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Sun's Linux Killer Examined
gnaremooz is one of several users to mention Thomas Greene's look at Sun's supposed 'Linux Killer'. From the article: "If Sun gets very serious about Solaris 10 on x86 and the Open Solaris project that it hopes will nourish it, Linux vendors had better get very worried. That's because, in the many areas where Linux is miles ahead of Solaris, Sun stands a good chance of catching up quickly if it has the will, whereas in the many areas where Solaris is miles ahead, the Linux community will be hard pressed to narrow the gap." However, he goes on to describe many more difficulties with an install of Solaris than I seem to remember having with just about any recent Linux install.
No, Sun couldn't outright "kill" Linux. But they could still turn around and provide a superior desktop/workstation system. Considering they're a corporation, and they have money, they may be able to convince other hardware providers to write Solaris x86 drivers. That is something that Linux mostly has not been able to do until quite recently.
Of course, you could always get a Sun system and have a system that is nearly perfectly integrated.
Ideally, Solaris could take the best of both Windows and Mac OS X in the workstation/desktop market: it could support existing, non-Sun hardware quite well (similar to Windows), while at the same time also being available as a highly integrated and controlled system (similar to Mac OS X).
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
RedHat should ring a bell with you
Repeat after me: RH != Linux.
If RH dies, Linux goes on.
If Sun dies, Solaris goes down with it.
And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon.
You don't seem to understand the basic point: we use Linux/Solaris/HP-UX/AIX because we don't develop for Windows.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Its closing the gap argument missed some really important issues; for example, developers. There are some things that Linux doesn't do, and will never do because the benevolent dictator doesn't believe in them.
For one, POSIX compliance. OpenSolaris IS compliant, so as a real-time junkie who loves his shared-memory mapped files, I'm bouncing up and down. Linux shared memory stubs some calls, doesn't implement the POSIX suite, while barely implementing older shm. How many MAN pages can you find that tell you "This isn't implemented." in OpenSolaris?
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Linux is free. That means if you dont like the direction, just fork it and improve it. You can still call it Linux.
Only if Linus says you can call it Linux... Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds, after all....
Same with Solaris and Sun.
Now you can have a lot of cross polination of ideas. But that is about where it ends. And I think that Linux esp. with IBM's involvement will end up surpassing OpenSolaris on every level.
FWIW I have never had any of those kernel instability problems mentioned re: Linux except in two cases and both were related to failing hardware....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Try installing Solaris 9 x86 sometime (next to impossible due to the restricted driver support) and then install Solaris 10 x86 (most video drivers work, broad network card support now etc.) They still have a way to go but if the improvements continue at this rate then it won't be long before the device support in Solaris is equal to Linux. Sun's far more committed to getting this fixed than IBM ever was.
Unfortunately the CDDL which seems to be a deliberately more "patent friendly" license will never be safe to use;
I call either sheer FUD or that you havn't actually read the CDDL.
since Sun practically admits that it may contain patented code that they have the right to redistribute but that forks of their project couldn't.
This is absolute FUD. The CDDL *requires* the originator and contributors to automatically give patent grants, for good, to that CDDL code and its deratives - non-revocable.
See also what RMS has to say about OpenSolaris: Peculiar licence he says (cause it isn't GPL) but he uses the word "free" several times, not a word RMS applies to software lightly.
Note that one of the things that seems likely for the GPLv3 are patent provisions for a patent pool, similar to what the CDDL does.
--paulj
Sun employee (not speaking for Sun), FSF supporter.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
1500 bucks gets you a graphics card that can't
do 32 bit color.
250 bucks will get you a 36 gig seagate scsi hard drive - oh but it has a spud bracket.
for a couple grand, you can get a 900mhz processor and motherboard. Oh that's right, it's a risc based processor so it's really a lot faster than a cisc based one. I guess this is why Cray is using them....*not*.
Oh let's not forget that card reader and sony dvd drive. I'm sure that cost a few hundred bucks for that too, but hey it's a CARD READER. You will need it while you can't get usb 2.0 working.
Hey but look on the bright side, that is one SEXY case it all comes in. The sooner I can get Suns fat fucking hand out of my IT budget, the better off I will be.
Everyone ensure they remember that Sun is a hardware company, first and foremost. Solaris is a mechanism for Sun to sell more hardware and service contracts.
Ok...my mistake:
Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL)
This is a free software license which is not a strong copyleft; it has some complex restrictions that make it incompatible with the GNU GPL. That is, a module covered by the GPL and a module covered by the CDDL cannot legally be linked together. We urge you not to use the CDDL for this reason. Also unfortunate in the CDDL is its use of the term "intellectual property".
Yup. They still occur.
Yes, but you won't like it: RTFM. nfs(5) and mount(8) will tell you all you need, especially the description of the hard and intr options.
The fact that people do not read the documentation provided is not Linux' fault. Linux NFS may behave differently from Sun NFS by default, but it can be set up to behave the same way, and client lockups due to failing servers is not a failure of the NFS implementation, it is a configuration issue.
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?