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.
In the early 1990s Sun replaced the
BSD-derived
SunOS 4 with a version of
UNIX System V Release 4, jointly developed with
AT&T.The marketing name for the new operating system was
Solaris 2, and SunOS 4 was then
retroactively named Solaris 1. Some people regard the labeling of later (SPARC) SunOS 4 releases as
Solaris 1 to be confusing as this usage of the Solaris name is not common.
The term "
SunOS" was still used to refer to the core of the operating system itself, and Solaris 2 is considered to be the SunOS 5 operating system
plus a graphical user environment, ONC+, and networking and other components.
The SunOS 5 minor version included in earlier Solaris releases corresponds to the minor Solaris version number. For example, Solaris 2.4 incorporated SunOS 5.4. After Solaris 2.6, Sun dropped the "2." from the name, so what we know as Solaris 7 incorporates SunOS 5.7, and the latest release SunOS 5.10 forms the core of
Solaris 10.
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.
The first Solaris
desktop environment was
OpenWindows. It was followed by
CDE in Solaris 2.5. Sun's
Java Desktop System, which is based on
GNOME, is included with Solaris 10.
Solaris's source code (with a few exceptions)
[OpenSolaris FAQ: What source code does the OpenSolaris project include?] 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,
[List of OSI-approved licenses] although it is considered by the
Free Software Foundation to be incompatible with its popular
GPL.
[Free Software Foundation: Various Licenses and Comments about Them] 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.
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.[UC Berkeley Open Computing Facility list of SunOS & Solaris Version History (OCF Solaris History): Solaris 8] |
| Solaris 7 | SunOS 5.7 | November 1998 | The first 64-bit UltraSPARC release. Added native support for file system meta-data logging (UFS logging).[OCF Solaris History: Solaris 7] |
| Solaris 2.6 | SunOS 5.6 | July 1997 | Includes Kerberos 5, PAM, TrueType fonts, WebNFS, Large file support.[OCF Solaris History: Solaris 2.6] |
| 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.[OCF Solaris History: Solaris 2.5.1] |
| Solaris 2.5 | SunOS 5.5 | November 1995 | First to support UltraSPARC and include CDE, NFSv3 and NFS/TCP.[OCF Solaris History: Solaris 2.5.1] |
| 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.[Solaris 2 description from "Sun Managers" mailing list archive] |
Solaris 7 is no longer shipping but is still supported. Earlier versions are unsupported.
A more comprehensive summary of some Solaris versions is also available.
[OCF Solaris History ] Solaris releases are also described in the Solaris 2 FAQ.
[Solaris 2 FAQ]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.
*
Comparison of operating systems*
Common Development and Distribution License*
Solaris Volume Manager*
Official Solaris page*
Sunfreeware.com - Freeware for Solaris
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Blastwave.org - Collection of Solaris software packages
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SunHELP - Solaris news, resources, and discussion
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Solaris Central - Solaris news and discussion
