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Toshiba To OEM Laptops With OpenSolaris

Posted by kdawson on from the good-news-for-lem-fans dept.

ruphus13 writes to tell us of Sun's latest attempt to drive OpenSolaris adoption. The company has inked a deal to pre-install OpenSolaris on Toshiba laptops. "Slowly but surely, major laptop vendors are taking to the idea of shipping systems with pre-loaded open source operating systems. The latest case in point is Toshiba — one of the longest-standing players in the market for portable computers — and its new plan to pre-install Sun Microsystems' OpenSolaris on its laptops. The machines are supposed to ship in early 2009."

24 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Solaris to beat Linux by Yvanhoe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That is called competition. A thing that has lacked for too long in this field.

    --
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  2. I really like Solaris but... by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why go with Solaris and not Linux?
    In terms of usability and functionality for a Laptop Solaris would be at a disadvantage to Linux and even Windows. Unless you job is to write and compile and or run Solaris X86 Apps. Then you are in general at a disadvantage to Linux which has more application written for it, communicates very well with Solaris Based Type Networks, As far as End User is concerned Linux and Solaris really look so much alike that it wouldn't be much of a learning curve.

    Solaris is superior as a server OS. But for a desktop Laptop OS... Why?

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    1. Re:I really like Solaris but... by Ed+Avis · · Score: 5, Funny

      2009 is the year of Solaris on the laptop!

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      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    2. Re:I really like Solaris but... by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Sun wants OpenSolaris to expand into the desktop market and perhaps they paid Toshiba enough and or Toshiba trusts Sun to support the OS more than other companies.

    3. Re:I really like Solaris but... by QuantumRiff · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But the CHOICE is the important part. I don't care if they offer linux, Open Solaris, freeBSD, or even Darwin, its great to see that OEM companies are realizing that having a choice is a good thing. We've seen what happens when there is only one choice. OpenSolaris will only get better on laptops over time with this. Because it is "Open" it will drive competition (and hopefully share new features) with linux. This will drive having more compatible hardware, and better drivers, and companies will realize its nice to not send a chunk of every sale to MS.

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    4. Re:I really like Solaris but... by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's "open" but it's not one of those operating systems that people are going to WANT to switch from Windows.

      Why? The only serious issue with OpenSolaris I can think of is a lack of third party support, which is because OpenSolaris doesn't have a wide install base. If some major manufacturer, say Toshiba, of, say, laptop computers was to provide it pre-installed, then that might change.

      OpenSolaris has a number of differences to, say, Ubuntu, which are very attractive, notably the ZFS file system. For Enterprise use, where all the critical applications (the Apache suite and virtually everything that runs over it, Kerberos, OpenLDAP, Samba, Various IMAP daemons, various MTAs, etc) are all supported natively, and it works well as a Xen domain, the support for ZFS makes it arguably a superior option to RHEL, and having the option of having it run as a desktop environment helps administrators use the same tools locally and remotely.

      There's no legitimate reason to suggest it's not something people would want in preference to Windows. It's a solid operating system with a strong pedigree, a decent level of support, and some extremely nice features.

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    5. Re:I really like Solaris but... by scubamage · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Layer 8 types have heard of Solaris, and Sun Microsystems. Its more marketable than 'pure' linux because there is a large company supporting it, as opposed to an amorphous community which technically doesn't have anything really tying it together beyond the OS. As anyone whose ever pushed for open source adoption to an executive board will know, that's a real fear. Yes its cheaper, but what if there's no support? What if the website for the project goes down (as has happened with thousands of open source projects) and the forums go with it. Support dissapears. Yes there is enterprise linux, but I think a lot of the outsider view is still tainted by that idea of volatility.

    6. Re:I really like Solaris but... by zappepcs · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think you are right. I also think that OpenSolaris on a Toshiba laptop will be as popular as the Danger Hiptop (aka Sidekick from T-Mobile) has been. There are a lot of good things to say about Sun and Solaris and some bad things. What they do seem to be doing is moving to get some market share lost to Linux. It was not that long ago that you used Sun in the data center if you wanted reliable solid servers. It's not your only choice anymore. With Linux making inroads on the desktops of the world, Sun has a chance to move in and get some share without competing directly against MS. OpenSolaris is not that bad but has some limitations. With the Gnome desktop it looks more or less like any Linux OS. I have yet to see the SunBlade on my desk crater or act up. Rock solid operation.

      If Sun and Toshiba can translate that reputation to the laptop and make it usable for Joe Public, Sun will not only be impressive, but on their way toward being a player that everyone has to worry about again. In the business that Sun is in, good is not enough. They need to be the preferred supplier of many people. That has to be their goal, to become the preferred supplier of computer products.

      Hardware got really cheap, so x86 OpenSolaris is a smart move, a necessary one. Even Apple went there. They both should have anticipated it. If they get the app development further along, and morph their support systems to more or less match Linux distributions, they have a chance of regaining significant market share. Remember that the difference between new high end laptops and a data center server are decreasing every month. I don't think that Sun has any choice but to do this.

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    7. Re:I really like Solaris but... by FlyingBishop · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The point is brand dilution. With Solaris (and OpenSolaris no less) offered on laptops, the computer==windows mentality will soon be as dead as the internet=IE mentality. When you have 3 viable alternatives with the same feature set, (Star/OpenOffice, Webkit/Gecko, Unix) the idea that Windows is somehow the 'best' option begins to just be silly.

      For me, I can go to my friends and say, look, Sun, IBM, Novell, Canonical, and a ton of other companies have been pouring money into these free systems. These companies use them extensively. Have you honestly had such a fantastic experience with Microsoft that you want to stick with them when you have all these other options?

    8. Re:I really like Solaris but... by digitalhermit · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Solaris is superior as a server OS. But for a desktop Laptop OS... Why?

      I loved Solaris too. Knowing SunOS paid for my first house and first car. I used to maintain multiple enterprise systems all by my lonesome self. This included a mass of 450s and a couple 6500s.

      Unfortunately, Sun seems to have lost their mojo. Solaris was once much better, much more reliable than Linux. When LVM was still trashing LVs under capacity loads, Sun had super-stable Veritas file systems. When Linux were marvelling at 4-processor systems, Sun was pushing out 64-way machines. At the time, Linux NFS was non-standard and failed under high load. Sun's NFS implementation was rock solid.

      Then PCs grew up. And Linux grew up along with it.

      There's a well-known chart that talks about the reason why Microsoft continues to add features (and bloat) to their products. The reason is competition. If they don't add features, then other products with fewer features can become "good enough" for what a user (er, consumer) needs. If Microsoft didn't continually add new features, users will ask themselves why they are paying a price premium for something they can do for free or at a much reduced cost.

      But Sun went on another track. They decided they didn't want to court that rapidly advancing Linux horde. They missed out on the low-end server market by casting doubt on the future of their x86 Solaris product. They started hoarding their IP portfolio, forgetting their history. In all this time, Linux was getting "good enough".

      Good enough, in fact, to steal away the web server market. Good enough to steal away the edge-of-network market. Good enough to steal away the low-end database market. Good enough to steal away the high-end workstation market. All these were Sun's markets. All gone. I know this because I used Sun boxes in these capacities.

      At my company the last enterprise Sun box went away almost 18 months ago. We're pushing Linux to supplement our AIX systems now. And Linux excels. It's stable. It's supported. It's cheap. And it's doing what the Sun box did for $50,000 more.

    9. Re:I really like Solaris but... by digitalhermit · · Score: 3, Informative

      Its more marketable than 'pure' linux because there is a large company supporting it, as opposed to an amorphous community which technically doesn't have anything really tying it together beyond the OS.

      True.. "Pure" Linux is an amorphous mass. But just compare *ONE* Linux company (RedHat) to Sun in terms of market cap:

      Sun
      RedHat

      And RedHat just represents *ONE* Linux company. There are many out there. IBM and Oracle both support Linux. Linux has a much larger commercial support base than does Solaris or OpenSolaris.

    10. Re:I really like Solaris but... by David+Gerard · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Depends. We use a lot of Sun boxes and a lot of Dell boxes. Solaris 10 on a Sun box (even an x86) is way easier to administer than Linux - particularly when things go wrong. The OS indicates problems very nicely in messages and syslog, better than RHEL does.

      The downside is that modern open source software is too often written by coders who think "cross-platform" means "works on Fedora and Ubuntu."

      So we end up doing things like running Solaris 10 on Dell boxes and RHEL on Sun servers ;-)

      Sun's hardware is competitively priced and their service is really good (I'm in London), so we're very happy to stay with Sun boxes even running Linux.

      --
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    11. Re:I really like Solaris but... by Rutulian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Don't get me wrong, I've been wanting to play with OpenSolaris myself, but every feature you listed is relevant to the server or workstation market. The desktop market doesn't care about MTAs and IMAP daemons. Kerberos, LDAP, and Samba are nice, but they have to be more than just present. They have to work well with minimal fuss.

      Linux, after stumbling around with this for years, is just now finally getting to the point where it can easily be a drop-in replacement for Windows on a corporate desktop (i.e: authenticating on an AD domain). Sure, it's been possible for a while, the question has always been how much tweaking you have to do to various configuration files including possible changes to the domain controllers depending on what you are trying to do. With nice config utilities and better autoconfiguration, this has recently become a lot easier (but not yet perfect).

      In addition, there is the issue of desktop optimizations. The Solaris kernel is engineered for throughput, smp, and big iron, and it is very good at those things. Linux has been through many years of flame wars, new schedulers, low-latency patches, preempt patches, rewritten vfs layers, scsi subsystems, and audio subsystems--all addressing the complicated issues of performance on the server and the desktop. The desktop part of that has really matured in the last year, but even three or four years ago desktop performance was pretty sucky. Remember, for the desktop user, latency (even perceived latency) is a much bigger issue than throughput, and the optimizations for the former are often degrading to the latter.

      So, I like the idea of OpenSolaris, but it's going to take a lot more than slapping Compiz and Gnome on it to make it into a good desktop OS. Sure, they will get there eventually, just like Linux (maybe even faster if they can use some of the same approaches Linux has), but it's not there yet.

  3. Re:Solaris to beat Linux by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 4, Funny

    Solaris to beat Linux? Somehow I think hitting Mr. Linux Torvalds with a Solaris disc will probably do more damage to the disc....

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  4. yeah riiight. by apodyopsis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the next obvious move?

    MS to scrap the OEM tax and instead install an OS that is free for 30 days and then asks you to did into your wallet and type in a credit card number.

    MS will never allow this to continue without a fight, they drop the prices or allowed older operating systems anywhere they can to ensure machines are shipped with their OS.

    It seems clear that threatening OEMS with more a expensive windows tax if they do not cooperate is becoming less effective these days.

    They might even give the OS away free if they have no choice at all and get money back on cloud, upgrades, applications and web services. But I cannot see them ever willingly accepting PCs sold in large numbers without windows.

    1. Re:yeah riiight. by enharmonix · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They might even give the OS away free

      Frankly, I've always wondered why they don't.

      • Most users aren't really clear on the concept of an operating system. They know Windows is on their PC, but don't really understand what it does (and what it doesn't do) or that there are alternatives. They probably don't even realize they're paying for it when they buy a computer.
      • It's a platform, and platforms generally have a low barrier to entry. Java is free. .NET is free (as in beer). The web is free. Console makers sell consoles at a loss (at first, anyway) because the real money is in software sales. MS never charged me for my Xbox dashboard update, so why would I want to pay for the same thing on my computer?

      Who knows, if Microsoft can't convince people to move on from XP, it very well might end up free. Of course, I would also like to see Windows open-sourced, and that's never gonna happen, so hey. In a perfect world, anyway...

  5. Wonderful... by Brad_McBad · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But I have a feeling it won't last long... OpenSolaris is even more niche that FreeBSD. Once it's obvious the cost of giving people the choice is more than the the extra business it brings in it'll get dropped like a stone.

  6. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  7. Poor Microsoft by CSHARP123 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I feel bad for Microsoft. They are getting hit from multiple quarters. Dell wants to ship Linux with laptops and now toshiba with Open solaris. Apple is expanding their notebook sales. In this economy, people need to protect our flagship company. I think this can solved by govt. by providing a bailout package of $30 billion to MS. Please call your representatives and senators so they can save our Flagship company.

  8. Re:Solaris to beat Linux by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 5, Interesting

    OpenSolaris automatically detected my HP Photosmart printer by name and instantly installed the proper driver while displaying a nice, comfortable, professional-looking message window. That alone should win over skeptical Windoze fanatics.

  9. Actually, I can see why they're doing this by Lord+Crowface · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm typing this from OpenSolaris 2008.11 and I'm actually surprised how "desktop-friendly" Solaris has actually become. The default GNOME-based desktop is gorgeous and works well. Hardware support may not be all that broad, but when hardware is supported it's REALLY supported: even booting off the live CD, my Atheros wireless card, NVidia 3D card and crappy on-mobo sound were "auto-magically" detected and set up. Performance is also quite snappy, even on my aging Athlon XP 3000+ with a measly 1 GB of RAM. In short, OpenSolaris is more than up to the task of working on Toshiba's new laptops.

  10. Re:Hot New Enterprise Dev environment for '09 by Zemplar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I use OpenSolaris for development on my ThinkPad T61 laptop and it's an excellent platform and ideal combination. For one required Windows development app (project dependent), I run XP as a VirtualBox VM and it works better and faster than if XP were installed to bare metal. ZFS is really slick. Turning ZFS compression=on means more laptop hard drive space AND faster performance since the HDDs are relatively slow (even my 320GB 7,200 rpm) and now having to read/write less to disk.

    Sun's new packaging system, IPS, and the new repositories are growing with software selections and software is as easy to manage as Debian's apt-get.

    Anyone here that thinks OpenSolaris will fail obviously hasn't used it. Give it a try and I bet a large portion of you Slashdot Linux zealots will move to OpenSolaris or at least give it the respect it deserves.

  11. Re:Solaris to beat Linux by rbanffy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually, by being licensed under GPLv3, I think OpenSolaris is a morally superior choice.

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  12. Re:Solaris to beat Linux by ThePhilips · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I use HP-UX and Solaris on daily basis: business software of my employer run there.

    You have to try to do something on Unix once to start seeing that Linux is not Unix and start hating Unix.

    Solaris e.g. still doesn't install any capable text editor by default. You end up with original 'vi' which was last update 1996 and still doesn't support arrow keys (actually it's worse: it interprets unknown key sequences literally). But Solaris is paradise compared to underwhelming HP-UX, where you really end up with bare minimum. Infamous messages "line too long" from awk or sed (yeah, they still do not handle strings longer than 1000 characters). Lack or recursive grep, when you have to pipe 'find' to pretty much anything - but what is not always possible.

    Default install of any Linux is quite usable. Default install of both Solaris and HP-UX is miserable torture. (*) For business software, with all its bogosities and hacks, commercial Unix is better: they provide workarounds for literally everything. But deploying (process which takes months) anything on Unix is royal pain. Using Unix daily - is even more so.

    Apparently, Unix degraded to some backbone OS: spend five minutes installing something and then just monitor it remotely. That works and works really well. But if you actually need to do something on them ... forget. It is simpler to rewrite every tool they supply in Perl and be with it. Linux on other side looks like it is actually used - actively - by all kinds of people: it is much more polished and can be used painlessly on daily basis without rewriting anything.

    (*) Most bogosities of Unix can be worked around by compiling e.g. GNU tools or any other functioning analogue. But there is a catch: Unix doesn't come with compiler preinstalled or even if it is installed it is pretty much incapable of compiling anything big (e.g. gcc). That's the way Unix vendors remind you that they also sell separately commercial compilers and you are welcome to buy them.

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