Solaris/x86 rant (was: Any advice on Solaris laptops?)

[Ben Scott]

On 6/21/07, Tom Buskey <tom at buskey.name> wrote:
> A stable API with backward compatibility

  A better point to make is the stable ABI.  The Linux API does pretty
well with getting old code to compile under newer stuff.  But getting
old binaries working is often less easy.

  There's a definite trade-off in terms of pace of improvement vs
stability of interface over time.  One of the reasons Linux improves
and adapts so quickly is that the community is not afraid to throw out
the old stuff.  That does tend to increase the programming and
sysadmin effort, though.  And it's a nightmare for closed-source
providers (too bad for them).

> (Solaris 2.6 Sparc apps will run on Solaris 10.

  To those who are not aware, "Solaris 2.6" would be "Solaris 6" under
the current nomenclature.

> Will Redhat 6.0 apps run on RHEL 5.0?

  When was Solaris (2.)6 released?

  I suspect a better comparison would be RHEL 2.1 on RHEL 5.0.  Of
course, I don't know the answer there, either.  :-)  Maybe one of the
Red Hat'ers on the list can respond...

> Multiple SMP (I think x86 goes to 32 CPUs.  Sparc goes to hundreds or
> thousands)

  Have they ever built one?  If not, that's just vaporware.  The E15K
only went to, what, 64 processors?  Still way more than x86, but let's
be real, too.

  To go sideways: The wave of the future is distributing computing
("clusters") anyway, so it's mostly academic.

> As a server, I can see places where Solaris has advantages.  And
> Linux has many advantages too.

  What?!?  One size doesn't fit all???  ;-)

-- Ben