Sunday September 05, 2004 Solaris 10 with JDS looking fine
I just install the most recent build of Solaris 10 x86 build 66 on a Dual Opteron Tyan S2885 system. I cannot believe the improvement in the system from where it was just a build or two ago.
The new Service Management Frameworks have improved by magnitudes from where it was a build or two ago. These new frameworks will simplify the administration of UNIX services, and are one of the key features being added to Solaris 10.
In addition, the Java Desktop System for Solaris was added in build 66, and it is looking very nice indeed. The X server team has been doing a lot of bug fixing on fonts and such, so it is starting to look like a very nice system. Customers are going to like having this on Solaris (x86 and SPARC for that matter;-), and this will make it much easier to setup and use a Solaris system for most everyone.
I was very pleased to see the Mozilla Desktop team had integrated Mozilla 1.7 into this build. This is the latest stable release of Mozilla, and it was very nice to see the hard work of the Mozilla team starting to really show in the actual product. Gone are the days where you have an outdated browser, this is the most recent stable release of Mozilla. I would like to congratulate the Mozilla Desktop team on a fine job with this prompt integration.
Another surprise was working audio on a standard install. After I loaded the Companion CD and installed KDE, was I ever surprised as my speakers came to life as I started up KDE. This was a very refreshing response! Most AC '97 devices should work, and I know that the team working on the audio drivers have come up with a solution for Sony Vaio laptops. There has been problems with Sony Vaio laptops where the audio device shares the same interrupt with several other devices. Somehow the device doesn't receive servicable interrupts, and all of the known audio drivers available in the community and commercially have not been able to work on the Vaios.
The next time someone tells you how out of date Solaris is, please do me a favor and laugh in their face...Solaris Enineering is bringing Solaris into modern times with features and applications that our customers have been asking for. Stay tuned for more in the way of laptop support with Power Management, better ACPI, wireles drivers and much, much more.
( Sep 05 2004, 11:12:34 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [7]
Comments are closed for this entry.
Posted by bbr on September 06, 2004 at 12:26 AM PDT #
Solaris 10 has so many great features going into it, that this will be a milestone release for Sun, IMO, even if we weren't porting to 64 bit Opteron.
Sure, not many apps that will take full advantage of the 64 bit OS (databases and CAD come to mind as ones that will), but it's the coolness factor of being able to run a 64 bit OS on your 64 bit hardware that will be most attractive. I'm running the 32 bit version of build 66, in 32 bit compatibility mode.
Posted by Alan DuBoff on September 06, 2004 at 12:42 AM PDT #
It's very nice that JDS will be integrated in Solaris. Especially now that you are pushing Solaris on x86 hardware. Linux users find Solaris a bit unfriendly. If, beside the great features that the 10 release brings, you manage to make it look nice and be easier to control for those used to GUIs, with JDS and webmin, that's just awesome.
About webmin, when it's integrated I think you should clearly express your strategy: what is/will be the relation between Solaris Management Console and Webmin. Will they be able to do roughly the same things, will they complement eachother. Is SMC still the main Solaris GUI Tool ? About SMC: I don't know why but it always seems slow, at least when run on an E220R with 450 MHz SPARC processors. From what I've read on formums, not many people are happy with the application's behaviour. Maybe Webmin will change the perceived idea that GUI administration is not at home on Solaris.
Keep surprising us with new Solaris 10 features. It feels like you're bringing in two releases' worth of features in only one. Great.
Posted by Vlad Grama on September 06, 2004 at 02:06 AM PDT #
Vlad,
The plan is to continue making things easier for users and admins to manage Solaris systems, and GUI tools are certainly a part of that.
I don't think the plan is to compete, the components that are going to be managed with Webmin are not implemented in SMC and there is a need for both of them. No use in reinventing the wheel when Webmin works nicely today, and all the tools available for Solaris are a plus. We hope to keep surprising everyone, we have a great deal of features that are being worked on!;-)
Posted by Alan DuBoff on September 06, 2004 at 02:28 PM PDT #
That's great to hear SUN keeps moving in the "impression" direction and in the meantime also add exciting new feature like ZFS, thanks to all you sun folks.
As the coming S10 on x86, could we expect more device support to make installation on home-built x86 smoother? Back in Solaris 2.6 and 7 days, to match the device listed in HCL, we have to order them since the some of them were too outdated then to be put on the shelf..
For the JDS, is there any working feedback channel to JDS localization team? I am using JDS 2004 as my desktop, I happen to have some quesions about GNOME in traditional chinese locale, but not sure where I should place the questions. :)
Thanks again for Sun folks to make S10 the most expected stuff this year :) And hope I can get the "tux" out of my room soon..
Posted by Ivan Wang on September 07, 2004 at 07:58 PM PDT #
Ivan,
There is continual device support going in, and Solaris x86 10 will be much easier to install due to that and many device IDs being added. There is a project to redo the boot and install, but this won't happen until after Solaris 10 is out of the way.
The HCL has been getting new systems pretty regularly. Most modern systems seem to work pretty well these days and there is pretty good SCSI and NIC support to cover most systems on the market, and a good amount of SATA support was added recentely. I have installed on many laptops as well, and use it solely on my laptop, which right now happens to be a Toshiba M2. Runs very nice.
I'm don't know anyone in the international group, but if you send me email I'll try and track them down and find out what you're look for.
Posted by Alan DuBoff on September 07, 2004 at 11:05 PM PDT #
Wow. This part of it got me floored - will Solaris 10 support APM ? The _only_ thing that has kept me from using it on my x86 laptop has been the lack of APM support, so I can never tell when the battery is about to die. This would be a dream come true! What form will the wireless drivers take ? Custom written ones, 3rd party, or something like ndiswrapper ? I can't wait for the final release now :) -Mark
Posted by Mark Round on September 08, 2004 at 02:59 AM PDT #