[ILUG] Solaris X.86 dies.

[Niall O Broin]

On Thu, Jan 10, 2002 at 02:20:57PM -0000, Matthew French wrote:

> 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.

That's the big problem of course as I know to my cost - I have Sol8 on my
Inspiron 8000 but I can only use it via a serial console or over the net
because it has a problem with the keyboard controller chip. However, Sun
wanted to be there to compete with M$ where Intel hardware was going to be
used, at a time when the choice on Intel hardware was M$, SCO or Novell.
Then along came the Finnish Swede upstart and took a lot of that mindset and
Sun is left carrying the can for Solaris 8 updates for a much smaller slice
of the pie. AND there's no doubt that Linux was what caused Solaris to
become free (as in beer) for machines with 8 or less processors which is
most of the Intel installed base so Sun's revenue from Solaris IA sales,
never huge, dwindled further.

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

Heresy but true - I'd add interactive response to that. I've rarely seen the
console on a Solaris box get so little CPU that it became nasty to use -
still happens with Linux when the box is very busy.

. . . . . . .

Lots cut which pointed to the fact that, despite the below assertion 

> Me deluded?!? Never!!!

you are indeed deluded or at the very least terminally optimistic.


Niall