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Review: Opening Solaris
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Comments (13)
Abandon ship!
Chris --
Absolutely.
It's not a question of if but when.
Absolutely.
It's not a question of if but when.
Are you talking about my plank idea? :)
Dell could come up with ads like:
Don't walk the plank and go plunk listening to a skunk.
Rats... it's supposed to be weasel. What rhymes with weasel?
Dell could come up with ads like:
Don't walk the plank and go plunk listening to a skunk.
Rats... it's supposed to be weasel. What rhymes with weasel?
An insulting term of address for people who are stupid or irritating or ridiculous. The English spell and pronouce it different, but it's close enough to rhyme.
Where's the facts - the empirical evidence?
Solaris isn't a Linux killer. Solaris is about suicide and self inflicted wounds.
So, the author says it's been around a long time and has massive numbers of deployments and is in so many places. Well, when you see the actual numbers they aren't impressive. 800,000 deployments doesn't make me shake in my boots. Granted they're mostly big metal - but compared to Linux or even OS X -- hello?
What he didn't say is how very insecure it's been. It wasn't until 2.6 that old sol started closing down places most crackers could exploit. Right now, Dtrace allows someone with an older kernel debugger to do anything he or she wants to do, see anything they want to see and completely own the computer.
Now, why hasn't Sun told people about that?
Solaris is slow, buggy, odd and I wouldn't want to do any more administrative work on it again.
Sometimes it's best to just give up on the past and start over. Sun should do that and flush solaris for good.
"The times they are a-changing" - B. Dylan
So, the author says it's been around a long time and has massive numbers of deployments and is in so many places. Well, when you see the actual numbers they aren't impressive. 800,000 deployments doesn't make me shake in my boots. Granted they're mostly big metal - but compared to Linux or even OS X -- hello?
What he didn't say is how very insecure it's been. It wasn't until 2.6 that old sol started closing down places most crackers could exploit. Right now, Dtrace allows someone with an older kernel debugger to do anything he or she wants to do, see anything they want to see and completely own the computer.
Now, why hasn't Sun told people about that?
Solaris is slow, buggy, odd and I wouldn't want to do any more administrative work on it again.
Sometimes it's best to just give up on the past and start over. Sun should do that and flush solaris for good.
"The times they are a-changing" - B. Dylan
And I think SMF was done because of the fact that Sun didn't really understand Sys V runlevels (thus they made runlevel 3 dependent on runlevel 2)... and their runlevel scripts.. P.U.... what a mess. Very amateurish. At least it's all hidden inside a binary object repository registry now. No wonder they like Microsoft so much. :)
tadelste - I see you have not gotten the Word! Were is your Faith, don't you know this was done by "Intelligent Design"? Quit looking for facts, since there is no evidence - but it is true. The pres thinks it's a good idea.
cjcox - too bad, since you looked at their source and understood it you are no longer allowed to work on either free or open source ware again under penalty of laws we shall make up and enforce. But there is a recruiter that wants to discuss your future at Microsoft.
cjcox - too bad, since you looked at their source and understood it you are no longer allowed to work on either free or open source ware again under penalty of laws we shall make up and enforce. But there is a recruiter that wants to discuss your future at Microsoft.
Hee.. hee.. the init scripts don't count. :p
I've had many recruiters want to talk to me about Microsoft in the past (about their "Linux" outreach program).
I've had many recruiters want to talk to me about Microsoft in the past (about their "Linux" outreach program).
cjcox - they only wanted to rope you in for fun, right? But why do they use a noose when it's Linux they are trying to herd? What bothers me even more is their crazy singing of "Hanging 'em High ...".
open and free license? eerrmmm
I've never used Solaris, but I've heard plenty of Solaris admins sigh heavily and wish Linux were as good, or that Solaris would run on x86. I've always been curious how the two really compare- is it just sepia-toned memories of olden times? Are there things that Solaris can do that Linux can't? Are these nostalgic Solaris admins comparing to the last Linux they tried, RH 5?
To me it's like wanting Mac OS to run on x86; that is, pointless. It's the marriage of software and hardware that makes them special. After reading this review this still seems to be the case.
I wonder about the author's interpretation of the Solaris license. The free-beer part is nice, but as near as I can tell the openess is one-way- Sun wants to own all code developed by independent developers. Sooo...I'm still confused.
To me it's like wanting Mac OS to run on x86; that is, pointless. It's the marriage of software and hardware that makes them special. After reading this review this still seems to be the case.
I wonder about the author's interpretation of the Solaris license. The free-beer part is nice, but as near as I can tell the openess is one-way- Sun wants to own all code developed by independent developers. Sooo...I'm still confused.
Let's see... I've used Sun product since the old Motorola based ones... I've been using, programming and administrating Unix since 1983.
The Solaris admins for the most part are just plain wrong. While it is true that there are some nice features in Solaris that are not in Linux (yet)... the list is probably 2 to 3 times as long for features present in GNU/Linux for which there is NO similar feature found in Solaris.
Most Solaris admins, once they REALLY try Linux, find themselves deploying Linux more and more.
The dtrace thing is nice and the containers are better than just a BSD jail like thing... but not as nice in some ways as Xen. I think Linux will get a dtrace like addition at some point (some of it is already happening I believe) and not even Sun has their mega, ultra, super, duper new 128-bit filesystem ready yet (can't really compare anything to bugware).
Regardless... even if Solaris had all the features of a GNU/Linux system, there's still the whole "control" thing. Deploy Solaris (or even OpenSolaris) and you will have all of your eggs in one basket so to speak.
The yokes on you when Sun cries out, "Abandon ship!"
The Solaris admins for the most part are just plain wrong. While it is true that there are some nice features in Solaris that are not in Linux (yet)... the list is probably 2 to 3 times as long for features present in GNU/Linux for which there is NO similar feature found in Solaris.
Most Solaris admins, once they REALLY try Linux, find themselves deploying Linux more and more.
The dtrace thing is nice and the containers are better than just a BSD jail like thing... but not as nice in some ways as Xen. I think Linux will get a dtrace like addition at some point (some of it is already happening I believe) and not even Sun has their mega, ultra, super, duper new 128-bit filesystem ready yet (can't really compare anything to bugware).
Regardless... even if Solaris had all the features of a GNU/Linux system, there's still the whole "control" thing. Deploy Solaris (or even OpenSolaris) and you will have all of your eggs in one basket so to speak.
The yokes on you when Sun cries out, "Abandon ship!"
cjcox paints a fairly good picture.
To just build on his points, I don't know many (if any) senior Solaris admins who really use Linux today that would support the claim that solaris is superior. Some time back, say seven years, I think Solaris administration was really awesome.
At Ericsson, 2 Solaris admins supported more users than 25 Microsoft CPs.
Somewhere around 2000, Solaris innovation slowed down. Sun had done a remarkable job of selling their hardware into the telecommunications and Internet Service provider verticals and the software took a back seat.
Sun's proprietary processors also didn't keep pace and started losing sales to commodity based hardware suppliers. IBM also made Sun a primary target and took away a lot of Sun's customers.
One of the things I dislike about Solaris administration has to do with "waiting around". It takes forever to boot a Solaris machine and it's difficult to bring one back from the dead. You don't have virtual terminals so you're pretty well stuck if an X session freezes.
If someone like cjcox has strong command-line skills and writes his own scripts to do administration, I can't see why someone would prefer Solaris to Linux today.
Sometimes people simply like one system over another because of habit.
I think that's more of an emotional issue than a rational one.
To just build on his points, I don't know many (if any) senior Solaris admins who really use Linux today that would support the claim that solaris is superior. Some time back, say seven years, I think Solaris administration was really awesome.
At Ericsson, 2 Solaris admins supported more users than 25 Microsoft CPs.
Somewhere around 2000, Solaris innovation slowed down. Sun had done a remarkable job of selling their hardware into the telecommunications and Internet Service provider verticals and the software took a back seat.
Sun's proprietary processors also didn't keep pace and started losing sales to commodity based hardware suppliers. IBM also made Sun a primary target and took away a lot of Sun's customers.
One of the things I dislike about Solaris administration has to do with "waiting around". It takes forever to boot a Solaris machine and it's difficult to bring one back from the dead. You don't have virtual terminals so you're pretty well stuck if an X session freezes.
If someone like cjcox has strong command-line skills and writes his own scripts to do administration, I can't see why someone would prefer Solaris to Linux today.
Sometimes people simply like one system over another because of habit.
I think that's more of an emotional issue than a rational one.
In all fairness, Solaris 10 does boot very quickly now.
Not sure if journaling is now the default on their ufs filesystem or not. It's easily corrected though. Ufs does NOT like coming down hard. Not that many filesystems do.. but you almost always have to intervene as root (fsck won't recover) with Solaris on boot (unless you turn on journaling).
Just something else I thought of.
Solaris has never "wowed" me with something. I guess dtrace is nice though. Not sure if that is a "wow" yet. Back when Windows was still young, Sun and the other commercial Unix vendors basically rolled over and allowed Microsoft to have the desktop and then allowed them to start establishing a foothold in the datacenter. The only ones they (Sun etc.) can blame for the success of Microsoft in the corporate enterprise is themselves.
I'd rather use Solaris than Microsoft. But IMHO, Linux is far more usable across the enterprise than Solaris is.
Not sure if journaling is now the default on their ufs filesystem or not. It's easily corrected though. Ufs does NOT like coming down hard. Not that many filesystems do.. but you almost always have to intervene as root (fsck won't recover) with Solaris on boot (unless you turn on journaling).
Just something else I thought of.
Solaris has never "wowed" me with something. I guess dtrace is nice though. Not sure if that is a "wow" yet. Back when Windows was still young, Sun and the other commercial Unix vendors basically rolled over and allowed Microsoft to have the desktop and then allowed them to start establishing a foothold in the datacenter. The only ones they (Sun etc.) can blame for the success of Microsoft in the corporate enterprise is themselves.
I'd rather use Solaris than Microsoft. But IMHO, Linux is far more usable across the enterprise than Solaris is.
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When Sun decided to support FULLY the x86 environment in Solaris 2.0/2.1... what happened?
They abandoned ship and left their customer base to sink.
When Sun again promised to support the x86 environment in Solaris 2.4 and promised not to let the user down... what happened?
They abandoned ship and left their customer base to sink.
The CDDL is designed to make sure that Sun maintains control.. this of course allows them to abandon ship AGAIN.
They like to abandon ship. Maybe they can just use the plank and coerce their customers to jump. Might save them some money on the building of new ships.