Thank You, JavaOne Attendees

Develop on SXDE, Build and Deploy on Solaris 10

Last week I helped in the Solaris Express Developer Edition information booth at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco. Information flowed both ways. Some JavaOne attendees learned some things about the Solaris OS that they didn't know before, and I listened to your comments about the Solaris OS.

Watch this great video presentation about Solaris Express Developer Edition.

Some of you did not know:

• Solaris Express Developer Edition (SXDE) is the version after Solaris 10. Most of the features in SXDE will appear in Solaris 10 in six months or so, but SXDE delivers new features and drivers first. SXDE releases every three months, while Solaris 10 updates release approximately every six months.
• SXDE includes the latest available versions of Sun Studio and NetBeans IDE, Enterprise Pack, Visual Web Pack, and Profiler. On x86 platforms, these developer tools install automatically.
• Both Solaris 10 and SXDE come with DTrace, a superior performance tool that no one else has. The forthcoming release of Sun Studio includes a DTrace plugin to help you find the source of performance problems in your code. Also, please see the Chime visualization tool for DTrace.
• SXDE also comes with up-to-date versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, and StarOffice, and comes with GNOME enhancements.
• Both Solaris 10 and SXDE come with Zones and ZFS.
• Both Solaris 10 and SXDE get high marks from users for performance, security, and stability.
• Both Solaris 10 and SXDE can cohabitate with other operating systems on the same x86 platform.

Some comments I heard from you:

• The install experience is painful.
  We hear you and have been hard at work to fix this problem. SXDE is easier to install than Solaris 10 and gets easier with each new release. The forthcoming SXDE release will include NWAM (Network Auto-Magic) to automate your network setup. Also, please follow the Caiman project. In the meantime, see whether the install cheat sheet helps you.
• You don't have all the drivers I need.
  Every new release comes with more drivers. Please check this list. Use Sun Device Detection Tool to help you find a driver. Some of you were sympathetic with our plight to get the hardware specifications necessary to write drivers. Some of you did not know that we cannot simply look at Linux drivers for the same hardware (they are GPL).
• Too difficult for software vendors to create an intstaller for their software, and too difficult for users to install it.
  We hear your complaints about the package tools (pkgmk(1), pkgadd(1M), etc.). Creating a GUI installer that ISVs can hook into is on our to-do list.

Thank you for your feedback. Please keep those comments coming, and in the meantime, Develop on SXDE, Build and Deploy on Solaris 10.

Posted at 12:35PM May 14, 2007 by alta in General  |  Comments[1]