[COLUG] Open Solaris and the Borg

[Robert Stampfli]

On Sun, Oct 29, 2006 at 04:37:03PM -0500, Jim wrote:
> Solaris (open or closed) is so _nineties_. In '06 it's moot. 
> Solaris has some good features. 
> Linux will absorb them and move on. 
> Resistance is futile. 
> 
> Rob Stampfli, in your migration from Solaris to Linux, 
> how do you compare them? 

Honestly, I'm not the person to ask.  I've never seen a
need personally to migrate beyond Solaris 8 running on
a Sparc.

For a server, I'd probably tip my hat in the direction
of Solaris.  It is rock solid.  The small server in my
basement that provides NFS and assorted other services
to the rest of my local LAN has been up and running
for 574 consecutive days now.  I recently had a disk
fail (it was mirrored) without so much as a hiccup.
Just a short message sent to root noting the failure.
Even physically replacing it didn't require a reboot.

For a desktop machine, it's another story:  Solaris
just doesn't have the breadth of software support
(GoogleEarth for Solaris?  It will never happen!) that
Linux does, nor the comprehensive support for hardware
like WiFi, or even video, cards.  Of course Linux
finishes third behind M$ PCs and Macs in the supported
software arena, but it's far ahead of Solaris, and
it's possible, though not trivial, to configure a
Linux box that will do pretty much everything you can
do with a PC now, only much more securely.

YMMV,
Rob