I think you're missing the point of the article. Non technical users who have heard about Linux and would like to try it out in an easy fashion are harly likely to purchase Virtual PC and burn CDs from multiplt distros.
>Solaris 9 did not have a journaled file system. >Often, my hard drive got fsck'ed up by power >outtage and I had to spend hours of research to >fix the issue. I don't know about solaris 10.
Solaris from 8 onwards has had a journaliing filesystem. Just add 'logging' to/etc/vfstab. Why didn't you get a UPS? Why did you have to spend hours of research the second time it happened? Didn't you remember what to do, or write it down somewhere?
>Default shell sucks big time compared to bash >that has the super cool readline and other >features. Bash can be installed, but it does not >come by default.
Yawn, Bash has been part of the default install for ages. Just change to Bash if that's what you want.
>Does not have a compiler available by default >(you have to pay to use cc). You have to download >and install gcc. Gcc also comes in the extra cds
So install it. What's the problem?
>CDE plain an simply sucks. Both KDE and Gnome are >light years ahead of it.
So use KDE or Gnome, which have been available for Solaris for ages.
>Try to configure a modem for ppp (I did it). It >is like trying to teach calculus to a chimpanzee.
Hardly. Read the docs and get it working.
>Anything related to hardware means editing ton of >text files and it seems to be designed to be as >complicated as posible. Gentoo installation >procedure is kids play compared to the modem >thing. Sound cards, video cards, printers, they >are all as hard as it gets (if they even work).
Ah, so you want to use Solaris as a desktop OS. Fair enough, it's not been easy. It's better with 10, but that's never been Solaris' focus, so I thing you're whingeing a bit too much, frankly.
Different machines. A V880 (UIII) or a V890(UIV) would be priced similarly to the 570C.
The principle difference is the 4800's ability to do hardware domains.
The stuff about the pSeries running Linux always raises the question 'so what'? What apps are availablle on Linxu for the pSeries that justify buying a pSeries? If it's OSS stuff, you'd run it on x86/Opteron.
Why is everyone insisting Sun is 'partnering' with MS? They settled a lawsuit, which meant Sun being paid 2 billion. As part of the settlement, they agreed to co-operate on things that customers are asking for - such as Active Directory integration with Sun's LDAP server. You make it sound like Bill Gates promised a Sparc version of Windows.
Can anyone explain why someone might choose Solaris over Linux, other than for the fact that it's vastly more scalable, better supported, better documented and has a huge number of commercial, fully supported applications available, as well as being able to run all the OSS stuff out there, as well as having a massive install base and a tonne of experienced systems admininstrators with a multi-billion dollar company's bacing, a company who also support the hardware it runs on and as well as having a tonne of features not fully or decently implemented in Linux?
There's no room for yet another distro - customers don't want it and ISVs don't want to certify against anything beyond Red Hat and Suse.
When Sun launched their Intel based server, the LX50, it came with 'Sun Linux', which was basically Red Hat 7.3. The plan was to make it a bonafide distribution, supported, developed, etc.
Customers weren't interested. They either had a distro they were used to and preferred, or they had apps that needed to run on a certain distro for them to be supported - think Oracle. There was simply no demand for it.
The desktop is different - there's a great market out there for a polished, supported business desktop based on Linux. Sun's Java Desktop System is aimed at that market.
Just out of interest, why didn't you consider using a low cost box like a V240 or V440? A quad V440 can be less than 20K.
I agree though that it will be nice to see Sun Ray available for Linux. It'll make the entry costs lower, particularly if all you're using the Sun Ray server for is to manage the Sun Ray network and displays, with all apps being run on Windows app servers, a fairly typical deployment for most businesses.
For users who are happy with a Solaris/Linux desktop it's also good news. You can make Solaris look nice with a lot of fiddling, but a Linux desktop will just look nice 'out of the box', which is a great deal easier to support.
None of those companies makes money selling CDs with Linux on them. They make money out of selling the support for it and/or hardware for it to run on, as well as commercial applications that run on top of it. If measured on a pure profit and loss basis, for example, the divisions responsible for managing free downloads would have been canned long ago.
When you buy a Sun box, for example, there's no licence charge for Solaris per se - it's the surrounding products that generate revenue.
But web developers' code of value is mostly in the backend and therefore not accessible. Sure, anyone can rip off someone's look and feel, but noone can simply cut and paste a few pages off Amazon and create their own sophisticated web based store.
"So, for software, it simply wouldn't make sense for a company to create a package and sell it, at least, not in the ways they do now (note counterexample of Linux distros). Rather, people would solicite their need for service. They would see that the kernel needs better foobar support, and offer to pay for this. The software does not exist before it is paid for. There is no need to market a product, because there isn't any. There is only a service."
Bear in mind that most customers will turn around and say 'I want a system that does whatever I want, instantly and costs me little or nothing'. Software companies know what business issues their customers face, so they create a product or solution that fulfils a business need making use of the technology available at any point in time.
Certain niche examples aside, that means improving an existing product or creating a new one, which has to sell in reasonable volume to allow it to be supported and improved in future.
On a serious note, I can't think of any app other than Oracle that's of any use beyond the OSS stuff.
I think it's funny how Sun is either far too expensive and we're being told to run everything on a few old 486s from the back of the office cupboard, or that Linux on a mainframe is the way to go.
Slashdot Mirror
Well said, because we all know Sun doesn't actively sell and promote a version of its own OS for x86 and x64 and doesn't sell Opteron kit.
Why do you assume the bomber's a 'she'?
I think you're missing the point of the article. Non technical users who have heard about Linux and would like to try it out in an easy fashion are harly likely to purchase Virtual PC and burn CDs from multiplt distros.
Sorry to be a pedant, but I had to say it.
And while you were working on it, you could listen to all the moaners at Slashdot telling you to open source it as it would be a good idea.
>Solaris 9 did not have a journaled file system. >Often, my hard drive got fsck'ed up by power >outtage and I had to spend hours of research to >fix the issue. I don't know about solaris 10.
/etc/vfstab. Why didn't you get a UPS? Why did you have to spend hours of research the second time it happened? Didn't you remember what to do, or write it down somewhere?
Solaris from 8 onwards has had a journaliing filesystem. Just add 'logging' to
>Default shell sucks big time compared to bash >that has the super cool readline and other >features. Bash can be installed, but it does not >come by default.
Yawn, Bash has been part of the default install for ages. Just change to Bash if that's what you want.
>Does not have a compiler available by default >(you have to pay to use cc). You have to download >and install gcc. Gcc also comes in the extra cds
So install it. What's the problem?
>CDE plain an simply sucks. Both KDE and Gnome are >light years ahead of it.
So use KDE or Gnome, which have been available for Solaris for ages.
>Try to configure a modem for ppp (I did it). It >is like trying to teach calculus to a chimpanzee.
Hardly. Read the docs and get it working.
>Anything related to hardware means editing ton of >text files and it seems to be designed to be as >complicated as posible. Gentoo installation >procedure is kids play compared to the modem >thing. Sound cards, video cards, printers, they >are all as hard as it gets (if they even work).
Ah, so you want to use Solaris as a desktop OS. Fair enough, it's not been easy. It's better with 10, but that's never been Solaris' focus, so I thing you're whingeing a bit too much, frankly.
Apache's been included since Solaris 8.
If you want to maintain the packages easily, you can use the open source pkg-get tool for Solaris.
Different machines. A V880 (UIII) or a V890(UIV) would be priced similarly to the 570C.
The principle difference is the 4800's ability to do hardware domains.
The stuff about the pSeries running Linux always raises the question 'so what'? What apps are availablle on Linxu for the pSeries that justify buying a pSeries? If it's OSS stuff, you'd run it on x86/Opteron.
Why is everyone insisting Sun is 'partnering' with MS? They settled a lawsuit, which meant Sun being paid 2 billion. As part of the settlement, they agreed to co-operate on things that customers are asking for - such as Active Directory integration with Sun's LDAP server. You make it sound like Bill Gates promised a Sparc version of Windows.
No he can't, because it's an off the cuff, glib remark that goes down well because someone thinks someone else is anti-Linux.
Not quite.
Sun=Solaris/Sparc for systems where your app is on Solaris/Sparc and/or you need to scale to many CPUs within one system.
Sun=Solaris/AMD or Linux/AMD or whatever you want to put on it for their AMD systems.
Regarding Itanium, they'd have economies of scale if anyone were actually buying the things. They aren't.
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/trackback/eschrock/Web log/analysts_on_opensolaris
This guy's blog puts things nicely in perspective. Some excellent points.
Can anyone explain why someone might choose Solaris over Linux, other than for the fact that it's vastly more scalable, better supported, better documented and has a huge number of commercial, fully supported applications available, as well as being able to run all the OSS stuff out there, as well as having a massive install base and a tonne of experienced systems admininstrators with a multi-billion dollar company's bacing, a company who also support the hardware it runs on and as well as having a tonne of features not fully or decently implemented in Linux?
Why not start pushing a Sun Linux distro instead?
There's no room for yet another distro - customers don't want it and ISVs don't want to certify against anything beyond Red Hat and Suse.
When Sun launched their Intel based server, the LX50, it came with 'Sun Linux', which was basically Red Hat 7.3. The plan was to make it a bonafide distribution, supported, developed, etc.
Customers weren't interested. They either had a distro they were used to and preferred, or they had apps that needed to run on a certain distro for them to be supported - think Oracle. There was simply no demand for it.
The desktop is different - there's a great market out there for a polished, supported business desktop based on Linux. Sun's Java Desktop System is aimed at that market.
Just out of interest, why didn't you consider using a low cost box like a V240 or V440? A quad V440 can be less than 20K.
I agree though that it will be nice to see Sun Ray available for Linux. It'll make the entry costs lower, particularly if all you're using the Sun Ray server for is to manage the Sun Ray network and displays, with all apps being run on Windows app servers, a fairly typical deployment for most businesses.
For users who are happy with a Solaris/Linux desktop it's also good news. You can make Solaris look nice with a lot of fiddling, but a Linux desktop will just look nice 'out of the box', which is a great deal easier to support.
Which is why you deploy an infrastructure which can roll back errors that have been made.
I agree. And if some x86 workstations are needed, the new AMD boxes are out. They look excellent.
It's not just Apple and Sun that are doing cool file system stuff.
. as p
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1604449,00
Calculating things very quickly maybe? Just a thought. 500TB? I've never seen the need for more than 640k.
Or perhaps the Scottish Arts Council could expect a return on their investment?
None of those companies makes money selling CDs with Linux on them. They make money out of selling the support for it and/or hardware for it to run on, as well as commercial applications that run on top of it. If measured on a pure profit and loss basis, for example, the divisions responsible for managing free downloads would have been canned long ago.
When you buy a Sun box, for example, there's no licence charge for Solaris per se - it's the surrounding products that generate revenue.
But web developers' code of value is mostly in the backend and therefore not accessible. Sure, anyone can rip off someone's look and feel, but noone can simply cut and paste a few pages off Amazon and create their own sophisticated web based store.
"So, for software, it simply wouldn't make sense for a company to create a package and sell it, at least, not in the ways they do now (note counterexample of Linux distros). Rather, people would solicite their need for service. They would see that the kernel needs better foobar support, and offer to pay for this. The software does not exist before it is paid for. There is no need to market a product, because there isn't any. There is only a service."
Bear in mind that most customers will turn around and say 'I want a system that does whatever I want, instantly and costs me little or nothing'. Software companies know what business issues their customers face, so they create a product or solution that fulfils a business need making use of the technology available at any point in time.
Certain niche examples aside, that means improving an existing product or creating a new one, which has to sell in reasonable volume to allow it to be supported and improved in future.
99% of customers have a support contract, upgrades are included in that.
You mean the OpenBSD developers who refused to sign an NDA which the Linux guys were happy to sign?
Sparc is an open standard - http://www.sparc.org
On a serious note, I can't think of any app other than Oracle that's of any use beyond the OSS stuff.
I think it's funny how Sun is either far too expensive and we're being told to run everything on a few old 486s from the back of the office cupboard, or that Linux on a mainframe is the way to go.