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Solaris 10 Released

Posted by timothy on from the a-siren-lost dept.

AusG4 writes "Sun Microsystems has released Solaris 10 for both SPARC and Intel/Opteron. Downloading it is the usual 'register and get your free license' meandering; the Intel/Opteron version is 4 CDs and an optional language and companion disc (a bunch of pre-compiled GNU software in pkgadd format, I'm assuming, same as Solaris 8 and 9)."

9 of 478 comments (clear)

  1. Re:UNIX vs. LINUX? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Portage on Solaris? NetBSD pkgsrc already provides 5,300 packages ready to build on Solaris.

    -Install Solaris
    -Install gcc
    -Install pkgsrc
    -'make install' your desired package
    -Enjoy

  2. Openvms is downloadable too. Most reliable OS. by zymano · · Score: 4, Insightful

    http://www.openvms.org/

    A new operating system every year but software that can't be ported is the still the main problem. Why don't you people realize this. It's the software that is the problem . The software vendors are targeting only a few distributions. Windows .

  3. Re:The hole in our Apple theories by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I disagree, I work at Apple. Here's the deal... even though we do sell to the business market our main focus is the home user. Yes, we make servers and Xsan, BUT our main market is home user and it always has been. Sun's market is purely business class IT infrastructure, always has been. So comparing the two is irrational. Now that's not to say that we should stop using power PC chips and making hardware; our hardware is beautiful. I think that if we released OS X on a intel /intel clone platform that our operating system being a user friendly unix, that is spyware free, adware free, virtually bug free, and virtually virus free would knock Microsoft's market share out of the water. The cool thing about OS X is it's feature rich enough that any coder, admin, or hacker can use it (BASH shell HELLO!) but easy enough that a 70 plus grandmother can use it. Just like our slogan says, "It just works". Now as you probably know OS X was based on NeXT's platform and it ran on Intel 486 (in addition to other processors) So it's not like "we" haven't done it before. What I think is keeping "us" out of the market is the little matter of 150 million Microsoft dollars that saved us back in '97. I think one of the terms of that hidden agreement was a non-compete clauses. I think we are bound to stay of Intel clone architecture. I mean why else? There's money in software; just ask Bill Gates.

  4. Linux vs, branded *nix? by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've never understood the significant advantages of branded *nixes over BSD and linux.... My school runs Solaris, and I find it to be a solid *nix, but why would anyone pay (a large sum of) money for it?

    Traditionally the branded *nixes have been more stable than Linux, performed better especially on large multipro systems, been guaranteed to work practically 100% of the time on certified hardware, been better tested and not on the OS using public like Linux still is to a large extent. Furthermore, with the big brands, if you have a mysterious bug or kernel panic you get a number to call and somebody works on it 16 hours a day till the bug is fixed. I can vouch for that last part, I used to do it for a living with a major Branded *nix. I will freely admit, however, that Linux is catching up with the branded *nixes. It has practically killed them off on most stand alone workstations and it is eating into the small to medium server market which is probably also why Sun is doing this.

    --
    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow
  5. Piffle by onyxruby · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Last I checked Microsoft made a fortune selling the OS instead of hardware. Hardware is cut throat with incredibly margins whereas with Operating Systems your margins are incredibly high. The only reason at all Sun or Apple can make decent margins on their hardware is because they are the sole providers of their proprietary systems.

    Sun simply isn't making the money that you think it is.

    1. Re:Piffle by mstefanus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Microsoft can make that much money from selling their OS is because their dominance in the market. They can pressure people to increase their dominance even more.

      If Apple sells an x86 version of Mac OS X and want to increase their market share in the PC OS market, they won't be able to charge as much as Windows. The competition is also hard and rough in the PC world. Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc2. Another problem is that there are too many variations with PC hardwares. Apple are comfortable with the limited hardwares available for Macs. It is easier to ensure that devices work smoothly and integrated with the OS.

  6. Re:The hole in our Apple theories by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Insightful

    " virtually bug free,"

    Hmm, but one would need to brace oneself for new bugs due to the much more varied PC hardware => having to rely on third party developers => having to accept they might break your stable OS. That's basically the major cause of instability for Windows XP that I can see today. Fortunately, there are WHQL certified drivers so it became less of an issue when those were introduced. Just saying that with Apple hardware, you're staying away from a heck of a lot of problems in the formula of giving drivers direct hardware acccess for decent perfomance while keeping the whole thing stable.

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  7. Re:Don't fall for the trap by Donny+Smith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > Don't fall for the Solaris trap!

    How is that informative? If anything, that is stupid. FUD the Red Hat way. Woo - I'm scared, my mouse hand is trembling as I'm clicking on that download link...

    First, 99.9% percent of those who try will never see thieir libc contents (or, can't understand them).
    Second, it's not that Drepper is some legal expert. Furthermore he has vested interest - the fewer folks look at Solaris the better for him and Red Hat stock price.

    Those who can think with their own head should read the FAQ and licensing terms themselves rather than listen legal advice of a coder...

    www.sun.com/software/communitysource/faq.xml

  8. Re:The hole in our Apple theories by viperblades · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apple would lose their most valuable possession.
    Mindshare.
    They want people to think of well built quality systems, with emphasis on quality. This is the reason Rolls Royce doesn't make cars to compete with civics. If apple where to make OS X for x86 they'd lose the image they to try to project of having systems that just work (due to quality on lots of x86 hardware) . Apple may be a small fish, but it lives in a small pond where it IS the big fish. They keep that market and they'll live on just fine (and be happy with their products :) ) .