Is Solaris worth installing?
 

I have a p4 1.5ghz hp, I am currently running slackware 10.1 for about a year now. I have been very pleased with the way slackware operates. I saw that you can download Solaris for free so I started to download it. Is it worth installing?

Also I had a little clustering project that I started but lost funding for, but if I ever resume it, I would like to test Solaris clustering vs Open Mosix.

How does Solaris boot? Will I need to reinstall LILO after installing Solaris, or will Solaris have a boot loader.

Brian

The very first thing you've to check before even downloading Solaris x86 is the Hardware Compatibility list. Solaris is very very picky about common devices... even NIC's.

If everything is fine, then try to install it. If some key component is not supported, check if there's a driver available.

Taking those few steps will save you from a huge disappointment and headaches in the future.

Last time I've dual booted Solaris, Solaris boot loader was capable to boot Linux without a problem.

No idea how it would work as a cluster. Worth installing? If your hardware is fully supported, I'd say yes: Solaris is a very mature Operating System that every Unix enthusiast should at least give a shot.

I installed Solaris 10 here, fortunately my hardware is supported, the only problem is that I still have to figure out how to get the FRIGGIN Internet to work. I suppose I'm doing something horribly wrong..

Anyway a few impressions: The installation of Solaris is easy and straightforward. I had more problems installing Slackware than Solaris.

The Gnome based Java desktop is neat. Very clean looking and quite easy to use, but if I could I'd install the latest Gnome. It's simply what I'm used to more. The other desktop (Common Desktop Environment) is APPALLING. Terrible interface and not very easy to use.

Oh and something else, the Solaris terminal isn't as practical as the regular Gnome terminal or Konsole: It doesn't show the directory you're currently in and the up and down keys don't scroll through the last commands you gave in. So that's a minus.

There are some good applications and it seems to be a very solid and stable OS. I've heard a few reviews that it's even better than Linux in stability and productivity..

So give it a shot! Oh and another thing: Have a bootable floppy with Grub or Lilo handy because when I installed Solaris I couldn't boot up into Linux again. Good luck!

-A

This is not a terminal issue, actually the terminal are likely to be the same on both Linux Gnome based distros and Solaris JDS.
You can have the expected behaviour by setting PS1 variable to change the terminal name, and for the arrow to work, either switch to ksh93 or to bash.
This is odd and unexpected, Solaris 10 boot loader is normally able to chain any boot loader located on a primary partition, perhaps your Linux was on an extended one ?

1 - You can always use the command pwd (print working directory) to show your location at the directory tree;

2 - While I agree that CDE is ugly and I suppose Sun is dropping it too, it's very functional and stable. Unfortunately, in the days we are living in, eye candy > stability (hence the increase of Gnome users). The XFCE is a very nice replacement though...

Yep, the lack of a command history key is a right PITA.
In my case, I flat out refuse to allow another boot-loader to overwrite my working system.
If you choose to do likewise, Solaris can be chainloaded (at least from grub) just like you'd do it for Winders.

@jlliagre:

I was probably thinking of changing the terminal emulator altogether (Probably the whole desktop system). And btw, every Gnome based distro I tried didn't have the Solaris-like terminal, but the one I wish to have..

And I have Fedora on a primary partition (/hda1 in fact) with Grub in the MBR. Solaris couldn't chainload it though. But I took care of that problem now and can boot both..

@Mega Man X:

Thanks for the tip, but I still prefer this way of showing the directory:

And BTW, I wasn't saying CDE isn't stable, it's just doesn't look good and isn't very practical (IMHO). I also don't believe that eye candy means stability (You can make XP look good, but you'll never make it stable enough). I tried XFCE once and it was ok, probably a tad too minimalistic, but I'll have to give it another shot once.

Cheers

-A

I see. Well, with a little work, you could edit your $PS1 (Prompt shell) variable to always display the current directory. Something like this:


PS1='\w $ '
export PS1

To make it permanently, you've to add that line to your .profile or .bashrc file. I can't test it right now, but it's pretty close to it I think :).

i think terminals of all sorts could be customised to whatever you like , maybe just one or two "funny" problems ...

i got 3 linux , freebsd and solaris x86 on one pc , all of them share the same terminal settings , the prompts and the title bar , i use xterm in all and/with dtterm in solaris , can do your settings through .bashrc and .Xresources or .Xdefaults in your home dir if you wanted to , except for coloring and title bar of dtterm , although my expectations might be simpler than yours ...

i got no problem compiling or installing my "standards" work-horse apps which i only use across different *nix , the filemanager , editors , web browser etc etc , except that i still cant find opera for my solaris ...

and booting solaris from linux drive might be tricky at times , right now i go to bios and change the booting disk before i go into solaris and its not that troublesome anyway , startup of "nix usually takes a bit of time ...

as for cde , that my defaults wm in solaris , my thinking is i guess i need to learn and whack a lot of very new things , better stick to the old way first , cde is very fast ...


try them all if you can ...



my solaris is just 4 or 5 days old , hope that i'm not too far out with the above , correct me if i'm wrong ...

Can you explain what terminal you wish to have ? gnome ? kde ? other ?
Anyway, as I wrote, the issue you complain of is not related to the terminal emulator used.
There's one for Solaris on SPARC, anyway, what Opera has that Firefox is missing ?
Solaris ksh is supporting history, and has history keys, I'm using the vi ones (j,k,/,?,n,...), more convenient than the simple up and down arrow.
SolarisExpress (SunOS 5.11) can be directly booted (not chainloaded) from the last grub version.

QUOTE :: "There's one for Solaris on SPARC, anyway, what Opera has that Firefox is missing ?"

yup , had noticed that when i went to their download site , now i'm using mozilla complement it with dillo for faster sufing on "dillo possible" web sites , it seems that opera is more responsive with my slower pc as what i had experience with others *nix ...

Well, you can ask Opera developers for a Solaris on x86 release, this is a problem with close source software, you cannot port them yourself ...

yup , had just sent my wish list to their forums , hope that they dont mind my sobbish lang. :D ...
but still have to say that "its not worth to burn down the whole tree just because of one "quirky" apple " , have to feel contended with what i have and what i only know at the mean time ...

Lest it be accidently (mis-)interpreted that I am claiming *any* Solaris knowledge, please be dis-avowed of same.

I bespoke of Solaris 10 (on i86), and grub (classic) 0.94 in particular. I had never seen Solaris prior to the public 10 release, and I refuse to use any grub release later than 0.94 due to other issues.

Treat it as free advice, probably worth what you paid for it ... ;)

What are these other issues ? Better to have them fixed.
Solaris grub is based on 0.95:
http://cvs.opensolaris.org/source/xr...ub/README.grub