Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the sunshine-lollipops-and-rainbows dept.
ptolemu writes "The Register has the scoop on Sun's latest iteration of Solaris. The article includes some details of the new and improved features that will be included in the OS. The OS is scheduled to be released in the second half of 2004."
I've wondered for a while now, is one Unix like another Unix? I've used Linux in the past and am trying out FreeBSD now. Frankly, I don't notice the difference from an end-user perspective.
Well, from a basic end-users perspective, there isn't much different at all. Especially if you install a bash shell on solaris, or whatever unix you're using.
From the administrators perspective, there can be a world of difference. Many admin tasks can be very similar, but many are also pretty different.
As for why you'd want to use Solaris over Linux, nobody does NFS better than Sun. I'm not sure what the current status of NFS is under Linux, but I've heard some stories that don't look favourably on Linux and NFS.
Also, Solaris performs and scales very well on multi-cpu machines, compared to Linux (although with Linux 2.6, this may not be such an advantage anymore).
Then you've got the added advantages of Solaris being a full 64 bit OS (ignoring the Intel version), with large max file sizes and RAM without any special hacks (again, Linux 2.6 has gone some way to fixing this, with 64 bit file support).
Basically, for the enterprise, Linux wasn't really an option until 2.6. With 2.6 only in its infancy, Linux still isn't an option. Solaris is though, 'cause it's got the features, the performance, the reliability, and it has been thoroughly tested on the anvil of time.
Re:Is Unix Unix?
by
whereiswaldo
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
in the solaris shop we had a dramatic failure of a storedge sena array. i called the sun support line and a guy in tweed jacket was at my door in 40 minutes...
in the linux shop i made a web support request for a very simple question... i logged that request twelve days ago and it's still listed as "awaiting technician".
You must admit that these two issues are *very* different in severity. Try logging a failure of a similar magnitude with Red Hat and report your results back for an apples to apples comparison.
Re:Sub roots
by
Imperator
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
It would be more than that, at least from what the description suggests. The problem with sudo is that you're often giving suid access to programs that aren't designed to be suid, so someone who was the right entries in the sudoers file can root the machine with ease. Proper privilege separation in the admin tools would mean being able to give someone access to run apt-get dist-upgrade (or whatever it is) without his being able to install his own packages. It would mean letting someone add non-root users but not root users, or resetting passwords but only for users in a certain group. It requires planning when creating admin tools, not a "slap it on" solution like sudo.
Of course, given that it's Solaris, it may end up just being sudo after all.
--
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
advocatus diaboli
by
Imperator
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Isn't this the sort of thing that we'd be up in arms about if it were MS compiler quirks other compilers were emulating? The GCC compilers should make strict conformance to modern standards the default, and make you turn on the extensions manually.
Why, for example, does GNU C++ include binary <? and >? operators for min and max? I could see the attraction in C, where preprocessor macros and their issues with side effects are a pain in the ass. But in C++, inline templated functions can do it just as well and are much more portable. This is the sort of irresponsible "extend the language by default" approach that the GCC compilers are full of.
Don't get me wrong; I love the GCC suite and for all the supposed performance issues, I wouldn't trade GCC for any other toolchain I've ever used. But free software should set an example by encouraging portable code.
</rant>
--
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
all my replies in one go
by
chegosaurus
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Wow some of the comments on here are uninformed. Especially those modded informative or interesting.
"Hey, Solaris sucks! Linux is way better and it's free as in speech!" +5 interesting
"Hey Linux does everything Solaris does and it's free as in beer" +5 informative
"Hey there was a film called Solaris! OMG LOL!!!" +5 funny
Do you *never* get bored of pointing out that x86 chips have higher clock speeds than SPARCs?
Don't you think we *know* by now that Linux is free?
If you know how to handle Solaris, you will know that: it has some features that linux does not. It's no harder to build software for than linux. Trusted Solaris privileges are not the same as sudo. dtrace is not the same as cat/proc/whatever. Solaris is not so slow it's unusable on 32 CPUs. Version 5.8 is not four versions older than 9. There are smarter ways of patching than downloading the recommended cluster every day. But hey, post uninformed crap and up your karma. That's what matters.
If you don't know what you're talking about, shut up and leave the discussion to people with some interest and background in the subject. And stop complaining that "no one uses Solaris, so who cares there's a new major release", when you've probably been up all night bitching on IRC that the mods here rejected the 2.6.3-rc3 release story you submitted.
Re:So is this version going to
by
dglo
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
So is this version going to include the feature of it not being *fricking painful* to compile nearly anything not specifically targetted at Solaris?
I'm old enough to remember back when Sun was the top dog and all non-SunOS users complained about Unix software being written specifically for Suns.
And before that, the problem was people writing Unix software specifically for the VAX.
This says more about the quality of the people writing OSS than it does about the quality of Solaris. Actually quality is the wrong word, because it's likely that many of these programmers only know or have access to Linux.
Making an effort to port your software to non-Linux dialects of Unix is a really good thing, because other OSes will expose bugs in your software which would not otherwise turn up until, for example, a bug in the current glibc is fixed.
Slashdot Mirror
Linux runs a 512 CPU supercomputer at NASA
Are you talking here 512 CPU SMP or more a Beowulf or similar. Two rather different animals....
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
Well, from a basic end-users perspective, there isn't much different at all. Especially if you install a bash shell on solaris, or whatever unix you're using.
From the administrators perspective, there can be a world of difference. Many admin tasks can be very similar, but many are also pretty different.
As for why you'd want to use Solaris over Linux, nobody does NFS better than Sun. I'm not sure what the current status of NFS is under Linux, but I've heard some stories that don't look favourably on Linux and NFS.
Also, Solaris performs and scales very well on multi-cpu machines, compared to Linux (although with Linux 2.6, this may not be such an advantage anymore).
Then you've got the added advantages of Solaris being a full 64 bit OS (ignoring the Intel version), with large max file sizes and RAM without any special hacks (again, Linux 2.6 has gone some way to fixing this, with 64 bit file support).
Basically, for the enterprise, Linux wasn't really an option until 2.6. With 2.6 only in its infancy, Linux still isn't an option. Solaris is though, 'cause it's got the features, the performance, the reliability, and it has been thoroughly tested on the anvil of time.
in the solaris shop we had a dramatic failure of a storedge sena array. i called the sun support line and a guy in tweed jacket was at my door in 40 minutes ...
... i logged that request twelve days ago and it's still listed as "awaiting technician".
in the linux shop i made a web support request for a very simple question
You must admit that these two issues are *very* different in severity. Try logging a failure of a similar magnitude with Red Hat and report your results back for an apples to apples comparison.
It would be more than that, at least from what the description suggests. The problem with sudo is that you're often giving suid access to programs that aren't designed to be suid, so someone who was the right entries in the sudoers file can root the machine with ease. Proper privilege separation in the admin tools would mean being able to give someone access to run apt-get dist-upgrade (or whatever it is) without his being able to install his own packages. It would mean letting someone add non-root users but not root users, or resetting passwords but only for users in a certain group. It requires planning when creating admin tools, not a "slap it on" solution like sudo.
Of course, given that it's Solaris, it may end up just being sudo after all.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Isn't this the sort of thing that we'd be up in arms about if it were MS compiler quirks other compilers were emulating? The GCC compilers should make strict conformance to modern standards the default, and make you turn on the extensions manually.
Why, for example, does GNU C++ include binary <? and >? operators for min and max? I could see the attraction in C, where preprocessor macros and their issues with side effects are a pain in the ass. But in C++, inline templated functions can do it just as well and are much more portable. This is the sort of irresponsible "extend the language by default" approach that the GCC compilers are full of.
Don't get me wrong; I love the GCC suite and for all the supposed performance issues, I wouldn't trade GCC for any other toolchain I've ever used. But free software should set an example by encouraging portable code.
</rant>
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Wow some of the comments on here are uninformed. Especially those modded informative or interesting.
/proc/whatever. Solaris is not so slow it's unusable on 32 CPUs. Version 5.8 is not four versions older than 9. There are smarter ways of patching than downloading the recommended cluster every day. But hey, post uninformed crap and up your karma. That's what matters.
"Hey, Solaris sucks! Linux is way better and it's free as in speech!" +5 interesting
"Hey Linux does everything Solaris does and it's free as in beer" +5 informative
"Hey there was a film called Solaris! OMG LOL!!!" +5 funny
Do you *never* get bored of pointing out that x86 chips have higher clock speeds than SPARCs?
Don't you think we *know* by now that Linux is free?
If you know how to handle Solaris, you will know that: it has some features that linux does not. It's no harder to build software for than linux. Trusted Solaris privileges are not the same as sudo. dtrace is not the same as cat
If you don't know what you're talking about, shut up and leave the discussion to people with some interest and background in the subject. And stop complaining that "no one uses Solaris, so who cares there's a new major release", when you've probably been up all night bitching on IRC that the mods here rejected the 2.6.3-rc3 release story you submitted.
So is this version going to include the feature of it not being *fricking painful* to compile nearly anything not specifically targetted at Solaris?
I'm old enough to remember back when Sun was the top dog and all non-SunOS users complained about Unix software being written specifically for Suns.
And before that, the problem was people writing Unix software specifically for the VAX.
This says more about the quality of the people writing OSS than it does about the quality of Solaris. Actually quality is the wrong word, because it's likely that many of these programmers only know or have access to Linux.
Making an effort to port your software to non-Linux dialects of Unix is a really good thing, because other OSes will expose bugs in your software which would not otherwise turn up until, for example, a bug in the current glibc is fixed.