Linux Apps On Solaris 356
querencia writes "Sun has announced that Solaris 10 will comply with the Linux Standard Base specification, thus allowing Linux apps to run unchanged on Solaris. This isn't emulation -- they claim that it is 'kernel-integrated and supported as an operating system feature.' While I appreciate the benefits of the Solaris OS, I've considered them on the losing end of the battle until now. Will the power of Linux apps put Solaris back into the running?" Update: 08/04 15:50 GMT by J : At OSCON, Sun reaffirmed that Solaris 10 will be open-sourced. They said it would be one of the OSI licenses, not sure which yet; that this was approved at the highest levels of the company; and (with the expected "we're just guessing" language), it could happen as soon as year's end.
you mean like... (Score:1, Insightful)
by the way, how well does doom 3 run under wine?
No (Score:5, Insightful)
-Benjamin Meyer
Just LSB or ABI/API too? (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems a bit of desperate measure. There was a time when Solaris was the leading UNIX on any platform. Now Sun seem resigned to play second fiddle..
Re:you mean like... (Score:2, Insightful)
So what has Solaris got? (Score:4, Insightful)
Cheap way to develop for both? (Score:5, Insightful)
This would, IMO, backfire since a potential customer would see Linux as the more influential and therefore desirable IT tool.
Re:I doubt it (Score:4, Insightful)
and
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/
If you join the dots, you might see a survival strategy if the Big Bad Wolf comes a hunting.
h.
Short Answer (Score:3, Insightful)
No.
The long answer, Linux adaptation is slow because the FUD says that Linux is too hard, so IT managers avoid it. Linux is only now gaining ground as linux devotees have waged a constant war against that FUD. The FUD sources also say that Sun is too expensive and only caters to those who can afford their proprietary hardware. Sun has not yet begun to fight the PR campaign which it will take to overcome that. My thought is that by the time Sun gains that acceptance Linux will have near equal penetration into the corporate environment as MS.
Application/OS Security? (Score:4, Insightful)
Their webpage says:
"You can safely run Solaris and Linux applications side by side in the same container, or you can configure separate containers that isolate Solaris and Linux applications from each other and from system faults. If an application fault occurs and the application needs to be restarted, other applications continue to run without interruption. ".
Okay, let's look at this. You can now run Solaris and Linux-applications side by side - This would mean a security breach in their previous views then? Or, you can choose to lock the Linux-applications away in their own container - This seem much more in line with previous statements from Sun.
"Unlike technology previously available for running Linux in other non-Linux environments, Project Janus functionality is kernel-integrated and supported as an operating system feature."
So, this LSB-compliance are kernel-integrated, and yet they claim Solaris is more secure than Linux? Can someone please help me out on this? I'll try to investigate myself, but I am not sure what I will find, as Solaris for now, still are, closed source.
Re:IOW... (Score:2, Insightful)
Which apps, exactly? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which apps would those be, exactly? Just about everything significant that's available for Linux is available as source, and most of those build with autoconf and GNU tools for portability, so installation on Solaris is just a 'configure; make; make install' away.
There are a handful of proprietary applications for Linux that might be relevant, but I'd guess most of these are back-office type things that probably already have Solaris versions. That just leaves things like the Flash plugin, and I simply can't see that sort of thing as being very important.
A slower death? (Score:2, Insightful)
All Propriety Solutions Welcome? (Score:2, Insightful)
No.
What does Slashdot have with this fallacy about something saving Sun? Sun's hardware is expensive - why should I buy another piece of proprietary hardware? Sun's OS isn't GPL'd (insert your favorite license) - why should I buy yet another piece of proprietary Software? Some say Sun has Java - yet another piece of proprietary software. No Sun has to compete in the open market - sink or swim.
Re:Just LSB or ABI/API too? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Which apps, exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just browse through the patches in a BSD ports collection sometime if you want to see what I mean.
Re:There was a beta version once ! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a pity, FrameMaker still is one of the best tools around (and the most accessible) for long-document publishing, even if Adobe has been neglecting it forever.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it's the easy choice for these developers to make. It's not the correct one though - the correct one would be to figure out your environment and build accordingly.
For example, thanks to the wonders of "./configure ; make" I now build similar software for the three Unix environments I regularly use - SPARC Solaric, x86 Debian and OS X (PPC). Never have to worry about 'personalities', it just gets compiled and run.
It certainly is about developers, but it's about those developers becoming less sloppy and making fewer assumptions about environment. In many cases the sloppiness I refer to is entirely understandable: it was a pet project, only had to run in one environment, they only had access to x86 Lionux to test under etc.. All good arguments, but they don't really apply to the kind of applications you're likely to be running on your Solaris servers. These will be mostly custom-ordered vendor jobs, and the vendors should know better.
Cheers,
Ian
(Oh, and hi Ben - fancy running into you here. I'm the person who helped you out with your old Mac format floppies).
useless (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, Sun is not talking about free software here ... it's easy enough to get any of that running on solaris.
They're talking about the software - proprietary - from vendors of theirs that are switching to linux because it's a cheaper (and better) platform for most apps. So, I really must ask, what is the point?
Solaris will - for the forseeable future - still be king on the mid to high end server end. They're talking here about workstation apps in the scientific and engineering realms which are moving wholesale to linux. So in essence Sun is saying here "you can run your linux apps on your legacy Sun workstations", and not much else. It's a nice gesture, but it is no earth shaker.
Re:you mean like... (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhh Why?
MFC is dead. It hasn't been updated since version 4.2 and even MS don't use it any more. It was a hideous abortion to start with anyway.
Porting a project that's written properly is trivial - I write multiplatform stuff all the time . If your code is correctly written then it'll run anywhere with minor tweaks (it's no coincidence that doom3 can reach Linux so fast... it's because ID have programmers that are actually half decent).
Errr... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:IOW... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as a simple, grade A, introductory issue: How does a Linux application issue a system call? Using int80. How does a Solaris application issue a system call? Using syscall, sysenter, or lcall depending on the application and the version of the OS.
The two OSes don't even agree on the basic mechanism by which applications can communicate with the kernel. And you think it's just a matter of putting glibc on the CD. Put down the keyboard and go back to CS101 until you learn something.
Re:Note this is only for Solaris x86 (Score:5, Insightful)
Your point is taken, but with the release of full 64-bit Solaris 10 for X86-64 and Sun's new 2-way AMD Opteron workstations, 2 and 4-way Opteron servers, and soon to be released 8-way Opteron servers, Sun is betting the farm on X86-64. The plain and simple truth of the matter is that Opteron offers two to three times the performance of current UltraSparc chips, and I predict that Sun will replace their entire product line, except for the extreme high-end, with Opteron, in the next 5 years.
The other thing you should consider is that more Sysadmins know Solaris than any other flavor of Unix, so giving them the capability of running 64-bit Solaris with 32 or 64-bit Linux applications side-by-side is clearly a winning move on Sun's part. Now, if only they can execute properly. Some of the benchmarks on the new Java Workstations (I don't know why they call them that when they're really just AMD Opteron workstations) have them running the BLAST benchmark on Solaris 10 x86 up to 61 percent faster than a Dell Precision Workstation running Linux. [sun.com]
Given the choice between a 32-bit Dell Xeon workstation with no console port, running Redhat, and a real 64-bit Sun workstation with a console port and everything, running Solaris 10, with full Linux compatibility (or dual-booting to Redhat if I so desire), at a lower price, guess which one I'm going to choose?
OS Diversity (Score:5, Insightful)
Sun has lost ground because their OS/Hardware solution is comparatively expensive; not necessarily because Solaris is not a capable OS.
It just amuses me that Windows homogeneity is bad; but Linux everywhere is good.
WHAT Linux apps? (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Already available for Solaris
2) Open-source and thus available for immediate porting
Come on. Think of the commercial closed-source stuff that's available for Linux, but not Solaris.
1) VMWare.
2) Uhh... VMWare.
3) Umm
4) Ohyeah. VMWare Server.
Oh, and *laugh*Accelerated-X*laugh*. Seriously. Who the heck uses that?
Oh, and maybe some random assorted browser plug-ins. Anything else? Anybody? Hello?
Seriously, why is this even worth Sun's time?! If I were a Sun shareholder (which I would never do, now that they have a "technology sharing" agreement with MS and are all buddy-buddy after accepting a settlement bribe from MS... well, I'd be frothing at the mouth even more than I am now.
Actually... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've used both Linux and Solaris for development for years. Was a sysadmin for both types of systems as well. And my dream operating system is something along the lines of GNU/Solaris.
Meaning it the same way that wackjob RMS means it: the GNU userspace utilities, with the Solaris kernel. I /really/ like some of the things that Solaris offers, but I vastly prefer the GNU command-line utils. Putting them together would make a nice, nice system.
Re:Note this is only for Solaris x86 (Score:2, Insightful)
Lets make a reality check.
Sun's cash-cow has been the SPARC/Solaris combination. Lately this cash-cow has been doing less and less good and that is why Sun has been in trouble. Making profit on x86 servers is very hard, IBM and HP have very low profit on their x86 business, Dell is doing OK. There is no reason to believe that Sun will be saved with the x86 servers and will not become their next cash-cow.
Add to this the reputation that Sun has as a x86 server vendor. They have a decade of history of downtalking x86.
They need to do something else and they seem to go to a more software and services company route now. That may go OK, but who knows...
Re:No (Score:2, Insightful)
No, the correct way is to build your software so that it makes no significant
difference what platform it's running on. With modern languages and libraries
and toolkits this is getting closer and closer to actually being possible.
(Think: Parrot and wxWindows.)
Re:What about Fink? (Score:3, Insightful)
just a few days ago (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, this is a true Unix getting certified as a Linux!
We are actually winning. Amazing.
Re:So what has Solaris got? (Score:2, Insightful)
MS Environment:
MS XP 2002 - $270.99 x 4,200 PCs = $1,138,158
Norton Anti-Virus 2004 - $36.99 x 4,200 = $155,358
Norton Internet Security - $49.99 x 4,200 = $209,958
Support - $39 x 1 = $39.00 (I figured 2 support tickets web based)
Solaris 10:
Retail price - $99 x 4,200 PCs = $415,800
AntiVirus - None Needed
Internet Security - It's called ipf and it's free
Support - FREE 90 Days
TOTALS:
MS = $1,503,513
Solaris = $415,800
Now this doesn't take into account group discounts, I know volume discounts are available for all products but still we are looking at 1/3 the cost to implement Solaris.
This also doesn't take into account problems like CodeRed, Slapper, or Blaster. I know I was NEVER affected by any of these using Solaris or Linux and my NT team was hammered by calls and problems from inside the company.
This doesn't take into account uptime vs. downtime. I know from EXPERIENCE that Solaris Servers have a much higher availability then Windows Servers, how much money is lost due to downtime is something which has to be handled on a customer by customer basis. We had a billing environment which cost us $1,600 a minute every time it was down.
There is NO comparison here...
Re:useless (Score:3, Insightful)
As for Solaris/x86, I'm sorry, but the facts just don't back you up. When Sun most recently tried to kill Solaris/x86, it was the user community who compalined to Sun to get it back. See the thread here [save-solaris.org] for more info. Further, if you look at Blastwave [blastwave.org]'s main mirror stats, you'll see that the x86 packages are downloaded quite a lot (granted, not as much as the sparc packages). See here [blastwave.org] and here [blastwave.org].
As for Linux on SPARC, I have tried it. Over the years, I've had about a dozen SPARC machines, both 32- and 64-bit. Some versions of Linux were slightly faster on older 32-bit machines, but even on something as old as an Ultra 2, Solaris is a faster, especially the newer versions.
This is the issue they're already facing (Score:3, Insightful)
Go to www.oracle.com and click on "technologies". What do you see? You see Linux (and, to be fair, Windows). What don't you see? You don't see Solaris. Hmmm....
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)