http://www.linux-egypt.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=480&stc=1

Although SUN Microsystems released Solaris under an OSI approved license few months ago, But recently I just started to try it and discover it.
Here is my First Look at Sun Solaris 10, as part of personal experience and readings from here and there

Getting Solaris
it was easy. Just registered in the website, and started to download the ISO files immediately.
Click here to go to the download area (http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/get.jsp)

Installation
Solaris install is NOT difficult at all, but it consumes your time and your efforts waiting to press "Continue" .. it is annoying


YOU must partition, install a small base system, then reboot to finish the install.
While switching CD's during the install, you can't just switch and walk away. You have to wait for it to read the CD and display another screen and then press "Continue".


Key Features
In their website, SUN calims that Solaris 10 includes more than 600 features that make it the most efficient, secure, and reliable operating system ever built.

DTrace: Track, tune, and troubleshoot systemic problems in real time
Solaris Containers: Safely consolidate multiple applications onto a single system to increase your utilization rates.
Predictive Self Healing: Catch and fix system problems before they cause downtime through automated fault diagnosis, isolation, and recovery.
Updating: With Sun Update Connection, easy access to the latest Solaris 10 fixes and features through notifications and intelligent updates.
Integrated Open Source Applications: Includes 188 of the most popular free and open source software packages.


Is Solaris 10 better than ...
Many people will wonder, "Is Solaris 10 better than Red Hat Enterprise Server 3, Windows Server 2003, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server?"
Under most conditions the answer is YES.
While Suse Linux Enterprise Server has Usermode Linux to do operating system virtualization, it requires assigned system resources and doesn't offer optimal performance. Solaris Containers require only storage (hard drive) space to work and don't suck up as much system resources, making this feature more efficient while providing similar functionality. ReiserFS v4 may be a significant step forward for Linux file systems, but looking through the feature list on its Web site, I don't see anything like the ability to add storage space dynamically or integrated checksums to protect against data corruption. ReiserFS v4 is also not 128-bit, so its ceiling is much lower than that of ZFS. DTrace has no equivalent anywhere, as far as I can tell.

Conclusion
It seems that Solaris 10 is a superior operating environment for servers and some kinds of workstations, and Sun's support options for it are quite ambitious.
The only thing that hold it back is restricted hardware support

More Information

http://www.sun.com/
http://www.opensolaris.org

so,what about FreeBSD?
i'd tried it and found it is so good to try
Solaris is based on FreeBSD.no?

First of all
I really like FreeBSD, specially the latest version
I just downloaded, and started to try it on my PC .. still discovering my way through this nice distribution.

For the Solaris, was it BSD-based ? the answer is Yes and NO ... but it is a long-story

in 1979 Bell Laboratories released (Version 7 Unix) and it was the last one.
in the mid-1980s, the two common versions of Unix were BSD, from the University of California at Berkeley, and System V, from AT&T. Both were derived from the earlier Version 7 Unix,

in 1982, Sun Microsystems was formed as a company, and by the way: SUN stands for "Stanford University Network" and introduced the first Sun 1 computer and it was Motorola 68000 CPU

mid-1980s, AT&T had 51% of Sun stock. UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4) was jointly developed by AT&T and Sun, who named their version Solaris.

Late-1980s, as you know, the Unix-war began, and the rise of OSF (Open Software Foundation) or you may call it (Oppose Sun Forever) :)

Solaris 1.x was a new name for the old SunOS 4.1.x, a version of UNIX that is BSD-like with some SVR4 features, OpenWindows 3.0, and X11

Solaris 2 included the SunOS 5.x operating system and the OpenWindows 3.x window environment.

Then came SunOS 5.x that was based on USL's SVR4.0, while SVR4.0, in turn, was developed jointly by AT&T and Sun while Sun was developing 4.1.0, which is why things like RFS, STREAMS, shared memory, etc., are in SunOS 4.1.x, and why things like vnodes, NFS and XView are in SVR4.0.

Solaris 7 and later are basically newer revisions of Solaris 2.x
and you know the whole story up to Solaris-10


sorry for the long answer ..

Thank you very much for the nice history.
Really I didn't know most of it.

Unix (Solaris & AIX) most reliable O.S ever.

1st there is no Best OS
there is no single solution for all problems
--
2nd Linux is a Unix, it's POSIX comp.
at least one distro get the official certification for that, don't ask me who
--
3rd Solaris is a good system for me and for we (here in Linux egypty)
because if I can see the code and modify it, it's good
--
4th Solaris has lesser holes than linux, but linux fixes are much faster, at least before OSI compatible solaris. I recall that once in a single year solaris less than 10 holes but it takes them months to be fixed,
while in Linux fixes are a matter or days
--
5th who need a 128-bit fs NOW,
what is better to have something works faster on the current hw
or that works slower but capable to handle a capacity that does not exist

--
6th with packages and packaging systems, no solaris has no chance with debian apt, in both qulitative and quantitive
but if you are looking for GPG signed...etc
I think the RPM and YUM system for RHEL is buch better.

7th their is something in linux called union fs that combine two or more directories and manage tha space, beside raid...etc

8th about FreeBSD, every properiatary system is based on it
as they allow them to steal the code legally, speciall MAC and Windows


---
conclusion:

Linux is the Best OS,
and thanx no
I'm not going to change for a temporal features
Ha Ha Ha
--

Sorry to revive an old post :) But Solaris Containers aren't the same as UML. You're comparing apples to oranges. If you want to compare Solaris Containers to something, compare it to OpenVZ or Linux-Vserver. Of course, operating system level virtualization is nice but has the limitation that it restricts you to running another copy of the exact same kernel.

PS. Thanks for the overview. I've been meaning to test drive it (can't wait to try dtrace and ZFS). And you're right. ZFS is way ahead of the pack. Even ext4 when it comes out will pale in comparison.