I'm about to upgrade from 9 to 10EA. I couldn't find a definitive answer to this on sun's website. Is 10 EA an evaluation copy or is it basically free like 9.

It is an evaluation copy (6 month RTU) which is basically free (like free beer).

IMO, the 6 month limit is more to discourage people to keep using outdated beta software.

When Solaris 10 is going to be officially released, I think the Free Solaris Binary License program for non commercial use is going to apply to it.

Actually, it is likely that Solaris will even become "more free", when the project of releasing Solaris under an open source model is started.

By the way, a new release just happen to be available on the download site.

hmm..any ideea when Solaris 10 is going ot be officialy released? cause I couldn't find any info about that on the sun site...

According this page, next monday:
http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2377/041...s/pfindex.html
This is talking about a formal launch, the official (bytes) availability will probably happen later, I guess early 2005.

I see...

Well I downloaded those 4 cd's from theire site ..the .zip ones..but how do I burn them on cd's or how do I use them, can anyone please help me?

Thanks

Unzip and burn CDs with the ISO images from the second and third files (CD1of2 and CD2of2), backup all you currently have on your disks unless your are ready to wipe all (voluntarily or not), and boot on CD1of2. then follow the instructions on screen ...

ok, and what are the other 2 cds for ( 3 and 4) ?

Not 3 and 4, the others are 1 and 4.
The first CD is also a bootable CD (installataion CD), but experience shows that people are easier with installing with the second (aka CD1of2).
The fourth CD contains localized packages and some documentation and unbundled packages I think.
By the way this applies to Solaris up to version 9.
I'm not sure this is still the same with S10 beta, as I'm only using DVD images with it.

Yes, Sun has been including opensource applications and full source code packages for them on these additional CDs. But, to concur, you really only need CDs 2 and 3 to install Solaris proper.

I tried installing with cd 1 of 2 last night, and it bombed on me. I went back and got the install cd and all 3 worked fine. Maybe I got a bad d'l on the 1 of 2, but I was using SDM which is supposed to verify the dl.