Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 10:48:38 -0000 From: "Peter McGarvey" <Networks.Manager@rncm.ac.uk> To: "Jonathon McKitrick" <jcm@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>, "questions" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: FreeBSD vs Solaris Message-ID: <NDBBJLAJELEHNLGABIJNGEAIDEAA.Networks.Manager@rncm.ac.uk> In-Reply-To: <385021F0.4409ADB8@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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> I just heard a lecture on Solaris. The guy was emphasizing
> the scalability of Solaris, kernel threads, SMPT support,
> and also referred to fixing many of the bugs in BSD. How
> does FreeBSD today compare with Solaris? What advantages,
> if any, does BSD have over Solaris?
Thing is, there are two flavours of Solaris. On for SPARC and one for
80x86.
Now, my experience of Solaris on a SPARC platform is best described as
simply the best experience I've had with a computer. However, this was a
dual UltraSPARC system with half a gig of memory so I suspect I fell in love
with the hardware and not the operating system.
Solaris x86 is different. I got the impression SUN made it to show people
how cool Solaris was. And make a market for Solaris SPARC and SUN
computers. In some respects it is better than FreeBSD - it installs fairly
easily (except the bit where you carve up the HDD) and the out of the box
config means the user never sees a text login - it's CDE all the way. Which
is nice.
However, Solaris has one or two annoyances. For a start you don't get a C
compiler - you have to buy it or find and install GCC. You don't get perl
either. Or gzip. And tar doesn't work properly (to un-tar a MySQL
distribution I had to install Linux on a spare partition, un-tar the file in
Linux, then mount the Linux partition from Solaris and copy the files
accross). Oh yes, and the Solaris Boot manager is the most irritating thing
ever.
And another thing, Solaris x86 is slow. I've had it running on a PII@400
with 128MB RAM. My FreeBSD machine (a P166 with 64MB) ran faster.
To sum up...
Solaris on SPARC is as good as FreeBSD on Intel. On an Intel Solaris comes
second. So if you can afford it get a decent Sun SPARC system. Failing
that use FreeBSD.
TTFN, FNORD
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Peter McGarvey, Networks Manager | email: Networks.Manager@rncm.ac.uk
Royal Northern College of Music | tel: +44 (0)161 907 5218
124 Oxford Road, Manchester, | fax: +44 (0)161 273 7611
England M13 9RD | mobile: +44 (0)7887 990564
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