Solaris: The Most Advanced OS?

[Tshepang Lekhonkhobe]

On 11/4/05, Mike McCarty <mike.mccarty at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Kent West wrote:
> > Basajaun wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I hope anyone in the list is more enlightened than me, and can make,
> >>
> >>for example, a brief comparison of Debian Etch and Solaris 10. _That_
> >>would be way more usefull than just calling you "naïve".
> >>
> >>
> >
> > I read something recently (wish I could remember where and what -
> > probably comments on this Slashdot article -
> > http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/02/0418234&tid=90&tid=106)
> > that addressed some of this. What I remember was basically that the
> > userland utilities were far better in Debian, but the kernel in Solaris
> > was more robust, at least when you get to "enterprise levels" (of
> > hardware, multiple processors, hotswapping hardware, etc).
> >
> > I've had a little experience with Solaris 10, and so far, I far prefer
> > Debian. But then I'm not using "enterprise level" hardware or have
> > "enterprise level" needs, which might make all the difference.
> >
>
> I used Solaris for many years for serious embedded development work,
> as well as an embedded operating system. I've used Linux for just
> about a year. All the GNU tools can be compiled for Solaris, and
> it has a few which Linux doesn't have. Many more vendors build
> versions of their software for Solaris than do so for Linux. I also
> found the Solaris kernel to be much more robust than Linux. I only
> *had* to reboot my Solaris machine (running on a Sparc) one time in
> 5 years. It was rebooted maybe one to two times per year for some
> sort of upgrade or new install, otherwise. I find that I have to
> reboot my Linux machine far more often, maybe every month or two,
> to clear up some strange state (though far less often than
> I have to reboot my Windows machines). I only saw Solaris crash
> two times in over five years.
>
> I can reliably force my Linux machine to get into a state where it
> thinks the floppy is both mounted and unmounted. Then mount fails,
> claiming that the floppy is already mounted, and umount fails,
> claiming that it is not.
>
> That sort of weirdness never happened with Solaris. I've also been
> unable to umount the floppy, when I know there was no process using
> it, using Linux.
>
> The native cc for Solaris I found to be inferior to gcc, but
> we installed gcc and it was happy as a clam.
>
> I've used multi-processors with Solaris, but not with Linux, so
> I don't know how well Linux performs with them, but Solaris
> is great.
>
> Linux seems to be more of a hacker/fiddler's dream, while Solaris
> is more of a let's get the job done, it just runs sort of deal.
>
> On the whole, I'm happy with Linux. But in a side-by-side comparison,
> IMO Solaris is superior.
>
> No flames, please.

Very worthy personal account... Thanks a lot. I wish to see more of
this kind on this thread.