Sun Microsystems: Questions

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
What is the diff between SunOS and Solaris?



Is there a free version of Solaris out for x86?





I heard the new version of Solaris uses a Gnome or KDE window manager. Is this true?



Does Sun make the SPARC chip? Who partners with Sun on mobo designs? Do they do it ALL in house? That seems pretty expensive...



Is Sun making a profit right now?



Besides JAVA and their big-iron servers, what revenue streams does Sun have?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    I'm no Sun expert but:



    SunOS is to Solaris as Darwin is to MacOS X (though I don't know if you can still get SunOS separately).



    I believe Solaris 9 for x86 was cancelled and then recently revived. There certainly is Solaris 8 for x86.



    You can get Solaris for free to develop on/run at home but I assume you pay big bucks to run it as part of a corporate set-up.



    Solaris has adopted Gnome instead of a Sun specific solution called CDE.



    I'll pass on the other questions except to say that consultancy is always a money spinner for companies like Sun.
  • Reply 2 of 17
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    [quote]Originally posted by dstranathan:

    <strong>What is the diff between SunOS and Solaris?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    SunOS is an older, BSD-based OS. Solaris is based on AT&T SVR4 UNIX.



    [quote]<strong>I heard the new version of Solaris uses a Gnome or KDE window manager. Is this true?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I can't confirm that. However, the previous poster claimed that CDE is Sun-specific. It's not. It's the Common Desktop Environment, which KDE borrows from. It's commercial, and common on commercial UNIXen. We ran it for a while on DEC OSF/1 - also an SVR4 derivative.



    [quote]<strong>Does Sun make the SPARC chip? Who partners with Sun on mobo designs? Do they do it ALL in house? That seems pretty expensive...</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Sun designs SPARC in house. I think they contract Texas Instruments to fab it.



    [quote]<strong>Besides JAVA and their big-iron servers, what revenue streams does Sun have?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    All the big iron vendors make the bulk of their money from services and support, including consulting and the contracts that they sell with the hardware. Sun is no exception.
  • Reply 3 of 17
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Er...



    My Solaris 8 machine is running atop SunOS 5.8. stupider...likeafox is correct.



    CDE pretty much *is* Sun specific even if it really isn't. There is at least one pretty good CDE clone out there. I can't remember the name. Can't think of why anybody would actually want to run CDE or its clones though...
  • Reply 4 of 17
    eskimoeskimo Posts: 474member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eugene:

    <strong>Er...



    My Solaris 8 machine is running atop SunOS 5.8. stupider...likeafox is correct.



    CDE pretty much *is* Sun specific even if it really isn't. There is at least one pretty good CDE clone out there. I can't remember the name. Can't think of why anybody would actually want to run CDE or its clones though...</strong><hr></blockquote>



    CDE is the standard desktop environment on all the HP-UX boxen i've used at work and in college. It's also what my Xterm emulator for windows uses.
  • Reply 5 of 17
    alicealice Posts: 15member
    I haven't heard of the diff between SunOS and Solaris.
  • Reply 6 of 17
    alicealice Posts: 15member
    I haven't heard of the diff between SunOS and Solaris.
  • Reply 7 of 17
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eugene:

    <strong>Er...



    My Solaris 8 machine is running atop SunOS 5.8. stupider...likeafox is correct.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />



    Then Sun reappropriated the "SunOS" name, because it was a BSD-based operating system that Solaris supplanted.
  • Reply 8 of 17
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    [quote]Originally posted by dstranathan:

    <strong>Does Sun make the SPARC chip? Who partners with Sun on mobo designs? Do they do it ALL in house? That seems pretty expensive...

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Sun designs SPARCs and TI manufactures them. Sun does everything in house. Expensive? Their dual GHz workstation costs $20,000...
  • Reply 9 of 17
    alicealice Posts: 15member
    They have contributed much to Java. They have contributed much to Java. I will mention that to my botmaster, wmf. I heard they have a good dual GHz workstation costs 20 000.
  • Reply 10 of 17
    hi,

    sun boxes are excellent machines

    i bought a sun ultra 10 440mhz over a year

    ago for 2000$ & it is by far the fastest machine

    ive ever owned...beating my amd 1.2ghz & the ti 800

    these are 64 bit cpu's & perform wonderfully

    given enough ram (512mb)

    kde will run great on it



    you can get one from ebay where sun sells theirs

    the newer ones are &lt; $1000 ...they are called

    sun blades



    lastly solaris 8 is a superb os if you know unix

    & know what you are doing...



    if you want a good unix box this is a good deal for personal use



    hope that helps

    pete
  • Reply 11 of 17
    alicealice Posts: 15member
    They have contributed much to Java. Your input activated the 24 star category. Oh that they. No thanks but you can send me a donation.
  • Reply 12 of 17
    [quote]Originally posted by Amorph:

    <strong>SunOS is an older, BSD-based OS. Solaris is based on AT&T SVR4 UNIX.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Actually, I think you are correct (mostly). I did some googling and in a nutshell:



    SunOS 1 through 4 were BSD based. Solaris 1 was a renaming of SunOS 4 and Solaris 2 was SVR4 based. To confuse matters further Sun usually refer to Solaris 2.X as Solaris X i.e. Solaris 8 == Solaris 2.8



    edit: I think I may be right as well. I think that Solaris 8 a.k.a Solaris 2.8 is running on top of SunOS 5.8 in a Darwin/OS X type manner (though you are still correct that SunOS 5.8 is not the same code as SunOS 1 - 4).



    [ 08-20-2002: Message edited by: stupider...likeafox ]</p>
  • Reply 13 of 17
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Heh, madmax559, my Blade 100 (600 MHz USPARC IIe) is dog slow. The Rage Pro in it isn't helping either.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    dstranathandstranathan Posts: 1,717member
    Thnaks for the info guys, I appreciate it.



    OK, more questions:



    Is System V (Release 4 and 5) an AT&T product or a combination of BOTH ATT&T's and Sun's development?



    Why does Sun have a BSD OS (SunOS), a System 5 based OS (Solaris), AND A Linux OS?



    Also, on the hardware side, why does Sun allow Solaris to run on both their Sparc chips AND Intel's x86 boxes?



    Is Sun in the black finacially right now?



    What is the fastest Sparc CPU available right now?



    Does anyone else use the Sparc chip besides Sun? Does TI sell it to other companies?



    Do you forsee Sun's and Apple's markets overlapping? Seems to me that if Apple makes servers and Sun makes graphics stations, they may collide some day.



    I mean look at the all the things they have in common:



    outsourced/partnered design of RISC chips (~1 GHz)

    *NIX based OS



    Cool design (well, unique anyway)



    They both are in the video and high-end design world.



    JAVA!



    Any thoughts?
  • Reply 15 of 17
    dstranathandstranathan Posts: 1,717member
    OK, STILL more questions:



    Did Sun invent NFS?



    What is the native file system for Sun hard disk drives (i.e.; NTFS, HSF+, DOS, Fat32, etc)?
  • Reply 16 of 17
    stimulistimuli Posts: 564member
    BTW, Gnome 2 is the new 'official' desktop of Solaris, replacing the old-skool CDE.



    Sun has a linux initiative simply because so does everyone else. In this day and age it is unwise not to have some sort of linux initiative (see Oracle, IBM, HP/Compaq, etc etc). Sun uses linux on their low-end blade servers (dual intel boxes).



    Hey Eugene: Dog slow? I've been entertaining thoughts of snagging a cheapo blade myself.



    Also Bill Joy, the founder of Sun, worked extensively on BSD Unix while in UC Berkley. BSD is of course the basis of OSX, as well as *BSDs (like Open- Net- and Free-).
  • Reply 17 of 17
    brian j.brian j. Posts: 139member
    [quote]Originally posted by dstranathan:

    <strong>

    Did Sun invent NFS?

    </strong>

    <hr></blockquote>

    Yes.



    [quote]

    <strong>

    What is the native file system for Sun hard disk drives (i.e.; NTFS, HSF+, DOS, Fat32, etc)?

    </strong>

    <hr></blockquote>

    UFS (also known as FFS) is the native file system in Solaris and many other popular versions of UNIX such as BSD. UFS was invented in the early 80s by the Berkeley research group that developed BSD UNIX. At the time of its development, UFS was a ground breaking file system that improved disk I/O performance up to an order of magnitude. It's still a great file system, but it's bad for Macs, because it's case sensitive.



    [quote]

    <strong>

    Also, on the hardware side, why does Sun allow Solaris to run on both their Sparc chips AND Intel's x86 boxes?

    </strong>

    <hr></blockquote>

    First, note that Sun cancelled the x86 port of Solaris 9 last January, but may still release it after a backlash from some users. Solaris 8 for x86 is still available.



    Originally, Sun probably made a lot of money off of the Solaris x86. However, as open source versions of UNIX started catching on, they were forced to give Solaris away for free. Currently, only single processor machines are eligible for a free Solaris license.



    [quote]

    <strong>

    Is Sun in the black finacially right now?

    </strong>

    <hr></blockquote>

    Like everyone else, Sun's revenues and stock price took a major hit the last year or two. Through cost cutting, they made it back into the black last quarter. Personally, I think their future is very bleak. Their competitive edge has been the stability of their UNIX operating system and the quality of their hardware. In the long term, their Solaris/Sparc based machines won't be competitive with cheaper yet equally powerful and stable alternatives based on Linux and Intel processors. Think SGI...



    [quote]

    <strong>

    What is the fastest Sparc CPU available right now?

    </strong>

    <hr></blockquote>

    I'm not sure, but I know it's not that fast. It's a 64 bit chip that runs somewhere around the 1GHz range. They build their high-end machines by putting dozens of processors in a single machine.



    [quote]

    <strong>

    Does anyone else use the Sparc chip besides Sun?

    </strong>

    <hr></blockquote>

    Yes. In fact, Sun released the SPARC architecture to the public as an open standard allowing anyone to design and build SPARC chips.



    [quote]

    <strong>

    Do you forsee Sun's and Apple's markets overlapping? Seems to me that if Apple makes servers and Sun makes graphics stations, they may collide some day.

    </strong>

    <hr></blockquote>

    No. Sun is not really known for making graphics stations. Sparcs are geared at corporations and their serious techical needs (running a database server for instance). Macs are mostly sold to consumers although Apple is trying to change that with the introduction of the Xserve and Mac OS X.
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