unix or linux

[skroo]

Whats the difference between solaris 8 and 9? I am considering the freeware to put on my old pc as I would like to try it out.

I have to be honest: I'm not a heavy Solaris user, so AFAIK the differences are relatively minor (read: expected upgrades), at least on x86. On Sun hardware they're more to do with taking advantage of hardware improvements introduced over time. I expect someone to expand on this or otherwise correct me, though.

Also a side form differences what would you recommend for a novice redhat guy (as i am)

If you're looking for a replacement Linux, I'd say Slackware (which is very much the administrative opposite of RedHat) - but I am biased in that direction. Slack will get you nicely familiar with the composition of a Linux system; however, I've spent a fair bit of time with FreeBSD (and derivative OSes), and it's also really nice. The best advice anyone could give would be to try as many distros as possible, figure out which one suits you the best, and use it. No one specific distro is Linux: they're all interpretations of what it should be.

And on an unrelated note: one thing I forgot to mention for potential AIX users is that many common GNU tools and other standard packages included with most Linux distros are already built in installable binary form for AIX (with source available). See http://www.bullfreeware.com/ for details.

[jesse]

A problem with solaris x86 is that a good chunk of the sparc solaris was written in optimized assembly for the sparc platform. The x86 version suffers from a lack of this optimization.

[bascule]

Whats the difference between solaris 8 and 9?

The main difference is the addition of a 1:1 threading model, which dramatically improved the performance and scalability of threads. An M:N threading model has greater theoretical potential due to a possible decreased number of system calls (and I have great hopes for FreeBSD 5.x), however implementing an M:N threading model "properly" (i.e. so it outperforms a comparable 1:1 implementation) has proven an insurmountable challenge for even Sun's kernel hackers. Here's hoping that FreeBSD 5.x's Kernel Scheduler Entities manage to pull this off.

The other changes are relatively minimal. vold was compartmentalized into a separate daemon for removable media called "smserverd", which has achieved no more functional benefit as far as I can tell. On the x86 side of things, Solaris 9 added an initial Linux compatibility implementation. Compatibility with some of the GNU/BSD command line options for certain utilities (i.e. du, df) was also added.and prtdiag was moved into the user's PATH by default. OpenSSH was also bundled with the base system. New versions of OpenWindows now implement the RENDER extension to the X11 protocol.

For complete documentation fo the changes, see http://www.ifh.ee.ethz.ch/~ballisti/...REVIEW/p2.html

[ck3k]

Whats the difference between solaris 8 and 9? I am considering the freeware to put on my old pc as I would like to try it out.

Also a side form differences what would you recommend for a novice redhat guy (as i am)

I suggest to check out college linux, easy to use, compatable with many slackware packages, and a bit simpler of an installer. I did note tho, that the slackware 9.1 install is quite nice, I didnt have one sound issue, which I had plenty of in 8.x. I would suggest stearnig clear of fedora, and redhat, cause well, they are unsupported and crap. MDK is a good easy to use distor, I personally have used it in the past, but it lacks the power and feel of slackware/college.