I'm reading everywhere that Sun is making Solaris 10 free and open source
However, that's not quite true yet: if you go to their download pages, you'll have to accept a license that says (among other things):
2.0 LIMITED LICENSE Sun grants You a non-exclusive and non-transferable license to internally reproduce and use Software solely for purpose of evaluation in a test environment. Software shall not be used in a production environment. (Refer to Section 5.2 for reporting requirements)Apparently the free, open source version won't be available till later - maybe January. I'm downloading the release available now, but haven't installed it yet.
This is supposed to include complete Linux capability. According to Sun:
We've made Solaris 10 the most interoperable operating system platform ever. Linux applications will run on Solaris 10--natively. No emulation, complication, no performance hit.
I admit to having always liked Solaris. I wasn't overly impressed by their earlier x86 releases, but maybe this one will be different.
Moved some comments to the main text so they don't get wiped out:
---November 28, 2004 I downloaded the iso images, burned them, and did the install. I thought it was going pretty well until it asked for the "Documentation" CD - unfortunately, there is no such thing on the download page. I continued without it, and upon reboot it looked like things might be good, but it then failed to start X. I could login, but no X. I've seen this same thing with RedHat? and other Linuxes too: you do a graphical install, and obviously that is perfectly happy with your graphics. Yet when the system comes up, it has no understanding of it. Maybe I can fix it, maybe I can't - I may have to throw a simpler graphics card in the machine and try again. It's annoying that they at least don't default to whatever they used for the install - that may not be high-res and I may want to try to make it better, but at least it WORKED. If anyone can explain why this isn't just automatic, I'd sure appreciate it. --TonyLawrence ---December 1, 2004 Don't know. Does Solaris use XFree86? I think it's something that has been improved with X.org. Or does Solaris use it's own X server that isn't something that I am familar with... You can see how smart X is at configuring itself automaticly by running XFree86 -configure or Xorg -configure Then it will automaticly generate a configuration file inside your current directory. Then you test it with: XFree86 -xf86config XF86Config.new or Xorg -config xorg.conf.new That way you can find out how smart the autodetect stuff is. If they work, don't use those config files directly. They won't have DRI setup (I think) and will miss out on system-specific configurations like modules or font paths, but you can edit in the relevent parts into your /etc/X11/XF86Config or /etc/X11/xorg.conf I don't know why they don't do at least that sometimes. Or at least provide a compatability vesa/vga mode like window's "safe mode". They should. --Drag
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More Articles by Tony Lawrence © 2015-10-16 Tony Lawrence
If you ask "Should we be in space?" you ask a nonsense question. We are in space. We will be in space. (Frank Herbert)
Wed Feb 16 21:28:37 2005: 34 tony8ktony
Finally,Sun Micro might have its finger on the pulse.If they can get more and more users hooked on to Sun Solaris x86 even if it means free distribution of the software to all home users/developers/etc in just two countries,INDIA & CHINA they will capture the global market in the next few years.I have installed solaris 5.10 atleast a dozen times if not more and here might be your answer:
1)The solaris 10 is an excellent OS
2)You need to meet the basic minimum hardware requirements
3)The problem that you mention is most likely due to display and for that you need to make sure your monitor is compatible
4)If the hardware(read monitor,memory,etc are ok)you will see Graphical User Interface (CDE & Java Desktop)
Wish you luck.
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Sun offering free, open source Solaris 10 - not quite yet Copyright © November 2004 Tony Lawrence
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