[UFO Chicago] Seven ways Solaris can beat Linux

[Richard Lynch]

On Sat, January 27, 2007 8:58 pm, Brian Sobolak wrote:
>
> I cribbed this from a recent email newsletter I got and thought it was
> interesting.
>
> --
> At a recent Sun Microsystems press event, Sun execs talked up plans to
> market the company's Solaris Unix OS to startups and small-to-midsize
> businesses. "Open source is what [customers] want to go after," said
> Peder Ulander, Sun's vice president of software marketing. "It's not
> so
> much Linux. Linux just happens to embody open source."
> -->
>
> That's an interesting question:  is your committment to open-source or
> is it to Linux?  Would you consider using Solaris in place of Linux if
> it were GPL?
>
> Is there something about Linux beyond the GPL that makes it
> attractive?

In the past when I've had to use Solaris, I've been frustrated by a
lot of minor things, such as:
  arrow keys in vi never work right
  window/text width is limited

There are work-arounds, if you can convince the SysAdmin (not me) to
install them, though I never got the arrow keys to work...

More importantly, however, is that the sheer number of Linux
developers currently makes Linux much more attractive simply for the
wealth of software available in current stable usable out of the box
with simple install/usage instructions online.

Solaris, on the other hand, is more of a niche.  If you've got a
die-hard Solaris sysadmin who knows what they're doing, I'm sure it's
great.  If not...  Caveat Emptor.

It's not something I would recommend for a newbie to start on.  More
like an "advanced" task, if you want to get yourself in line for the
rare Solaris-specific job.  Which has even more rare qualified
candidates, so this is not a Bad Idea once you've mastered Linux.

IMHO
YMMV

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