With a (relatively) big advertising campaign SUN promoted Solaris 10 (also known as SunOS 5.10). Referring to SUN, with the “revolutionary” JAVADesktop 2 and a lot of new features and improvements, Solaris 10 should be the best OS today. Solaris is free for SPARC owners and for private use or evaluation purpose it’s also freely available on the x86. While Solaris actually is kind of a legend, I thought “Hu, this could be an interesting alternative on my PC”. Thought, went on and downloaded the ISOs. Read on to see how an average user (me) have experienced Solaris.The Download
To get Solaris 10 you have to register for free. The download itself requires around 2 GB of data, distributed on 4 CD ISOs or one single DVD image. Cause I have no DVD burner, I used the CDs. The download took hours and hours cause the bandwidth of the SUN mirror wasn’t that good. During those hours I followed SUN’s advise and I read through the manuals. SUN offers most of the Solaris Manuals also for free download. I started with the “Before you install” Book (around 50 pages in the German version). It was quite comprehensive but also required some computing skills to understand it. It’s aimed at administrators who install SUN Workstations in their company. This book also advised me to check my Hardwarecompatibility with the HCL (Hardware Compatibility List). Browsing through large companies webspace can be very confusing and so I was happy to had time for that.
The HCL app is a nice idea done bad. You install the software, it checks the Solaris Compatibility and returns the result to SUN. Then you can see if it’s a good idea to install Solaris or not. Unfortunately HCL runs only on Solaris…
After I found the HCL (this time the HTLM list) I had a quick look and everything should work fine, except my 3COM WLAN Card, cause Solaris doesn’t know anything about WLAN. Hours passed and finally the 4 ISOs were burned on CD. The following hardware was used: DELL Dimension 8200, Intel i850 based RAMBUS System, Pentium 4A 2,0 GHz “Northwood”, 512 MB of RAMBUS Memory, dedicated 40 GB harddisk for Solaris, simple GeForce 3 Ti200 graphicscard, 3COM 10/100BaseT Ethernetcard, 3COM 11 Mbps WLAN Card and an old Realtek 10BaseT Ethernetcard. SUN recommends a 1 GHz Pentium or better, so my box would be fast enough.
The Installation
Installing Solaris with the graphical installer requires 384 MB of RAM. You may use the text based installer, which requires only 128 MB of RAM. You need around 4 GB on your harddisk to install a basic Solaris Environment. I went on an started from the first CD and the system starts up. Minutes later – the system was still starting up but had already detected my GeForce 3 graphicscard and decided to use the XFree86 NV X-Server. To avoid erasing any data from my PC I build in an additional harddisk and simply told Solaris to use that entire disk. The partitioning tool didn’t looked that friendly. After the system had startet, it asked some trivial questions about VGA Card and Mouse and so on to set up the installer. It took some restarts until the graphical installer worked, it seems that my mouse was the problem. After half an hour the installation finally started.
Like everything in Solaris this took a lot of time, more than 90 minutes to be honest. The menus were all localized into German language, but with a terrible academic speech. Simple notes like a typical “Take the CD out of the CD-ROM to make sure your computer will start from harddisk”-Dialog were wrapped into big texts with multiple choice answers. It’s hard to understand this installer sometimes. SUN is even able to beat that nonsense with alertboxes telling you, that the system will rest for 90 seconds now. 90 seconds for what? It just takes a break. Maybe SUN wants to give the administrator the opportunity to refill Mr Coffee during this entertaining installation. Well, this is maybe not the worst installation I’ve ever seen but at least the most stupid one.
A Myth disenchanted
After the hype SUN made about Solaris 10 (best OS and so on) I expected something “great”. But, after the long installation and another long take to boot the whole thing, I was sadly disappointed. 6 six years ago, during higher education, we used some PC Terminals with a good old SPARC to do some UNIX C coding under SunOS CDE. And even back then, the system had been in use for years. Well, Solaris 10 looks exactly the same. It behaves exactly the same. It features the same calculator and the same clock app. This old CDE is truly outdated even by many simple window managers for Linux. It shows exactly what Solaris is made for: Providing a Terminalwindow within an X11 Environment. Like we used vi at school at the end of the Nineties in a Terminalwindow, this Solaris 10 is made for the same purpose.
Where have all my bytes gone?
It is hard to understand why more than 4 GB are occupied on the harddisk. The system doesn’t even have any compiler installed. So I gave it another shot and I tried the SUN JAVADesktop 2. SUN says, that this is the ultimate desktop environment to use. It is preinstalled with Solaris 10 and you can easily switch between CDE and JAVADesktop. Obviously it’s a modified version of GNOME (featuring a terrible mixture of English and German language in the German version) with a SUN Logo. The JAVADesktop was submitted by a Freelancer to SUN. It is not a very professional work either. Some common apps like Mozilla and StarOffice come along, but finally that is nothing special today. Compared to the clean and polished implementation of GNOME in other systems like ubuntu, the JAVADesktop isn’t done very well, too. Another issue on Solaris is the general performance. Solaris might has have the fastest IP Stack in the world, but especially graphical applications are slower than on current Linux Distributions. A good thing I have to report is that I experienced no errors or crashes during the hours I’ve tested the system.
An egg for an app
Software for Solaris is not widely spread. Of course there are hundreds of terminal applications and of course there are some basic CDE Utilities. And there are those well known applications which are delivered within the JAVADesktop 2. But beyond that Solaris is a lonely system. Of course, if you have a car company and you need an “out-of-the-box” network with mainframe servers, storage farms, clusters, CAD/CAM Workstations and office terminals, SUN+SPARC+Solaris is maybe the right choice. There are some professional and a lot of ultraprofessional applications available. Solaris simply lacks of useful Software for the (home) user. In fact, you get a lot more useful stuff for Linux or even for FreeBSD. And, as mentioned above, Solaris is not a system dealing with “toys” like WLAN or Bluetooth. It’s designed for industries, not for livingrooms, really.
Conclusion
In the end, Solaris is an oldschool UNIX for UNIX Geeks like scientists and students. It’s maybe perfect for enterprise business. Unfortunately, there is no efficient way to deal with it if you’re not qualified in UNIX Development or Administration. The other way round, SUN seems not to be interested in delivering sufficient consumer technology. Things like JAVADesktop 2 are not a bad idea at all, but it seems more likely to be a hobby project than a serious solution. Other systems solve usability far better. From my point of view it’s easier to set up, understand and use FreeBSD if you are just a user wanting to try a “real” UNIX.
While Solaris 10 is surely a professional OS for insiders, I can’t understand the hype SUN made about it. In many aspects Solaris is an OS from yesterday, from glory days where UNIX Workstations dominated a lot of markets. Those days have passed and the question is, why you should use Solaris instead of a modern operating system, especially if we’re talking about the x86.
About the author:
Matthias Breiter has been using several computersystems for 16 years now and he has a lot of experience with Windows and MacOS. After higher education in Information Technologies he has been a long time customer supporter and service engineer. He is also the creator of both the Technoids and the ZEMAG, two well known magazines among the (German) BeOS Community.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
While I would also recommend Linux/Freebsd for a desktop,
your terribly lacks accuracy. Please don’t post reviews, until you verify facts. You’re confusing the readers and damaging repuation of a good product.
Also, don’t confuse “cutting edge” Gnome 2.10 distros, which end up using experimental libraries and switch compilers twice a month with rock solid systems, that are designed for long life cycles, not every 6 month releases. Look for patches for Ubuntu Hoary (my favorite Linux ) in 3 years
and you’ll know what I mean. There probably won’t even be a Ubuntu by then.
Sol 10 makes a very powerful workstation/server. This is the first commerical Unix to officiall support ipf.
The storage management utilities rock. Ever tried mirroring a set of exisiting partitions in Linux / BSD ? Without enough experience, you’ll end up without date.
Try in in Solaris. It’s as good as Veritas, but free !
gcc ships with Solaris 10 ( along with hundreds of other gnu apps), look under /usr/sfw/
Please be more careful about what you write.
Solaris is NOT a toy.
Sun is in no way interested in having everyone install Solaris as a replacement for a desktop Operating System such as Windows XP or OSX.
You have got to me kidding me.
After you finally got Solaris 10 installed (we’re talking ages here), try to configure IP/Gateway/DNS/Subnet-mask. You’ll have to search the web endlessly until you find references to the correct configuration files and even then it will be a nightmare to get the right instructions. It took me hours, until I finally gave up and decided to spend my time on better things. Now, if I (an IT professional) can’t figure out how to do it in reasonable time, will “the people” manage to?
I didn’t have any such problems with Windows, OS X, Linux, BeOS, OS/2 and QNX. Setting the network connectivity in those OSes was a breeze. In Solaris it’s a nightmare.
Solaris 10 sure is *not* “for the people”. Just move on…
Wow. That eliminates it for me, at least until I get more RAM for my play-around box. It only has 64MB now, which is fine for Win2k, Mandrake 8.2, and DSL 1.1.
I installed Solaris on my home machine too but couldn’t figure out why I should keep it. Fedora did everything so much better. The applications were much more up to date, it ran faster, it was easier to use, it detected my hardware, it had a lot more software available. It basically did everything better. Then I got rid of it and reverted back to Fedora. I figured it will be best to focus on one thing and know it really well. I personally don’t know whether or not RedHat will survive, but I know RedHat is Linux and Linux has already made it. I know Linux will be around 15 years from now but I am not certain whether Solaris will.
GNOME looks absolutely fantastic in Solaris 10. It sure beats Fisher Price XP and even Aqua-tired OS X. Is this lovely theme/skin availabe for download anywhere?
“Matthias Breiter has been using several computersystems for 16 years now and he has a lot of experience with Windows and MacOS…”
Based on the depth and accuracy of this review, I would suggest the reviewer sticks with Windows or MacOS. That would appear to be his forte and would probably suit his desktop needs more appropriately.
Which means Linux is technically not UNIX.
I don’t believe the BSD folks are allowed to call theirs UNIX either.
So technically Sun probably can claim this although it really only means something to lawyers.
Under this context Solaris is definitely far more “for the people” than True64, AIX or SCO.
since sun is delayed with the open sourcing my guess is that no one is spending time drawing new backgrounds for the desktop and so on. they have more important things going on at the moment.
the desktop integration will probably be more prioritised after the release of open solaris.
right now a reviewer should probably focus on more technical aspects of solaris.
Was this article serious or is the article just flamebait in article form?
(back in 1996-1998)
“After you finally got Linux installed (we’re talking ages here), try to configure IP/Gateway/DNS/Subnet-mask. You’ll have to search the web endlessly until you find references to the correct configuration files and even then it will be a nightmare to get the right instructions. It took me hours, until I finally gave up and decided to spend my time on better things. Now, if I (an IT professional) can’t figure out how to do it in reasonable time, will “the people” manage to?
I didn’t have any such problems with 3.51 or NT 4.0, OS/2 and Solaris. Setting the network connectivity in those OSes was a breeze. In Linux it’s a nightmare.
Linux sure is *not* “for the people”. Just move on…”
‘nough said.
“In the end, Solaris is an oldschool UNIX for UNIX Geeks like scientists and students.”
I’m a scientist who has used SunOS and Solaris for over 15 years. It’s great for scientists who want to spend half their time being sysadmins too.
I develop my own computational models. Solaris doesn’t come with any scientific packages, unlike Linux or freeBSD. Solaris doesn’t even come with a compiler.
gcc is OK if you code in C/C++. But most scientific packages are still in Fortran, and g77 and g95 just don’t cut it. So you have to pay for a Solaris Fortran compiler. This is big bucks compared to what’s available for Linux and Windows.
All in all, lack of software is a killer for Solaris. That’s why I moved my development work to Linux and Windows.
I smell smoke… this guy is definitely looking to push some buttons. Why doesn’t he at least check his spelling and grammer before submitting a review?
In addition, what did he expect from Solaris 10? It’s a _workstation_ OS not a _desktop_ OS. Go back to your Mac if you’re looking for bells and whistles. Jeez…
– j
Are you if Solaris is only as usable as 1996 Linux, if so, why should “the people” bother with it?
We have friendly desktop OSes nowadays, so there’s really no need for common desktop users to waste time mining the web looking for arcane instructions on how to do basic stuff like that. With modern OSes, it takes a few seconds to configure these things, and no instructions are actually needed – it’s all totally discoverable out of the box.
Above comment should start with “Are you implying that Solaris is only as usable as 1996 Linux?”
Now, if I (an IT professional) can’t figure out how to do it in reasonable time, will “the people” manage to?
I know its a troll but i can’t help it. Don’t blame Solaris for your ignornace of Unix. dns(/etc/resolv.conf), Default gateway(/etc/defaultrouter), netmask etc.. man ifconfig. These are basic Unix skills. As other posters posted Solaris is not for the mainstream computer user. However for those that use Linux especially for server duties they will find that Solaris is a much better platform if implemented properly.
The real question is why you should use x86 instead of a modern processor (SPARC, PowerPC…)
The real answer is because you can get similar and sometimes better performance at a fraction of the price. Backwards compatibility with all that x86 software is a big plus, too.
Exactly, this is nothing more than at best a retread of existing whining about the speed of the installation to the “I don’t know why they include CDE” nonsense and at worst another “Linux user discovers that Solaris is for people with a clue”.
He doesn’t know what the “ls” is and he is writing about Solaris.
The real answer is because you can get similar and sometimes better performance at a fraction of the price. Backwards compatibility with all that x86 software is a big plus, too.
Backward compatibility with what???????? What are you talking about???? To your acknowledgement Solaris had never broken binary compatibility…. Who is backward compatible in the x86 world.
well…i would rather consider pcbsd as a UNIX for the people than solaris…
Solaris, in the right hands, is one of the most powerful
and secure operating systems around. With the advent of
Solaris 10, also the most sophisticated. I’m not the
right hands. I would be lost, just as the reviewer was.
I run linux. Linux is OK, as a UNIX-like operating system
it has SOME of the benefits of a “true” UNIX system. It’s
“good enough” and has all of the “fun” stuff for a home
user.
I don’t think that Solaris is really the “right” thing for
me, but it could be for some! So, again, it’s about choice,
and technology. What do you want? It’s out there. You
want a slick system, use linux. You want a cool system,
go BSD. You want technology and security, you go solaris.
At least it isn’t Windows!
I, too, installed Solaris 10 a while back, about a month ago. To give you some background, at various points I have been a professional Unix system administrator for Linux, Solaris, Digital Unix, and Windows servers.
That said, I absolutely loathe *having* to use the command line to do things. If you are not familiar with a system, it’s much easier to discover how to do things using a GUI. Then, sure, give me a command line to script or do very advanced things, but don’t force me to do it!
Solaris 10 has absolutely no GUI integration whatsoever. It’s a GUI shell with no functionality. It barely allows you to launch programs, of which there are hardly any.
Leave reviews of more serious stuff like Solaris to more qualified people. It actaully kind of revolts me that garbage like this is being posted on this side, wake the hell up Eugenia!!!
I agree.
Who is backward compatible in the x86 world.
FreeBSD has been really good about backwards compat. I haven’t tried with 5.x, but 4.x could run binaries from the 2.x series (or earlier). Windows is pretty good about it too, to be honest…
BTW:
http://sunfreeware.com/
You’re kidding, right?
I am afraid i agree with the writer… the commercials on the sun homepage are way too hype for the product, which is an advanved server platform.
I think The writer doesnt complain about Solaris as an OS but more about the commercials. and about the “the people” thing
I also installed solaris and had a bitch of a time setting the net, not anything i am used to from BSD/Linux
You sir, must be a bonified ignoramus…
you don’t understand what’s behind the hood…
but you don’t hesitate to make some really far fetched and ignorant references…
more serious stuff like Solaris to more qualified people…
wake the hell up Eugenia!!!
Hello pot, this is kettle, are you black? You lambaste the man for writing a “bad review” yet you make all sorts of accusatory statements without anything to back them up.
He’s an ignoramus? Says you!
He doesn’t understand? Says you!
He’s making far fetched references? Says you!
Who the hell are you??? From your nickname, I would assume a troll. Your post seems to support the troll theory.
I wouldn’t go that far. He isn’t saying that Solaris 10 is a bad OS. He is just saying it is not as advertised, and not for the people. It is not an OS that you can show to a Windows System Administrator and Really Wow with. Sure Solaris has a lot of cool stuff that will take Windows, MacOS and Linux years to catch up to. But unfortunatly in usability Windows, MacOS, and even Linux is ahead of Solaris.
It seems the people at Sun are the tradional Unix people and they shrug off advancements espectially made in Windows and MacOS, as just toy features not worthy for Sun. At Sun they dont really comprehend how many people really use .DOC format they figure people are still porting to PostScript.
Sun has a large Blind Eye for their technical problems. And dont seem to do enough to make themselfs uptosnuff. I use to be a big Solaris Fan. But Sience Solaris 9. It just seems to get more and more behind the times for Small to Mid size buisness use. And all the functionality is being put towards the Large over 1k systems.
“Software for Solaris is not widely spread. Of course there are hundreds of terminal applications and of course there are some basic CDE Utilities. And there are those well known applications which are delivered within the JAVADesktop 2. But beyond that Solaris is a lonely system. Of course, if you have a car company and you need an “out-of-the-box” network with mainframe servers, storage farms, clusters, CAD/CAM Workstations and office terminals, SUN+SPARC+Solaris is maybe the right choice. There are some professional and a lot of ultraprofessional applications available. Solaris simply lacks of useful Software for the (home) user. In fact, you get a lot more useful stuff for Linux or even for FreeBSD. ”
———————————————————–
There are 2 primary sites for software for Solaris:
http://www.sunfreeware.com/
http://www.blastwave.org/
There is additional software but it isn’t in a central location. Typically you have to go to various websites to download software.
As for performance, solaris is configured for stability out of the box. I am not 100 percent sure about solaris 10, however, some things to take a look at are (changing):
1) Threading model 1:1 to m:n
2) Write caching on disks
3) Enabling a form of soft updates or journaling of the file system.
This should tremendoulsy increase performance.
Excuse me but I’d like to go as far as saying solaris is anything but innovative at this stage of the game. How anyone but a sun employee can say it’s more innovative than linux is beyong me. From someone who does kernel level work in linux in a market traditionally dominated by realtime systems as well as using solaris as a compile machine for some of our older “legacy” software, I can say this is anything but true. You should see all the academic projects floating around just related to lowering latencies in linux. It may not all be the most stable stuff but ideas are floating around. Hell we even have people using genetic algorithms to find the perfect tuning parameters for scheduling. You can’t even look at the code for solaris right now and maybe Sun will file for bankrupcy before you ever can. Solaris is too little too late.
There seem to be various claims that Solaris possesses “under the hood” qualities that will take years for other OSes to catch up to. Can you provide a little more detail please? Why should I choose Solaris over Linux or BSD for my server? The only pro-Solaris comment that even hinted at any substance said this:
“Sol 10 makes a very powerful workstation/server. This is the first commerical Unix to officiall support ipf. The storage management utilities rock. Ever tried mirroring a set of exisiting partitions in Linux / BSD ? Without enough experience, you’ll end up without date. Try in in Solaris. It’s as good as Veritas, but free!”
What is ipf? And can you explain the problem that arose when you tried to “mirror partitions” in Linux (including what program you used?) and how things worked differently in Solaris?
Even if Solaris isn’t for everyone, someone should provide *one* example of a project for which Solaris is clearly the right choice, and explain why.
OSX is “Unix for the people”.
—————————————————————
Some points to consider:
1) Unix is a trademark, controlled by the OpenGroup.org
2) Apple hasn’t met their standards for Unix certification. Only certified companies can display the Unix trademark. For quite some time there has been a discussion between Apple and the Opengroup about trademark infringment.
The author doesn’t critize that Solaris is a powerful OS. He crities the Hype Sun hs been pushing out the door trying to make people believe that they can replace their Windows and OS X boxes with Solaris.
Let’s look at the Features Sun is hyping up.
Dtrace?– Great for programmers absolutely useless for anyone else. Linux people are working on projects just like it to help themselves develop code better. Good Idea not for most users.
ZFS — When(?) it ships will be useful, if you have an x86 box with more than a terabyte of storage. A standard x86 box that linux gets installed on though would need a third IDE controller for a cd drive though. 4-250 mb disks aren’t that common yet.
Fast ip stack — Okay this might get tested out as a server big plus.
Java Desktop — Gnome that’s been renamed just to suit Sun’s marketing dept.
As the Author said. Corporate workstation. Not General Desktop.
Let’s be honest.
The reviewer clearly has no idea what he’s doing with Solaris. Solaris is meant for SERIOUS servers, not the 64MB RAM Pentium Pro 133 tripe in your basement. SPARC boxes last seemingly forever and run core systems for places like, oh, the US FRICKIN’ NAVY! The very idea that Solaris should be run via a Gnome GUI is kinda funny to me. It’s hard core UNIX and arguably the best in its field, along with AIX and HP UX.
However, Sun does get a little blame too. See, they are kind of marketing Solaris and Java Desktop like it’s a viable desktop, and it’s really not. It’s ugly as piss, for one, but also, it’s not easy to learn. There’s no clear reason to choose it when the standard user isn’t going to realize the benefits and is going to have to fight to find binaries. Futhermore, it comes ready to be a server, whereas Fedora, Ubuntu, and Mandrake are much better suited out of the box for a desktop replacement. If Sun were targetting the right audience, they wouldn’t be the subject of a massacre like this.
My two cents, natch.
this review was hilariousy absurd. Who said Solaris aimed to replace windows xp or osx ? this is a server/workstation OS, meant to be used for very specific tasks and to be managed by people with knowledge of unix. I guess the sun people who read this site must be laughing hard.
ipf (aka IP Filter) is a network packet filter. It is available under FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, and HP-UX, and inspired OpenBSD’s PF, which sports very similiar syntax. It is a very, very good packet filter (firewall if you must) with a lot of features, some that are unavailable elsewhere. NetBSD ships with ipf by default, as does FreeBSD. You can try it out there, and find documentation here ( http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~avalon/ip-filter.html ).
That said, I’m installing FreeBSD 5.4 on my workstation since wi(4) supports my wireless card properly, and Linux crashes repeatedly. Solaris isn’t an option yet.
The reviewer may not have known what to do with Solaris but then who else does?
I ran Solaris9 for a while back when the free download cost £20 – it was a great retro-computing experience. Almost the only useful software was badly ported from Linux. (And I mean significant things like X windows for my graphics card.)
I was hoping to step back in time again with version 10 which actually didnt cost money to download this time.
But my hardware had moved on and Solaris installer has not.
So I found I could type nothing at the installer prompt as Solaris couldnt even see my USB keyboard.
So I have four new shiny coasters with a famous billion dollar os on them.
I dont doubt it might be worth the effort and is probably the most secure OS etc, but Linux is just too simple to install and Linux just works.
So who can justify the pain these days of using the real thing.
This is my first os news post so if I don’t flame well enough forgive me. 🙂
When you make a sandwich in your kitchen you use a knife, not a commercial meat slicer from a butcher shop. In the same way, trying to use Solaris for a desktop OS is pointless. It will not meet expectations because it is designed for something completely different.
For the poster who asked what are the “under the hood” things Solaris can do that linux and windows can’t – here are a couple simple examples.
First, Zones. A developer calls and says “I need my own server with the root password for critical development work. We have no budget for a new machine. And I need it in an hour.” An impossible task, right? Not if you’re running Solaris 10. You go to your development server, create a new zone running its own copy of the OS, and give the developer the root password. Done in 5 minutes.
The developer now sees his own hostname, filesystems, IP address – everything. From what he can tell it is just like you built a box for him. But it is running on your development server along with however many other users you gave zones on it. And best of all, nothing he does in his zone can affect any other zone or the box itself making this solution 100% safe. There are products like VMware and Windows Virtual Server which can do some subset of what Solaris Zones can do, but they cost money and require installing extra software. Zones are an inherent feature of Solaris 10.
Second, Domains. You spend a few hundred grand on a production server with 32 processors, 256 gig of ram, and 16 network and HBA cards. You assign 24 of the processors to the database server domain, 4 to the web server domain, and 4 to the app server domain. You split up the memory and I/O cards proportionately. Each domain is 100% independent and running its own OS. You can even have different versions of solaris running in each domain if you wanted to (maybe your database wants to be on Solaris 9 but your app server wants to be on Solaris 10). It is exactly like you purchased 3 servers to implement your 3-tier architecture, but you get it all in one box saving you tons on power, cooling, datacenter space, and administrative overhead.
One day a CPU in your database domain fails. But due to the availability features in Solaris there is no crash. The box alerts you of the failure, you call Sun, and they replace the dead CPU ON THE FLY – no downtime, not even a reboot. For the time your box was down a CPU your performance stats decreased a few percent due to the extra load on the running processors. Otherwise nobody but the admin who called in the service order ever noticed.
The next week you have a major release for a new product and expect very heavy web traffic. You decide to move 4 CPUs, some memory, and one of the I/O cards from the database domain to the web domain. Again you can do this on the fly with no downtime. After the traffic spike passes you move those resources back to the database domain.
That is the kind of functionality running servers on Solaris can give you. Of course, that is completely useless to a desktop computer user. But if you are running mission critical apps where 100% uptime is a must, no other OS is in the same league as Solaris.
People will use open solaris just the same as linux or bsd. The same software will be ported if it’s not already to solaris. Solaris will be just as good as a desktop to those who like it as Linux and BSD please the folks who like them. Quit being babies whining about setting up Solaris. It’s not hard. And to think some of you who cry about it call yourself IT professionals. What a joke. Sun provides excellent documentation for mentally challenged IT professionals who can’t manage to get the networking up.
I believe a bunch of the Solaris functionality listed is available either in user mode linux and/or the new stuff Novell is working on (is it called Zenworks?)
I think the ones who are bashing the article need to go back and reread it cause you all clearly missed its point. And take some anger management classes while your at it.
I wonder why I read this review. “The installaion takes long and it’s no alternative to MacOS or Ubuntu.” Thanks, I couldn’t have tought about that myself.
Thanks for describing those interesting capabilities of Solaris, in reply to my question! O reviewer, does it perform as advertised? Can you set up two “zones” on your new Solaris box, log in as two different root users, see two different filesystems, run two disjoint sets of processes?
That depends on your hardware and how you set up the zones. For root, yes each zone has its own root user. Some of the filesystems are shared and there are specific limitations as to what kind of filesystems can be mounted. And what kind of processes are you talking about?
Filesystems: My guess was that the two roots see different hierarchies under “/”. Is that correct? How do the hierarchies relate?
Processes: My guess was that the two roots see different process sets when they run “ps” (whichever variant shows *all* processes). Is that correct? How do the two process sets relate?
Leave reviews of more serious stuff like Solaris to more qualified people. It actaully kind of revolts me that garbage like this is being posted on this side, wake the hell up Eugenia!!!
Umm.. yeah, I think this is fair to say. I really like Eugenia, and I think she got WAY more bad rap than she deserves – better to say, she does a great job and is often unjustly targeted by one group of people or the other – but said all that, sometimes I do see crap like this on osnews.com, and it makes me sad.
The author of the article did a true disservice to osnews, to himself and to people interested in OS matters. I know nothing about him, but here’s hoping that, after some maturing and development, he’ll realize that his writeup was not worthy of our attention.
“I believe a bunch of the Solaris functionality listed is available either in user mode linux and/or the new stuff Novell is working on (is it called Zenworks?)”
This is a joke right? It has to be.
Read this, it will explain zones and containers in more than sufficient detail:
http://www.sun.com/blueprints/0505/819-2679.pdf
Maybe the reviewer could:
(1) set up two zones
(2) logged in as root to zone 1, type “touch /foo”
(3) logged in as root to zone 2, type “ls /foo” and report back on whether it exists.
Maybe the reviewer could:
(1) set up two zones
(2) logged in as root to zone 1, type “touch /foo”
(3) logged in as root to zone 2, type “ls /foo” and report back on whether it exists.
If the “reviewer” sets up the two zones properly, “/foo” will only be seen in the zone in which it was created.
But as Robert E pointed out, check out the link he provided concerning containers/zones. It should answer all your functionality questions.
As one of the roots, download and run a UNIX game such as “rogue” and leave it running. As the other root, type “ps”. Is the other root’s command visible?
How user-friendly was the interface for setting up the zones? How was the documentation?
Even a dumb@ss like “me” wouldn’t have any problems connecting Solaris to the net. There are many tutorials on how to do this, it just takes some reading!
I use Solaris as a desktop OS everyday and i enjoy it. Maybe i even will learn something useful from using Solaris, or it just might be that there is something wrong with me 🙂
Yes I read it and it is similar to a review of Solaris 10 written by a Linux user who obviously did not know how to use Solaris. This is more of the same.
The complaint about CDE is nonsense, AIX has CDE, so does HP-UX. It has to do with the Department of Defense demanding it for the applications that use Common Operating Environment (COE). Even RedHat had to “cave in” and support COE with OpenMotif before DoD would “bless it”. And if you are smart, you support what your customers want.
Mattias talks about the lack of applications, obviously he couldn’t figure out how to put /usr/sfw/bin in his PATH statement, where he would have found GCC, gmake, and a host of other applications. He also failed to mention that you could mount Windows shares with no configuration changes, and that the Evolution e-mail client with Exchange support ships. At least in the review I wrote for this site I could!
Instead we hear the bitching about Solaris “retro” interfaces not being as good as Linux. I wonder how much time he actually had Solaris installed. “A good thing I have to report is that I experienced no errors or crashes during the hours I’ve tested the system.”
The article is one step above a troll, if the guy was truly serious he would have actually tried to use it instead of his mindless bitching!
First, thanks to you for actually citing a feature rather than simply saying Solaris R0x0rs allelse sux0rs.
But, the features you cited are supported in the other Unix likes as well.
Zones specifically is very much like User Mode Linux(UML) or Xen that recently started shipping with SuSE 9.3 It is a virtualization technology and it can hardly be described as new. Taking the virtualization concept even further, the likes of Qemu, VMWare and others go so far as to allow running entirely different operating systems! Something that Zones and UML can’t do.
I started to read Sun’s PDF (where’s the HTML, guys), but the first sentence is “Today, businesses often design their systems with extra capacity to handle occasional peak loads to maximize revenue during periods of high demand.” Blah blah blah. Revenue blah. I skimmed it and saw a lot about multiple processors though. Does this “zones” feature work even if I only have the one processor that I bought at CompUSA?
If I were the “reviewer” setting up two zones, there would be root0, root1 and root2. root0 could see everything on the system, ie. ls, ps, etc. root1 would only see zone1 info and root2 would only see zone2 info. And to keep zone2/root2 from using up too many system resources running “rogue”, root0 could also set system/user limits on the various zones it created.
There is only a cli for administrating zones, but the documentation is very good, IMO. Robert E’s link is a good start.
So if I’m root1 and I echo “root1 was here” into /foo, and I’m root2 and I echo “root2 was here” into /foo, what does root0 see in /foo? (With default configs.)
Maybe you need to read the PDF I linked for Jeremy, Zones and UML are night and day apart.
Actually, root0 wouldn’t see “/foo”. But if he went to /export/zones/zone1/foo, he would see “root1 was here” and in /export/zones/zone2/foo, he would see “root2 was here”.
That makes sense. And this will work on my home PC if I download and install Solaris?
(…and properly configure…)
Oh, and yes you can use zones with a single CPU computer. But please check the Solaris 10 HCL.
What if all I reveal is that I bought my computer at CompUSA in the last five years. What do you think is the probability that zones will work on it?
If your x86 computer meets the Solaris 10 minimum requirements and is (or its components are) listed on the Solaris 10 HCL, it should work fine. I have tested Solaris 10 on a 2000-era Sony laptop (which wasn’t on the Solaris HCL) but it seemed to work fine for server type operations (no sound or USB support). I usually use Solaris on Sun hardware, so I don’t have hardware compatibility issues.
Your mileage my vary, check the HCL to make sure!
Zones are something he really forgot to review. This is a MAJOR addition to Solaris 10. It allows you to create another OS install (in as little as 100 megs), very little over-head, automatic package/patch updates to all zones, resource limit controls by zone, etc (heck you can even assign resource limits within the zone itself, and also set which type of process scheduler to use for that zone).
Another major feature not talked about in this thread is the self-healing. Basically this will find faults, and offline that fault (like a memory module). It is even supposed to be as complex as if a memory module fails, it will offline that module, and if a zone was running in that memory space, it will restart that zone. Of course if the main kernel was running in that memory space, you might expect a kernel panic. But at least the system is trying to find faults (and report them), and offline them if possible.
If I am upset about anything with Solaris 10, it is the fact they advertsied ZFS so much for the main release, yet it will come over a year later. They shouldn’t of hyped ZFS so much if they had no plans to release it close to the main release. But can’t blame them too much, Microsoft is doing the same thing with their new filesystem (WinFS), and filesystems are something you want tested VERY well before a release.
But overall Solaris 10 is a huge release, much better then the 8 or 9 release. I recently moved 5 linux systems into 1 solaris system running 5 zones, and it works wonderful.
Zones will work. The reason why you want to check the HCL is because of the network adapter (and/or onboard NIC), chiefly. Graphics adapters are not a serious problem, as far as I can tell, any will work, one way or the other.
You can set up zones even without network connectivity, of course, but still, check the HCL. Or, if you don’t have time to check that, at least be ready to ask questions on comp.unix.solaris and/or sysadmintalk.com – that way you could learn a lot, too, not only get your machine installed and configged.
Here are a few links (took me 12 seconds to browse docs.sun.com to find them):
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/coll/1236.1
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/coll/47.16
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/coll/40.10
docs.sun.com is a fabolous resource, well-organized, comprehensive, clear.
Finally, here is a link to the official browsable HCL:
http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/data/sol/
Finally, a few more links that may help you in finding out how a certain harware will work with Solaris x86:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/mrym3/taiyodo/eng/index.htm
http://www.bolthole.com/solaris/x86-laptops.html
http://solaris-x86.org/software/drivers/
Cool!
Do the competing technologies (VMWare, UML) not offer the ability to limit how many resources are used by the virtual computers?
On another level, Unix provides facilities whereby the “root” user can limit the resources used by non-root users (disk quotas, etc.). How is the root0-root1 relationship fundamentally different from the root-joeuser relationship? Why have two levels of superpower? E.g. why not take those tools for limiting root1’s CPU usage and convert them into tools for limiting joeuser’s CPU usage?
gcc is OK if you code in C/C++. But most scientific packages are still in Fortran, and g77 and g95 just don’t cut it. So you have to pay for a Solaris Fortran compiler. This is big bucks compared to what’s available for Linux and Windows.
I’d like to add that under Linux the only reasonable and free (as in beer) alternative to g95 is the non-commercial version of Intel’s Fortran compiler, which unfortunately is buggy as hell. If you’re tired of internal compiler errors and segmentation faults resulting from perfectly valid Fortran 90 code, you have to pay for the commercial version anyways…
Many people mention Solaris 10’s fast IP stack, it may be faster than previous releases of Solaris, but that does not mean its faster than Linux.
I have seen no real world independent bechmarks to prove this.
When I said this, I mean that Solaris 10 is faster than the Linux ipstack.
Cool!
Most Solaris users think so too.
Do the competing technologies (VMWare, UML) not offer the ability to limit how many resources are used by the virtual computers?
AFAIK not to the granularity that Solaris Zones can (but I am not an expert in this matter). I would use VMWare for multiple types of OS virtualization (Windows and *NIX), UML for multiple Linux instances and Zones for multiple Solaris instances.
On another level, Unix provides facilities whereby the “root” user can limit the resources used by non-root users (disk quotas, etc.). How is the root0-root1 relationship fundamentally different from the root-joeuser relationship? Why have two levels of superpower? E.g. why not take those tools for limiting root1’s CPU usage and convert them into tools for limiting joeuser’s CPU usage?
Fundamentally it *is* the same and in Solaris (and other OSes) you can limit this type of usage. I think it’s just easier to do with Solaris, but that is what I’m most familiar with as well.
Good luck with you project/experiment Jeremy. And “yeah reading”‘s links should be most helpful.
This is why I recommended that PDF, it discusses processor sets, projects, the Fair Share Scheduler (FSS) and Containers are all discussed in the document. It is far too much information to reply to a post, get past the business stuff, believe me it is a good read.
Here’s an idea, lets not constantly hype Solaris 10. Instead merely improve upon it’s framework to make as good a product as possible. After this is complete just let it go into the wild and see what comes of it.
Solaris 10 is sweet, but even the new PC-BSD is more easy to install and configure then Solaris. The other thing I hate about Solaris is that if you turn off RPC then solars has all kinds of wacky problems including losing the ability to work in X.
There may not be many or any versions of Linux that are as good as WIndows or OSX but on the desktop versions like Xandros and Linspire KILL solaris on the desktop, and so does Free BSD and PC BSD for sure. Where is takes up to an hour or more to install and configure Solaris, it only takes 15 minutes to do the same in the other OS’s I mentioned.
Another PAIN in solaris I hate is the fact that when you are doing the install and you add your DNS settings, if Solaris can not find it’s host name on the DNS server, there is a 50-50 chance it may not write your gateway and dns settings to the config files. It’s even worse if you do a sys-unconfig and then re add your settings. WHAT A PAIN!
Matter of fact maybe someone can tell me what the easiest way to change your network settings in Solaris 10? In Linspire and or Xandros I just go to the control panel. In PC or Free BSD I just open a terminal I and type /stand/sysinstall (PC-BSD is working on a control panel) What is the easy way to do this in Solaris?
OS X is for the people and has more software. Or does this run windows programs to? The Launch button reminds me of MS Windows Start button. Can anyone get creative like Apple and make a good funtional OS that doesn’t look like a MS copy?
Actually Meoff, Jack is right, this guy doesn’t have a clue and he wrote what he calls a “review”. This (as I have said before) is another “Linux user who tries Solaris and doesn’t like it”.
I don’t read anywhere that he is making a review. What he is doing is giving his opinion of how he feels Solaris works as a desktop OS. That is different then a review.
He says “Read on to see how an average user (me) have experienced Solaris” Not see my review of Solaris.
Here’s an idea, lets not constantly hype Solaris 10. Instead merely improve upon it’s framework to make as good a product as possible. After this is complete just let it go into the wild and see what comes of it.
I’m not sure I would categorize this review as “hype”, nor most of the posts in this thread. And in the next 30-60 days (I hope), we will see what happens when Solaris is released into the “wild”. Stay tuned, film on July 1st.
That is why you do not specify DNS during an install, you specify NONE (unless you have already added the machine to your DNS servers).
And what difference does it make if you are doing a DVD install how long it takes (I prepared in advance by replacing my CD drives with DVD’s).
To change network settings man ifconfig, to make them permanent ensure that you update the appropriate files.
And a very uninformed one at that, so what’s your point?
If I want to get on the internet right away why would I not enter DNS settings? (Unless I am using DHCP) I can do that with any other desktop and even server OS.
And if I have a client that needs a PC say in 30 minutes then what do I do. Tell them “Oh. sorry we use solaris, you will have to wait an extra hour” LOL! Come on.
I know you have got to be kidding, so I need to read my “Man” files. Haven’t done that in Linux since the late 90’s. If everyone else makes it easy why do I need to go back to the stone age with Solaris?
My point is that it’s opinion, if you don’t like it then you make up your own mind.
Besides that it’s not uninformed because he is telling you what he saw not fact. And you can’t say he doesn’t know what he saw. He might not be a solaris guy, but that is just the point, if you NEED to be a Solaris guy to get the most out of Solaris then solaris is a waste on the desktop.
(Which is why they also sell Linux)
Well, if you need all the easy to use GUI help then use Linux or Windows! I have never had any problems getiing Internet access in a few seconds after an installation:
1. Create /etc/resolv.conf
2. Edit /etc/nsswitch.conf and in the hosts entry add DNS after files.
3. Open Mozilla and go!
I am wondering about all these comments or experience reports about Solaris at OSNews.
This one tries to compare Linux GUI usability with that from Solaris, well, both are GNOME, maybe the Linux staff did a better job, but this is not really relevant.
Shure, a system could be a better experience if the user knows something about it, I mean, without KnowHow there is no good OS, this is the same for Linux as well.
Saying nothing changed during lots of years in Solaris is the same as saying – I have no clue about this OS.
Fortunately installing any OS is a very simple task in these days, but this is where the journey begins.
Solaris still a standard for the industry, thank goodness.
One last thing: You can believe there lots of enhancements in Solaris 10, most of them very exciting.
Cheers
No, this guy did not even attempt to figure out what Solaris had to offer (read my other posts about Evolution, GCC, etc.). Where I have the problem is people who write articles about things they obviously haven’t spent any time with, and this guy spent virtually no time with Solaris. His article is simply terrible, regardless of what anyone says to the contrary.
That is why I use Linux, OSX, BSD and Windows. LOL!
And that is why SUN also sells Linux, cause they know what’s best for them.
I mean come on, that is some old 80’s crap, still having to create files and edit files when in Linux, Windows and OSX that part is part of the install process.
I don’t even need a GUI in Linux to do that. I can have X turned off and still configure those settings in most versions of Linux without having to edit files. LOL
Ok so his Article is bad, so write one that is better so we can all be better informed. Then we can see where he is wrong and lear what is right. (Instead of ragging on the guy)
Guys. Reread the article.
Solaris is a top notch UNIX OS. He is not critisizing the OS. He is critisizing Sun’s claims that this OS could be used as a desktop replacement. It’s funny because in an attempt to critisize him you’re actually agreeing with him when you repeatedly state that the OS is not ment to be a desktop OS but a workstation/server OS. THAT’S HIS POINT.
So, I’ll say it again. Reread the article, and don’t get so defensive.
LOL! I am incompentent. Strang that SUN sells Linux, I don’t see Microsoft, Any Linux company or Apple selling or promoting Solaris!
I don’t even see other venders promoting Solaris besides sun at this point!
On top of that if it’s so professional then why do they give it away now cause it wasn’t selling?? Hummmmm.
I will stick to my dumbed down GUI’s if you tell Solaris to give Gnome back to the Linux community and go back to CDE. Oh yea CDE sucks so now solaris has to ship with the dumbed down GUI. LOL!
Give me a break.
Solaris is really bad for a desktop machine.
I would use Linux or OS X.
So, in an attempt to steer this in the right direction.
Is Sun taunting Solaris 10 as a viable alternative to desktop Windows, Mac, or Linux?
My thought. I love Solaris, but I could care less about what GUI it’s running. CDE was fine, you know why? Cause it did the job, it allowed me to have multiple terminals and run a web browser when I needed it. JDS for Solaris … pretty much the same thing. I think that, Sun, in an attempt to blend in with the rest of them, thinks that people will care if its running JDS or CDE. I don’t think that the ones who use Solaris (me include) do care.
Actually I am a OSX user. I have 3 Macs only one Linux machine, one Windows machine.
Any way there is nothing to argue. The facts are the facts.
Fact is SUN sells Linux
Fact is SUN is using and promoting Gnome which came from Linux
Fact is SUN had to give Solaris away because no one was buying it and RedHat is a more healthy company then SUN.
Fact is that Microsoft looks at Linux as a future problem and as compitition not Solaris
Sorry to say. I mean Sun is trying to open source Solaris? If it’s better, then why can’t they sell it on that merit? RedHat sells, OSX sells?
Can anyone point to a link that *Sun* specifically names Solaris as a desktop replacement for Windows or Linux or OSX users?
It appears everyone is looking to make Solaris a desktop replacement, except Sun!?!
Just because they make JDS available, doesn’t mean Sun is trying to conquer the desktop. My read is they are trying to unify a desktop for their product line, from SunRay users to 15K server administrators. Is that such a bad thing, and what does that have to do with conquering the desktop?
Maybe with the Tarantella deal that may change. I’m sure it will be interesting!
Oh I think Solaris is selling just fine, maybe you and the other Linux zealots who preach “competition is good” only meant it when Linux was “winning”. Now that something better is on the horizon, the FUD machine starts.
We are currently trying to set up a web portal using RedHat Enterprise Linux,and needless to say I am not impressed with their long term performance statistic gathering options. No system accounting at all, and I am not sure but we had to install sysstat as a separate rpm. This kind of stuff comes standard with Solaris (from version 8). So if I want to know which process has been using CPU and disk time like no tomorrow it is no problem for me to find out with Solaris. And log this information for long term analysis.
Now try to duplicate this with RedHat Linux and not void the support contract you signed with them (RedHat will not support “custom” kernel configurations. And this is part of the “innovation” of Linux, I’m laughing!
You say you are a OSX user (3 systems), Linux user (1 system) and Windows user (1 system). So what does anything you have to say really mean anything on a Solaris 10 thread???
What, you had problems installing or configing the network address on Solaris too? We (Solaris users) would love to hear of your adventures, but we don’t have that much time to waste on uninformed opinions.
Don’t forget that sun sells computer hardware unlike Redhat or Microsoft in your example. Because they sell hardware, they like to offer the choice of OS for their hardware. Most of their X86 hardware is certified for Solaris, Linux, and Windows. I think it is good they offer Linux and Windows support as opposed to their systems only offering support for Solaris.
Based on the fact your a OSX user, you should understand this. Apple sells their hardware, and the OS is free with the hardware. Apple and Sun know they make a very good amount of money on the hardware side (they don’t sell in Microsoft Windows volumes).
Lastly, they give Solaris away to make money on support. If you look their support is cheaper then Redhat support, and I used used Sun Support in the past, and they are much better then alot of others I have used.
I agree with people on here that Solaris is not a good desktop OS, even with what Sun has done. Solaris real power is as a Unix Server OS. If you want a good desktop OS, consider OSX if you like Unix based OS, or Windows. If you want a X86 server OS, use Solaris if your hardware supports it, otherwise use Linux. But if your hardware supports both Solaris and Linux, Solaris always has my pick (based on the above features added in Solaris 10).
Provides a terminal and X11, what more could you want
. You’re right, some thing (like vi) have remained back in the stonage. Personally I still don’t mind CDE, I find it rather intuitive. I think most people judge quality based on how “cool” it looks; I usually take that as a negative (pretty graphics are distracting).
I see no reason to use Solaris at this point. And JDS is simply a modified Gnome 2.2.
Sun owns Solaris, no one else can sell it.
Duh.
Lemme turn this one around: If OS X isn’t a load of crap than why is only Apple selling it? If Windows isn’t a registry driven sack of Microgarbage (pronounce that g as a j) than why is Microsoft the only company that sells it? What great logic….
Insulting people while providing no argument yourself is obnoxious. I am curious to hear why Solaris is “miles ahead” of everything else? All I’ve heard about is fault tolerance for hardware (sounds like they’ve written some amazing drivers).