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Solaris 9 x86 Review
ValourX writes "Here is a review of Solaris 9 x86, 08/03 edition. Now that the single-CPU edition is free to download for non-commercial use, people will be compelled to write a Solaris CD and try it out. Read this first -- there are a lot of things you should know before you begin. You might want to check out the documentation or explore other resources like the hardware compatibility list as well."
Don't get me wrong. I'm a Sun guy going back to the SunOS 3.5 days, Solaris is a wonderful thing. But, for x86, we have lots of *BSD and Linux options. Solaris on x86 has previously been limited in hardware supported, and in community participation.
Can someone suggest a case where it would make more sense to use x86 Solaris rather than Sparc solaris?
It seems to me that Sun's resources in these (ahem) difficult times for them would be better spent in developing what they're best at - big, robust, server-room boxes, rather than diluting their OS development efforts by spending time porting it to Intel.
If you have a few bucks you might want to get an older sparc to try Solaris on. Sol x86 is a security nightmare, and its not the same as using sol under sun's arch. e.g. I run most of my sites on sun boxes, and love it, using x86 sol... Hate it. Definitely not the same if you ask me
MoFscker
uname SunOS 5.9 Yeah!
~8^]
Not to mention his assertion that SCO UnixWare is a viable operating system option. (I hope that was a joke)
Note to self: No more arguing with the faithful.
Don't forget to check out Sun Freeware to save some time trying to compile stuff on Solaris. The Sun guys love to compile things using the Sun cc compiler, which they don't include in the normal distro. Good luck adding in new perl modules that aren't native perl to the perl that comes with Solaris.
Definitely not the same if you ask me
How comes? Do Sun deliberately package their x86 version differently? If so, what's different?
use Gnome as their default GUI, and now with Solaris9 being there for quite some time, nothing happened, still CDE is that default choice, along with other questionable defaults. I wonder what makes SUN so much stuck.
That said, Linux or BSD with olvwm or XFce can be made to look so much like Solaris that most users won't care, and the hardware compatibility won't be a problem. I guess it depends on what is more important in a given context, really.
We have ported our TextMaker word processor to Solaris x86 (after Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Pocket PCs, and Handheld PCs) but I am not sure if it is worth releasing it and having to support yet another platform.
So... is there a significant number of Solaris x86 desktop users?
SoftMaker Office for Windows|Linux|Android
I went to check out the SUN site with the links, http://wwws.sun.com/software/tours.html#4 Click "Security Everywhere" hehe
It takes time for you to get the system the way you like. Right now Solaris 9 is the absolute lowest "TCO" unix/linux for enterprise to servers and down to workstations. Redhat workstation costs hundreds more and has less true application support (certified vendor support) then Solaris9 X86.
And your lying through your teeth if you say there is no support.
Software: http://www.sunfreeware.com
Help/Guides: http://www.sunhelp.org
Patches: http://sunsolve.sun.com
Solaris9 X86 is a good stepping stone, a good resource to learn from and if accepted by the industry a very stable platform.
Sun DOES provide security updates, sun DOES provide software updates and there is already a ton of Gnome/KDE/Enlightenment stuff ported to solaris.
Give it a try, i'm sure you may like to see what an industrial strength workstation feels like to run. Honestly.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Well, he does say "If you're feeling particularly masochistic you could pay a ton of money for SCO's rinky-dink UnixWare or OpenServer products" which suggests to me that he doesn't rate UnixWafre highly.
wrong.
1) use HCL hardware or shut up.
2)packages on companion CD are fairly recent. Justify why you need a higher version.
3) XFREE? It has its OWN x-server moron.
4) Its not hard to set up.
5) Noneed ot rtfm. Most otherunixes model themselves after solaris. If you can run FreeBSD or RedHat Linux, solaris is hardly different.
6) Solaris, when not on sparc hardware, is deisnged to be run headless. In fact, even on sparc hardware you run a lot of headless. You dont know what computers are useful for besides browsing the web.
7) Package manager? Name another system where you call back and rollout every single update you ever installed for YEARS. Go ahead name it. I want to hear it.
8) I know this is a troll, but you should die for defiling solaris.
what you might try is a faster computer. I have linux on my system and it's great :) slow hardware=slow os
I went to the SUN site yesterday and did not notice that the free download was for single-CPU systems only. On my return today, I see parts of the site is unresponsive (is SUN /.-ed?).
Anyway, if there is no SMP support I wasted a fair amount of emotional energy that could have been saved had SUN made this restriction more clear.
I'm not sure that I'm so keen anyway. I have a big Ultra-SPARC and many Linux systems. For the most part I find that I have grown to prefer the Linux environment. But I have a few memory management issues with Linux SMP and was going to investigate Solaris as a solution. At $250, forget it.
(Also, 2.6 kernel appears to cure my memory management problems, and I still have BSD to try.)
The SMP edition is available for $699 ;-)
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Even if you don't have a need for personally, it's still a good opportunity to put it on a space workstation to play with and learn the ins and outs of the OS, so that you're at least familiar with it for future employment.
The Adult Happy Meal - "I'm lovin' it!"
Solaris 10 for intel has been out for quite a while so why all the interest in Solaris 8 and 9? Solaris 10 has many changes over Solaris 9.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
I've never felt compelled to post anything to /. before, but this review truly didn't give the proper perspective needed to fairly judge Solaris x86.
Solaris x86 is an amazingly stable OS, and I've met many, many people who work in data centres who swear by it. Stable + secure + supported are the most important things to people who rely on mission critical applications.
Now, to clear up some of the misconceptions of this reviewer:
1. Almost any piece of open-source code will run on it after you compile it properly. Yes, you have to install GCC and change some of your path settings. Time it takes to do this: 5 minutes. You can get a binary version (for x86) of GCC from any of the sunfreeware.com mirrors.
2. This software is not meant to run with every piece of hardware out there. As this software is mainly meant for servers in the x86 world, why does it need to support a Radeon9600 card or an Audigy card?
3. The problems the reviewer was having were mostly configuration problems. Googling around will bring up web pages that show you how to set up network cards, etc.
So - while the review was written well enough, it totally failed in providing the perspective required to judge this product fairly. There is a steep learning curve required to learn Solaris, but once you learn it, its stability and usability features are well worth it.
Incidentally, after reading the rest of the posts at threshold 0, I'm going back to 2 to stay. Not that it does any good when the moderators don't RTFA.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Sun(sm) Alert Notification
/etc/cachefstab exists it may contain unusual entries. The usual entries are known cache directories, for example, /cachefs/cache0.
= ====
. Contributing Factors
* Sun Alert ID: 44309
* Synopsis: Buffer Overflow in cachefsd in Solaris
* Category: Security
* Product: Solaris
* BugIDs: 4338920
* Avoidance: Workaround, Patch
* State: Resolved
* Date Released: 30-Apr-2002, 31-May-2002, 02-Apr-2003
* Date Closed: 02-Apr-2003
* Date Modified: 24-May-2002, 31-May-2002, 06-Jan-2003, 02-Apr-2003
1. Impact
Unprivileged local or remote users may be able to gain unauthorized root access due to a buffer overflow in cachefsd.
2. Contributing Factors
This issue can occur in the following releases:
x86 Platform
* Solaris 9 without patch 114009-01
3. Symptoms
Failed attempts to exploit the buffer overflow will leave core files in the / directory from cachefsd. In addition, if the file
http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cg i/retrieve.pl?doc=fsalert%2F44309
==============
Sun(sm) Alert Notification
* Sun Alert ID: 55680
* Synopsis: Security Vulnerability in the Solaris Runtime Linker ld.so.1(1)
* Category: Security
* Product: Solaris
* BugIDs: 4872634
* Avoidance: Patch
* State: Resolved
* Date Released: 29-Jul-2003
* Date Closed: 29-Jul-2003
* Date Modified:
1. Impact
An unprivileged local user may be able to gain unauthorized root privileges due to a buffer overflow in the runtime linker ld.so.1(1).
Sun acknowledges with thanks, Jouko Pynnonen (jouko@iki.fi) for bringing this issue to our attention and iDEFENSE Inc. (www.idefense.com) for coordinating the release of this issue.
This issue is described in iDEFENSE Advisory located at: http://www.idefense.com/advisory/07.29.03.txt.
2
This issue can occur in the following releases:
x86 Platform
* Solaris 9 without patch 113986-05
http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/retri eve.pl?doc=fsalert%2F55680&zone_32=55680
====== ============
Whats that 5 holes in one posting? Give me a break. And these are the publicly made sec gaps
and does not include code that doesn't get out.
Get a clue before responding with some zealotry.
MoFscker
Yes, I also think that one is the poorest review I also have read.
a) You say things like "if you have a Sun workstation [...] you're more or less stuck with Solaris"
b) You compare the Watch Errors to the linux console not by referring to the console, but by referring to the keyboard shortcut for TTY1. (Obviously you don't know the horrors of having console messages scroll up your OpenWindows desktop)
c) You have the audacity to complain that Solaris X86 won't run SPARC-only binaries or OS X Binaries. (It also, sadly, does not make toast pop out of your CD drive)
d) You don't know about Sun disklabel format. Perhaps you've never actually used fdisk from the console.
e) You complain that there was no /etc/resolv.conf. You never read the manpages to discover exactly where Solaris keeps its info (hint: try /etc/networks, /etc/hostname.[dev] and /etc/nsswitch.conf)
f) Instead of taking a screenshot, you link to a hideous old CDE screen grab. You demonstrate a complete ignorance of Motif, and god help you if we mention NeWS.
g) You complain that you can't migrate data. Perhaps because Solaris doesn't know what the hell Ext2 is.
h) You complain about Scroll wheels. Then you mention a "usual" fix, for XFree86. That "usually" doesn't work on my SGI box, either. How rude!
i) You refer to the default shell as SH. Not the Bourne Shell, no. just SH
Fewl...
Solaris 10 x86 free downloads reinstated
Free for personal use, $90/yr with support.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
OK, this is all just a guess, but I believe it's an educated one.
Solaris/Sparc will continue to be their preferred high-end server platform, and the place that they put most of their R&D money. It will never be pushed as a desktop environment, except for those environments which require it (data analysts, geophysicists, etc.)
Linux/Sparc they won't touch.
Linux/x86, they're pushing on the desktop now with their "Java Desktop." I think that they'll push this _heavily_, even trying to sell to random people off the street. (witness their dealing with Office Despot, last week.)
Solaris/x86. With their recent ties to AMD, I suspect that they're going to encourage people to use Solaris/x86 on their cheap server lines (esp. the blades), and possibly push the application companies to port their Sparc versions over. Ideally they'd be running Landmark apps and such on Solaris/Sparc machines, but right now many of them are pushing Linux/x86, which is much cheaper for a given performance level right now.
The biggest reason for Sun having Solaris/x86 at all is to keep people who can't justify the hardware costs of Sparc gear right now, to keep (or in some cases, start) running Solaris (ideally on Sun boxes), rather than going to ye randome Linux platform. Now if Sun can differentiate between their own Linux/x86 offering (end-user desktop) and Solaris/x86 (workstation and low-end server) while maintaining their REAL product (Solaris/Sparc), then they might have a good plan.
I think that this latest action is mostly to run the x86 product up a flagpole, just to see if anyone cares.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Just like I posted to the last solaris story, with this in the license, who in their right mind would ever even download it:
E. NOTICE OF AUTOMATIC SOFTWARE UPDATES FROM SUN. You acknowledge that the Software may automatically download, install, and execute applets, applications, software extensions, and updated versions of the Software from Sun ("Software Updates"), which may require you to accept updated terms and conditions for installation. If additional terms and conditions are not presented on installation, the Software Updates will be considered part of the Software and subject to the terms and conditions of the Agreement.
F. NOTICE OF AUTOMATIC DOWNLOADS. You acknowledge that, by your use of the Software and/or by requesting services that require use of the Software, the Software may automatically download, install, and execute software applications from sources other than Sun ("Other Software"). Sun makes no representations of a relationship of any kind to licensors of Other Software. TO THE EXTENT NOT PROHIBITED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL SUN OR ITS LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOST REVENUE, PROFIT OR DATA, OR FOR SPECIAL, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, HOWEVER CAUSED REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE OTHER SOFTWARE, EVEN IF SUN HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
-Justin
Can someone suggest a case where it would make more sense to use x86 Solaris rather than x86 Linux?
Having the same OS on newer and more optimal hardware (read x86) as on old overpriced one (Sparc)? Give me a break.
The compnay where a friend of mine works they installed Linux on all low-end Sparc stations the used to host small servers. And they exchanged mid/high-end Sparcs with Power4/PPC thanking IBM for a very good exchange program. Of course Power4/PPC run Linux/PPC. They have Linux everywhere across all server (and even some desktop) computers and very happy with drammatically reduced TCO because of that. Also, after living like that one year they analyzed their failure statistics and found that their reliability is ncreased a lot. No need to mention that the time foe bus and security holes has beem droped a lot (before they lived for years with promises from Sun to fix a known annoying bug).
So, one more time, why would I need Solaris/x86?
Less is more !
Why do you think Sun is going with the SuSe/JDS for their desktops? Solaris blows when it comes to hardware compatability, and thats exactly what you need when you are doing desktops, since you will find just about any mix of cpu, disks, controllers, networking, sound, video and periferals on a desktop PC.
Solaris was DESIGNED as a workstation OS for SPARC boxes with very specific hardware specs. It grew up to be an enterprise OS to be run on SPARC boxes with very specific hardware specs.
Expecting it to run flawlessly on your generic whitebox PC is like expecting to use a hammer to open a beer bottle. Sure it could work, but the results are more than likely to be ugly.
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
And open source can't be proprietary, right?
Sounds good. Though I think that the 1 cpu limit is kind of cheesy. I think prohibiting commercial use is enough. I think there are probably a lot of geeks like me that have opted to go with a dual-cpu motherboard, maybe an older used one like me from Intel or some other quality manufacturer just because they know its a solid, quality board, and didnt have a lot of money for a new board. I sure would like to try it out though.
You are trolling, aren't you? Or you completely do not know what are you talking about. Or you just work for Sun. There is no other explanation why would you post here such a bullshit.
The only company that still insist that Solaris has lower than Linux TCO is Sun. Another company that is saying the same about Unix vs Linux is SCO. All others, including IBM, HP, and even SGI, agree that Linux has lower TCO, despite the fact they sell own Unix distros.
By the way, it becomes suspicious, all three companies are saying the same about Linux: Sun, SCO and Microsoft. Something is common for them behind the scene.
Less is more !
Somehow I highly doubt all of your statements. Sounds like a sales person, or someone who hasn't installed a recent O/S from Suse, RedHat, Apple, HP-UX, AIX, ..etc.
..etc for free. They both make fine workstations for different needs. My hat is off to folks like RedHat, Suse, and even Apple to bring UNIX to the masses.
How many software packages are out there for x86 in the Solaris package format versus how many packages are out there for the various Linux distros? There is no comparision.
There are options to run RedHat's Fedora, Suse,
I admin around 70 machines at a fortune 100 company, some AIX, HP-UX, Solaris (which are about half of what I deal with), and Linux. After using Solaris for some years I believe that you might as well deal with the shell from start to finish and never use any of the tools (which has its pluses and minuses). So the cost of entry is high....very high unelss you have good Solaris experience in house. I think the TCO is way higher than any of the other options.
While I believe the author of the review did not have a clue about Solaris, people should take note that he shouldn't. He brought up a great number of issues and he was likely right on.
Solaris is a waste of time on x86, use Linux or one of the BSDs. I am quite happy with the stability of RedHat on my x86, and I use it every day, all day. So to me if you want a UNIX desktop on x86 with a ton of software without a thought, use Suse. If you want rock solid UNIX desktop on x86 use RedHat.
Solaris adds a great deal of value to Sun hardware, but by itself it isn't worth much unless you absolutely need it. At best the x86 edition is barely competition for Free Software Unix projects in the GNU/Linux and *BSD communities, which scale better, cost less, support more hardware, and are easier to configure, customize and maintain.
Sun's PR portrays Linux as a "toy" os. This comment doesn't seem to put Solaris in a very positive light on x86. If Solaris is so good from an OS perspective why is the take up on the x86 platform so small? I understand Sun's proprietary hardware is good, so since nothing else is supported (officially) on it people need to use Solaris.
When it comes to comments about the OS, do supporters of Solaris have their heads in the sand when it comes to Linux, or is there a real advantage?
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
This is a one-sided banter.
The individual obviously knows very little about
Solaris and spent very little time with it before
writing their slanted idea of a review.
It's almost like a review I could write for any Microsoft product. "It's a microsoft product and has a typical microsoft license agreement so it must suck as*".
This wasn't even worthy of a Slashdot article.
i have a simple answer to this. you are a lazy, idiot admin that doesnt know shit.
If you decide to compile stuff on Solaris, some problems are likely to occur if you aren't aware of them.
./configure
1) Do NOT use GNU binutils. GNU strip and GNU ld do not understand Solaris x86 ELF headers and create corrupt binaries.
2) In almost 100% of the cases, GNU autoconf will not figure out that the Solaris linker requires the specification of a runtime linker option. Solve this by running autoconf like;
LDFLAGS="-L/foo -R/foo"
This is obviously pointless to do if you're using static libraries.
For more info, read ld(1).
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
You obviuosly have a lot of Solaris experience.
Unfortunately most of what you say is just flat wrong.
> At best the x86 edition is barely competition ...
> for Free Software Unix projects in the
> GNU/Linux and *BSD communities, which scale
> better,
> cost less
BS
> support more hardware,
true
> and are easier to configure,
BS
> customize
BS
> and maintain.
BS
On another note, do you have a life? I can't imagine anybody who has a life who would spend as much time on a Saturday posting as many messages (anonmyously, to boot) on Slashdot as you have. And all trolls too!
-h-
When I saw:
The Solaris 9 binary license is not all that restrictive when compared with Microsoft's EULA, but the additional supplements end up piling on so many more restrictions that it's more or less on par with the Windows license.
I know Solaris isn't GPL'ed, but the SCSL still lets you peek at the code if you want. (http://www.sun.com/solaris/source)
One thing that CDE/Solaris is missing is a comprehensive network configuration panel; network settings still have to be set by hand in Solaris 9, unfortunately.
Try typing: smc& at the command line. Sun Management Console is a very powerful tool indeed.
The most detrimental compatibility issue that I encountered with Solaris 9 x86 was that it did not have binary compatibility with Solaris SPARC, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, OS X, MS Windows or any other operating system.
One word Mister, lxrun. Try it.
This article really should have been written by someone who knows at least a little about Solaris. Or by someone who doesn't mind reading some documentation before writing their review. Apparently the author just expected to sit down and have the OS install itself, and then teach him how to use it.
And yes, there are security flaws in Solaris. That's why the SunAlert bulletins are your friend. That's why you need to roll out the new KJP's when they come out, make sure you keep up on your patch management etc. In other words you know, be a systems administrator and actually ADMIN your systems.
- Kate
"DNA is life. The rest is just translation."
What the hell are you talking about, Debian or Solaris? They're two completely different things you know... Case in point:
You say Debian destroyed your monitor, yet you link to a Google search for "Solaris destroyed my monitor."
You may very well have a valid point, however, your ranting is so incoherent it's hard to determine what exactly it is.
First off, I have little Solaris admin knowledge. I run BSD and Linux myself, but I've got some experience with Solaris as a workstation and server. That said, none of your criticisms are really specific to Solaris, or even on-topic.
So first, out of date software: the current Xfree release is 4.3. If you got a complaint with 4.1, say what it is. Regardless, though, if you are running Solaris as a server, you don't give a shit what the X server is on it, and even as a workstation, it's usually used for high-end scientific applications; it doesn't need to be incredibly user friendly or run the latest games.
Second: Solaris (or at least the SunOS servers I just checked to be sure) doesn't have a /lib/modules. So as I'm pointing out right now, purely for the casual reader's benefit, you are full of shit.
Third: Back to X, eh? Nobody likes X. It sucks to configure on any system, pretty much (except maybe RedHat). If you can't handle it, you probably aren't a Solaris admin. And if looking up your monitor's horizontal sync is such a big deal, use Windows. I use the text xf86config utility whenever I install a new system, I look up my monitor's sync specs, and I'm good. Not really that hard.
Fourth: When have you ever put a USB mouse or scanner on a server? And honestly, x86 Solaris, as discussed above, is good for learning and for environments that need to be homogeneous. But most Solaris workstations run on Sparc.
Firth: You're an idiot. A few Linux distros use RPM. Solaris is not Linux. RPMs also are widely regarded as sucking.
Finally, you go way off topic and talk about Debian users switching (with a link to www.ibm.com as proof?). Right. Anyway, you're an idiot, I know I've been trolled, but I wanted to clarify some of your BS for the other readers.
"i'm sure you may like to see what an industrial strength workstation feels like to run. Honestly."
Please, Solaris X86 has NEVER been an shining example of anything other then Sun pandering to the X86 crowd. Ever wonder why Solaris X86 was pulled? How about why it never took off? It's more a tool to try to hook Linux X86 developers into Solaris more than anything else. It will of course completely fail at that.
Solaris X86 is bastard child and doesn't even get any love from Sun itself. Feel free to research its history and how well its been accepted both inside and outside of the company. It's not pretty.
As far as comparing it to Red Hat I'd like to see just how many things are certified on Sun X86 versus Red Hat X86 these days. My guess is its not far off. For apps that people want to run today your MUCH better off with Red Hat or another Linux distro. When it comes to Enterprise ISV's porting there apps to Linux Red Hat is the Gold standard(Like it or Lump it). Let's not forget Linux X86 is just flat out faster than Sun X86 when it comes to server app performance.
Lastly re: app support, its a no brainer as to where you'll be able to run all of those new pretty GTK and QT apps easily. Heck if Solaris X86 is so cheap to own and so Industrial strength, why aren't governments and corporations falling all over themselves to adopt it?
Also I'd bet my house that your "lowest TCO" ONLY applies to Solaris on Sparc. No way it applies to Solaris X86. I guarantee that on X86 any Analyst would would tell you to go Linux/BSD, especially considering Solaris X86's on/off/on again history.
Sorry but Sun X86 is only useful for learning Solaris so that when you go into the real world you won't be totally clueless first time you see a Sparc. Its got crappy hardware support and just doesn't compare to a modern Linux distro.
I didn't mean to rant so much, but I just flat out don't believe that Solaris X86 "is no different than a Linux distro". It IS different for the reasons I listed above and compared to Linux it comes up lacking.
Sun machines are not different from PCs in any significant way besides the processor (which is slower than modern PC processors at most tasks in spite of being 64 bit and having boatloads of cache) unless you have a multiprocessor machine. The days when every Sun machine was superior to every PC are long, long gone. The days when Solaris was superior to Linux for single-processor machines, likewise, have receded past the horizon and are well out of sight. Solaris' only real advantage today is on systems with many processors, especially when you get out of the realm of what Linux will actually run on.
As for your lowest TCO, I don't believe Sun when they say it, and I don't believe you. Where's the figures?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This guy seems to be arguing against Solaris but somehow gets Debian into the mix?
He didn't even do anything with the system. So what was the point? also failed to mention the kind of NCI he had so much trouble with...stupid.
/with Oracle9i to DVD and send to others.
I installed the 12/02 on my Dell 610C laptop, Pii1g, 256M, 3com 3c509, ati mobility radeon and everything worked perfectly. It was the most stable OS I ever used, really amazing.
Contrast this to Linux on the same laptop which was like pulling teeth. The X windwos config tool worked fine at high res- but x woulnd't so I would run xwindows config tool, open shells and launch apps from there. Wokred great. HATE the stupid linux xwin setup thing what the hell is "display 0:0" and why Do I have to screw with it?, Similar issues with mouse support.
I want the ease of install and stability of Solaris9, and the app support for Linux. Or is that mutually incompatible?
SO far my comprise is SUSE linux in a VMware session. It runs better under VMware than on any native hardware I have. Everything works, view, sound, nic on any machine I have done it on. And I can burn a working vmware linux
SUN now says they are going full on with AMD64 chips. See full page ads in USA today touting this. Does that mean x86-84 Solaris is coming?
Rambling? who me?
JON
These are things you won't notice immediately "out of the box", but you'll certainly notice them if you need maximum uptime for your mission-critical enterprise applications. If the factors I mentioned above mean something to you, then you probably already have Solaris in your environment.
The main reason this is useful to me is for "kicking the tires" of Solaris 9 (as the CoyboyNeal implies in his caption). At work we are still running Solaris 7 on production servers and don't have a lot of spare Sparc systems lying around for testing. Being able to install Solaris 9 under VMware or random x86 systems is a very convenient way for me to get some experience with this release. However, I can't think of a good reason to deploy it in production.
I administer a network consisting of a mix of SPARC Solaris, Win2k Professional, and 1 SCO unix box. The SCO box is very old and is used as a controller for a special application. Some time ago I decided to port the SCO box software to Redhat linux 8.0. As I was nearing completion of the port I discovered that Redhat was dropping this line of linux.
I believe it's important to be able to maintain patch levels on my systems for security reasons. Knowing that in the future I will not be able to keep my patches up to date leaves me feeling that Redhat left me high and dry. In my mind I cannot justify paying Redhat annual support for their Enterprise version of linux when I only need patches. I can handle the other support issues myself.
I'm comfortable with Solaris administration on the SPARC platform but I have no experience with the x86 version. After reading the review I believe the described shortcomings don't apply to my situation, except perhaps for the networking problem. I don't need sound or graphics at all and I have no problem configuring networking manually.
Solaris patches are easily reviewed and a list of recommended security patches is released on a regular basis. The patches are easy to download from a high performance site and I don't have to worry about access to those patches because I didn't pay for a priority connection.
The full documentation is available to download in pdf form or html.
With the help of the review, I think I just talked myself into redirecting my port of the old SCO box to Solaris x86. At least I should give it a try.
Solaris X86 is bastard child and doesn't even get any love from Sun itself.
THAT is the biggest problem with Solaris x86.
It was unbelievable the amount of shit that Sun people would talk about their own product. Here they've had the "Most Scalable x86 OS" and they basically refused to sell it as anything more than a learning tool. Any suggestion about Solaris x86 and every Sun Droid in the room would be yelling about how superior SPARC was. (Well, guess what dickweeds, now you get to be retrained on Linux or NT.)
Naturally, what little ISV and hardware support Solaris x86 had was dropped in favor of Linux. Sun basically told those guys to sell SPARCs or fuck themselves.
Technically, Solaris x86 kicked Linux's ass until a year or two ago in every category except device drivers. Then IBM and HP got on board and decided to use Linux as a wedge against Solaris, and that's the only reason that Linux can even be mentioned in the same breath.
Back in the dotcom daze, Sun's salesmen must have seen those huge Linux web farms that were going up around the E10Ks. They were just too arrogant and stupid to do anything about it until it was too late.
As a captive sparc-solaris user for many years, my experience has been that most of the development tools have some bug in them and need to be replaced with Gnu equivalents to compile any of the popular packages you find on the net. And my linux boxes are usually configure-make-make install and you're done. Under solaris, I almost always have to change something to get it to compile. Not to mention most of the dependencies won't already be on your system.
You are saying that there is no difference between a Free GNU/Linux (GNU's Not Unix) distribution and a proprietary unix. It is sad that some people work hard to create a completely Free operating system to replace unix and their work isn't valued a bit.
sadly the reviewer had boot problems.
x86 Solaris WILL live happily with Windows and Linux and a multi-boot system is trivially possible so long as you take some care. The most obvious gotya! is the Sun disk partition id is the same as the Linux swap partition id.
x86 does NOT insist on using an entire disk. It will happily install into a suitable partition pre-created with the Sun disk partition id. During the install pseudo-partitions will be created as needed within the actual partition.
I've had triple-boot systems with Win98, Redhat Linux and Solaris all installed on the same drive.
The reviewer also had network problems. With NICs on the HCL list and many work-a-likes there should be no problems at all.
You do need to understand what you are doing when installing Solaris, and it helps to understand the network configuration it will be plugged into before you start.
On the other hand, after answering a handful of questions at the beginning, the installation itself is trivial and automatic on supported hardware.
I've been using x86 Solaris as my main desktop system for a number of years now in preference to both Windows and Linux (though I'm writing this on a RH8 box) and it does everything that I need day to day.
Insert solaris is dying propaganda here.
How the hell did this get modded as insightful if it isn't even about Solaris? It looks like he took a Debian troll form letter and (poorly) replaced Debian with Solaris!
CDE is only at 2.2? There's no such thing! CDE is version 1.5!
XFree86? Solaris doesn't even come with XFree86!
Java Desktop and Sun Linux forks of Solaris? WTF?!?! Java Desktop is SuSE Linux and Sun Linux isn't even offered anymore!
Did you get bored while searching and replacing "Debian" with "Solaris" in your troll text? Or do you not know how to operate a text editor?
Still, I guess you're still one notch smarter than the people who actually replied to it.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
"absolute lowest TCO" - dont' be ridiculous.
... and I thought there is nothing worse than gentoo/osx zealotry... (don't take me wrong, I like linux - my roommate uses gentoo - and admire os x, its just that ...)
1) Enterprise servers?? lol. You can only use the 'free' version on 1 cpu configurations.
2) Help/Guides: Handbook.
3)Patches/Updates: Security advisories..
Application availability: 9800+ in the ports tree (FreeBSD) - and its absolutely FREE. Can you say the same of Solaris x86? (KDE 3.1.4, GNOME 2.4.1, the latest and greatest of almost every apps running rock solid on 5.1 - a "technology preview" version of FreeBSD)
Remember that Slashdot is the wrong place to go for anything that's not Linux..
http://www.oracletool.com
Remember, free as in speech, not as in beer. Giving away your labour is not the idea. The idea is that you don't hamstring your customers so that they can't tinker around with your OS if they want to.
Apple's OS X seems to be the best of both worlds. Fast and sexy, non-technical people seem to love it. Get under the hood and its just BSD. Download any POSIX source, compile and install. Tons of documentation, read the kernel source, do whatever you want.
And people were like having a party just to buy the thing. I think geeks should be 1000% behind this product and Apple too.
I might switch to Solaris, but it doesn't run the games linux does. I guess I'll just have to dual boot and keep that pesky linux partition until the folks at Sun make a port of Frozen Bubble.
the download seems to be slashdotted so can someone offer bittorrent for the iso image?
or is that even allowed under the license terms?
Read just a little before you comment on something. Virtual CPUs do not count toward the license count. Your hyperthreaded P4 will only count as one CPU.
In case anyone thinks I'm here to support Sun, my employer, I would never run Solaris x86 at home. I've got better things to do with my time.
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
And finally, what the hell is an "industrial strength workstation"? So-called workstation-class Sun machines are now just PCs with a sparc processor in them. They have the same bus (PCI), they use the same kind of connection to mass storage devices (ATA), hell they even have the same ATA chipset as other kinds of computers, the CSA-649U is in several Sun machines, and the G3 macintoshes. (And it is trash.)
Sun machines are not different from PCs in any significant way besides the processor (which is slower than modern PC processors at most tasks in spite of being 64 bit and having boatloads of cache) unless you have a multiprocessor machine.
Sun makes more than one type of workstation. They have models that range from the cheap Sparc PC types to high-end visualization systems. (I haven't heard of a PC video card with a gigabyte of ram, have you? Sun has one.)
My Sun Blade 1000s are heading towards 3 years old. They all can take 8 Gigs of ram and can use it all since they are all 64 bit machines with a real 64 bit OS that is large file enabled. The disks are fibre-channel and quite zippy. They also have firewire, 64bit PCI, and SCSI built in. They are a snap to service. As an added bonus they are whisper quiet when they run. And give me openfirmware over a PC's bios any day.
An Athlon 2600 MP system that we bought 7 months ago beats the 3 year old 600 Mhz CPUs in my Sun Blades by only 30% for one of the basic tasks at my company. The Sun Blade 1000s can keep up because they have very high memory bandwidth compared to the Athlon server.
If you really think that there is no difference, you either haven't looked very hard, or you aren't doing anything that is all that hard.
So when did she turn you down for a date then?
I seldom read all the way through Slashdot comments because of signal/noise ratio but Solaris is near and dear to my heart. I've used Solaris/SPARC in server environments in several projects at several companies and I would like to weigh in with a vote of confidence for two very important factors: reliability, and scalability. In our telecommunications startup we had a multi-tiered web server / application server / database architecture. We designed it to scale big and we needed incredibly high uptimes. We put a lot of effort into architecting the solution and we relied very heavily on Solaris for reliable and scalable 'servability'.
It delivered 100%. We had major problems in other areas of our company, project, and personal lives but Solaris was the bedrock of our company and it was stable. We never had to worry about bugs or issues or whatevers.
We leveraged a lot of free software to sweeten things, we intermixed development on Windows to cut our development costs.
As someone who has worked closely with Solaris I was pretty disappointed with one apparently biased Linux user's inability to make light work of a Solaris install. Solaris is not a hobby system and you aren't going to play too many games on it. No you aren't going to have fun recompiling the Solaris kernel, but then maybe there are other productive tasks at hand...
- AndrewZ
The Solaris Companion Software CD comes in the Solaris Media Kit and contains many Free and Open Source packages compiled and packaged for Solaris. They install under /opt/sfw and include gcc-2.95.3 and gcc-3.3.x, gdb, ddd, KDE, GIMP, Emacs, vim, Python, MySQL, you name it, it's probably there. You can download the ISO images for Solaris 8 and 9. Note that it is updated to correspond with the current Update release of Solaris.
GNOME has been shipped with Solaris for quite some time now. Another thing that people don't realise is that some Open Source software is installed under /usr/sfw by default as well.
Stick Men
Way to go Sun.
I threw out a copy of solaris7 x86 that I recieved during Linux expo 2000 recently.
Reason? First off only 2 ethernet cards were supported, no UDMA EIEDE was supported, no USB support, no graphics card support, etc.
I could not even get it to see my hard drives on my old pentiumIII system.
However, I went to Suns site and looked at the HCL for Solaris9. Big difference!
For example my broadcom 411 integrated ethernet card still is not reconigned under Linux or FreeBSD but its fully supported under Solaris. Also my soundblaster live, geforce 4, Sony Dvd writter, and both broadcom and netgear nics are fully reconogigned.
The only problem I see is that I use both USB keyobards and mice. USB is supported but I did not see my keyboard there.
Also look under the supported motherboard section? Over 35 models are supported!
Sun is making a shot here and looks like they are listening.
My only concern about solaris is lack of package managment. Do I have to build things by source with it? I love the ports of FreeBSD and Gentoo.
http://saveie6.com/
You are paying for the non free environment to the base os
The license starts at $99 for a single cpu commercial license...
I'll bite too ...
...
RPMs also are widely regarded as sucking.
Why must all the RPM distros (and RPM itself) suffer from the stupidity of previous Redhat releases ?
Last I checked, Mandrake and SuSe had some pretty solid packaging policies. No idea from the Redhat/Fedora/Crap camp
Sunny Dubey
- Never use the 'install' disk to install - always use 'disk 1' to start the install. When you get to the DNS/NIS/LDAP screen the reviewer talks about, you cannot get past it without correct info if you use the install disk. If you use disk 1, you can skip past it after it complains that it can't fetch the info.
The problem seems to be that the install won't let you set a default gateway, so stuff off-subnet is unreachable, and I've never gotten it to behave correctly.
Of course, because the info doesn't get saved, yo have to setup resolv.conf etc yourself.
#include "sig.h"
Those three are not all in bed together. If they all knock Linux a bit, it's because they're all competing with it. That said, of the three, only Sun releases products installed with Linux. They just suggest Solaris is better.
It is unfathomable for Sun to work with Microsoft. Hang out around Sun people or listen to McNealy and you'll know what I'm talking about. Linux may or may not be a threat to them, but they absolutely hate Microsoft - to a fault. They're not going to work with Microsoft to try and undermine something. Not a chance of there being a conspiracy.
Every so-called reviewer of Linux distributions, FreeBSD, and now Solaris x86 out there seems to think that the installation process is the essence of an operating system.
There's little, if any, mention of things that would be useful for evaluating an OS that claims to be oriented for enterprise class environments:
As it is, this "review" is nothing more than an extended rant with nothing in the way of substance.
Since this post will likely be on the internet far longer than the humorous result, I'll spoil the joke. "Security Everywhere" is part of a series of multimedia Sun OS tours, and here is it's abstract: Clicking the link shows the page with this source code:
Mandrake, as I understand it (I'm speaking from hearsay here, since I've never used Mandrake) simply uses a better frontend. RedHat's biggest issue is clearly the lack of a good frontend more than the poverty of the backend. RedCarpet, up2date, or even apt for RedHat all overcome most, if not all of the problems with RPMs. And just as you'd rarely use dpkg instead of apt, you shouldn't have to use rpm in place of something like apt.
That said, I still have more faith in .debs. I've never had serious issues on a debian machine that a few changes in a sources.list, a few apt-get updates, or, heaven forbid, a dpkg --configure -a wouldn't fix. But RPMs are truly the bane of my existence (once someone screws up one dependency, it seems like the whole system just goes to hell).
I have no serious complaints with RPMs that are properly managed and have a good frontend. It's just that RH never does this, and, regardless, saying that RPMs are better than .debs because they are used by more releases is silly. They may be used by more, but there are few common software packages that aren't available in .deb.
Anyway, we're getting off topic, so I'm gonna shut up now. And you may be right. I was pissed off at the troll more than anything.
It's no different from Linux? It's closed source!
And when was the last time you looked at the kernel source?
Opteron right now offers the best performance for the best price, if they releas a version for that, they could do very very well.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
I heard x86 was god awful, anyone know, has it changed?
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
A few years ago, SCO offered "free UnixWare" and "free OpenServer" programs. Something like the current Solaris hobbyist programs, only with more restrictive licenses.
At any rate, the only system I've ever used that was more painful than UnixWare is OpenServer. I'd use Solaris 2.1. I'd use AIX v2.x on an RT. I'd port apps to Coherent. Anything at all to avoid that mess.
Noone save fast food resturants and a few other locked-in customers use SCO. It's really that awful.
The easiest example: the filesystem in OSR is a set of softlinks to the "real" filesystem for fear of breaking legacy XENIX apps.
After I said it wasnt a turn on to see her eat my shit and smear it all over her chest like she wanted to.
Okay, I'll bite.
..etc. I simply do not have the time to hack every image of an O/S that I install, plus deal with the aftermath of patching following hacking the crap out of it. Sure I can do Linux from scratch (without a kit), but that would be a complete waste of my time, which is a premium.
Lazy absoultley, I don't have the time to be any other way.
I don't feel that I should have to hack the crap out of the O/S to do simple things, like get X going, force my NIC into full duplex,
Sounds like a struck a nerve, good. Yet another person that doesn't understand the concept of scale and supportability.
I just downloaded Sol 8 x86 yesterday, and installed it on an old Toshiba Tecra Laptop (P233). The install was a breeze. Why don't you try downloading the Solaris XFree86 Video Drivers and Porting kit? The install took a while (old hardware). I even have the GNU utilities, mysql, and the lot of WM's (KDE, Xfce, Windowmaker, CDE, etc). docs.sun.com has a host of info that is easily searchable.
farking funny... Only it doesn't say that anywhere... shitty ac
A week ago when I was screwing with USB hotplugging. Thank you, please drive through.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I went ahead and flipped towards the end of the pricewatch listings for opteron boards and found a Tyan S2880UGNR with support for one or two opteron processors, support for up to 12GB DDR333 memory, onboard SATA and ATA RAID, onboard Ultra320 SCSI, and gigabit ethernet. It's got four 64 bit PCI slots, not sure if they are 66MHz also. Price? $550.
Look, the Ultrasparc is a neat chip, but it turned out not to scale worth a damn, and it costs the proverbial arm and leg. Maybe the new one coming up will do better, but Sun's days of making competitive one and two processor systems are done. The only real advantage is the support contract. The hardware itself is nothing to crow about unless, as I have mentioned, you are dealing with a system with many processors. Linux is known to not scale well past 8 CPUs, though certain well-known companies whose names are three-letter acronyms are working hard to rectify that situation even now.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Can't looking costs yourself?
Figure a 4 way SMP machine with hotswappable CPU's. THere is only 1 i repeat 1 linux compatible machine and it costs 25,000.00 for a 4 way Pentium 3 700 mhz machine with a backplane/hotswappable chasis system.
For 25 grand i have a 4 way 1.2 ghz Ultra64 V880 with nearly 8 gigs of ram and 512 gigs of fibre channel disk.
Also figure this.. I can buy a Sun netra X1 with OS cheaper then a comparibly priced linux, dell, redhat, suse system.
1. The sun has a watchdog card built in
2. The sun has a warranty with onsite support for 1 year and extendable through service contracts
3. The sun usually runs for 1-2 years without hitches.. i mean 0 hitches.
Quit posting your BS and maybe i'll believe you.
We are talking *UNIX* systems. Redhat AS is the only linux i owuld consider "Unix" from corporate support, applicaiton support and from the "TCO" perspective.
Just because linux is free, doesn't mean it is cheap. Hell, i run it. Doesn' tmean because i have the kernel source i know what the hell i'm doing to try and fix something. Open source doesn't mean jack for me because i'm still relying on someone to compile, test and make sure it isn't a trojan or whatnot.
Open source doesn't mean lower TCO..
how many of you people who replied to my thread have ever worked for a real IT organization??? or MANAGED one for that matter?
The author starts out by writing that Solaris was formerly SunOS and was derived from, among other things, 4.4BSD-Lite. How can we take the rest of the article seriously?
SunOS and Solaris pre-date 4.4BSD-Lite by over ten years.
SunOS describes the kernel and operating system services. Solaris describes the "operating environment".
Solaris was not "designed for SPARC and UltraSPARC." It was written originally to run on SPARC derivates as well as the x86 platform, specifically the AT&T NCR platform which preceded Sun's short-lived x86 SunOS machines, though, technically, the AT&T NCR and Sun x86 boxes predate Solaris. The x86 port of Solaris is by no means a new product.
The author complains quite a bit, but that should be expected in the Compatibility and the Installation sections of the article. Long-time Solaris users are familiar with all these problems.
I would have liked some facts to back-up the throwaway comments like "not all that restrictive", "rinky-dink", and "not very impressive".
Kris
Kriston
Solaris on x86 is like linux on sparc...
However, I was going to use Solaris x86 on a previous project because it has better threading capabilities. This can make a big difference in highly threaded systems like the Java VM.
I struggled trying to get it to recognize the second drive on a pretty standard adaptec scsi card. I eventually gave up and went with linux. Now that redhat 9+ has the new threads there would really not be much point to using solaris.
go, read more.
That's just about the funniest thing I've read all day. I thank you.
I want to apologize. While it is true that I did laugh at first, I looked back and realized how vicious and prejudiced the post actually was, and realized that it is not all in good clean fun. After re-reading the post, I feel ashamed for laughing at it.
You can buy an opteron and run linux for less.
.... Maybe next year it will be useful. Until then a Sun is the way to go for most people doing anything more than serving web pages.
You can run a lot less... specifically a lot less vendor software, as in practically none. That is one other big advantage with the Sun boxes, there is a huge amount of software to do just about any task a computer can do. Linux will be there some day, maybe, but not today. Until then, a fully decked out Opteron Linux box will do nothing useful really fast for a lot of people.
I went ahead and flipped towards the end of the pricewatch listings for opteron boards and found a Tyan S2880UGNR with support for one or two opteron processors, support for up to 12GB DDR333 memory, onboard SATA and ATA RAID, onboard Ultra320 SCSI, and gigabit ethernet. It's got four 64 bit PCI slots, not sure if they are 66MHz also. Price? $550.
Hey, thats great. Now fill up all those processor, memory, and IO slots. The bill will grow quickly. Once you fill it up, try finding 64 bit Opteron Linux software.
We are 10x worse to you because you think you know 10x more than you do. Take you GNU/Faggot ass ans shove your cheap shit hardware UP YOUR FUCKING ASS. Ill always have a job, cunt.
The fact that it's that cost used, implies it's a quality machine, worth paying that price for, which is quite a recommendation. Also, if there's anything that UltraSparc does well, then surely scaling is it! 106 CPUs in one system and near linear scalability (71 cpus 'worth in a 72 cpu system) - how is that 'not scaling worth a damn'?
lick my dogs ball sack you spineless fucking pussy, you know its funny. dont try and "save face" with the slashdot fucking assholes. they suck dick. be a man, stand up for your right to a sense of humor and dont capitulate to slashfagdom.
thats an EA version you stupid fucking god damn retard. EA means beta you fucking idiot.
The used price is about a quarter what the machines cost new (unless you're a catalyst member) so I wouldn't say it held its value all THAT well. The systems with loads of CPUs do better, implying that THEY are worth more money, and they are, because there are not PC systems which can do their job.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
As for the system costing more than the motherboard - thank you, captain obvious. This must be why you have to post as AC, eh? The $2500 used Blade machine wasn't fully populated, either.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
what? what the hell are you talking about? Sun offers the MOST SCALEABLE solutions in the industry, and this is widely acknowledged.
Struck a nerve? Hah! Im sory, I should not say Lazy, I sould stay you are a *stupid*, *idiotic* administrator.
You are a low paid sexless fat IT gopher boy. You are worthless to yourself, your industryand to humanity.
Linux doesnt work very well on any hih end harware, INCLUDING AMD64. You have to actually *USE* something before you advocate for it. Snu has been doing high end standards compliant software while Lin-sux was a wet dream - and that it still is.
Sun aren't working on something that will scale to higher clock rates - clock rates on cpus is only a small part of the story. Sun's principal current effort is building balanced systems, which run business apps well and predictably. The research is focussed on what Sun are calling 'throughput computing' - basically getting as much from a cpu without the need to increase clock cycles massively and continually, something which is unsustainable, unless you want your 1 RU server to have 20 RUs of fans cooling it.
Holy crap, I agree with every single one of your datapoints. I mean, doesn't run binaries compiled for a completely different architecture??? No kidding!! Ya know, my Mac OS X machine doesn't run Solaris binaries out of the box, or Linux binaries, or Windows binaries. Nor does my Linux machine run Mac OS X binaries, or Solaris binaries. And my three Sun/Sparc machines don't run binaries not compiled for it either. That's not a flaw -- that's a fact of architectual diversity!