparc or x86 box setup with Solaris, and with all your hardware functional, then you have a superb system.

However, getting to that stage without resorting to disk imaging is hard. Solaris has probably one of the worst installation routines - its even less stable (and functionally useful) than Microsoft's windows setup, which already speaks volumes. The design is horrible - from the key binding, to the (or lack thereof of) menu option, to the very unflexible installation, to the stalls and crashes along the way. Mind you, even if you did successfully manage to "install" it, it certainly will require a lot of your attention to make all your hardware work - certainly not turnkey.

As a person who bought four x86 Solaris 9 licenses, along with CDs, DVDs (StarOffice too!!), I was sort of disappointed in my fruitless methods of installing SOlaris successfully. Hardware support is definitely a little scanty (but I can't blame that on Sun since they tailor their OS to UltraSparcs which they produce, not to PCs). Installing Solaris on a spare Ppro box is definitely one of my Christmas holidays projects.

My shell is kde, you insensitive clod!

[Anonymous Coward]

I put in the cd, I boot into knoppix kde, I 'log out' and then I put the cd away after teh computer powers down.

I do not know these 'sh', 'ksh', 'csh' of which you speak....

Did you see the Privacy statement?

[joeflies]

When I clicked to download Solaris on the link from the story, the following statement comes up

Sun, as a global company, may transfer your personal information to countries which may not provide an adequate level of protection. Sun, however, is committed to providing a suitable & consistent level of protection for your personal information regardless of the country in which it resides.

Is it just me, or does that statement say Sun will try to protect your privacy, but preventing it from entering a country without legal protection isn't one of the steps they'll take. And "committed to providing protection" isn't the same as "legally responsibile" either. I know it's intended as a disclaimer, but it also sure is one big loophole as well to get around any privacy claims.

Re:Did you see the Privacy statement?

[I, Trevor]

Actually, I'm rather impressed that they put that into their license agreement. You see, this practice is already prevalent amongst companies with any degree of outsourcing for customer service -- Sun just differentiates themselves by actually disclosing the risk.

-T.

We know, we just don't care.

[RLiegh]

Given how long pdksh had been out, how few features were unique to ksh and the license hassle over attksh (circa 2000, haven't looked since) it is too little, far far too late.

Free D/L links

[Durin_Deathless]

All I can say is, WFM and my buddy. Oh, and these _are_ the official Sun links, not a mirror...

Install Disk
Software disk 1
Software disk 2

Re:Who cares.

[GiMP]

Or don't want to have yet another noisy box sitting in their room when they can just pop it into Vmware. I've given up on buying new hardware as anything but a replacement - running more than one machine is simply too loud.

binaries? you want binaries?

[bolthole]

check out www.blastwave.org

packaged binaries for sparc AND x86, with dependancies. (and remarkably similar to debian: pkg-get install softwarename)

SPARC Solaris performance seems ok to me.

[green pizza]

I dunno... I have several busy mod_perl based websites running on an Ultra 1 (167 MHz UltraSPARC in 32-bit mode). Even under heavy loads of thousands of dynamic requests a minute and using the same machine as an NFS server for my small LAN, it keeps chugging away without slowing down. Granted I have spent some time tweaking and tuning, have 768 MB of RAM, and used Sun's compilers to build the Apache + mod_perl environment. But still... it's a really old box that seems to have plenty of pep.

Re:Solaris v.s FreeBSD

[afay]

First of all, why was the parent modded up funny? Maybe I'm just humor impaired, but I didn't get the joke.

Second, the reason you think Solaris on sparc is slow is that you've never used a new powerful sun machine. You probably have experience on Ultra5's or something. I've done some work on these and they are by no means slow. Horribly expensive, but not slow. Also note, that these are included in Sun's "entry-level server" section.

No! Hardware issues exist also

[Anonymous Coward]

Solaris isn't the only reason Sparc boxes scale to more CPUs than Intel-based boxes do - there are hardware issues too. Just one example is cache coherency

-1 flamebait -1 troll

[Anonymous Coward]

This boy is an complete asshole who is unable to conduct himself in an adult manner. Please moderate appropriately.

Where to get GNU software for Solaris

[pajama]

Check Solaris Freeware, they have GNU binaries for Solaris SPARC/Intel 8 and 9.

Apache, wget, gcc, nmap, openssh, samba, tcpdump, you name it:

Solaris Freeware

You can also install Gnome 2.0 under Solaris!

GNOME 2.0 Desktop for the Solaris Operating Environment

Ricardo

Re:Where to get GNU software for Solaris

[Anonymous Coward]

Who bothers hunting for binaries? Just compile your GNU stuff like you would on linux.

> You can also install Gnome 2.0 under Solaris!

Sun Are now moving towards Gnome for their standard desktop so it's not really a suprise you can download it... I'm pretty sure that it comes with the Solaris X86 8/9 package anyway - IIRC it definately did on the SPARC version. IMHO I still think this is a bad move - give me CDE any day!

The way-back machine...

[FyRE666]

Well, this is the first time I've tried Solaris on an x86 machine. I pull out one of my old crap boxes that I don't use for anything; K6 550, 128MB and SiS530 gfx. The installer hung while trying to test the Xserver (set up as a generic VGA, 256 colours @ 1024x768). The whole thing locked up solid...

Think I'll stick with Linux ;-) 6 more coasters for the trashcan...

"Theo" hasn't worked with NetBSD in years, however

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the fact that he's also quite the notorious asshat. Probably the second biggest one in OSS (second only to ESR).

So, you have just set a new standard for "damning with faint praise".

Tar?

[ydrol]

Have they fixed tar yet?

Unpublished source code?

[Raul654]

#!/usr/bin/sh
# Copyright (c) 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 AT&T
# All Rights Reserved
# THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF AT&T

Not anymore...

Ok...

[Lord Kano]

Is there any reason to use Solaris on z86 other than to become familiar with it so that you can more effectively admin a Sparc machine?

Seriously. Linux and *BSD seem to have a much wider hardware compatibility base. Development for them seems to be going at a much more rapid pace. If you're not tied to a Sparc machine, is there any real reason to use Solaris?

LK

Re:Ok...

[octogen]

I've been using Solaris x86 several years now, and it is still my favorite UNIX OS on the x86. As far as I can tell from my experience, its kernel is more sophisticated than the Linux kernel (kernel level audit trail, ACLs, fine grained locking, ...), especially regarding smooth multitasking/-threading under very high system load.

There is also a very interesting version of Solaris, called Trusted Solaris, with very strong security.

And remember, all versions of Solaris x86 run very fine on SMP machines; it still seems to be more scaleable (or more efficient on big machines) than Linux and/or BSD.

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have very rarely failed to install any unix/linux application that is distributed as source code on solaris so I wouldn't suggest development of applications is a problem.

If you are referring to development of the actual OS, Solaris is mainly developed with Sun's own hardware in mind where reliability is one of the key factors. You'll notice how much Sun value reliabilty when you compare how "cutting-edge" there hardware is to say a mix 'n' match intel box. They will never sell hardware that hasn't been tested to death ensuring a reliable end solution although it may sometimes appear to be behind the times. A question I used to be asked quite a bit while working for Sun was "Why can't I get bigger HDDs for my server" back when 9GB was getting 'small' - this highlights the mentality of the company.

Also, I believe that security is thought about more conciously in a product like Solaris where Sun is partly accountable for any security problems affecting a customer. If you compare this to linux where each distribution wouldn't have this accountability it stands to reason why this should be true.

For this reason I would suggest that Solaris is more reliable and secure than Linux, although I must admit to being a huge Solaris fan so I may be very biased in my opinions.

All 8, actually

[RLiegh]

my 30 day vmware license just expired. :~(

Re:Solaris v.s FreeBSD

[darekana]

dog-slow processor

This is insulting to dogs everywhere. Dogs can be fast...

Cyrix C3 problem...

[Zo0ok]

I tried installing it (Solaris 9) in VmWare on my Cyrix C3 (Nehemiah@1GHz).

Solaris said it found a 486 and refused to install.

Anyone who has any evidence that Solaris works/does not work on a Cyrix C3?

Re:Cyrix C3 problem...

[Darkon]

Try the latest version. It crashed and burned in the same way on my Via Eden when I first tried it, but a month or two later I downloaded a newer release and it worked like a charm.

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Send it 1997 when I cared. Sorry, Sun, it's too little and way too late.

Re:Solaris v.s FreeBSD

[Walterk]

It's got to do with user experience. Linux is gearing to having a fast and responsive user experience, but Solaris is geared to getting more work done.

Re:Solaris v.s FreeBSD

[sparkes]

I run debian on my ultra 10 (440 ultrasparc, 512mb ecc ram) and other than the crap x drivers it is pretty dam speedy.

it seems that well developed apps run quicker on the my sparc than on x86 hardware.

apache, mysql and a few others run faster on this than on my P3 600 desktop and p4 1gig laptop both also running debian. The new P4 3.2ghz kills it but that is too be expected.

I can't understand why people are getting excited about solaris being free as in beer when free as in speech computing is also available ;-)

Re:Solaris v.s FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had the privaledge of working on many Sun boxes, from old sparcstation's to E10k's - all of which have provided more than adequate performance. (Can't wait to get my hands on a 106 1.02Ghz CPU Sun Fire 15, that's gotta fly!)

Perhaps you're comparing a brand spanking new Intel chip to a 1980's sparc?? Unfortunately CPU's aren't like fine wine and just seem to get worse and worse with age!

Figures...

[fdisk3hs]

Since I am running an iBook and an old 68K Mac for a file server...

Solaris PPC would be cool... I wonder if it would be hard for them to part thanks to OpenFirmware?

Where were they in 2002 when I worked in a Sun shop? Argh.

BTW, the software was always free. You just had to buy the media kit or download...

ed2k

[Anonymous Coward]

there you go

705-0848-10_SJ_ES_x86.pdf
705-0848-10_SJ_ES_x86_A4.pdf
java_es_03Q4-solaris-x86-iso.zip
S9_12_03_Doc_1of2_2of286_A4.pdf
S9_12_03_Doc_1of2_2of2_x86.pdf
S9_12_03_Inst_Lang_x86.pdf
S9_12_03_Inst_Lang_x86_A4.pdf
S9_12_03_SW_1of2_2of2_86_A4.pdf
S9_12_03_SW_1of2_2of2_x86.pdf
sol-9-u5-doc-v1.zip
sol-9-u5-doc-v2.zip
sol-9-u5-install-x86.zip
sol-9-u5-lang-x86.zip
sol-9-u5-x86-v1.zip
sol-9-u5-x86-v2.zip

Re:ed2k

[Anonymous Coward]

stupid slash.. watch the spaces

ed2k://|file|705-0848-10_SJ_ES_x86.pdf|26162|D80 1E 34097F8BE8892A5EDDE198AD308|/
ed2k://|file|705-08 48-10_SJ_ES_x86_A4.pdf|26115|32 B0257EE66211F4CBFCF8CB21DB4344|/
ed2k://|file|jav a_es_03Q4-solaris-x86-iso.zip|3255 64128|F486610A271DCE17E1D8BBE894F80B87|/
ed2k://| file|S9_12_03_Doc_1of2_2of286_A4.pdf|35898 |33A69646C6C11A489C543605D9E33714|/
ed2k://|file| S9_12_03_Doc_1of2_2of2_x86.pdf|35869| 0C051EF2F7A740E6E00B1ACAFAF99ACB|/
ed2k://|file|S 9_12_03_Inst_Lang_x86.pdf|43442|DF1D 346050603C6267DFE2B330F11992|/
ed2k://|file|S9_12 _03_Inst_Lang_x86_A4.pdf|43463|D E92E1F56B5CFF8BEA68FEF60F21CA01|/
ed2k://|file|S9 _12_03_SW_1of2_2of2_86_A4.pdf|31661 |45E033BAE18A1C59E020E0C39D73C090|/
ed2k://|file| S9_12_03_SW_1of2_2of2_x86.pdf|31692|7 CC07209536CF2C815458BBCCC3E7681|/
ed2k://|file|so l-9-u5-doc-v1.zip|286425295|C2C86F5 3802F65845C20AA6BB0EC3127|/
ed2k://|file|sol-9-u5 -doc-v2.zip|283888031|B4DC3DA 2B3BCD245F255B0ACED885DE0|/
ed2k://|file|sol-9-u5 -install-x86.zip|395848491|63 22F8472A8A1BD05D55E8327DE053D3|/
ed2k://|file|sol -9-u5-lang-x86.zip|451207740|09C16 EB6849887CB55EF945CAA19DD86|/
ed2k://|file|sol-9- u5-x86-v1.zip|282500943|2CDE55B 90CBA852015CB160EFB3E4058|/
ed2k://|file|sol-9-u5 -x86-v2.zip|346217796|04CC12F A42BBDA86C548B2516BA3F8A8|/

Re:Solaris v.s FreeBSD

[mcdade]

Solaris 9 on Sparc kicks ass, our server is insanely faster and more responsive then when we ran 8. It also manages the resources much better too. We get about 100 desktops on a 12 processor box and load rarely peaks above 8. Try doing that with a peice of junk IA system. I remember WindowsTS would barely handle 4 desktops on a dual processor box.

only problem is the damn people writing fork() code that peaked the system at 88 before we hand to shut it down, spawning faster then we could kill them off. Oh and all this equipment is 3 yrs old.. works fine, just replaced the monitors on the sunray1's and now they look all spiffy and new.

-b

Re: JAVA-CRASH

[Anonymous Coward]

I did report the JVM's bugcrash of j2re-1.3.1_09-linux-i586.bin to Sun, and Sun did answer me that i would use the version 1.4.2 for my old laptop Pentium-120MHz-32MB :(

I believe that Sun won't put the small and decent j2re-1.3.1_10-linux-i586.bin :(

open4free

-1 TROLL

[Anonymous Coward]

'nuff said.

Re: JAVA-CRASH reported bug

[Anonymous Coward]

From: Jonathan Lee <IncidentUpdateDaemon@sun.com>
To: :(:( [no-name-spam]
Damn: Re: (Incident Review ID: 227937) the java runtime machine often hangs the execution
-- Note: you can send us updates about your Incident --
-- by replying to this mail. Place new information --
-- above these lines. Do not include attachments. --
-- Our system ignores attachments and anything below --
-- these lines. --

Hi (:(: [no-name-spam],

Thank you for reporting this issue.

1.3.1 is an older version of J2SE. We recently released J2SE 1.4.2_02 with many bug fixes and enhancements. Consider downloading a free copy at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/.

Regards,
Jona than

--- Report ---
category : java
release : 1.3.1
subcategory : runtime
type : bug
synopsis : the java runtime machine often hangs the execution
description : FULL PRODUCT VERSION : j2sdk 1.3.1_09 (for linux)

ADDITIONAL OS VERSION INFORMATION :
Linux 2.4.22 Slackware 9.1 i586-pc-linux 100% console text, 0% X-Window, user java & group java

EXTRA RELEVANT SYSTEM CONFIGURATION :
The PATH set like ##/jre/bin:##/bin

A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM :
Unexpected Signal : 11 occurred at PC=0x402268ca
Function name=compiler_thread_loop__13CompileBroker
Librar y=/usr/java/jdk1.3.1_09/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm .so

Cannot obtain thread information

Dynamic libraries:
08048000-0804c000 r-xp 00000000 00:07 21960 /usr/java/jdk1.3.1_09/jre/bin/i386/native_threads/ java
0804c000-0804d000 rw-p 00003000 00:07 21960 /usr/java/jdk1.3.1_09/jre/bin/i386/native_threads/ java
40000000-40015000 r-xp 00000000 03:02 1073996 /lib/ld-2.3.2.so
40015000-40016000 rw-p 00014000 03:02 1073996 /lib/ld-2.3.2.so
4001f000-4002d000 r-xp 00000000 03:02 1074012 /lib/libpthread-0.10.so
4002d000-40030000 rw-p 0000e000 03:02 1074012 /lib/libpthread-0.10.so

40070000-40079000 r-xp 00000000 00:07 21895 /usr/java/jdk1.3.1_09/jre/lib/i386/native_threads/ libhpi.so
40079000-4007a000 rw-p 00008000 00:07 21895 /usr/java/jdk1.3.1_09/jre/lib/i386/native_threads/ libhpi.so
4007a000-40281000 r-xp 00000000 00:07 21917 /usr/java/jdk1.3.1_09/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.s o
40281000-40396000 rw-p 00206000 00:07 21917 /usr/java/jdk1.3.1_09/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.s o
403ad000-403af000 r-xp 00000000 03:02 1074001 /lib/libdl-2.3.2.so
403af000-403b0000 rw-p 00001000 03:02 1074001 /lib/libdl-2.3.2.so
403b0000-404df000 r-xp 00000000 03:02 1073999 /lib/libc-2.3.2.so
404df000-404e4000 rw-p 0012f000 03:02 1073999 /lib/libc-2.3.2.so
404e6000-404f8000 r-xp 00000000 03:02 1074004 /lib/libnsl-2.3.2.so
404f8000-404f9000 rw-p 00011000 03:02 1074004 /lib/libnsl-2.3.2.so
404fc000-4051e000 r-xp 00000000 03:02 1074002 /lib/libm-2.3.2.so
4051e000-4051f000 rw-p 00021000 03:02 1074002 /lib/libm-2.3.2.so
4051f000-40553000 r-xp 00000000 03:02 357999 /usr/i486-slackware-linux/lib/libstdc++-2-libc6.1 -1-2.9.0.so
40553000-4055f000 rw-p 00033000 03:02 357999 /usr/i486-slackware-linux/lib/libstdc++-2-libc6.1 -1-2.9.0.so
40561000-40573000 r-xp 00000000 00:07 21897 /usr/java/jdk1.3.1_09/jre/lib/i386/libverify.so
4 0573000-40574000 rw-p 00011000 00:07 21897 /usr/java/jdk1.3.1_09/jre/lib/i386/libverify.so
4 0574000-40595000 r-xp 00000000 00:07 21906 /usr/java/jdk1.3.1_09

Re:requirements - Credit Card # (free really ???)

[EMR]

You followed the wrong links then.. I am downloading it right now, and I entered no credit card #, it never asked for one..

YHBT FOAD

[Anonymous Coward]

You are so stupid it makes me FUCKING SICK.

Re:look at me america!

[p-unit*or*die]

you take this seriously? heh, f**k you.