Comments on: What is Solaris? Why should I be using it?

By: Why EveryCity love Solaris | @stewarttownsend

Why EveryCity love Solaris | @stewarttownsend — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:07:04 +0000

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By: Ben Summers

Ben Summers — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:53:41 +0000

Absolutely. At the moment packages are a complete mess. I think there are about 6 Apache2 packages from various places with various strengths and weaknesses. Right now you need to have a serious incentive to push through the pain.

I suppose it’s the result of backwards compatibility. Which is a great thing. And while Sun have managed to do it much much better than Microsoft, you still get to deal with some cruft.

OpenSolaris, Distro Constructor and the Automated Installer projects look really really promising, especially as Sun will actually support the end result! I just hope they don’t make it too much like Linux in the userland.

By: Alasdair

Alasdair — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:48:43 +0000

SMP support is indeed an important feature given the way multicore processing is going.

The biggest hurdle for a lot of people I’d say is the package management. A novice can type “yum install phpmyadmin” on Linux and a blank box is mysteriously transformed into an Apache, PHP & MySQL server. Solaris has a way to go there.

I think OpenSolaris is the future – once they stabilise it a bit, and develop a kick ass installer, people that want (such as myself) to can transition over to it from Solaris 10. I’m looking forward to seeing Distro Constructor at LOSUG later this month!

By: Ben Summers

Ben Summers — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:34:22 +0000

Another really good feature isn’t so obvious: decades of working with multi-processor machines. It’s a new feature in most OSes, but well optimised in Solaris. And important as you can’t buy a single core server any more.

As you point out, getting used to Solaris can be painful! You have to put aside years of expectations from other OSes, and learn things again. And remember that the default PATH doesn’t contain anything useful.

But you’re absolutely right. Once you get over the initial hurdles, it’s an OS to love because it gets the job done.

Ben