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From: "Paul T. Root" <proot@horton.iaces.com>
Message-Id: <199611061405.IAA04948@horton.iaces.com>
Subject: Re: SunOS and Solaris?
To: sln@public.jn.sd.cn
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 1996 08:05:21 -0600 (CST)
Cc: questions@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <32803AD4.58F2@public.jn.sd.cn> from Song Lining at "Nov 6, 96 03:14:28 pm"
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In a previous message, Song Lining said:
> Hi,
>
> I know it's not a proper place to post this question but anybody's
> answer would be highly appreciated. My question is: What's the
> difference between Sun's SunOS and Solaris. I can't find out any
> difference by myself.
There are 2 answers to that:
1) Solaris = SunOS + Openwindows + Desktop tools (Calendar Manager etc).
So SunOS 4.1.3 plus Openwindows 2 is Solaris 1.1.1
And SunOS 5.5 plus Openwin 3.5 is Solaris 2.5
2) SunOS is the common name for the previous operating system. Ie. SunOS
4.1.3, which is based on BSD 4.2 with some 4.3 extensions.
Solaris on the other hand, is SVR4 based, starting at Solaris 2.0 up
to Solaris 2.5.1. Conventional wisdom is 2.0 to 2.2 is unstable and
vertually unusable, 2.3 is fair, 2.4 is much faster and 2.5 is pretty
stable and fast.
Why are there 2 answers? Marketing. When Sun switched to SVR4 and came
out with Solaris, they wanted to say that Solaris had more apps written
to it than any other commersial Unix. To be able to say that, they retro-
actively re-named SunOS 4.1.3 to Solaris 1.1.1
Generally, I have found in the user community, when a person says SunOS,
they mean 4.1.x (or rarely now 3.5). It they say Solaris, they mean 2.x
Paul.
--
Paul T. Root E/Mail: proot@iaces.com
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