Recent technology moves toward virtualization have led some industry insiders to question Sun’s commitment to letting users run Linux applications under Solaris. However, executives say the company isn’t backing off its home-grown efforts.
Recent technology moves toward virtualization have led some industry insiders to question Sun’s commitment to letting users run Linux applications under Solaris. However, executives say the company isn’t backing off its home-grown efforts.
Well….
As long as i am getting linux-apps for solaris…
There are a lot of apps, for linux, and they would be GREAT to run on Solaris
opensolaris is sweet… love being able to mix and match. Wonder why Sun didn’t do this years ago. I’m back to being interested in what they have to say.
me one application that linux runs but Solaris can’t already. All open source software could be compiled under Solaris. That only leaves commercial software most of which are available for Solaris.
This is all so fine. But I hope other features (like ZFS) are on a higher priority.
BTW, does anyone know the expected release date for Niagara based workstations?
How many actual *Linux* apps are there?
As in programs that run exclusively on Linux for whatever reason.
I personally have not tried OpenSolaris. I have tried Solaris, but I found CDE very ugly and difficult to work in.
I am thinking about giving Open Solaris a try now though, especially if they are allowing Linux apps to run.
This is an interesting time for the computer world 😀
–Jed
What point would I, as a user, have in wanting apps that only run under one operating system? GNU/Linux is all about software made by the users. While this began with tools that only a developer could love, it also means that things are done in a manner that maximizes the users’ interests. Hence, Linux apps are designed to be portable, and are compiled with the world’s most portable compiler. Open standards also facilitate portability.
“How many actual *Linux* apps are there?
As in programs that run exclusively on Linux for whatever reason.”
Well its not really a far comparsion but:
Gnome-Volume-Manager
KDE’s media:/ KIO
NetworkManager
PowerManager
…
are Linux only functionality but only because of HAL.
Some “linux-only” apps at the moment: Websphere, DB2, and acroread. These are all available on SPARC Solaris, but not x86 Solaris. Some people also have old home-grown apps that they no longer have the source for.
Eventually we hope all these apps will be available natively on x86 Solaris, but this will give end users a way to use their old apps until the ISVs come around.
> OpenSolaris does not exist. They can’t even make an iso file…
Neither does Linus ;-p
Schillix, the first OpenSolaris distribution has ISOs *of their distribution*:
http://schillix.berlios.de/index.php?id=downloads
Some “linux-only” apps at the moment: Websphere, DB2, and acroread. These are all available on SPARC Solaris, but not x86 Solaris. Some people also have old home-grown apps that they no longer have the source for.
Eventually we hope all these apps will be available natively on x86 Solaris, but this will give end users a way to use their old apps until the ISVs come around.
For those companies, why doesn’t Scott get on his skates, and zoom off to Adobe, find out the cost of porting Acrobat to Solaris x86, and simply cut them a cheque? I mean, geeze, you guys have $4billion the bank, why not use the money to pay for the porting of software over to Solaris x86?
@Kaiwai
For those companies, why doesn’t Scott get on his skates, and zoom off to Adobe, find out the cost of porting Acrobat to Solaris x86, and simply cut them a cheque? I mean, geeze, you guys have $4billion the bank, why not use the money to pay for the porting of software over to Solaris x86.
Because it isn’t that simple. In fact, many speculate that Adobe already has it running on Solaris x86 internally since Solaris SPARC and Solaris x86 platforms are source compatible, and obviously Acrobat Reader runs on x86 platforms. Apparently, what it comes down to is whether or not Adobe sees any money in the Solaris x86 market. If their customers start demanding it, they’ll consider it seriously, but until then, it’s just a bunch of people “it’d sure be nice if…”.
I wish I could get a native ICAClient working on Solaris x86. Citrix’s ICAClient on Solaris x86 is too old to be useable. After talking to Citrix, they do not think that Solarix x86 has any market potential. I posted on comp.unix.solaris a long time ago with no results
I wish I could run the linux kernel on Solaris. Then I could kill the solaris kernel, and just run linux instead.
I mean really, why deal with a “oh, well, we’ll sorta open it, so long as you only help us and nobody else” sort of license?
Sun is just about as evil as Microsoft. They will do anything they can to hurt true open source (complete freeware, gpl, etc). Running “linux apps” is just one way they are trying to steal the thunder of all the work Linux developers have done.
Because it isn’t that simple. In fact, many speculate that Adobe already has it running on Solaris x86 internally since Solaris SPARC and Solaris x86 platforms are source compatible, and obviously Acrobat Reader runs on x86 platforms. Apparently, what it comes down to is whether or not Adobe sees any money in the Solaris x86 market. If their customers start demanding it, they’ll consider it seriously, but until then, it’s just a bunch of people “it’d sure be nice if…”.
If they have the two running, why doesn’t SUN then ask to take over maintenance and development of Adobe Acrobat on the Solaris platform? it would be a win for SUN and a win for Adobe, neither company would lose out.
Oh, and why would they simply have a version compiled but not available? it sounds so stupid, it can’t be true. Why have a working product if there is no long term view to releasing it; if they had it working, they would have released it already.
By Adobe not releasing it, they’re saying they don’t have a version available; and thus, three things SUN could do; either pay them, take on the maintenance themselves, or work with the OSS community to improve and existing opensource PDF reader.
Oh, and why would they simply have a version compiled but not available? it sounds so stupid, it can’t be true. Why have a working product if there is no long term view to releasing it; if they had it working, they would have released it already.
By Adobe not releasing it, they’re saying they don’t have a version available; and thus, three things SUN could do; either pay them, take on the maintenance themselves, or work with the OSS community to improve and existing opensource PDF reader.
Oh, and why do they simply have a version compiled but not available? It sounds so stupid it can’t be true. Why have a working product if they are not planning on releasing it? If they had it working, they would have released it already.
By Apple not releasing OS X on x86, they’re saying they don’t have a version available.If they really did, it would be on shelves right now.
Companies always keep stuff on the back burner.
That comparison isn’t even valid; the didn’t announce a version for x86 because it would bankrupt them; how would releasing a version for x86 Solaris bankrupt them?
Please, if you’re going to do a comparison, make sure the thing is actually *VALID* to the argument.
Not releasing an x86 version of MacOS X = strategic to protect their PowerPC based Mac sales
Not releasing an x86 version of Acrobat = doesn’t make any bloody sense.
What, I haven’t read the license but i think you can “help yourself” or someone else?
And btw the GPL is “sure do whatever you want, but also give your work back to us”…
If they have the two running, why doesn’t SUN then ask to take over maintenance and development of Adobe Acrobat on the Solaris platform? it would be a win for SUN and a win for Adobe, neither company would lose out.
This was covered too. Anytime someone sees Adobe on a product, they’re going to associate anything that product does with Adobe, regardless of whether or not the readme or dialogs say “completely unsupported”, or “supported by X company”. To geeks like us it doesn’t make any sense, but from a business perspective it’s sound.
1. Not all Linux software runs on Solaris.
2. Not all OpenSource software can be recompiled to run on Solaris.
3. Not all Linux software is even OpenSource.
4. SchilliX is not completely binary compatible with Solaris, it cannot run all Solaris binaries, so what does SchilliX have to do with Solaris running Linux binaries if it cannot even run all Solaris binaries?
Amazing discussion…
BTW: Sun would never waste money for such a thing if there were no demand.
I think the point here has been totally bypassed.
Janus is a Linux API on Solaris (As far as I can tell) whereas Xen is a VM. Sure it is possible to reach the same outcome with both technologies but methinks that the Janus approach will be far less demanding on resources for running Linux applications on Solaris.
Of course there are always your open source apps such as PostgreSQL which, evidently can be compiled on just about any Unix/Linux based OS. I think however that Janus is targeted more at proprietary close sourced applications which would otherwise not be made available under Solaris, IBM’s websphere being a good example of this at present.
Am I wrong to assume this is the case?
“1. Not all Linux software runs on Solaris.”
True, Not all Solaris software runs on Linux either. Anything worthwile on Linux can be run on Solaris.
“2. Not all OpenSource software can be recompiled to run on Solaris. ”
True, but all well written opensource software can be recompiled to run on Solars. (read: Don’t trust those that can’t)
This was covered too. Anytime someone sees Adobe on a product, they’re going to associate anything that product does with Adobe, regardless of whether or not the readme or dialogs say “completely unsupported”, or “supported by X company”. To geeks like us it doesn’t make any sense, but from a business perspective it’s sound.
You claimed previously that Adobe Acrobat x86 would most like use the same code base as the SPARC version, if that is the case, how on earth would that be a major cost problem if the two are being maintained at the same time?
Also, relating to their support policy, going my the experience so far, waiting for the Mac update for Acrobat 7 for Mac, they can’t seem to be doing much worse than they’re doing now.
Also, you failed to address the other two possible solutions; why doesn’t SUN take on maintainence of it? assign two programmers to it, and tell them to maintain it, and bug fix it.