[ILUG] Solaris X.86 dies.

[Matthew French]

> This article (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/53/23598.html) probably
> answers my pondering here recently as to what motivation Sun has to
maintain
> Solaris X86 - the answer would appear to be none and its time has come. I
> think Linux put a good number of nails in that particular coffin.

I really doubt Linux had much to do with the demise of Solaris x86. The real
problem would be the difficulty of developing device drivers for Solaris.

<heresy>In many ways, Solaris is a much better kernel than Linux. Especially
in the areas of threading and virtual memory management.</heresy>

The problem with Solaris x86 was getting it to run on Intel hardware. It has
a relatively short list of supported configurations and is usually at least
two years behind the latest technology.  This has always been the problem
for operating systems that run on Intel hardware - you either need to have a
high penetration so vendors write drivers for you, or you need to be an open
source operating system so that enthusiasts can write and debug those
drivers for free.

Part of me wishes for a future where the device driver problem would go
away, where proprietary devices are supplied as separates that do one thing,
and do it well, so that we can get away from the broken Intel architecture.
That way I don't have to worry about IRQ's, heating issues or other mundane
problems. I can buy a new disk array, plug it into a wall socket and have
extra high speed cached disk access for my video and music collection. I can
also fill up this disk space with MRTG which monitors the power usage on my
washing machine. And I can also upgrade my Linux box, er tablet, without
worrying about losing crucial data or having to do backups as the drive
array contains my home directories and /etc is now stored in another black
box that functions as a central, version controlled, repository. :)

Of course, the interfaces have to be public and while I will no longer worry
about IRQ's I will need to make sure that the devices all have Firewire 19
or Bluetooth XII interfaces.

Come to think of it, it won't really be important which operating systems
these devices run because the Microsoft X-Box will seamlessly communicate
with the Linux powered drive array and the Solaris-based graphics terminal.

Me deluded?!? Never!!!

- Matthew







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