Solaris is the UNIX-based operating system of Sun Microsystems with roots in the BSD operating system family. Up to the version 3.x this operating system was called SunOS, this name was kept into the internal release information of current Solaris versions. The first version of SunOS was published in 1982. With the version 4.0 the new product name Solaris was introduced for SunOS releases as of 1989. The operating system Solaris 2.0 (SunOS 5.0) basing on the UNIX system V release 4 was published in July 1992.
The installation package of Solaris 8 (SunOS 5.8) is delivered on several CDs which include the operating system, applications and the documentation. With the Solaris Webstart 3.0 Installer Solaris can be installed comfortably on a prepared harddisk partition with at least 2 gbyte of free space. This is also good news for anyone who is looking to get their operating system up and running in a relatively short space of time. If you're keen to get on with setting up other features, such as o2 Broadband or Microsoft Office, then Solaris 8 is extremely convenient. The Installer divides the partition into one boot partition (10 mbyte of size) and the Solaris System area inclusive swap area.
The Primary boot subsystem VSN 2.0 proceeds after the Installation as a booting manager. After the booting procedure the CDE or optionally OpenWindow system is available as a GUI. Solaris fulfils the Open Group Unix98 specification. With the available Solaris Security Toolkit application it is possible to made specific protection settings for Solaris.
Field of Application
- CAD (computer aided design) applications
- Stable system for databases, data centre
- Intranet server as well as Internet or file server, Internet client
Structure information
- Multi-processor capable of up to 8 CPUs (Kernel limited to 21 CPUs)
- UNIX derivat
- Realtime OS (timing up to 1 nanosecond)
- 64-bit operating system (UltraSparc), 32-bit on x86, (Intel)
- Monolithic Kernel
System Environment
- Optional CDE 1.4 or OpenWindows 6.4.1
- SPARC platform and Intel processors, PowerPC
- supports new hardware technologies like USB, FireWire, SCSI, Hot Plug, ACPI
- Scalability: more than of 4 gbyte RAM, max. 64 CPUs
- File system: UFS (0x83), logging of all writing processes, protection against inconsistencies
- Read/Write: FAT, FAT32, ISO9660
- Java support, Perl integrated for CGI programming among others
Strength
- Support LDAP authentification and NDS
- Supports automatic and dynamic reconfiguration of hardware devices
- Cover various Internet and intranet applications like DNA, Senmail, IPv6, IPsec
- High Internet Security
Solaris 9
The supported languages (39) and local special features (162) were refined in this operating system release. At first the projects of Sun intended only to deliver new operating system releases for SPARC platform of their own. Because of the resistance from the public Sun supports x86 architecture now anyway furthermore. The download of the SPARC variant was possible at first, the x86 variant followed later. At first the download of Solaris/x86 was bounded with a small fee and since December 2003 without charge.
The compatibility was improved to Linux in Solaris 9, standard libraries for Linux applications are installed now too. Security characteristic became extended, the new Resource manager tool with CLI and GUI as well as one new directory server where added. The file system was improved and extended with the SVM (Solaris Volume manager). New libraries were added for multithreading and the installation and configuration got improved. The execution of java applications with the Java Virtual Machine is accelerated by the new libraries now. As a desktop you can choose between the CDE (Common Desktop Environment) or Gnome 2.0 desktop .
With the Live Upgrade Software patches or system modifications can be done without interruption of the running Solaris or his applications. To this the modifications are made in a second partition and Solaris installation and taken over at the next reboot in the main installation. After Solaris 9 8/03 this integration happens automatically.
In Solaris 9 4/03 the maximum file size was increased from 1 tbyte to up to 16 tbytes. The system administration tool of SunMC 3.5 was revised, as a Web browser Netscape 7.0 is contained.
Solaris 10
On 16-11-2004 became officially Solaris 10 for the x86 and SPARC architecture introduced and was ready for download on January 31st, 2005. It is delivered with programs for autodiagnostic and self-healing tasks. Programs for Solaris 9 can further be used in this new release. The operating system was changed to 64-bit and supports NFS 4.0 now, the IP-Stack was improved and improved with a new threading procedure. The effective forwarding of network traffic for 10 gbit and beyond per second is possible. Executing several instances of an operating system by virtualization on a common hardware base can be done with the technology Solaris Zones. In the project Janus the ability was developed for this operating system to be able to execute Linux applications after the recommends of the Linux standard base without new compiling. Planned for this release, this feature is not activated yet for Solaris.
The new file system ZFS (Zettabyte File System) contains an integrated volume manager and support for logical Volumes which can be greater than 1 terabyte, however, this feature is not available in this Solaris release yet. The 128-bit file system called Dynamic File System (DFS) has self-healing and self-managing files with a maximum size of 2128 bytes. The data files are mirrored permanently, checks all data blocks to faults by hash sums and repairs the copy or the original as well as if necessary the data storage. This happens transparently in second fractions without disrupted application software in the productive working mode. With ZFS practically unlimitedly big partitions and files are possible, the storage can be extended dynamically. A data block can be up to 128 kbytes of size, the size of the data blocks can vary. The compression rate makes it possible that files assumes only 50% to 33% of storage space.
The service DTrace (Dynamic Tracing) tracks down performance bottlenecks at the execution of network applications, the fault manager provides a better stability and is part of the foresight and self healing concept which analyse errors in ahead and perhaps even clear the fault. To this the data are checked in the Kernel at 30,000 test points and a report created at negative signs for the administrator within less minutes. With this powerful tool it is possible to recognize problems earlier which was often before not or only heavily to trace back.
With the technology Grid Container the administrator can set up disk partitions for every user so as if he works with an operating system of his own. Several users can share the system without disturb of the running applications. The system utilization is used considerably better and thousands of services/applications are managed better without large additional processor expenses. If necessary, services or applications can be provided to other users also about a network and separated from each other.
Solaris 10 1/06 supports the SPARC, x86 and x64 architecture. As boat loader is grub used. The speed was optimized and it offers support for iSCSI and 10-gbit ethernet. Solaris 10 6/06 is the first official release of the Zettabyte file system (ZFS), supports SATA controllers and contains Xorg 6.9.
The project Open Solaris was started officially in January 2005, a part of the source code was published. The work was started with support of Sun in a working group with 140 international subscribers for the disclosure of Solaris source code already in September 2004. The Solaris kernel as well as the system libraries followed in June 2005. In the course of the next months larger parts of the distribution followed under the CDDL (Common Development and Distribution License). The necessary patents also were provided to the Community under the CDDL. OpenSolaris does not see itself as a ready ready final user product or complete distribution. It rather offers the code base with developer tools for an operating system as well as the infrastructure for the communications under the developers. The ZFS (Zettabyte file system) is integrated since the OpenSolaris build 27a.
Solaris express 6/05 (Nevada build 15) was published on June 21st, 2005. Sun provides under the concept of the Software Express program new monthly public Solaris releases for the Community. Furthermore the use of this operating system is free for private users, the commercial use is charged with $ 99 for a year. The Solaris Express releases for x86/SPARC almost based on the latest OpenSolaris release, special worth is attached to a stable release. About a web interface bugs can be reported and bug fixes followed up. JDS can alternatively be used as GUI.
Solaris was certified with Trusted Extensions after Common Criteria in July 2008. Solaris 10 version 11/06 for the platforms x86/64 and SPARC reached the certification in Common Criteria EAL4+. For the first time the graphical user interface Gnome was also audited.
Solaris derivate
Shortly after the publication of OpenSolaris Jörg Schilling announced his own distribution SchilliX 0.1 on 17-6-2005 for the download. It consists entirely of Open source software and was supplemented with the GCC. The live CD offers the installation on USB-sticks or fixed disk. A graphical interface shall be integrated later in a next release of this developer related distribution. SchilliX 0.5.1 which contains for the first time a graphical interface and based on OpenSolaris Nevada build 35 was published on March 2nd, 2006.
The BeleniX distribution was derived from the OpenSolaris project as a live CD. The source of the choosen name BeleniX is the sungod Belenos from Celtic mythology. The first public release of this Community developed project was BeleniX 0.1 in 4-10-2005. The version 0.3 was published on 18-12-2005, as a user interface Xfce 4.2.0 is used.
The operating system NexentaOS consists of the OpenSolaris Kernel and Solaris runtime files. The unusual feature lies in the connection of Solaris with Linux technology. For this operating system only free software is used from the GNU Debian project. Gnome is the preferred GUI, further software like the Apache HTTP server, mySQL and the Mozilla Firefox browser are also contained. On 22-2-2006 the 3rd alpha version of NexentaOS (code name elatte) was published.
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