I'm not keen to work for Sony (even if they had openings in the areas I'm interested in) because their actions over the last few years have ranged from downright boneheaded to freakin' evil.
Solaris and OpenSolaris were never meant to be "linux killers" - that's something people who don't understand enterprises fail to realise. Enterprises don't want single-source IT suppliers, they want multiple sources. That's *exactly* why the mob I'm working for right now has HPUX and Solaris and MS-Windows.
And anyway, there's much more to be gained for all of us if linux and (Open)Solaris use each other as sources of inspiration. Ever heard the term "co-opetition" ? That's what the industry needs. Monopolies are almost always bad for customers, and Sun fully realises that.
I, too, attended UQ and was one of the founding Humbug members. The reason for the beauracracy involved is purely due to the UQ Student Union's governance requirements. Part of the quid pro quo for being able to have official meeting within the Uni and student involvement.
It's not really that big a deal.
There's a lot of traffic on the #humbug channel, still, and AJ remains a fun-loving codergeek. He also seems to have his head screwed on properly which is not something I'd say about many other debian organisational types.
Yes, grub is a gnu project. That doesn't stop Sun from using it. Especially when it is clearly the best solution for booting x86/x64-based machines.
After the bastardry which was required in order to get the previous x86/x64-bootloader to work, and the complete annoyance which was the Device Configuration Assistant, grub is like manna from heaven.
Don't expect to see Solaris on your laptop anytime soon and don't expect support for the latest video cards
Mate, which rock have you been hiding under?
I run Solaris Express on my noname-brand laptop amd64 with ati radeon 9600) without any problems at all. I've run Solaris 9 and Solaris Express on my athlon laptop since 2003. Perhaps you should check out the info at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl to get up to date.
And printer drivers -- use CUPS like you do on linux, or grab Solaris Express and use the printer config control panel. Comes with a whole stack of PPDs for all the popular printers out there.
when will you start paying attention? Java brings in a massive amount of money for Sun, just not necessarily directly from "I want to buy Java".
Sun's core business is selling your employer a system -- whether that is solaris+sparc or solaris+x86 or linux+x86 or the SunONE stack or something else does not matter. What matters is the answer to the question "How do I get this job done?"
Why is is appropriate to think that solaris should run on a mobile phone or on a media centre or in your car?
JavaME is there instead and it is much more appropriate.
Use the right tool for the job, you won't go wrong.
btw, I run Solaris Express on my aging laptop. It runs just fine thanks -- for me, it is the right tool for the job.
And for all these claims that Sun "doesn't get it" -- wtf are you talking about? That the only goodness in the software world springs forth from the GPL? crawl back under your rock.
Yawn -- yet another person who clearly cannot understand the concept of "this is the future" therefore it has not happened yet. And that, dear reader, means that you cannot make any comment without looking like a complete slashdotter^W idiot.
If you had half a clue and remembered even half of what the Sun engineers who designed and built DTrace blogged about, then you would recall that there are more than 40000 probe points available, and they're also dynamic and are / will be there for user-space processes as well.
What do you mean by "proven" ?? There are thousands of Sun customers around the world who run their businesses on solaris/x86. If you bothered to do some research before posting you'd know this.
Then again, this is slashdot, so "research" when it comes to Sun seems to equal "check what people on slashdot say about Sun and quote it if it's bad."
Of course it's not the slashdot community's version of free. Sun is a business, with shareholders and paying customers. Sun has to act in a manner which protects and enhances their product line. GPL quite clearly (read a blog sometime!) not going to do that, so something more appropriate is required.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not keen to work for Sony (even if they had openings in the areas I'm interested in) because their actions over the last few years have ranged from downright boneheaded to freakin' evil.
Solaris and OpenSolaris were never meant to be "linux killers" - that's something people who don't understand enterprises fail to realise. Enterprises don't want single-source IT suppliers, they want multiple sources. That's *exactly* why the mob I'm working for right now has HPUX and Solaris and MS-Windows.
And anyway, there's much more to be gained for all of us if linux and (Open)Solaris use each other as sources of inspiration. Ever heard the term "co-opetition" ? That's what the industry needs. Monopolies are almost always bad for customers, and Sun fully realises that.
I, too, attended UQ and was one of the founding Humbug members. The reason for the beauracracy involved is purely due to the UQ Student Union's governance requirements. Part of the quid pro quo for being able to have official meeting within the Uni and student involvement.
It's not really that big a deal.
There's a lot of traffic on the #humbug channel, still, and AJ remains a fun-loving codergeek. He also seems to have his head screwed on properly which is not something I'd say about many other debian organisational types.
No it is not, and no it will not be supported.
Check out the discussion forum at PowerPC port of OpenSolaris. Cyril Plisko is a name to watch for.
Yes, grub is a gnu project. That doesn't stop Sun from using it. Especially when it is clearly the best solution for booting x86/x64-based machines.
After the bastardry which was required in order to get the previous x86/x64-bootloader to work, and the complete annoyance which was the Device Configuration Assistant, grub is like manna from heaven.
Mate, which rock have you been hiding under?
I run Solaris Express on my noname-brand laptop amd64 with ati radeon 9600) without any problems at all. I've run Solaris 9 and Solaris Express on my athlon laptop since 2003. Perhaps you should check out the info at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl to get up to date.
Re grub: it's apparently being worked on.
Re your sound card -- have you bothered to look?
And printer drivers -- use CUPS like you do on
linux, or grab Solaris Express and use the printer
config control panel. Comes with a whole stack of
PPDs for all the popular printers out there.
Yawn - yet another person who chooses not to
read before posting.
http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl
And just because something is not listed
does not necessarily mean that it doesn't work.
Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence.
Java isn't a core business for Sun
when will you start paying attention? Java brings
in a massive amount of money for Sun, just not
necessarily directly from "I want to buy Java".
Sun's core business is selling your employer a
system -- whether that is solaris+sparc or
solaris+x86 or linux+x86 or the SunONE stack or
something else does not matter. What matters is
the answer to the question "How do I get this job
done?"
Why is is appropriate to think that solaris should run on a mobile phone or on
a media centre or in your car?
JavaME is there instead and it is much more
appropriate.
Use the right tool for the job, you won't go
wrong.
btw, I run Solaris Express on my aging
laptop. It runs just fine thanks -- for me, it
is the right tool for the job.
And for all these claims that Sun "doesn't get
it" -- wtf are you talking about? That the only
goodness in the software world springs forth
from the GPL? crawl back under your rock.
Yawn -- yet another person who clearly cannot
understand the concept of "this is the future"
therefore it has not happened yet. And
that, dear reader, means that you cannot make
any comment without looking like a complete
slashdotter^W idiot.
If you had half a clue and remembered even half
/usr/sfw is there, why not use it?
of what the Sun engineers who designed and built
DTrace blogged about, then you would recall that
there are more than 40000 probe points available,
and they're also dynamic and are / will be there
for user-space processes as well.
DTrace will not be a "simple port" !
re gnu utils:
So the million-or so downloads of Solaris/x86
last financial year don't count in your book?
Clearly your book only allows one sort of numbers.
If you bothered to read the announcements from Sun,
then you would know that
1. OpenSolaris has not yet been released
2. OpenSolaris will have an OSI-approved license.
both of these are statements which indicate a
future tense.
You cannot make a judgement about the license yet
because it has not been finalised.
You cannot make a judgement about the code yet
because it has not been released.
Would Sun have come up with things like DTrace and ZFS without being goaded by Linux?
The answer to that, if you read the blog entries of
the guys-n-gals who invented them, is a resounding yes.
Sun's innovation is not necessarily the result of
competition with linux.
It's an incredibly egotistical view of the world
for linux users to presume otherwise.
If you're Sun: Yes
obviously you have no desire to actually
(1) listen to what Sun says,
(2) read what Sun puts out,
(3) think for yourself.
Sure, Sun sees linux as a threat, but it worth
a whole lot more to Sun to have linux as a
competitor than for there to be no linux at all.
I'd ask that you think about it, but you clearly
do not want to open your mind to other possibilities.
Tell that to the device-driver writer who
wants their driver to work on the latest
linux kernel.
nVidia anybody?
kernel interface stability really, really counts in the real world.
Solaris's crappy utilities
Obviously written by somebody who prefers gnu
over Single Unix Specification and POSIX standards
which companies pay money for compliance with.
64-bit development will flood the market and AMD64 and Ultrasparc cpus will start flooding the market.
Where have you been for the past 5 years?
thousands of Sun customers around the world
who run their businesses on solaris/x86. If
you bothered to do some research before posting
you'd know this.
Then again, this is slashdot, so "research"
when it comes to Sun seems to equal "check
what people on slashdot say about Sun and
quote it if it's bad."
You're just going to have to wait until the official
version of Solaris 10 is available for download.
There won't be any "official" benchmarks available
until it's released for real (what I believe is
known as General Availability or GA).
And I really don't think there's going to be any
sense in wanting to see ZFS up against XFS and
Reiser4 because ZFS isn't available on linux.
Depends on how much work you and Theo want to
put into it.
If you have the source, what's stopping you?
Yes, actually, you can. If IBM can do it
(cloudscape?) just a few weeks ago, why
don't you believe Sun can as well?
Everyone (on slashdot) thinks they
know why Sun is opensourcing Solaris. Nobody
outside of Sun actually knows. There
is a difference.
Of course it's not the slashdot community's
version of free. Sun is a business, with
shareholders and paying customers. Sun has
to act in a manner which protects and enhances
their product line. GPL quite clearly (read a
blog sometime!) not going to do that, so something
more appropriate is required.