W. Wayne Liauh wrote:
I read all the posts. For someone who is very interested in exploring migrating from
Linux to Solaris, I am very pleased to see that most of the posts discussed the
"problems" of Solaris. I think those posts have given me a much better view of
the road that may lie ahead. So far, it is actually quite encouraging.
As I mentioned previously, I have been very actively promoting Linux for many
many years. Unfortunately, unless Novell can quickly put all its acts
together, I really don't see any future of Linux playing an even non-tritial
role in corporate desktops.
Compared to the inherent weaknesses Linux has, the problems that currently face
Solaris are definitely not insurmountable. However, one key issue that no one
seems to acknowledge is, there may not be enough time, or a politically
conducive environment, for Solaris to build a momentum. Is there a viable
foundation for college, or more importantly, high school, kids to peg their
interests? When Linux is all what they can play in school, my experience is,
they will grow into, not only Linux enthusiasts, but also (ignorant)
Solaris/Sun bashers.
Another oversight I have noticed is that no one seems to bother to separate
Solaris_86 10 from its predecessors. I have very limited experience with
Solaris, but the differences between 10 and 8, at least on the x86 side, are
shocking. I don't think many Sun's own developers are aware of these
differences. Essentially all the Solaris users I talked to thumbed their nose
on OpenSolaris (and many are actively moving toward Linux), because of their
prior unpleasant experiences on Solaris_86.
This message posted from opensolaris.org
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I cannot speak for schools in Hawaii, but in Hampton Roads, Virginia the
predominant OS in education is Windows. My daughter brought home a
brochure about advanced computer training which included Oracle, but it
was all running on Microsoft Windows. My daughter knows about Solaris
through me and would probably not get exposed to any OS other than
Windows until college, if at all! I expect this to be the same
throughout the country. It isn't just about money, it's about
familiarity and what the business community uses, or at least that is
what school officials tell us.
As a person who has used Solaris x86 since Solaris 7 I have not had that
many issues with it. Most of the problems I have seen is the result of
trying to use hardware that is not on the HCL or not spending the time
to learn the differences between x86 and SPARC. IDE disk performance in
particular was a major issue with Solaris x86 prior to 10, but that was
easily fixed with a couple . And there are a number of people still
spreading the "slowaris" FUD around as if it is a matter of fact (which
it isn't).
When it comes to momentum for any OS, there is the issue of having
enough people who are reasonably well versed in that OS to extol the
benefits to those that are willing to listen and have a open mind. Most
of the garbage I have read about how bad Solaris is has been written by
disgruntled Linux users who either (1) have no relevant experience with
Solaris or (2) tried it for "a couple of hours" and didn't like it, and
as a result of that "negative" experience they proclaim "Solaris sucks"
or words to that effect. For those who are willing to explore Solaris,
it is available and I think Sun has done a great job in "getting the
word out" about both Solaris and OpenSolaris. All one has to do is make
a decision to get started and give it an honest effort.
I haven't had that much free time to work with OpenSolaris but I expect
it to be just as good if not better than Solaris. As a Beta Tester for
Solaris 10 I look forward to putting OpenSolaris "through its paces".
Robert Escue
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