LinuxHPC.org/Cluster Builder 1.3 - Solaris Operating System

Solaris Operating System

Solaris is a computer operating system developed by Sun Microsystems. It is certified as a version of Unix; although Solaris proper is still proprietary software, many core components have made their way into an open source version, OpenSolaris.

Supported architectures

Solaris uses a common code base for the architectures it supports: SPARC and x86 (including AMD64/EM64T). Solaris was also ported to the PowerPC architecture (PReP platform) for version 2.5.1, but the port was cancelled almost as soon as it was released. Solaris has a reputation for being well-suited to SMP, supporting a large number of CPUs. Sun also plans to implement Linux ABIs in Solaris 10, allowing Solaris to run native Linux binaries on x86 systems.

Solaris is tightly integrated with Sun's SPARC hardware, and is designed and marketed as a combined package. This has often led to more reliable systems, but at a cost premium over commodity PC hardware. However, the latest version of Solaris, Solaris 10, has been designed with AMD64 in mind, allowing Sun to capitalize on the availability of commodity 64-bit CPUs based on the AMD64 architecture. Sun has heavily marketed Solaris with its AMD64-based entry-level servers.

License

Solaris's source code (with a few exceptions) has been released under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) as open-source via the OpenSolaris project. The CDDL is an OSI-approved license, although it is considered by the Free Software Foundation to be incompatible with its popular GPL.

OpenSolaris was seeded on June 14, 2005 from the then-current Solaris development code base; both binary and source versions are currently downloadable and licensed without cost. Source for upcoming features such as Xen support is now added to the OpenSolaris project as a matter of course, and Sun has said that future releases of Solaris proper will henceforth be derived from OpenSolaris.

Versions

In descending order, the following versions of Solaris have been released (as of mid 2006):

Solaris version SunOS version Release date Description

Solaris 10 SunOS 5.10 January 31, 2005
Includes x64 (AMD64/EM64T) support, DTrace (Dynamic Tracing), Solaris Containers, Service Management Facility (SMF) which replaces init.d scripts, NFSv4 and iSCSI support. Least privilege security model. Support for sun4m and UltraSPARC I processors running at speeds lower than 200 MHz removed. Adds GNOME-based Java Desktop System as default desktop, CDE included. Solaris 10 1/06 added the GRUB bootloader for x86 systems. Solaris 10 6/06 added Sun's new filesystem ZFS.

Solaris 9 SunOS 5.9 May 28, 2002 (SPARC)
January 10, 2003 (x86)
iPlanet Directory Server, Resource Manager, Solaris Volume Manager, and Linux compatibility added; OpenWindows dropped, sun4d support removed. Most current update is Solaris 9 9/05.

Solaris 8 SunOS 5.8 February 2000
Includes Multipath I/O, IPv6 and IPsec. Introduced Role-Based Access Control (RBAC); sun4c support removed. Last update is Solaris 8 2/04.[4]

Solaris 7 SunOS 5.7 November 1998
The first 64-bit UltraSPARC release. Added native support for file system meta-data logging (UFS logging).[5]

Solaris 2.6 SunOS 5.6 July 1997
Includes Kerberos 5, PAM, TrueType fonts, WebNFS, Large file support.[6]

Solaris 2.5.1 SunOS 5.5.1 May 1996
Only release to support PowerPC platform; Ultra Enterprise support added; user IDs (uid_t) expanded to 32-bits.[7]

Solaris 2.5 SunOS 5.5 November 1995
First to support UltraSPARC and include CDE, NFSv3 and NFS/TCP.[8]

Solaris 2.4 SunOS 5.4 November 1994
First unified SPARC/x86 release. Includes OSF/Motif runtime support.

Solaris 2.3 SunOS 5.3 November 1993
OpenWindows 3.3 switches from NeWS to Display PostScript and drops SunView support (SPARC only).

Solaris 2.2 SunOS 5.2 May 1993
First to support Sun-4d architecture (SPARC only).

Solaris 2.1 SunOS 5.1 December 1992 (SPARC)
May 1993 (x86)
Support for Sun-4 and Sun-4m architectures added; first Solaris x86 release.

Solaris 2.0 SunOS 5.0 June 1992
Preliminary release, support for only Sun-4c architecture.[9]

Solaris 7 is no longer shipping but is still supported. Earlier versions are unsupported.

Development release

The underlying Solaris codebase has been under continuous development since work began in the late 1980s on what was eventually released as Solaris 2.0. Each version such as Solaris 10 is based on a snapshot of this development "train", taken near the time of its release, which is then maintained as a derived project. Updates to that project are built and delivered several times a year until the next official release comes out.

The Solaris version under development by Sun today is code named Nevada, and is derived from what is now the OpenSolaris codebase.

In 2003, an addition to the Solaris development process was initiated. Under the program name Solaris Express a snapshot of the development train is now made available for download each month, allowing anyone to try out new features and test the quality and stability of the OS as it progresses to the release of the next official Solaris version.

Since Solaris Express predates the release of the Solaris codebase as an open source project, it began as a binary-only program, but there is now a version called the Solaris Express: Community Release intended specifically for OpenSolaris developers.

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available under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from
the Wikipedia article "Solaris Operating System".}}