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Sun to Make Solaris More Linux Like

Posted by samzenpus on from the imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery dept.

ramboando writes "In an effort to spur adoption of Solaris, Sun Microsystems has begun a project code-named Indiana to try to give its operating system some of Linux's success. Sun has been trying for years to restore the luster of Solaris, but that since has faced a strong challenge chiefly from Linux. Sun wants to embrace some Linux elements so "we make Solaris a better Linux than Linux," said Ian Murdock, Sun's chief operating systems officer, quoting Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, whose latest start-up, Ning, uses Solaris. But it's a tricky balance to adopt elements of Linux while preserving Solaris technology and advantages such as the promise of backward compatibility. "As we make Solaris more familiar to Linux users, we don't [want to] lose what makes it more compelling and competitive.""

12 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. Is it going to be free? by Macondo · · Score: 2, Funny

    The only reason I might change is if Solaris was made open source (and free). Thats the reason Linux is superior. Better support, design etc. flows from that.

  2. Making Solaris more Linux-like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...is like making caviar more vegemite-like.

  3. More Linux Like? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    They can start by making the man pages suck.

  4. Ning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Ning by the way is yet another piece of do-nothing get-a-life-ware...

  5. A Better Linux by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 2, Funny

    A better Linux than free Linux is a Linux they actually pay you to use. Are you listening, Sun?

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  6. Re:Okay, call me a noob. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I'm using Solaris because the data mining application I'm building (in Lisp) brings the Linux kernel absolutely to its knees.

    Tell that to google.

  7. Re:First Java open-sourced, now this... go Sun! by timmarhy · · Score: 4, Funny

    damnit man you don't NEED a command line, why aren't you using punch cards or dip switchs to program the thing!

    --
    If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
  8. Re:I'm frightened already. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny
    What state that will leave Solaris in is anyone's guess.

    Indiana?

  9. Re:First Java open-sourced, now this... go Sun! by pallmall1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    damnit man you don't NEED a command line, why aren't you using punch cards or dip switchs to program the thing!
    Because, they're dead, Jim!
    --
    3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
  10. Re:"Some say"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    See Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller starting April 16, 2007...

  11. Re:Backward Compatibility?! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Solaris 7 is from 1999, and this is 2007. Try that on an 8 year old redhat box and see what happens. Good luck with that. It should work fine, as long as you remember to configure the zone to use BrandZ...
    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  12. Re:First Java open-sourced, now this... go Sun! by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Funny

    Solaris grep in particular is horrible.
    vi breaks every time you expand your console beyond 132 characters, and quite a few of the tools on the default PATH don't conform to any modern standard - including POSIX.
    Windows with SFU provides a more compatible UNIX environment than what you get out of the box with Solaris.

    Somewhere in Redmond, a demon just snorted gasoline and battery acid onto it's keyboard.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;