OpenSolaris vs. Solaris

[rmrf]

I'll be taking on some new responsibilities at work, one of those are to install/configure/maintain Solaris boxes. I'm not being thrown into this, but the expectation is that I will know enough to take over for the other unix admins in their absence.

We use Solaris on Sun hardware at work, but I don't have any at home to practice with. Is it worth my time to try and install OpenSolaris on and x86 machine to get a handle of what's going on, or do I just need to spend some time after work with the Sun machines?

I have the linux side of things down, but I feel I am out of my element with Solaris and need to practice up.

Thanks.

edit for the oh-so-humble Sunner

** I'll now be working on a Ultra 5 SPARC machine. Doing a headless install and configuring through ssh. **

 

[n0cmonkey]

It might help. It'd help even more to splurge and get some Sun hardware.

 

[groovin]

arent used sun workstations cheap on ebay? otherwise, if you cant do that, it might not hurt to run opensolaris... you wont learn about the hardware, but other things like config files and starting/stopping processes should be the same **i dont use solaris so im just making an assumption

 

[thesix]

Is it worth your time as a *nix system admin? Definitely yes, if that's your profession.

However does your company run Solaris 10?
S10 and OpenSolaris have some cool new features that you'll be spoiled at home and find it hard to manage ealier versions at work.

You can play with the real SPARC machines at work for OpenFirmware stuff.
Yes the old UltraSPARC workstations are cheap on eBay, but IMO no need for one at home.

 

[Sunner]

Well, don't know what your situation is at work, but you could always ask if they'll consider buying some cheapo workstation for you, say a Blade 100 or something.
Solaris and Linux aren't terribly different for day to day operations, unless we're talking about Solaris 10, I haven't messed much with it, but when I did right after it's release I was a bit confused about some stuff.

[edit] Oh and a personal pet peeve of mine, Sun is not an acronym but rather a name, hence it's just "Sun", not "SUN" as so many people like to write [/edit]

 

[RyDogg1]

If you have linux down you should be okay with Solaris commands. BTW OpenSolaris is not an OS, it's just the source code for 95% of Solaris for the Open Source community to hack on, there has only been one open source Solaris release afaik.

Download the latest x86 version of Solaris 10 and play around with it, make you follow the hardware compatibility list to the line, even though 10 is more X86 friendly there are some items it doesn't have drivers for.

http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/

Big Admin is a good place for Docs on installing Solaris on X86, all are organized by collection:

http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/home/index.html

Any other questions, just post them here. I am a fulltime Solaris/Linux/Windows Admin for the company I work with, I've had professional training from Sun and can pretty much do most anything on the OS.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Sunner
Well, don't know what your situation is at work, but you could always ask if they'll consider buying some cheapo workstation for you, say a Blade 100 or something.
Solaris and Linux aren't terribly different for day to day operations, unless we're talking about Solaris 10, I haven't messed much with it, but when I did right after it's release I was a bit confused about some stuff.

[edit] Oh and a personal pet peeve of mine, Sun is not an acronym but rather a name, hence it's just "Sun", not "SUN" as so many people like to write [/edit]

Stanford UNiversity.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Sunner
Well, don't know what your situation is at work, but you could always ask if they'll consider buying some cheapo workstation for you, say a Blade 100 or something.
Solaris and Linux aren't terribly different for day to day operations, unless we're talking about Solaris 10, I haven't messed much with it, but when I did right after it's release I was a bit confused about some stuff.

[edit] Oh and a personal pet peeve of mine, Sun is not an acronym but rather a name, hence it's just "Sun", not "SUN" as so many people like to write [/edit]

Stanford UNiversity.

Once, back in the early 80's yes, not these days, now it's just "Sun Microsystems Inc", no acronyms

Come to think of it, I actually think the "original" was Stanford University Network

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Sunner
Well, don't know what your situation is at work, but you could always ask if they'll consider buying some cheapo workstation for you, say a Blade 100 or something.
Solaris and Linux aren't terribly different for day to day operations, unless we're talking about Solaris 10, I haven't messed much with it, but when I did right after it's release I was a bit confused about some stuff.

[edit] Oh and a personal pet peeve of mine, Sun is not an acronym but rather a name, hence it's just "Sun", not "SUN" as so many people like to write [/edit]

Stanford UNiversity.

Once, back in the early 80's yes, not these days, now it's just "Sun Microsystems Inc", no acronyms

Come to think of it, I actually think the "original" was Stanford University Network

I think you're right.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Sunner
Well, don't know what your situation is at work, but you could always ask if they'll consider buying some cheapo workstation for you, say a Blade 100 or something.
Solaris and Linux aren't terribly different for day to day operations, unless we're talking about Solaris 10, I haven't messed much with it, but when I did right after it's release I was a bit confused about some stuff.

[edit] Oh and a personal pet peeve of mine, Sun is not an acronym but rather a name, hence it's just "Sun", not "SUN" as so many people like to write [/edit]

Stanford UNiversity.

Once, back in the early 80's yes, not these days, now it's just "Sun Microsystems Inc", no acronyms

Come to think of it, I actually think the "original" was Stanford University Network

I think you're right.

Don't be silly, of course I'm right, I'm always right.
And not only am I smart, but humble too.

 

[rmrf]

Thanks for the replies. I'm looking at those resources you provided RyDogg1, thanks for the offer to help as well.

From what I can tell, we are still for the most part on Solaris 8 and 9.

I was able to get my hands on an old ultra5 that we have at work, but I'll most likely have to leave it there vs. bringing it home. I'm gonna go ahead and install 8 since it sounds like that will give me a more hands on approach compared to later versions which make things easier.

The only thing with installing it is that I don't have a monitor, so it's gonna have to be a headless install, which I hear is pretty common anyways.

Wish me luck!

 

[iotone]

here's a few guides on Solaris x86 installs (some are a bit outdated, but still helpful)

http://www.sun.drydog.com/faq/

http://solaris-x86.org/

http://www.mreriksson.net/faqs/solaris8/

http://my.execpc.com/~keithp/bdlogsol.htm

 

[Sunner]

There's actually some pretty decent documentation over at docs.sun.com.
Never quite liked Solaris 8, can't quite put my finger on why though...
Solaris 9 was the first release with a half decent userland, not to mention they actually included OpenSSH in it for the first time.