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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.
Blowing that is.
... ... (wait for it, it took a while) ... Oh, yes it is, actually....
:-)
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
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.
Physicists get Hadrons!
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).
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?
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...
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...)
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
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.
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?
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?