Solaris: The Most Advanced OS?

[Michael J. Lynch]

Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote:
> 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.
> 

I have experience with Solaris on INTEL and SPARC as well as several
different linux distro's.  I'd have to agree that Solaris is much more
robust but it does lack in one area.  If you are going to use SNMP,
NET-SNMP is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than Solaris' implementation.
If you google for Solaris' SNMP, you'll run across lots of
recommendations from people to not bother with Solaris' and replace it
with NET-SNMP.

Personally, rather than simply replacing Solaris' SNMP, I leave it in
place (just in case one of our customers is using it).  I install
NET-SNMP in parallel and then configure the Solaris SNMP master agent
to proxy requests for objects in our object tree to the NET-SNMP agent.

-- 
Michael J. Lynch

What if the hokey pokey IS what it's all about -- author unknown