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Sun to run unmodified Linux Binaries
Quite a number of people wrote in to address the latest announcement and news from Sun Microsystems. Using a program they are calling lxrun, Solaris will be able to run "unmodified Linux binaries".
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1. You have a commodity box intel multiprocessor system.
2. You need high performance SMP
3. Better Java x86 support than Linux
4. Oracle more mature on Solaris x86
5. Need log-structured file system
6. Are a fortran or numerical analysis type.
Now, you could say "why not just buy an UltraSparc", but then again, you can buy a multicpu system for as little as $3k.
Linux isn't the answer because:
1) Linux SMP performance still sucks, and it's thread model sucks.
2) Java support still in its infancy
3) Oracle8 is barely out of its diapers on Linux
4) Linux has a shitty default file system (ext2fs) that takes FOREVER to fsck, especially if you have a 72gb RAID, and, its performance sucks.
5) Linux doesn't have a parallelizing compiler that can even come close to Sun's. Go run a dejanews search on linux, solaris, and linpack. You'll see that the performance difference is as much as 1000% on some of the tougher Linpack benchmarks.
Basically: You want to use cheap hardware, but don't want to settle for Linux's bottom-rung compiler, SMP, I/O handling, and filesystem.
Now, if you run Solaris x86 on a single-processor machine than you are a *dummy*
(yes, performance sucks. Solaris is tuned for SMP, not single-cpu)
For referance... This is soo far off topic, I think it would be best served delt with in mail (only posted here to point that out to others before incase they are tempted to continue this conversation).
For all of you who were waiting for "The Application People" (ISV's) to port to Linux, Keep Waiting. MS Word on Linux? Why? Well, if we port to Linux, we get a Solaris, FreeBSD, etc... market automatically also.
Remembering all the "I wish product X was avaliable in Linux" stuff over the last year here on SlashDot, well, it may be comming, and it's things like this that will help, and may be needed before that happens.
I don't honestly know what I think yet, I haven't seen it run yet, and I haven't studied the licence (Mozilla style?) enough yet to comment on it or it's implications... But, I will say, it is likely to cause some more ISV intrest in porting to Linux. (Good, more apps. Bad, more commercial influance, less intrest in Gnome apps, KDE apps, etc... Impact? Unknown).
Those of you familar with the Win32-OS/2 Project (recently renamed to Project Odin), know that it's possible to load and run some Win32 exectuables under OS/2 (most notably Quake II). The next step for Project EverBlue is to create an ELF loader so that OS/2 can load Linux binaries. Then Wine will be ported to OS/2 (via a merge with Odin), and at that point, OS/2 will be able to run ...
1. DOS apps better than any other OS
2. 16-bit Windows apps, better than most other versions of Windows can
3. Most Win32 apps (just like Wine)
4. All OS/2 apps
5. Most, if not all, Linux apps
Combine that with the power of the WorkPlace Shell, and you'll have one kick-ass operating system.
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
I don't think it would be tremendously difficult to port it to NT.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I'm glad I don't have to ask you for cookies :-)
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Yeah yeah BSD has had this for a while, but the exciting part is the big picture. The various UNIXen will likely stay "fragmented", but if other vendors rally around a common binary that's a big step.
Sure, you probably have to statically link all yer friggin libraries (I'm reacting to the headline NOT the announcement text), maybe not. I'm sure there will be drawbacks, but it's one less thing for the NT crowd to point at.
"I may not understand what I'm installing, but that's not my job. I just need to click Next, Next, Finish here so I can walk to the next system and repeat the process" - anonymous NT admin
First, yes: operating systems do seem to be moving towards running each other's stuff. But no, linux is not The Answer, any more than Windows Was The Answer in the 80's. Let me explain...
Linux came about because there was a need for something that Microsoft could not reasonably provide - speed and reliability. Linux is not userfriendly, nor does it have a "standard interface". You can marginalize that if you want, or refute it as FUD, but it's true. Work is being done here, however my point is - operating systems are built to spec - to do a specific task. No program can do everything (witness emacs) and still be efficient. Bug free, yes, but not efficient.
As long as this remains true, there will be a need for more than 1 Unified Operating System.
Why do you think linux got here in the first place?
--
Well, while this is all nice and everything, there's two things worth considering:
/can/ be run, it /will/ run. Case in point: fbset. Solaris doesn't have a frame buffer for it's console.. so this program will likely segfault.
- Most OSS software can be cross-compiled with little/no-effort. Infact, I believe all the GNU tools, and about 2/3rds of the stuff posted to freshmeat can be compiled on a Sun without modification.
- There's no guarantee that just because the binary
In short, it's a great idea, but it's usefulness is rather limited - if you have the source, you can be assured of system-level compatibility. All this offers is the chance to watch your program segfault on a *new* platform.
--
Linux shouldn't be just about beating Microsoft. It should be about freedom of information. If beating Microsoft is your only goal, then you may just as well throw in the towel now. Linux/GNU may beat them someday as a market force, but not if OSS perishes. It's not as if Linux has anything to offer that you can't get in Windows or other OSs. It's advantage is the supporting community and philosophy of sharing. That's it. Don't try to delude us into thinking Linux is meant to succeed just because you happen to support it. Without grounding values, who really cares?
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
I don't see how it would hurt us to have NT have our whole application base. Isn't the whole purpose of OpenSource(TM) to let people use solutions without hassle or reinventing of multiple wheels? I don't think many of the authors of that application base would appreciate a Linux-only (or even Unix-only) mindset towards the application of those solutions.
While NT can be considered somewhat of a lesser operating system (I'm trying to be nice here), it does have a modicum of a POSIX subsystem, so portability is theoretically doable. Although, the real issue is most-likely that NT's POSIX is to POSIX as NT's OpenGL is to OpenGL (IE: not "pure").
Seriously, though. What would be wrong if I could run ncftp under NT (I know there's a native version, but I'm thinking examples here)? I run NT on one machine almost full-time (because I have to develop front-ends for lusers (IE: Win95 weenies) who use the Unix server software that my company pays me to write), and I'd love to be able to run Linux binaries.
To be honest, I think what hurts our application base the most is the elitism that seems to surround GNU/Linux. Were it not for the fact that some people believe see software as solutions that benefit the human race without regard to money or system, we wouldn't even have the GNU system, or many of the works created with it.
Seriously, how many people do you know that wouldn't even know Unix because they wouldn't have gotten there start in Linux, if everyone still saw software as property rather than a solution? I know I'm one of them.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Richard, Linus, Alan, and everyone else who has not thought along the same lines that the previous poster has. Were it not for you guys, I'd probably be flipping burgers and still running OS/2. *shudder*
The following sentence is true.
The previous sentence is false.
Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
This is just FUD. Only modifications to the source
of GCC are covered by its license (in this case the GPL).
The output it produces is unencumbered. However if
you link with libraries covered by the LGPL then
the source to your program remains unencumbered
but people using your program have the right to
the source of the LGPL libraries, usually this is
never a problem since they are all widely available.
Isn't there a legal issue with using gcc?
I understand not all the code you link with is under the LGPL, so you can't sell your binaries without releasing source.
That is certainly why our shop won't use gcc, and shells out for lots of Sun compiler licences so more than one person can compile at a time.
Wonder if anyone has the facts on this, as we may just be being paranoid.
Don't get me wrong -- lxrun is a nice piece of software, and pretty simple in concept. Since Solaris and Linux both use the ELF executable format, each can _attempt_ to execute the binaries for the other. Unfortunately, other incompatibilities soon scuttle that.
:~(
Lxrun is basically a wrapper for executing Linux binaries. What lxrun does, first of all, is set up the search paths for loading the dynamic libraries that a Linux binary needs instead of trying to use the Solaris libraries.
However, even with the native libraries, Linux and Solaris have different sets of syscalls. The other part of lxrun's job is to intercept those syscalls and translate them to something that supposedly does the same thing in Solaris. There are still quite a few that are missing, but it seems enough of them work to get all those programs Sun has demonstrated running.
I find it interesting that they had Quake 2 running because when I tried it, the path names that it searched for its files were all wrong. The same with Quake 3 test (and now it bombs out completely because it searches for stuff in a directory with the CTRL-A character for a name!) It's possible that because I'm using Solaris 2.6 things are different then in Solaris 7, and that causes the errors.
Finally, there is at least one isssue with the OS itself (at least version 2.6) that causes problems. It seems Solaris can't access memory addresses that PCI cards get mapped to (stuff like 0xf7000000) for whatever reason. Therefore, you wouldn't be able to use VESA framebuffers or the Voodoo driver
Of course, you need all the Linux libraries required for the programs yoou want to run. And given the GPL, you need to make source available for them too. What I want to know is if Sun is going to distribute the libraries with the OS, or as a separate package.
lxrun on Solaris does seem like it's been developed for Solaris 7 anyway, though. So some of these problems may be figments of my old OS.
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I worked at Sun for a while in the resolution center (read: internal helpdesk.) They have x86 widely deployed for laptop users - which tend to be sales types, who would really not be able to handle 'compiling' software. (That was the kind of thing they'd ask us to do for them.) So, that's one more type of user that might be on x86.
You can also get Solaris x86 for free, if it's not for commercial use. This isn't very widely publicized, and it's not open source, and there's really not much software available that you don't have to compile yourself. Now, that changes somewhat.
I see this as very useful for someone who, for some reason or another, is tied into Solaris (be it tradition, I Work For Sun, or a key internal application) being able to actually get useful software without having to work very hard.
And geeks may forget this, but to the average person, a compile is harder than they are willing to attempt, and if it doesn't work out of the box, they have no way to get it to work ever. And we all know how often we need to make minor tweaks to compile software.
What does this mean for Linux? Well, hopefully it's a step towards wider industry acceptance. Sun is realizing that Linux has a broader application base than Solaris in many respects, and wants in on that. It would be fantastic if we could move towards more binary compatibility across Unix flavors, and if Linux is the standard, great! I may be capable of compiling software, but I'd still rather download it and expect it to work. (One definite _good_ feature of the windows experience. We want to copy everything they do right, rather than be different just to be contrary.)
-- Kate
Umm... you didn't look at Sun's site too carefully then... one click away from the lxrun page was this article on what was done, and in it, there's info on a read-only ext2fs driver for Solaris x86.
Take a look at this article... BSDI is doing the exact same thing with their operating system. But OS emulation on the UNIX side isn't anything new. BSDI also has SCO binary compatability, for example.
As it only runs on a very select list of hardware.
:)
And last time I checked, a single user Solaris x86 licence cost about NZ$1,150 for the desktop and NZ$1,800 for the server.
About the only reason I can see for using it, is if you already have lots of SPARC servers and want a homogeneous operating environment for your support staff, and can't afford Ultra 5's.
I guess this means those people can use Netscape and Applixware
FreeBSD has had that for ages and in the form of a kernel module, so you don't _have_ to run it under a special command. That's real binary compatibility.