Solaris Operating Environment

The Solaris Operating Environment is a computer operating system, based on the proprietary UNIX variant SunOS developed by Sun Microsystems. Solaris is slated to be released under the Common Development and Distribution License, an OSI-certified Open-Source license, in 2005.

Early versions, based on BSD UNIX, were simply called "SunOS." The shift to a System V code base in SunOS 5 was marked by changing the name to Solaris 2; after version 2.6, Sun dropped the "2." from the name. Earlier versions were retroactively named Solaris 1.x. However, the term "SunOS" is still sometimes used to describe modern versions of Solaris. In this context, SunOS normally refers to the operating system itself, and Solaris is the SunOS operating system plus a graphical user environment, ONC+, and networking enhancements. The version of SunOS that a Solaris release is running can normally be found by adding a 5 in front of the Solaris version (so Solaris 8 runs on top of SunOS 5.8). The most recent versions of Solaris (as of early 2005) are Solaris 7, the 64-bit Solaris 8, Solaris 9 (released May 22, 2002), and Solaris 10 (released February 1, 2005).

The first Solaris desktop environment was OpenWindows. It was followed by CDE in Solaris 2.6. Sun's Java Desktop System, which is based on GNOME, is included with Solaris 10.

Solaris is primarily written to run on SPARC processors. There is also a version called Solaris x86 that runs on PCs. Solaris was also ported to the PowerPC architecture for version 2.5.1, but the port was cancelled almost as soon as it was released. Solaris 10 is available for x86–64 as well as SPARC and x86 architectures. Solaris has a reputation for having the best SMP support of any of the UNIX variants for systems with a large number of CPUs. Sun also plans to implement parts of Linux APIs in Solaris 10, allowing Solaris x86 to natively run Linux binaries.

Although based on a number of openstandards, Solaris is proprietary rather than free software in terms of licensing. Both binary and source versions have been downloadable without cost at various times, although under changing terms and restrictions as Sun explored a number of business models. Sun recently confirmed their intention to make Solaris 10 free software under the OpenSolaris project (the kernel debugging and profiling tool, dtrace, as already been released as part of this project). Sun's Common Development and Distribution License, which was approved after review by Open Source Initiative, is a likely candidate to be the license for the free software version of Solaris.

Solaris is tightly integrated with Sun's SPARC hardware, and is designed and marketed as a combined package. This has often lead to more reliable systems, but at a cost premium over commodity PC hardware.

See also

• Comparison of operating systems
• OpenSolaris
• Common Development and Distribution License

External links

• Official Solaris page
• Adminschoice.com – Solaris system administration articles
• BigAdmin
• Sunfreeware.com – Freeware for Solaris
• Blastwave.org – Collection of Solaris software packages
• SunHELP – Solaris news, resources, and discussion
• Solaris Central – Solaris news and discussion
• Sun Country – Hundreds of Solaris related links
• Solaris on mobile computers (laptops, notebooks)
• Solaris x86 – Solaris x86 portal