[rescue] OT: Solaris for Intel

[Loomis, Rip]

In my experience (given a customer requirement to get
Solaris x86 up-and-running on a bunch of random systems,
and using my desktop at the time as a starting point
first):
1.  The HCL is *beyond* annoyingly short, although it
    might be better in the last 10-12 months.  Specific
    DEC Tulip chip cards that were supported by any
    other OS under the sun are still not supported by
    Sun.  Word of mouth reports indicate that this is
    much better in Solaris 8, but I've not had a
    chance to test.
2.  What is it that you are trying to accomplish?  In
    my line of work, I might be able to teach basic
    Solaris sysadmin with an x86 box, but if I want
    to teach anything involving COTS software I pretty
    much need SPARC/UltraSPARC boxen.  If all I really
    want to teach is basic UNIX sysadmin skills (other
    than Solaris-specific items) I would rather use
    Debian Linux or OpenBSD on the same x86 hardware--
    with generally better out-of-the-box HW support
    and more available documentation.
3.  For that particular customer I mentioned, we ended
    up buying all new network cards and spending some
    significant integration time to get their dual-boot
    NT/Solaris x86 lab up and running.  At the same time,
    it might have been worth it compared to another part
    of that same organization which bought Ross SPARCplugs
    for each of their dual-boot lab systems.

The deciding factors are going to be a combination of the
available hardware (or budget to replace) and the requirements
to run off-the-shelf Solaris binaries (which are almost
invariably for SPARC boxen).

HTH.

  --Rip 

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Dunbar
Sent: 7/24/2001 6:58 PM
> Is there anything *wrong* with Solaris for Intel?