“Before, Linux could run only on single- or dual-processor boxes,” Yankee Group senior analyst Dana Gardner told the E-Commerce Times. “Now you’re starting to see people [networking] many of these low-cost boxes in a gridlike fashion to perform highly intensive computing tasks.” Read the part 1 of the article at eCommerceTimes. Sun stands behind Solaris from both a support and a legal standpoint, Sun’s Bill Moffitt told the E-Commere Times. “As Scott McNealy says, it’s a ‘one-throat-to-choke’ service,” he said. “If there’s a problem, you know who to call.” Read the part 2 of the article.
OS Wars: Solaris vs. Linux – Parts 1 & 2
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Linux has been running on large-scale hardware for quite awhile now. Aside from large SMP machines, it has been used for a long time on clusters. Both Los Alamos National Labs and Digital Domain (of Titanic fame) had large (100+ nodes) Linux Alpha clusters running in the 1996-1998 timeframe.
Careful, these sites crash Firebird, and perhaps Moz! I’m running my Win2k machine.
Another user seems to see the same problems (in the modded down area). Save to HTML to read, or use another browser. Lynx works.
Mozilla 1.4 and Firebird 0.6 work fine on my WinXP btw. It seems that certain installations might have a problem.
This guy should check his facts.
Linux has been massively SMP for like YEARS – duh.
Furthermore – it can also run on a wide range of highly powerful non-x86 platforms.
Couple all *that* with clustering and it’s impossible to beat the scalability.
Goes to show just how useful (not) that these analysts can really be….
Well, Solaris and Irix are still better in the scalability department, once you go above a few dozen CPUs, even against the upcoming kernel 2.6. Check out the book “Solaris Internals” sometime to see what algorithms Solaris uses to achieve its scalability. Of course, Solaris pays a heavy price for this scalability — it has a high overhead on single-processor machines. Still, Linux is more popular on clusters (because it runs on fast commodity hardware) and its performance on such systems is excellent.
Yeah, it crashed Firebird 0.6.1 on me, twice. (I’m stubborn)
I had 15 tabs open….all gone. 🙁
Read Scox’s 10-Q that just came out yesterday. Scox is a major supporter of scox. Sunw has, and continues to, shovel millions and millions of dollars to scox.
In return, scox “allows” McSquealy to yap about sunw having the only legal version of linux – which is a total lie. McSquealy wants Linux to be the exclusive property of sunw. Then McSquealy will do whatever he likes with the future of Linux.
Scox, backed by msft and sunw, is on a major FUD campaign. Scox has stated publically that scox they has grounds to sue all linux users. Msft and sunw are every bit as guilty as scox. Scox would not be able to afford this campaign without massive financial support from msft and sunw.
you choose solaris over linux because:
1. the support is expensive but bulletproof. got a failure? call the 1-800 number and there’s a guy in a tweed jacket at your door in 40 minutes
2. the hardware. want to add more ram while your machine is running? get a e-x000 sparc. you will pay handsomly for this. but it’s nice.
3. you can justify it to the pointy-haired box. when you say “linux cluster of commodity hardware” the cfo thinks your just trolling for cash to support your geeky hobby. show him some starfire catalogs and the cheques get written.
4. it attracts high-level talent. do you want that guy with a phd and 12 years admin experience to look after yr enterprise network? he knows solaris (or aix or whatever). not linux.
“Linux has been massively SMP for like YEARS – duh.”
Define massively. Some Unix variants scale up to and beyond one million processors. I seriously doubt that Linux can do the same. 16 maybe?
The US government is building a 2000 Itanium processor “super computer” with Linux.
Its the most powerful computer in the US (world?).
One million processors? C’mon, now you’re just making numbers up.
1mi where ?
lol this guy . . .
There seems to be a great deal of confusion here about scalability through clustering… namely confusion between HPC clusters and server clusters.
HPC clusters achieve scalability for applications designed to use a particular message passing system, be that PVM, MPI, or a host of others. Unless an application has been written to use MPI/PVM/etc. a cluster is essentially worthless.
There have been attempts at transparent HPC clusters such as Mosix, however, for the purposes of server clustering this is essentially worthless. Processes must migrate between nodes in order for the power of a cluster to be realized, and even with regards to servers like qmail which use dozens of processes, they are likely too I/O bound to even migrate.
On the Solaris side of things, especially with the upcoming release of Project Orion, you have services which are designed for server clustering, such as the Sun ONE Message Server or the Sunray server. These will also take advantage of high performance I/O multiplexing mechanisms available on these systems, such as /dev/poll
Linux 2.6 is trying very hard to play catchup to where Solaris was years ago, and is currently riddled with bugs. Linux 2.6 introduced an O(1) scheduler, while Solaris’s TS scheduler has been O(1) for quite some time, and the TS scheduler is just one of many possible schedulers Solaris can use, and in fact many of them can be loaded simultaneously. Solaris features other schedulers like the Fair Share Scheduler (FSS), as well as other advanced process management features like CPU sets and project control.
Linux is finally getting a stateful I/O multiplexing mechanism with sys_epoll, however the number of Linux systems which actually implement epoll in both the C library and kernel is very small at this point, and the number of applications that support epoll is even smaller. I still have no clue why Linux decided to wander off in the wilderness and implement its own proprietary stateful multiplexing interface instead of using one of the plethora that are currently available, such as kqueues which are portable across FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and MacOS X Panther, or /dev/poll which is portable across Solaris, Irix, HP-UX, and others, but I’ll just regard it as a testament to the invent-your-own-proprietary-and-discontiguous-solutions-when-the-rest- of-the-world-has-agreed-upon-standards spirit upon which Linux has operated since its inception.
So please Linux zealots, before you go saying Linux is ready and primed to replace Solaris, do the following:
1. Take an actual look at Solaris instead of just reading about it. You may find it actually can do some things Linux can’t.
2. Accept the fact that the 2.6 kernel is not ready for prime time, and even after it’s released it most likely still won’t be.
3. Have a look at some of the Sun ONE services which will be bundled along with Orion, namely SOMS, and look at the clustering support offered by SOMS. Try to rid yourself of the misconception that supporting a message passing mechanism is a sign of an operating system’s scalability through clustering.
4. Take a look at the process and service management offered by N1, and come to the realization that Linux has no counterpart to N1.
but I thing that a lot of people overvalue linux thanx to its hype… I am running NetBSD/MacPPC and NetBSD/i386 for quite some time now (after I ran linux for quite some time)… and I have to say NetBSD is rock stable and bleeding fast…it even provides better hardware support for me, since Linux does not support my USB Stick(if you believe it or not)
And the best it can offer to everybody is it clean design and implementation (e.g of their own packaging system, or Emulation layers)
If you are not careful you can have a really blown linux (based) system in quite a few hours… with libaries shared over all your filesystem… On NetBSD you have the OS and other packages seperated from each other and itself. Very clean.
you can just delete 3 directories (/usr/pkg & /usr/pkgsrc & if you want /usr/X11R6) and have your clean OS back again without installing it again.
Just my two cent(even if they are a bit offtopic)
Sorry for that
Regards
Andreas
PS:Choice is a good thing, if it does not lead to total confusion
Anyway I must admit that setting up a NetBSD is much more cmdline-oriented and “geekiger” and is therefor not ready for the joe…
Okay… Enough NetBSD advertisment, hehe
Moffitt has given a detailed account of the problems that plague Solaris. I wonder why Sun has done nothing to find a solution.
It is said that Linux has recently been able to function properly on SMP systems. Apart from the operating system designed for Cray (UNICOS), is there any other OS that worked like a charm on multiprocessor systems from the start ?
To frymaster : if somebody holds a PhD and has 12 years of experience as a Sun sysadmin, they should be a CTO, a professor or something that pays a lot of money. They shouldn’t be looking for a job.
Scott McNealy loves saying that Sun customers have only one throat to choke in case of problems. Well, how many throats get choked when Yahoo have problems with their FreeBSD servers ? How many companies get blasted when Red Hat Enterprise Linux has glitches ? For a guy who symbolized technical excellence, he is making unworthy comments.
“Scox, backed by msft and sunw, is on a major FUD campaign. Scox has stated publically that scox they has grounds to sue all linux users. Msft and sunw are every bit as guilty as scox. Scox would not be able to afford this campaign without massive financial support from msft and sunw.”
This is an interesting statement. Normally, MSFT and SUNW hate each other, but I could believe that both of them have reasons to hate Linux even more and are quite happy with the SCOX situation (even if it isn’t a conspiracy)…
It is said that Linux has recently been able to function properly on SMP systems. Apart from the operating system designed for Cray (UNICOS), is there any other OS that worked like a charm on multiprocessor systems from the start ?
No, but there’s an enormous difference between “Linux works on a 64-processor system” and “Linux is more scalable than Solaris on a 64-processor system” I think many people have trouble making this distinction. Linux has only recently been able to do the former, and is certainly years away from the latter compared to where Solaris is now.
Scott McNealy loves saying that Sun customers have only one throat to choke in case of problems. Well, how many throats get choked when Yahoo have problems with their FreeBSD servers ? How many companies get blasted when Red Hat Enterprise Linux has glitches ? For a guy who symbolized technical excellence, he is making unworthy comments.
You’re obviously missing the point here. The idea is that a single vendor is providing both hardware and software, so if you are business and your mission critical system goes down, you know exactly who to call, and you can be certain that they have the resources to fix your problem. In the case of Yahoo, obviously they’ve acquired the resources to fix any problem themselves, but for many businesses this isn’t an option… a support contract is a much cheaper alternative to an enormous IT staff.
Well, first, how can the kernel make a PROPRIETARY system?
Everything is GPL, its free for someone else to implement it.
MS on the other hand…..
And yes, Solaris has some nice Clustering capabilities, but its based off of 30 Year old UNIX, Look at what linux has done with VOLUNTEERS.
One is free, one isn’t. Thats the difference.
IMHO, When Linux has been around as long as Solaris, It will be 10x better. Just look at its rapid development, and its only getting better. (and I base this off of no fact).
Lastly: People shouting on a message board/chat room does not constitute “hype”. I don’t see Torvalds talking about how much better Linux is to Solaris (in this field).
I can find plenty of Windows/Solaris/etc trolls too.
Well, first, how can the kernel make a PROPRIETARY system?
Everything is GPL, its free for someone else to implement it.
It’s proprietary in the fact that there exist several interfaces that accomplish the same functionality, but rather than choosing to support one of these existing interfaces Linux just decided to implement its own.
By supporting kqueues in your application you support FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and MacOS X Panther
By supporting /dev/poll in your application you support Solaris, Irix, HP-UX, and others.
By supporting epoll you support only Linux
That’s not to mention that kqueues are radically superior to epoll from a technical standpoint. kqueues provide the functionality two non-portable APIs from Linux, epoll and DNotify, implemented in only two system calls, and portable across four platforms.
I find it ironic that this comes from the same crowd that is constantly hassling MS for choosing to do things their own way instead of embracing existing, open standards which are technically superior to MS’s solution.
Yes… the source is open… if someone really wanted to they could port epoll to other kernels… the question is why adopt an inferior standard when you already support a superior one?
I was exagerating to be sure, but don’t be fooling yourself. Clustering is one thing, SMP scaleability is quite another. To think of Linux and Solaris as being on equal ground here is laughable. Linux just doesn’t cut it here. Solaris has a huge lead, and will for quite a while.
(No, I’m not a Solaris zealot, but a FreeBSD one
After reading so many anti-Sun comments, I would like to paraphrase them and offer my rebuttal.
Linux Zealot Whine #1: “Sun is evil, they are in bed with SCO, and are trying to own Linux.”
Fact: Sun isn’t trying to own Linux anymore than they are trying to own Unix. Instead of crying about Sun offering protection for it’s customers against SCO lawsuits, maybe zealots should be asking why IBM is not offering the same protection for their Linux customers. As far as I am concerned, Sun is promoting the use of Linux by promoting the use of embeded Linux with Java rather than Windows.
Linux Zealot Whine #2: “Sun is against open-source and open standards”
Fact: Sun has contributed more to Open Source than IBM. They have provided NetBeans, Open Office, and countless other usefull applications. IBM’s contribution has been limited to outdated technology where better solutions already exist in Linux. Example, include JFS, where ReiserFS and Ext 3 already exist. Regarding Open Standards, Sun is almost entirely based on Open Standards (from their CPU to their Operating System) and someone would be hard pressed to find anything it has created that doesn’t conform to some sort of standards. Let’s see where IBM stands.
Linux Zealot Whine #3: “Linux is Enterprise ready and hence can replace Solaris with everything it does.”
Linux is enterprise ready. But guess what, so is Windows and so is DOS? There is room for everything in the Enterprise, and you have to get the right tool for the job. Just as Fedex uses both airplanes and trucks for delivery, businesses should do the same with computers. While Linux is far better than Windows in stability and performance, it does not compare against Solaris. Solaris is light years
ahead of Linux and unless Sun falls asleep, it isn’t going to change anytime soon.
Linux Zealot Whine #4: “Linux offers good SMP, that is how it is the third fastest computer in the world.”
Linux clusters well and has pretty good SMP scalability, but it doesn’t compare against Solaris. Also clustering machines is completely different from adding more cpu’s to one system. There are certain problems that clustering will never solve. Right now, Windows has better SMP scalability than Linux. Does that make Windows better? Not really, because only a fool with deploy either one on a 64 cpu monster.
Well… that’s my 2 cents.
Folks, let get something straight: as Bascule says Solaris is far ahead of Linux in a lot of areas and believe me that gap will not be closed siginificantly anytime soon. There are very few qualified Linux folks trying to figure out how to make a kernel that can be patched without bringing the system down, hotswaping CPU and memory without system downtime, figuring out how to boot systems with 100+ GB of ram, etc. These are hardcore computing problems that Solaris is addressing and the bar just keeps getting raised. You really don’t see those advantages until you get closer to the corner cases (massive I/O, near linear vertical scalability, availability, etc). This is not to say Solaris plays everywhere – Linux is getting better everyday and has superior price performance when it comes to the edge, horizontal scaling, and has a very valid play in the middle tier. Linux definately makes the corner cases smaller but in real IT shops the corner cases will always exist and someone has to figure these things out.
The bottom line is that today it is utterly ridiculous to think it makes sense to have an all Linux or all Solaris solution in IT environments. Unless one is willing to pay more money across the specturm or is willing to sacrifice availability/performance where things really count one would be crazy not to take the balanced approach to IT deployments and modify them accordingly over time.
The situation is not as clear as Bascule would have you believe. Linux all about standards — as long as those standards are technically good. If they aren’t, Linux will do its own thing. Check out the benchmarks at http://www.xmailserver.org/linux-patches/nio-improve.html
Notice how /dev/epoll scales so much nicer than the /dev/poll mechanism…
>>Fact: Sun isn’t trying to own Linux anymore than they are trying to own Unix.<<
Fact: Sunw is shoveling *millions* to scox.
Fact: Sunw keeps screaming lies about sunw having the only legal version of linux. Buy Linux from anybody other than sunw, and scox will sue you – so says mcbride and mcnealy.
>>Instead of crying about Sun offering protection for it’s customers against SCO lawsuits<<
Yes, protection against a situation which *sunw* created. That is called a “protection racket” also called extortion.
>>maybe zealots should be asking why IBM is not offering the same protection for their Linux customers<<
Because IBM customers don’t need it. Scox has no ground to sue linux end users, and anybody with half a brain knows that.
>>Fact: Sun has contributed more to Open Source than IBM.<<
Doubtful. Anyway that was *before* linux became enterprise capable. At that time, sunw saw linux as a stick to beat msft with. When IBM made linux enterprise capable, sunw said: “uh-oh, we better do something about this, either kill linux, or steal it.” That’s when suwn jumped into bed with scox.
>>Linux Zealot Whine #3: “Linux is Enterprise ready and hence can replace Solaris with everything it does.” <<
Is that really a “linux zealot whine?”
>>Linux is enterprise ready. But guess what, so is Windows and so is DOS? There is room for everything in the Enterprise<<
Er, maybe you don’t understand what “enterprise ready” generally means.
>>Linux Zealot Whine #4: “Linux offers good SMP, that is how it is the third fastest computer in the world.” <<
Again, not really a whine. I think most people who really know information technology, have a strong respect for sunw’s products. I also have respect for SGI – taken a look SGI financials lately? Besides, I don’t think you get it. The gripe about sunw is *not* about sunw’s products – sunw’s products are just fine. The gripe about sunw is that sunw is trying to hijack linux. If you had been closely following the scox case, you would know that.
Why is it that EVERY time Solaris is mentioned, the x86 version is suddenly “forgotten” and x86 and Linux are tied together? is there an anti-SUN crowd who just love to spread the idea that Linux “r00lz” the x86 server and Solaris is dead? I would love to see ONE study to prove that Solaris on x86 is more expensive than Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SuSE Enterprise Linux.
“Now you’re starting to see people [networking] many of these low-cost boxes”
Starting to see? What about Google? Good grief, Dana should be more clear — it’s not a new thing for Linux (Windows hasn’t got there yet, but most Unixes have). Maybe they mean that it scales more than it did – but from this, who can tell?
This reminds me of someone trying to pretend as if they’re on the grassroots of something… because saying that they’re “starting to see” makes it look like they pay attention, when it’s clear that Dana does not, or is fucking obtuse.
Linux Zealot Whine #4: “Linux offers good SMP, that is how it is the third fastest computer in the world.”
Linux clusters well and has pretty good SMP scalability, but it doesn’t compare against Solaris. Also clustering machines is completely different from adding more cpu’s to one system. There are certain problems that clustering will never solve. Right now, Windows has better SMP scalability than Linux. Does that make Windows better? Not really, because only a fool with deploy either one on a 64 cpu monster.
Linux’s core scales but everything surrounding the core falls to pieces. Anyone ever seen NFS and SMB fall to pieces on a beefy SMP configuration due to crapping locking? how about the IDE drivers which are still clunky and crappy or better yet, the SCSI core which was meant to be cleaned up but instead “hacked around” by the kernel coders.
There is a difference between the kernel recognising 64 processors and actually efficiently USING those 64 processors.
Heck, using Linux fanboy logic, UnixWare is awsome because it can run on a UNISYS E7000s whilst completely fogetting the fact that it is a complete dog when it comes to using those 32cpus.
>>Fact: Sunw is shoveling *millions* to scox.
Not true. Sun paid for rights to use drivers from SCO to use in x86 solaris.
>>Fact: Sunw keeps screaming lies about sunw having the >>only legal version of linux. Buy Linux from anybody other >>than sunw, and scox will sue you – so says mcbride and >>mcnealy.
No Sun has the right to Sys V code and all the licenses and can thus protect it’s customers from legal ramifications. Remember AT&T and Sun co-developed Sys V.
>>Yes, protection against a situation which *sunw* created. >>That is called a “protection racket” also called extortion.
Again false. Sun wouldn’t be making deals with SUSE and Redhat if the above were true.
>>Because IBM customers don’t need it. Scox has no ground >>to sue linux end users, and anybody with half a brain >>knows that.
You can’t say that till the case gets thrown out on said basis after it goes to court.
>>”Doubtful. Anyway that was *before* linux became enterprise capable. At that time, sunw saw linux as a stick to beat msft with. When IBM made linux enterprise capable, sunw said: “uh-oh, we better do something about this, either kill linux, or steal it.” That’s when suwn jumped into bed with scox.”
Name one OpenSource contribution by IBM other than some code to the linux kernel to support their platforms and interests. OpenSource != linux!!!!
>>Linux Zealot Whine #3: “Linux is Enterprise ready and hence can replace Solaris with everything it does.” <<
>>Is that really a “linux zealot whine?”
Yes it is. linux is not enterprise ready. It would be if it had enterprise level scalability and diagnosibility.
Linux doesn’t support good debugging tools, like crash dumps on panic, kernel debuggers. How does one debug extremely corner case bugs. Linux hasn’t reached the maturity of soalris on large systems.
> Yes it is. linux is not enterprise ready. It would be if it had enterprise level scalability and diagnosibility.
Umm…whoah…talk about a BS statement. Who the hell do Digital Domain, Pixar, Disney think they are?
Face it, Sun has relegated itself to be a truly niche system. There’s absolutely no reason to use Sun for any standard setup anywhere. It’s just not cost effective.
And systems should be architected so there isn’t need to buy a single massive piece of hardware. If you do have to there’s always the option of going with IBM big iron which is hot swappable to kingdom come.
Sun is basically being eaten alive from the bottom by Linux and from the top by IBM. Competition is good, I just don’t really see a lot of room in the market for sun.
As for their support…it’s massively overrated…
Umm…whoah…talk about a BS statement. Who the hell do Digital Domain, Pixar, Disney think they are?
They are animation studios. I seriously doubt their accounts data, their pay system and other mission-critical stuff are held on cheap x86 clusters… They are held on enterprise-level computers.
I use Linux. I love Linux. However, I’m no zealot. Sun and Linux volunteers ain’t in the same ballpark. Hell, they don’t even play the same game. Sure, Linux volunteers want to play the same game, but they still have a lot of “training” to do.
Sun might be a tad overrated, but I believe that it’s Linux that is massively overrated. It’s fine for small to medium sized companies, but not appropriate for larger ones (those we usually call enterprises).
And yes, Solaris has some nice Clustering capabilities, but its based off of 30 Year old UNIX, Look at what linux has done with VOLUNTEERS.
Do you believe that Sun didn’t changed the SysV code in 30 years?
Yes, it’s amazing where Linux is now with only volunteers, but it would have never been here if they didn’t had the help of corporations with knowledge of that 30-years-old Unix…
IMHO, When Linux has been around as long as Solaris, It will be 10x better. Just look at its rapid development, and its only getting better. (and I base this off of no fact)
What a strong argument! Life would be great if we didn’t had to base our arguments on some facts, eh? Imagine jailing someone you hate just because you think he stole something…
I agree that Linux will probably be much better than Solaris in 20 years, but another OS will probably be even better than Linux, too…
Most of the Linux machine is use as cheap render node. If one fails, Renderman/Mental Ray put the part of the render on another computer and so on.
Linux I86 is a cheap and powerfull evolution from SGI Irix hardware, but SGI/Windows/Mac are still use for workstation.
You can add Weta digital to the list of people using Linux… but still render node/storage node, still most workstation are under Windows/Irix/MacOS
Erhmm… and Pixar seem to follow Jobs with G5, they’ve port their software on MacOS X/G5, seem that other will follow…
“Umm…whoah…talk about a BS statement. Who the hell do Digital Domain, Pixar, Disney think they are?
like someone said these are special purpose render farms and not enterprise systems that run billion dollar day to day business. And I seriously think cheap x86 boxes are more of the charm for these companies anyway. Linux is a used by them because 1024 windows licenses would be tad too expensive and would offset the hardware cost benefits and probably because linux is the “buzzword”. FreeBSD would suit them just as well. But dell and racksaver don’t do freebsd, they do linux because it is in the customer mindshare thanks to all the media hype.
“Face it, Sun has relegated itself to be a truly niche system. There’s absolutely no reason to use Sun for any standard setup anywhere. It’s just not cost effective.”
Really have you looked at Sun’s x86 based linux/solaris servers lately. And they still make 2.8-3 billion a quarter being in a niche, nice niche eh?
“And systems should be architected so there isn’t need to buy a single massive piece of hardware.”
All applications can’t be made massively parallel or made to run on loosely coupled processors. Some require low latency high throughtput large SMP machines.
” If you do have to there’s always the option of going with IBM big iron which is hot swappable to kingdom come.”
So are Sun’s big iron what’s your point. IBM’s big iron is more properietary than Sun’s. SPARC is an open standard sparc.org. UNIX is an open standard. zOS is not neither is VM nor MVS nor OS/390 and most of OS/390 is written in plx which is not an industry standard.
I’ve seen quite a lot of BSD zealots here today camoflaged as Solaris technicians. It’s really funny indeed. The point is, Linux developers don’t care if Linux is any better or worse than Solaris is. The fact that both are compared is an honor in and of itself.
Isn’t it ironic that SUN has to adjust its whole business and technical ideologies just to accomodate Linux. I doubt any member of the Linux community has sleepless nights over Solaris or its performance.
And then we have these arguments about enterprise readiness. I do admit to feats of denial atimes, but to say that Linux is not enterprise ready or capable of purchasing Solaris’ coffin is to ignore market and business trends over the last couple of years.
Have you stopped to wonder why IBM, HP, *SUN*, Oracle, Novell to mention but a few have all eaten their words and eventually embraced Linux? No, it’s not because Linux scales worse than their excellent OSes. It’s not because it’s code is less *cleaner*, whatever that means. It’s not because it provides excellent support. Neither is it because it questions establishe BSD standards like some of you have erroneously proclaimed.
An avalanche can be triggered by a little stone. Far off on top of the mountain the stone rolls up into a small ball of snow and it looks cute and harmless. But as the cute small snow ball rolls down the mountain and approaches, we eat our previous cute little statements; the small cute little toy looking stone has become an ocean of destruction that consumes anything in its path.
My analogy is far from perfect but I’m convinced you understand the picture. Half of the individuals who responded on this thread are in denial. Linux is no longer the cute looking small pebble, or toy OS. Intelligent entities have understood this and are preparing for a wave that could kill them or make them. They are seen past Linux at the top of the mountain (i.e Linux as it is today), there are preparing for the avalanche (i.e Linux ten to fifteen years from now if political and legal entities don’t crush it).
Superior code and technic is just a piece in the puzzle. Grow up and deal with it. See the larger picture. To be honest, I don’t even know what OS will be the craze in ten to fifteen years. But if Linux, the fastest developing OS OSS project maintains its current rate of development, the demise of certain proprietary UNIX OSes is better imagined than said.
-Mystilleef
ugh, too many to list. The whole 64-bit is new to Linux line that the author keeps repeating, Linux has been 64-bit capable for nearly a decade! Has he done *any* research? His grasp of what 64-bit means seems to be weak, he said that 64-bit can address “up to” 8 gigs of RAM. Up to?!? My freaking god, how did he get hired? Research man, research!
Solaris can scale better then Linux currently, and Irix better then Solaris – but the vast majority of servers sold are 4 CPU and under, and Linux does just dandy on such boxen. Anyone forget that SGI is selling a 64 CPU server with a 128 CPU in testing? Linux is evolving awefully fast, and I don’t think it will be too much longer until it approachs and equals Solaris – but is that really all that important? Such extreme high end boxes are sexy, but niche. That Linux can currently scale very well up *and* down to embedded devices I think is more impressive then Solaris’s ability to scale up. One kernel that can go from cell phones to multi-cpu super computers, wow. 🙂 Can either Irix or Solaris scale down so cleanly?
>>Fact: Sunw is shoveling *millions* to scox.
Not true. Sun paid for rights to use drivers from SCO to use in x86 solaris.
=======================
Nothing but a “cover” did you know that sunw got a boat load of warrants from scox with that purchase? Do you think that is normal in an arm-length business transaction?
>>Fact: Sunw keeps screaming lies about sunw having the >>only legal version of linux. Buy Linux from anybody other >>than sunw, and scox will sue you – so says mcbride and >>mcnealy.
No Sun has the right to Sys V code and all the licenses and can thus protect it’s customers from legal ramifications. Remember AT&T and Sun co-developed Sys V.
===========================
No. This is FUD in it’s purest form. *IF* scox was ripped off by ibm, then scox can sue ibm. But that idea that linux end-users can be sued is a joke. Sunw is trying to scare linux end-users into buying only from sunw. Pure FUD, and anybody who supports sunw should be ashamed.
>>Yes, protection against a situation which *sunw* created. >>That is called a “protection racket” also called extortion.
Again false. Sun wouldn’t be making deals with SUSE and Redhat if the above were true.
================================
Sunw is a integral part of the scox scam. No offense, but I don’t think you know what is going on with that little scam.
>>Because IBM customers don’t need it. Scox has no ground >>to sue linux end users, and anybody with half a brain >>knows that.
You can’t say that till the case gets thrown out on said basis after it goes to court.
=======================
Ever heard of innocent until proven guilty? The case is scox’s to prove. Until scox *proves* that they exclusively own linux, and the gpl is invalide, then the gpl is as good as gold. BTW: where is the ibm unix license revocation that threatend? All scox had to do was go into a court and file for immediate tempory injuction. Where is the audit of aix customers that scox threatend? Where are the invoices for linux licenses that scox threatend? Scox knows that they don’t have the ownership which they claim to have.
>>”Doubtful. Anyway that was *before* linux became enterprise capable. At that time, sunw saw linux as a stick to beat msft with. When IBM made linux enterprise capable, sunw said: “uh-oh, we better do something about this, either kill linux, or steal it.” That’s when suwn jumped into bed with scox.”
Name one OpenSource contribution by IBM other than some code to the linux kernel to support their platforms and interests. OpenSource != linux!!!!
============================
From what I’ve read IBM has, fairly recently, contributed about one billion to linux. In fact, that is what scox is so upset about. How about JFS, NUMA, and RCU – I think those technologies are all patented by IBM. BTW: IBM is suing scox for violations of those patents.
>>Linux Zealot Whine #3: “Linux is Enterprise ready and hence can replace Solaris with everything it does.” <<
>>Is that really a “linux zealot whine?”
Yes it is. linux is not enterprise ready. It would be if it had enterprise level scalability and diagnosibility.
Linux doesn’t support good debugging tools, like crash dumps on panic, kernel debuggers. How does one debug extremely corner case bugs. Linux hasn’t reached the maturity of soalris on large systems.
=======================
Yes, but are linux zealots “whining” about that? I don’t think you understand the gripe against sunw.
I like Linux however as an SA familiar with HP-UX,Solaris,Linux, and NetBSD(among other OS’s) Linux would be my last choice to recommend for server duty. I have been working with linux for longer then i have been working with commercial Unixes. I have found that Linux pales in comparison to the Likes of HP-UX,Solaris and even in alot of ways NetBSD. If you want serious big iron rock solid performance it comes from HP,SUN and IBM thats just the way it is. Will that change in the future? i doubt it, the structure of the way Linux is developed and the Bloated(Suse,RedHat) complexity that it currently suffers from may very well kill it.
P.S. the comment that linux can scale now is due(if we beleive SCO) to the fact that they stole code from SCO patents. If this is even partly true Linux is sunk.
Hahaha…I know when people have been smoking stones when I here statements like, “I’ve used HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, *BSD and Linux. But Linux sucks the most of the lot.” It amuses me. Because in reality, you would be hardpressed to notice any differences between either of them for your average workstation tasks.
It’s when load levels hit unimaginable heights they start showing their true color. I salute you Smartpatrol. You define the group of people I mention is my first response. I will happily and confidently deploy Linux on a mission critical server over any proprietary Unix. The only time I might even remotely consider a proprietary Unix will be for security features.
If any operating system is over-hyped, it has to be the proprietary Unix. Yes, they can scale *a million cpus*. But any technician willing to put more than 16 CPUs together in a box, is simply nuts and should be willing invest twice as much on cooling and maintanance.
Linux’ flexibility/portability are it’s strength. Now flexibility and portability, businesses survive on those quality. The fact that a business is not restricted by hardware (name it and Linux will run it), and can modify and specialize the kernel to unimaginable tweaks scares Linux’ proprietary cousins. Scalability will become redundant and processor architecture improves.
My opinion that Solaris is more more better than Linux!
> Because in reality, you would be hardpressed to notice any
> differences between either of them for your average
> workstation tasks.
Last I looked most of this relates to using these OSes in a server environment, not a workstation. Yes, scalability does matter, it’s far from “redundant”. And if you think Solaris is inflexible, then buy a clue and try actually using it. If anyone comes across as clueless it’s you with your incessant “Linux uber alles” zealot spiel in just about every news story, regardless of whether or not it even remotely has anything to do with Linux.
I forgot some additional whining we hear from Linux Zealots.
Linux Zealot Whine #5: “And yes, Solaris has some nice …., but its based off of 30 Year old UNIX”
Yeah, and <sarcasm> I bet during UNIX’s 30 year life span, nothing has been reworked. Nevermind that computers back then didn’t scale to 100’s of CPU’s, terabytes of hard drive space, gigabytes of ram. Nevermind that they didn’t even have the risc processors let alone the microprocessor. Solaris is nothing but 30 year old technology. </sarcasm>.
Finally, Enterprise Ready means exactly that, it can be deployed in the Enterprise. It means it is stable, scalable, powerful, and manageable. It also means that there is good third party support for backups and integration. Linux is now Enterprise Ready. However, it doesn’t mean that it is ready for every job in the Enterprise. For the heavy lifting, there is nothing like a commercial grade UNIX.
>>Nothing but a “cover” did you know that sunw got a boat load of warrants from scox with that purchase? Do you think that is normal in an arm-length business transaction?
——————————————————–
Prove it. If you make such claims prove it.
>>No. This is FUD in it’s purest form. *IF* scox was ripped off by ibm, then scox can sue ibm. But that idea that linux end-users can be sued is a joke. Sunw is trying to scare linux end-users into buying only from sunw. Pure FUD, and anybody who supports sunw should be ashamed.
—————————–
Are you saying sun doesn’t have rights to sys V or that it did not co-develop it. All sun is saying is don’t worry about stuff we sell coz we have the right to sell it we can protect you from litigation by companies like SCO. No where does Sun say that SCO won’t touch you because we are partners. Sun is saying we can protect you from litigation against IP they own from anyone.
>>Sunw is a integral part of the scox scam. No offense, but I don’t think you know what is going on with that little scam.
—————————————
It’s really funny you are one of the few people caliming this involvement. None of the linux evangalists like bruce perns, ESR or even linus are claiming this, can you provide some sources for you so called fact.
=======================
>>Ever heard of innocent until proven guilty? The case is scox’s to prove. Until scox *proves* that they exclusively own linux, and the gpl is invalide, then the gpl is as good as gold. BTW: where is the ibm unix license revocation that threatend? All scox had to do was go into a court and file for immediate tempory injuction. Where is the audit of aix customers that scox threatend? Where are the invoices for linux licenses that scox threatend? Scox knows that they don’t have the ownership which they claim to have.
===========================================================
Well I honestly think SCO is wrong in doing what its doing but your claiming SUN is in bed with them is just baseless FUD.
>>From what I’ve read IBM has, fairly recently, contributed about one billion to linux. In fact, that is what scox is so upset about. How about JFS, NUMA, and RCU – I think those technologies are all patented by IBM. BTW: IBM is suing scox for violations of those patents.
—————————————–
All these still only pertain to linux name anything else other than linux IBM has contributed to as Open Source. Can’t, can you? so stop claiming IBM has contributed more than SUN to open source. Linux != Open Source.
IBM doesn’t even support linux on most of it’s consumer grade laptops and desktops. They are using linux to revieve thier dying mainframe business and claim thier big eservers are built on open technology, because frankly AIX hasn’t moved to being anything modern in years. I interviewed with IBM’s OS/390 UDB dvision a couple of years ago, I got an offer but didn’t join. The reason , too properietary. I asked about linux and the manager denied that that group would ever do linux. I was straight out of school and a linux evangalist at the time.
If you think IBM is a friend of linux and SUN is an enemy you must have a high school veiw of business.
The problem with linux is most of the speed of light development is happening on the desktop side of things and that too on x86.
Most of the linux developers neither have the resources nor the experience to make linux scalable to the level of Solaris and AIX. Don’t get me wrong they are extremely sharp and great developers. But SUN/HP/IBM have years of experience with customer enviroments and understand large enterprise system a lot better than Redhat or the linux kernel developers.
Linus’ notion that you don’t need a debugger because debuggers lead to sloppy code is laughable at best. A debugger is a valuble tool in debugging crash dumps. I fact linux didn’t support crash dumps. One of the first things IBM and HP did is make linuix support crash dumps because they know the value of a dump from a customer’s system for post mortem analysis. ESR calims that all bugs are shallow and many eys looking at a peice of code can find bugs easily. That claim is also vey flawed and naive. His calim assumes that code is static and doesn’t depend on other factors such hardware behaviour and context of execution. There are papers at Stanford in thier operating systems class that researchers have run code analysers on the linux kernel and have found stupid coding errors that wouldn’y pass code review at most companies.
Classic one:
int func_foo ( struct some_struct * somestruct) {
int val = somestruct->val; /*derefernce pointer*/
if (!somestruct) /* check for null pointer*/
return ERR;
}
I don’t have access to the paper now so can’t provide a link to it.
I keep intouch with traffic on lkml and many of the issues the linux kernel devleopers are dealing with today guys at Sun have dealt with years ago. Like the much hyped O(1) scheduler has been in Solaris for ages, 1:1 thread mapping intorduced in solaris 8 in 2000 as a second threading model and made standard in Soalris 9. Linx is just incorporating it. The kernel slab allocator in linux is a remplementation of the Solaris slab allocator which has incorporated before 1994 ( jef bonwick presented a paper on it at USENIX in ’94 – from slab.c in in the linux kernel).
Last I looked most of this relates to using these OSes in a server environment, not a workstation.
Look again.
Yes, scalability does matter, it’s far from “redundant”.
Yeah, for 5% of the market. You know everyone has a relational database storing millions of data on their server.
And if you think Solaris is inflexible, then buy a clue and try actually using it.
Provide me with a clue wiseone. What exactly are you trying to say? That Solaris can be installed on other hardware apart from x86 and sparcs? That solaris can be installed in handhelds, tivos, watches, supercomputers and games? I’m sorry, solaris is extremely limited. Solaris farts only on x86 and sparcs. It lives and dies their.
If anyone comes across as clueless it’s you with your incessant “Linux uber alles” zealot spiel in just about every news story, regardless of whether or not it even remotely has anything to do with Linux.
Clueless isn’t even the word for you…stupid is. Read the fricking topic and stop acting like a childish prick.
Speak for yourself.
For those who say you can’t get support for linux your wrong. Call IBM, they support linux.
For those who say your boss will think your a nerd for using linux, your wrong again, Business are finding that a cluster of cheap linux boxes is more cost effective, and faster then suns. Plus when you loose a linux box, its no big deal you either replace it, or have the vendor replace it.
For those who rumor that linux can’t run on multiprocessors, your wrong, I do it every day.
Netbsd/Freebsd just don’t make a good desktop, and there is no support for them. That is why companies are looking at linux. At least redhat is trying to make the desktop usable for everyone.
For those who say solaris is faster then linux, your wrong again. Test that run actuall applications show that linux is much faster then solaris.
Please, don’t spread crap. If you don’t know what your talking about close your mouth. There is probally a reason why people are leaving sun. And if linux is so bad, why is sun embracing it?
>Netbsd/Freebsd just don’t make a good desktop, and there is no support for them. That is why companies are looking at linux. At least redhat is trying to make the desktop usable for everyone.
As i read your post on my 500Mhz dell laptop running Netbsd with blackbox. I have a faster laptop running redhat 9 which is currently collecting dust. I am going to blow away redhat and install NetBSD on it soon.
>Please, don’t spread crap. If you don’t know what your talking about close your mouth. There is probally a reason why people are leaving sun. And if linux is so bad, why is sun embracing it?
perhaps you should heed your own advice
The reason people are leaving SUN is becasue Sun is so busy trying to out wit Microsoft that their customers are not being attended too.