What are the major differences between Solaris and Linux?
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With Solaris, you get to install what packages are compatible (probably pay for some). With FreeBSD, you have lots of software available for free and much better hardware support. With NetBSD, you've got rock solid ports that will work, no matter what (and they conform the most rigidly to the original Unix standards) but less hardware support than FreeBSD (but it'll run on almost anything made with a processor)
Originally posted by apache363 What are you trying to say?
The developer's license for Solaris 9 is totally free and gives you Solaris 9 free to download.
Yeah I checked on that after I posted. There used to be a "medium" fee - even though you downloaded it.
As far as switching, I doubt its one or the other, really. I have a friend who got a Sparc 5 for a good price and installed Debian Linux on it instead of Solaris.
The desktop and other X stuff is usually the first thing that I remove from a Sun system, but yes you can get a decent desktop on Solaris. You can get CDE or Gnome running pretty quickly. With a little more work, other window managers will also run.
The benefits of Solaris really come through when you are dealing with hardware. Being able to hot swap components has really come in handy a couple of time.
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