Sun giving out Solaris 10 for free

timswim78

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2003
4,330
1
81
I know nothing about Sun or Solaris, but I thought that I would share this Yahoo! article about Sun giving away Solaris 10. This seems pretty hot because the OS can run an Linux application, and it is supposed to be very secure.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/ne...on_hi_te/sun_solaris10

By MATTHEW FORDAHL, AP Technology Writer

SAN JOSE, Calif. - After investing roughly $500 million and spending years of development time on its next-generation operating system, Sun Microsystems Inc. on Monday will announce an aggressive price for the software ? free.

Sun, which has never completely rebounded from the tech collapse in 2001, hopes the no-cost of Solaris 10 will not only attract customers but also expand the number of developers who write programs that work on computers running the operating system.


The result, Sun believes, will be renewed demand for its servers and services. The company also will charge subscription fees for Solaris support and service programs that are typically sought by the businesses and organizations that Sun targets.


"Hewlett Packard sells a printer at a low price and makes a lot of money on printer cartridges. Gillette gives you the razor and makes a lot of money on the blades," said Scott McNealy, Sun's chief executive. "There are different ways to drive market penetration."


Solaris 10 will be unveiled Monday at an event in San Jose, though it won't be formally released until the end of January. It will work on more than 270 computer platforms running on chips from Sun, Intel Corp. or Advanced Micro Devices Inc.


The price of earlier versions of Solaris typically ran between hundreds and thousands of dollars ? depending on the system that was being run by the software, said Tom Goguen, Sun's vice president of operating platforms.


Sun also has promised make the underlying code of Solaris available under an open-source license, though the details have not been released. With access to the code, Solaris users will be able to take advantage of its features when developing their own software and systems.


The move stands in contrast to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows and other proprietary operating systems in which the blueprints are released only to select outsiders, if any.


And, depending on the final license, it could make Solaris more competitive with open-source operating systems like Linux (news - web sites) and distributors such as Red Hat Inc.


"When we open source, the one advantage we thought Red Hat had is gone. Then we both have an advantage with respect to Microsoft," McNealy said. "(Sun has) a worldwide service and support organization, which we think is way better than either company in the enterprise."


Solaris also will run programs written for the Linux operating system without having to make any changes.


Though Sun also sells lower-end systems that run Linux, it believes Solaris is a better value proposition. To strengthen its case, Solaris 10 will include security features that in the past were only part of a trusted version sold strictly to government agencies and the military.


Sun, a star of the late 1990s tech boom, fell on hard times as corporate spending shrunk and rivals like IBM Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. started offering machines with less expensive hardware and software.


The Santa Clara-based company has been trying to return to solid footing for years, and McNealy said Solaris 10 is an important part of the company's transformation.


"It's kind of the tent pole ? it just kind of holds up the whole deal," he said.


Last month, Sun announced its second consecutive quarter of revenue growth, though profits remain elusive. McNealy believes the company he co-founded in 1982 has already turned the corner, though the financials have yet to show it.


"There's always a lag with companies our size," McNealy said. "And that's assuming we're not making dumb mistakes right now that I don't know about."


___

On the Net:

Sun Microsystems: http://www.sun.com


 

MrChad

Lifer
Aug 22, 2001
13,507
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Isn't Solaris exclusive to Sun's SPARC hardware? Or has it been ported to x86 platforms?
 

timswim78

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2003
4,330
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Originally posted by: MrChad
Isn't Solaris exclusive to Sun's SPARC hardware? Or has it been ported to x86 platforms?


From the Article:
Solaris 10 will be unveiled Monday at an event in San Jose, though it won't be formally released until the end of January. It will work on more than 270 computer platforms running on chips from Sun, Intel Corp. or Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
 

drag

Elite Member
Jul 4, 2002
8,708
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It's been ported to x86 for some time, it's just that most of the nice things about it was it's hardware.

Then they kind off dropped of x86 support for a long time... But now they have a renewed vigor for x86 and even have AMD64 machines that they have started selling.

Solaris will be free. The support, won't of course. However they say it will be very competative (read: slightly cheaper) then Redhat current charges. (When redhat sells the OS, they aren't selling the OS. They are selling a one year support contract and Sun is going for that angle now, too. Seems to work out well for Redhat as they are one of few enterprise level Linux-only companies that are making a good profit).

Eventually they say they will release it under a OSI approved open source liscence.

Sun even has a ebay store were they are selling servers and support for roughly 50-60% of what it would cost retail... (last time I checked). Something to look at if you want a nice server for relatively cheap.
 

MrChad

Lifer
Aug 22, 2001
13,507
3
81
Originally posted by: timswim78
Originally posted by: MrChad
Isn't Solaris exclusive to Sun's SPARC hardware? Or has it been ported to x86 platforms?


From the Article:
Solaris 10 will be unveiled Monday at an event in San Jose, though it won't be formally released until the end of January. It will work on more than 270 computer platforms running on chips from Sun, Intel Corp. or Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

Reading is fundamental. :eek:
 

simo

Senior member
Nov 8, 2002
287
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Solaris Sparc is the only platform where StarOffice 6 is available for free, go with OpenOffice.org instead

The nice thing about 10 is that Gnome2 is it's default desktop envinronment, none of that CDE crap or dodgey XFree86 hacks anymore.

It can't run *any* Linux application by the way, in the same way that WINE doesn't enable Linux to run *any* Windows application.

Sparc Solaris is worth it for the hardware as someone said (although arguable Apple's XServers are just as nice running BSD), but on x86 you're better off with a nice copy of Fedora or SUSE Linux ;)
 

Keitero

Golden Member
Jun 28, 2004
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This is very nice. Solaris is a nice *NIX OS. If it wasn't so darn hard to use, it would kick ass.
 

MrPaulAR

Member
May 1, 2003
153
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Originally posted by: loki8481
ah, sun servers can suck it. I mean, what? no video output?

the OS is nice, though.

Why do you need video on a server again? There is console which is all that is needed.

They do have desktops/workstations that do have video cards.
 

weepul

Diamond Member
Nov 5, 2000
5,134
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www.hd-trailers.net
berkeley is a big sun purchaser and we're currently using solaris 9. i've gotta say, their hardware is really nice with the keycard for mobile sessions, 1 main server and sparc clients in the front which are basically a mouse/keyboard/video card/sound card/ethernet port and all the processing is done in the server.

//krunk (^_^x)
 

mbackof

Senior member
Sep 10, 2003
382
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I've used Solaris 2.6 and Solaris 8 for x86 on Intel machines and I loved supporting it. Very stable and easy to maintain.
 

nageov3t

Lifer
Feb 18, 2004
42,808
83
91
Originally posted by: MrPaulAR
Originally posted by: loki8481
ah, sun servers can suck it. I mean, what? no video output?

the OS is nice, though.

Why do you need video on a server again?

it's just a general PIA when one crashes for no apparent reason and there's already a monitor right next to the server.
 

esun

Platinum Member
Nov 12, 2001
2,214
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Originally posted by: weepul
berkeley is a big sun purchaser and we're currently using solaris 9. i've gotta say, their hardware is really nice with the keycard for mobile sessions, 1 main server and sparc clients in the front which are basically a mouse/keyboard/video card/sound card/ethernet port and all the processing is done in the server.

//krunk (^_^x)

You a Berkeley student? Are you talking about those labs down at C50 and available through SSH? They're decent, IMO, but sometimes slow and prone to crashing. Not exactly ideal.
 

GTFan

Senior member
Jan 11, 2001
642
0
76
Originally posted by: loki8481
Originally posted by: MrPaulAR
Originally posted by: loki8481
ah, sun servers can suck it. I mean, what? no video output?

the OS is nice, though.

Why do you need video on a server again?

it's just a general PIA when one crashes for no apparent reason and there's already a monitor right next to the server.

LOL, you've obviously never heard of terminal servers to access console ports over the net, or lights-out-management, or...

why am I bothering.
 

pukemon

Senior member
Jun 16, 2000
850
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Originally posted by: GTFan
Originally posted by: loki8481
Originally posted by: MrPaulAR
Originally posted by: loki8481
ah, sun servers can suck it. I mean, what? no video output?

the OS is nice, though.

Why do you need video on a server again?

it's just a general PIA when one crashes for no apparent reason and there's already a monitor right next to the server.

LOL, you've obviously never heard of terminal servers to access console ports over the net, or lights-out-management, or...

why am I bothering.

Well probably because he (and most of the people reading the forum) have never actually used an actual REAL Sun Server, the newer Sun Fire's in particular. The reason why there is no need for a video framebuffer is because the machines are going to be rackmounted and can be fully controlled remotely via a command line interface. And the fact of the matter is, if you're not willing to learn to use a CLI, someone else is, so...

Using a console server (such as ones manufacturer by Digi) or an old skool VT100 type of console or heck direct connect using HyperTerminal will all achieve the same results as well as give access to the ALOM (Advanced Lights Out Manager)

As for the GUI, there's always 'rlogin' or better yet, 'ssh -X'...
 

AStar617

Diamond Member
Sep 29, 2002
4,983
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Very hot. Of course I'm partial as I support Sun hardware/software for a living. Sue me :D

Anyone who's interested in the slightest should read up on Solaris Zones (http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/fe...es/solaris_zones.html), which is a great step toward even further software stability than is already present. I particularly like the fact that this is hardware independent so that the x86 platforms can take advantage even though they are by nature not as closely mated to the OS as SPARC.

Also, my fellow engineers and I are very excited about DTrace and the accompanying D language, which are poised to turn core analysis and real-time production box observation on its head... think a fully scriptable "truss" or (enter your favorite kernel debugger here) on steroids that also uses probes (like a car's engine management system might) that are either pre-defined and embedded into system code, or user-defineable via D... coredump analyses that might take hours with SCAT, etc., could take mere minutes...

And I didn't even get to ZFS filesystem or Trusted Solaris features yet. Hell yea :D

http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/10/inside.jsp