Solaris Operating Environment
|
|
Template:Infobox OS The Solaris Operating Environment is a computer operating system, based on the open-source UNIX SunOS developed by Sun Microsystems. Solaris is being released under the Common Development and Distribution License, an OSI-certified Open-Source license.
Early versions, based on BSD UNIX, were simply called "SunOS." The shift to a System V code base in SunOS 5 was marked by changing the name to Solaris 2; after version 2.6, Sun dropped the "2." from the name. Earlier versions were retroactively named Solaris 1.x. However, the term "SunOS" is still sometimes used to describe modern versions of Solaris. In this context, SunOS normally refers to the operating system itself, and Solaris is the SunOS operating system plus a graphical user environment, ONC+, and networking enhancements.
| Contents |
License
Solaris is free software now in terms of licensing. Both binary and source versions have been downloadable without cost at various times in the past, although under changing terms and restrictions as Sun explored a number of business models. Sun's Common Development and Distribution License, which was approved after review by Open Source Initiative, has been selected as the license for OpenSolaris, which was seeded on June 14th, 2005, from the current Solaris 10 code. Future releases of Solaris (Sun's official version) will be built on top of OpenSolaris.
Supporting Architectures
Solaris uses a common code base for both architectures it supports: SPARC and x86. Solaris was also ported to the PowerPC architecture for version 2.5.1, but the port was cancelled almost as soon as it was released. Solaris 10 is available for x86-64 as well as SPARC and x86 architectures. Solaris has a reputation for being well-suited to SMP and supporting a large number of CPUs. Sun also plans to implement parts of Linux APIs in Solaris 10, allowing Solaris x86 to natively run Linux binaries.
Solaris is tightly integrated with Sun's SPARC hardware, and is designed and marketed as a combined package. This has often led to more reliable systems, but at a cost premium over commodity PC hardware. However, since the availability of commodity 64-bit CPU (like AMD64), the latest version of Solaris, Solaris 10, has been designed with x86-64 architecture in mind. And Sun heavily marketed its Solaris x86 with its AMD64-based entry-level server.
Desktop Environment
The first Solaris desktop environment was OpenWindows (http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/806-2901). It was followed by CDE in Solaris 2.6. Sun's Java Desktop System, which is based on GNOME, is included with Solaris 10.
Versions
The version of SunOS that a Solaris release is running can normally be found by adding a 5 in front of the Solaris version (so Solaris 8 runs on top of SunOS 5.8). The most recent versions of Solaris (as of early 2005) are Solaris 7, the 64-bit Solaris 8, Solaris 9 (released May 22, 2002), and Solaris 10 (released February 1, 2005).
- Solaris 10 includes DTrace, GRUB bootloader and Service Management Facility (SMF) which replaces init.d scripts.
See also
- Comparison of operating systems
- OpenSolaris
- Common Development and Distribution License
- Solaris Volume Manager
External links
- Official Solaris page (http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/)
- Adminschoice.com (http://www.adminschoice.com/) - Solaris system administration articles
- BigAdmin (http://www.sun.com/bigadmin)
- Sunfreeware.com (http://www.sunfreeware.com/) - Freeware for Solaris
- Blastwave.org (http://www.blastwave.org/) - Collection of Solaris software packages
- SunHELP (http://www.sunhelp.org/) - Solaris news, resources, and discussion
- Solaris Central (http://www.solariscentral.org/) - Solaris news and discussion
- Sun Country (http://alanpae.tripod.com/) - Hundreds of Solaris related links
- Solaris on mobile computers (laptops, notebooks) (http://tuxmobil.org/mobile_solaris.html)
- Solaris x86 (http://www.solaris-x86.org/) - Solaris x86 portal
- OpenSolaris.org (http://www.opensolaris.org/)de:Solaris (Betriebssystem)
es:Solaris (sistema operativo) fi:Sun Solaris fr:Solaris (informatique) hu:Solaris operációs rendszer it:Solaris (informatica) ja:Solaris nl:Solaris pl:Solaris (system operacyjny) pt:Solaris th:Solaris zh:Solaris