About 20 minutes (like a full Slackware installation). Arch Linux's base installation takes less than 10 minutes (even when doing an ftp installation).

Pressing Esc+i, then the backspace button to delete a letter/number. Solaris 10's vi doesn't.

No, I am not a techie who records numbers/benchmarks. However, I do install new Linux/BSD releases frequently, and use it for a while. Solaris 10 isn't as responsive (like time it takes to launch an application) as Linux/BSD. Also, when you search something (like; find / -name something), Solaris 10 takes 2-3 times the seconds it takes Linux/BSD.

Maybe Solaris as a desktop OS will improve, but version 10 isn't ready. Besides, I don't see why many would bother to go through a tortuous installation and complicated configurations, when there are easier to install/configure, better documented and community supported Linux/BSD distros.

Okay, one of the reason is certainly that Slackware and Arch aren't maintaining a package database and dependancy checks, and in fact are lacking any form of package consistency checking, while the Solaris standard installer is based on commands that just do that.
There are alternative ways of installing Solaris, and specifically flar (Flash Archive) that would dramatically increase the installation time, should you need to install a lot of similarly configured machines.

I still do not get it, I have the very same behaviour on both systems:
Pressing "Escape" put me in command mode, if I'm already there, it beeps.
Pressing "i" put me in insert mode
Pressing "backspace" does nothing at that time , as there is nothing (yet) to erase at the left of the cursor.
Please clarify further ...

Okay, this looks like being about disk I/O, filesystem and cache performance.
Part of the difference may be that Linux give priority to speed while Solaris give it to reliability and standard conformance.

Why maybe ? Sure it will.
Hmm, it seems to me I read the same arguments used against Linux several years ago, when at that time compared to Windows 95 or 98 ...

When Solaris 10 failed to configure (using kdmconfig) X, I was forced to manually configure it. I used vi to edit the file generated. For instance, when I wanted to edit my mouse protocol, I couldn't delete the entries by using the backspace button or pressing X (Esc+i, then X); I had to delete the entire line (using dd, which worked).

The analogy is misplaced; Linux isn't a proprierty OS.

Still perplexed ...

When I press Esc + i + X, that doesn't delete anything but inserts an uppercase X in the line on both Linux and Solaris.

Under vi, backspace is not deleting previously existing characters on a line, it can only remove those characters just entered while in input mode.
In command mode, it moves the cursor left without removing any character.

Can you please give the exact sequence of keystrokes that give different behaviour ?

Let me be clear; I am talking about vi, not vim. Now:

1. Esc button, "I" button, "Bk Sp" button to delete letter/number on left. I know it doesn't delete outright, but does when you press any other button. For example: following the steps above and pressing the "Bk Sp" button 3 times, then pressing the space button will delete/remove 3 letters/numbers on left.

2. Esc button, "X" button to delete letter/number highlighted.

I didn't mean Esc+i by pressing both concurrently.

Well your are talking about vim on the linux side, no Unix vi is available under Gnu/Linux.
Have you tested what you describe ?
First, you have your description changed from "i" to uppercase "I", which means "insert a the beginning of line", so there can't be letters or numbers to delete on the left of the cursor ...
Even if I stay with an escape followed by a lowercase "i", pressing the backspace key three times has no effect on any combination of vi clones and O/S I know ...

Wrong again, the "X" key is erasing the character at the left of the one highlighted, it is the "x" key that delete the current (highlighted) character, and this works on any vi or vi clone, so where/what was the problem ?

Neither do I.

Right!!! solaris is a SERVER CLASS OS!
Even the SparcStations run a 'lesser' version of their big server hardware.

[QUITE]amwink: It didn't detected my SATA controller[/QUOTE]

Basicaly the same answer as above! SATA is still a new technology! And with every manufature's wim of how they think SATA controllers should work with Windows, makes it kinda hard for the other Big boys!

hope this clears some of the wrong thinking going on!

Quite the opposite, SparcStations used to run an "enhanced" version of the corresponding SparcServers, which were just headless/graphicless/keyboardless sparcstations

Oops guess I was mistaken, but the point is still valid.

I downloaded the DVD version. One of the 5 parts was corrupted and I had to register again to download the missing part. You are only allowed one "sucessful" download of each file per registration. Another one of the files was interrupted mid-download and I did not need to use the second registration for that download.
The installation went fine but on the final reboot I did not have a GUI.
I found a solution to the problem that used the sys-unconfig command. Since the description suggested choosing the Sun xwindows I did. It works but is a little grainy. An Xorg configuration is probably called for.
Although CDE is not hard I find the Java Desktop to be an improvement.
My network card is not detected, again. Solaris 9 did not find my 8139 NIC (older PC) by default. I somehow managed to almost kill the boot up trying to install drivers and configure the Network. Solaris 10 does not find my VIA-Rhine onboard NIC (upgraded PC) by default. There appears to be a driver available and I will give it a shot sometime.
Staroffice does not seem to want to install for the regular user. It works fine as the root user, which is plain silly. Have not found an answer for this on a casual search.

To avoid download problems, it is strongly suggested to use the free Sun download manager: http://www.sun.com/software/download...dm_index.html.
You are probably in 8 planes mode (256 colors palette), try switching to 16 or 24 planes with kdmconfig (launch it in console login mode).
It works for me and all people I know with S10.
You're free to ask. Can you describe the problem you got for a casual user account ?

This is my own fault as I prefered to not install the download manager.
This is the first DVD size file I have downloaded and I was surprised it went as well as it did.

kdmconfig did the trick. Much sharper colors now.

Star Office is also working now. I believe I was not installing it correctly. It would freeze when I attempted the "full" install rather than the "abbreviated" install. If it works for everyone else I can guess where the problem was...

Hi all,

I downloaded and installed Solaris 10 last week and played with it for almost a week now. I must say that I'm not all that pleased with it.

First a few good things:

- Picked up most of my hardware during install, although linux does a better job,
- JDE looks nice,
- Stable,
- APM is working.

But the following points are probably the reason for removing Solaris after I've played with it a bit more:

- Install is very, very slow. And I'm somebody that installs LFS for fun.....
- smf (I know it's 'new' but I really don't like it, to many layers of complexity),
- The breaking of unix/linux standards,
- Runs very slow (compared to various linux distro's on the same box),
- smc makes connections to the outside without asking.

It's just not my type of OS I guess

BTW: Installed it on:

Asus L3H laptop
256 Mb Mem
40 Gb HD (12 Gb for Solaris, rest for lfs/slack)
2.4 GHz Intel 4

smf is not just new, it adds very interesting features (service dependancies, automatic restart, parallel services start, consistent anable/disable). The commands are not that complicate to learn. Moreover, the old init.d system is still there for legacy services.
Which ones ?

Hi,

I've read that smf has some interesting (needed?) features. I just did not like the extra complexity compared to the new stuff, of which I don't need any (on my home boxes that is). I did not see the old init.d/rcX.d structure and assumed it wasn't there anymore. Took me a while to figure out how to go to RL 3, the init.d version that is

About breaking standards; The placing of files and dirs do not confirm to the HFS. Two examples being the placement of the root files (should be /root, not /) and the links to binaries in the /etc directory (I know more Unix flavors do one or both).

This one will probably be seen as 'a personal choice', but I still believe that a newly installed/fresh system should never start in RL5 (GUI mode), but in RL3.

Most of the above, except the smf part, is true for a lot of distro's and unix flavors. With that in mind it comes down to personal flavor. And it's always nice to 'taste' a new OS/Distro