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Torvalds on Opening Solaris
An anonymous reader sent in a link to this interview with Linus Torvalds, where the questions center on Sun's movement toward the open source world (and Linus' dismissive view of the threat posed by Solaris), as well as a few questions about 2.7 and the future of Linux.
That's just the perfect reply. If you've accomplished something great, don't be humble - that's fake - but state the facts and stay grounded.
What I don't understand is how this guy keeps himself grounded...
The owls are not what they seem
In my past life I was an SCO engineer (yeah hate me for it, but it was waaaay back)... and the more Linux evolved--disassociated from UNIX--the more I loved it. Posix/SUS was meant to be a basis for a manufacturer-neutral standard system interface. Linux kernel/gblic internals have been extraordinarily creative in working toward that rationale.
Sigs cause cancer.
Does anyone have a digitally signed copy of this article? How else can I trust this Tovald's guy with my computer?
I think Linus is being a bit too dismissive towards Solaris. Sure it's not going to completely crush Linux like McNealy wants to believe, but if it ends up being good enough it could slow down the growth of Linux and become a major competitor on x86.
> Linux has never been about "others"
By "others" he means Unix, and by "has never" he means "has always"
Surely if you like the idea of standing on the shoulders of giants, there might be some handy ideas in Solaris. Why ignore it?
Because I personally don't think they have anything left worth taking after I've applied the general Unix principles. I really do think Linux is the better system by now, in all the ways that matter.
But more importantly, if I'm wrong, that's OK. People who know Solaris better than I do will tell me and other people about the great things they offer. To try to figure it out on my own would be a waste of time.
Just a paragraph below your quote. And it's not like he dictates every move for Linux. If there are (and on Solaris/SPARC there sure are) better things in Solaris than Linux, I'm sure he'd welcome any improvement suggestions.
I have recently attended a talk at our local NOVA (Northern Virginia) LUG by Harry Foxwell focused on Solaris 10. And while Harry is a respected scientist and a great presenter, I couldn't help noticing some things that were not exactly in the Open Source spirit if you will. The talk was 90% about Solaris Containers (aka Zones or N1 Grid Containers), and being a believer of giving credit where credit is due, I was somewhat disheartened not to hear ony mention of FreeBSD jails and several statements about how Solaris Zones are primarily based not on any OSS work, but rather prior Sun work on Trusted Solaris. While I believe the Trusted Solaris stuff was partly true (in Linux this is called capabilities, BTW (POSIX 1003.1e/1003.2c)), it wouldn't hurt to briefly mention the origins of the concept of separation, FreeBSD jails, and the fact the Linux Vserver provides the same functionality for Linux (Linux Vserver was mentioned, followed by some condescending analogy of Linux and transformer robots and how Linux developers can "transform" Linux into supporting anything.) The truth of the matter is that FreeBSD jails appeared in 1999, Linux Vserver in September of 2001 and Solaris Zones in 2002. The talk could also use less of "Solaris is for real, Linux is not" comments, especially considering this is a talk at a Linux User Group.
The bottom line is - I salute Sun open sourcing Solaris, but they still need to work on improving the attitude towards other open source OS's, particularly Linux and FreeBSD. The strategy of insisting that Solaris is just better, isn't going to get Sun very far, simply because it isn't true in many respects.
Just a paragraph below your quote. And it's not like he dictates every move for Linux. If there are (and on Solaris/SPARC there sure are) better things in Solaris than Linux, I'm sure he'd welcome any improvement suggestions.
That doesn't take away it's downright arrogant to say you don't need anything the competitors might offer, and really, any other commercial-software spokesman would be modded +5 Ignorant.
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
I would recommend other Slashdot members to read this article, probably one of the best interviews I've had the pleasure of reading about Linus. The comments he made would benefit any open source project leader and stress once again that a successful open source project is one where "People need to feel involved...If anybody feels like somebody is just a passenger, that's bad for everybody." Other comments about incremental improvements and Not Invented Here (NIH) Syndrome are worth reading too. Don't let the title about Solaris confuse you, and its nice to know Linus didn't resort to mud slinging, which is very common from the Sun camp...
We received a Sun Blade 2500 running Solaris 9 with an NMR that our company bought. I thought it would be cool to learn some Solaris. I was very disappointed. The software seems to make no sense, the provided applications are old ( it comes with Netscape 4.7x as the only provided browser). I was surprised to have been so under whelmed. Sun seems to be SO conservative in regards to their software that they seem to be paralyzed. I fired up Netscape 4.7x to find some answers on questions I had about the OS and when I hit a site that used JAVA the browser told me that the version of Netscape I was running didn't support the version of JAVA the Webpage was using!! This is what came with a standard install of Solaris? I am much more comfortable with Linux and so understand I am a bit biased, but I just don't see SUN and Solaris being a threat to Linux unless they really put out a better product bundled with more current software.
"We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. " Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
This attitude is perfectly fine for any Solaris release prior to 10. However, Sun has made massive strides both in performance and hardware support, especially on the AMD64 platform.
Furthermore, he completely dodged the questions about containers, DTrace, and ZFS. While these are all fancy names for things which are also available in Linux, the truth of the matter is the Linux counterparts cannot hold a candle to any of these features in Solaris. Here's a quick run down:
Containers: Solaris's new virtualization mechanism. Containers have a special kernel image which is able to communicate with the main system kernel entirely in kernel space. This is somewhat similar to the approach taken by the Xen virtual machine, except that Xen does it at a much lower level. Solaris containers may be thought of as somewhere between a Linux kernel instance running in Xen on top of another Linux kernel and BSD jails. It certainly is nothing like UML, where the UML kernel is running in process context and thus performs rather pathetically.
ZFS: This integrates all the features of a high end filesystem and high end volume manager into a single package. Unfortunately, this will only be available a few months after Solaris 10 General Availability, but once it hits expect tools like VxFS and the Veritas Volume Manager to be rendered thoroughly obsolete on the Solaris side. Linux certainly has many interesting filesystems with cool whiz-bang features, many of which aren't implemented in ZFS, but on the flip side ZFS has many features tuned towards the enterprise market which are seen in very few Linux filesystems, most notably XFS.
DTrace: While a bit obtuse for the time being, a simple demonstration of its power must be seen. The main advantage DTrace has over Linux alternatives such as KProbes, besides being massively more powerful, is that there is no performance impact on the system when they are not in use. DTrace probes are inserted into the kernel when needed and removed when not, whereas KProbes require they statically be built into the kernel.
Conclusion: There is a considerable amount of feature parity between Linux and Solaris 10, but the Solaris features all have an edge over the Linux ones. Linus should not let his hubris cloud his judgement... I expect Solaris 10 to be a major competator to Linux in the low end SMP server market.
Right now running Linux (or FreeBSD) on AMD64 has you flying by the seat of your pants a bit... it's certainly not polished and there are a number of caveats and gotchas to watch out for. Contrarily Solaris 10/AMD64, especially on Sun's own hardware, runs like a dream. I expect Solaris 10 to thoroughly decimate Linux in the Opteron server market.
There are still a number of areas where Linux is still playing catch up to Solaris as well, most notably in the realm of schedulers. While Linux 2.6 now sports a constant time scheduler like Solaris has had for a half decade, Solaris still supports modular schedulers which can be swapped in and out, can be active simultaneously, and processes can be moved between them. One of the most notable ones fo
This, and some replies here seem to act like Solaris enters the OSS world as an enemy that we can now more fully pick apart and find the flaws of to mock them. Kinda disheartening, if that's the angle people are going to take on it.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jimgris/20041221# torvalds_solaris_is_a_joke
Why does Solaris have to be seen as a "threat"? A threat to whom, exactly?
I don't understand. It still baffles me whenever this kind of mentality gurgles up, like when Jimmy Wales said that Britannica would be "crushed out of existence" as if that should be one of Wikipedia's goals. What, is Britannica somehow a net negative on the world?
Come on, get a grip.
Another one bites the dust
So is making stupid judgement calls without reading the article.
From the article
People who know Solaris better than I do will tell me and other people about the great things they offer. To try to figure it out on my own would be a waste of time.
Linus doesn't know the OS or the codebase and plans to leave the analysis in the hands of the experts.
He's busy. There's nothing arrogant about that.
Agile Artisans
That doesn't take away it's downright arrogant to say you don't need anything the competitors might offer, and really, any other commercial-software spokesman would be modded +5 Ignorant.
He doesn't say he doesn't need anything from Sun Solaris. Instead, he says that he doesn't think Solaris has anything left worth taking. He goes on to say, from the article, "But more importantly, if I'm wrong, that's OK. People who know Solaris better than I do will tell me and other people about the great things they offer. To try to figure it out on my own would be a waste of time." Yeah, a lot of arrogance there.
Back in the halcyon days when Sun was bar none the biggest UNIX enterprise player, Sun probably said the same thing about some little upstart OS cobbled together by that one guy from Finland that only ran on 386 machines and was described by it's creator as a "just a hobby". So really, I think this can probably be filed under "turnabout is fair play."
Do not touch -Willie
REDMOND, WASHINGTON: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates stated today that he has a rather dismal view of competing operating systems, Linux and Sun Microsystem's Solaris.
"If Torvalds is dismissive of Solaris, then I'm dismissive of Solaris and Linux. We're all emperors, of sorts, you know, it's just that we all have different styles of government," Mr. Gates said.
He continued, "My rule of Microsoft is oligarchical, obviously. I just work to prop up the share value enough so that the peasantry doesn't get uppity. I secretly have better things to do than play with my peons, if you know what I mean."
When pressed to further his analogy for Solaris and Linux, Mr. Gates stated, "Sun Microsystems is like Russia is now, or maybe China. They see that it's beneficial to appeal to...certain kinds of people in order to maintain solvency and growth. It's still autocratic at its root, but there is this illusion of free-market gallantry and an embrace of hitherto unembraced principles that appeals to certain kinds of people. Sort of like, 'do whatever you want, but we still own it and you.'"
Sun Microsystems is open-sourcing its Solaris operating system in a similar manner to Linux.
About Linux, Mr. Gates said, "Linux is like the United States with a small federal government that still retains enough power to break the whole thing up, but usually just stands back and helps the children play. Linux guides its adherents in a Jeffersonian grand experiment in freedom and it will be interesting to see if the ideological descendants continue to steer the ship in the same direction, so to speak."
When asked why he wanted to comment today, Gates said, "I personify my company, so, doesn't it make sense that I don't think too kindly of upstart Linux and grandma Solaris -- operating systems that are little more than pale blue dots in a galaxy of Windows?"
C'mon, of course Torvalds is a Solaris skeptic!:)
Solaris/x86 is a joke, last I heard. (It has) very little support for any kind of strange hardware. If you thought Linux had issues with driver availability for some things, let's see you try Solaris/x86. (Editors' note: Drivers enable an operating system to communicate with specific hardware such as a video card or network adapter.)
Oh really? I guess Linux was a joke for the longest time, then, considering its lack of hardware support. In fact, I guess it's still a joke compared to windows, if driver support is all that (apparently) matters. Why is Linus ripping on the new kind on the block for the exact problem his OS has had since its inception? This is disgusting hypocrisy.
He should be proud of what he's accomplished, and I'm grateful for his and other's work--but to take this snide attitude when another OS comes along, because it has some of the same problems his OS did originally, is pretty sad.
-Dan
Linus shows one more time that he's an intelligent and well spoken individual. A good spokesperson for open source, that's for sure.
Anybody can imagine Ballmer or Gates giving honest answers like that to an interviewer?
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
Solaris/SPARC and Solaris/x86 are, last I was told, 99% percent idential.
/. knock Solaris just because his holiness Linus said that Linux was better. A lot of people here rip on Solaris and have clearly never actually used it, and even more declare it "the sucks" because it didn't recognize their crappy AC97 sound card. Truly infuriating sometimes... though I can see how it all starts when Linus goes on the record saying that he doesn't even think that the Solaris source code is worth even peeking at.
That said, the only problem with Solaris/Intel is it's driver support. If you have supported hardware, Solaris/Intel is the definition of production-ready.
At any rate, It still really bothers me whenever I see people on
Then again, Linus, though brilliant, is also rash, reactionary, highly defensive and an out-and-out ego-maniac sometimes... but like so many "rock-star" like figures, his fans don't ever notice this.
Solaris has been saving my (and a lot of other peoples) bacon for years and as much as I like Linux, Solaris is still my go-to operating system because it's just more reliable, regardless of what his majesty wants to think.
How much more reliable? We're talking, like, 99.9% reliable versus, say 99.1% percent... something so miniscule; irrelevant to most people, but paramount to me and the thousands of people who still prefer to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on Solaris licenses for a very good reason.
Linux is improving steadily and someday I'll have no reason to buy Solaris... but it surprises me it's come this far sometimes when I see ignorant things like this from Linus.
bash-3.00$ uname -a
SunOS panda 5.10 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2
"Solaris/x86 is a joke, last I heard. (It has) very little support for any kind of strange hardware. If you thought Linux had issues with driver availability for some things, let's see you try Solaris/x86."
I'm sure the comment will be taken all out of context...can't wait to see the mud slinging that ensues. Check Schwartz's blog/marketing tool for the comebacks in the next few days. Torvalds comments are mostly true for the non-server market, and Sun first and foremost is going after the server market with Solaris x86 although they are actively porting JDS to Solaris x86 which I think will run into problems that Linus mentions above.
To personally counter some of Mr. Torvalds other claims, historically Solaris x86 was a non-starter, but with a company like Sun pushing it now fully (especially on x86-64), it shouldn't be hard to find proper driver support for the majority of server installs from IBM, HP, Sun (of course), and Dell going forward. Where they're going to have to work hard is getting all the ISV's to port apps to another Unix with very small marketshare. Money always helps in that department and Sun is not shy about the fact that they have billions in the bank...so it could happen.
As for Linus' comments about Linux being superior to Solaris, I'm not so sure about that. Perhaps from a licensing perspective, and some aspect of the kernel might be as tight...but...
Solaris 10 has some neat features that don't fully exist in Linux or lack the polish that is found in Solaris.
Zones, fair share schedulers, zfs looks neat..., dtrace is amazing,
If Linux can polish up some the projects that do similar things as the above mentionned items than I think there isn't much reason to consider Solaris anymore.
I think that a lot of commentators have misunderstood Linus' answers. When Linus blandly said that he's not even going to bother studying Solaris/x86 in detail, he meant that he's not a Solaris expert. The Linux development model, by its very nature, means that any new technology of sufficient value would be easily incorporated in Linux. Linus simply meant that because he has created a dynamic atmosphere that encourages the adoption of ideas, he really doesn't need to inspect a competitive OS with a fine-toothed comb himself. If Solaris 10 does have features that get widely adopted by it's customers and proves itself over time, it would be a trivial issue to incorporate the feature in Linux (if it makes sense).
He's not dismissive of Solaris; he simply has a lot of confidence in his development model.
IMHO, of course.
You must be new here. All Linux (and Unix) distributions are rated solely by how easy the installer is to use. This goes for pretty much all review sites as well.
Never mind what happens should you ever change any settings on the system, it gets five stars if it comes with OpenOffice preinstalled.
Trollish, I know, but it's true. It's mostly attributed to reviewers' unwillingness to run the OS for more than ten minutes.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
It is a joke. It was a joke. I shall be a joke.
I have been forced to run the damn thing and it has always sucked rotten eggz.
1. Multicast broken on 60+ percent of the network drivers. Linux over the years has had a chance to accumulate workarounds for broken cards. Solaris has never had the mileage to do so and as a result even trivial cards like ne2k, rtl and even eepro100 and 1000 are broken. In some cases it simply does not work. In other your entire machine goes south the moment someone tries to use it.
2. DMA is broken and does not work or has corruption problems on many chipsets. As a result if you want to get anywhere you need to shell out money for SCSI.
3. Numerous small niggles all over the place. Video, IO devices, power management (or to be more exact lack of), ad naseum.
It may be better the moment they release 10, because sun has used the cheasiest and shittiest PC chipsets like ALI15xx in their servers so they have "appropriate experience" now. But it will still be a very mixed journey. I will recommend it only to someone who has a PC which has the same collection of hardware garbage as in a modern Sun: broadcom ethernet, ALI or Silicon Image IDE or an NCR/LSI SCSI. If you have classic "good" PC hardware like Serverworks + Intel you will be going up shit creek without a paddle all the way (possibly under water as well).
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Never had a problem with drivers for Solaris/x86. Here's a hint, and you have to use this with *BSD and Linux too, check that your device is supported BEFORE you buy it.
Did Linus say what cereal he eats in the morning, because I'm begining to have an independant thought so I need someone to tell me what to do. What do I care about what Linus things about Solaris, of what benifit is it?
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I dunno man... I recently installed Solaris 9 on a dual opteron, 2GB of DDR 400, Adaptec AIC-7XXX SCSI. No messing around, worked fine.
This is brand new hardware, and although Solaris 9 was indeed running in 32-bit mode (and not the 64-bit Solaris 10 would enjoy on the same hardware), it worked and worked very well.
I've never had much of a problem getting Solaris to run on a wide variety of Intel hardware. The key, if you want to build a Solaris/Intel box, is to consult the HCL. Sun is pretty specific about what Solaris will and will not work with, though I've never found it to be as restrictive as most people imply.
bash-3.00$ uname -a
SunOS panda 5.10 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2
> Solaris/x86 is a joke, last I heard.
Last I heard? Come on Linus, please don't let what could be a healthy discussion degenerate into childish name calling. Such comments are usually the preserve of those that don't have anything constructive to add.
Yeah, but the point you (and Linus) so quickly miss is that Solaris does indeed support a wide variety of Intel hardware, just not as wide as Linux. That said, everyone is hopping on the Linux bandwagon so it'll obviously have more extensive driver support, You're effectively criticizing Solaris for not being as popular, and how stupid is that?
I've had just as many hassles re-compiling Linux kernels to make hardware work as I have had trying to find drivers for hardware under Solaris Intel. That said, most servers have pretty standard hardware and Solaris/Intel does a reasonably good job recognizing the hardware. I suppose the fact that I recognize this and play within the spectrum of the HCL, rather then setting myself up for failure, is where you I take different paths.
I mean, sheesh.. Linus admits (though he obviously didn't notice) that he's talking out of his ass when he says "Solaris/Intel is a joke (so I've heard)".
That said, Solaris does indeed work with non-proprietary hardware, as well big iron SPARC systems (which aren't, as yo say, proprietary. The SPARC architecture is awfully open; it may not be commodity, but the opposite of commodity isn't proprietary).
bash-3.00$ uname -a
SunOS panda 5.10 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2