Solaris is a
proprietary Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...
originally developed by
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, ...
. After the
Sun acquisition by Oracle in 2010, it was renamed Oracle Solaris.
Solaris superseded the company's earlier
SunOS
SunOS is a Unix-branded operating system developed by Sun Microsystems for their workstation and server computer systems. The ''SunOS'' name is usually only used to refer to versions 1.0 to 4.1.4, which were based on BSD, while versions 5.0 ...
in 1993, and became known for its
scalability, especially on
SPARC systems, and for originating many innovative features such as
DTrace,
ZFS and Time Slider.
Solaris supports SPARC and
x86-64
x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging ...
workstations and
servers from Oracle and other vendors. Solaris was registered as compliant with the
Single UNIX Specification until 29 April 2019.
Historically, Solaris was developed as
proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software, software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern ...
. In June 2005, Sun Microsystems released most of the
codebase under the
CDDL license, and founded the
OpenSolaris
OpenSolaris () is a discontinued open-source computer operating system based on Solaris and created by Sun Microsystems. It was also, perhaps confusingly, the name of a project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around t ...
open-source project. With OpenSolaris, Sun wanted to build a developer and user community around the software. After the acquisition of Sun Microsystems in January 2010, Oracle decided to discontinue the OpenSolaris distribution and the development model.
In August 2010, Oracle discontinued providing public updates to the source code of the Solaris kernel, effectively turning Solaris 11 back into a
closed source
Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and in ...
proprietary operating system. Following that, OpenSolaris was forked as
illumos and is alive through several
illumos distributions. In September 2017, Oracle laid off most of the Solaris teams.
In 2011, the Solaris 11 kernel
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comment (computer programming), comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a Computer program, p ...
leaked
A leak is a way (usually an opening) for fluid to escape a container or fluid-containing system, such as a tank or a ship's hull, through which the contents of the container can escape or outside matter can enter the container. Leaks are usuall ...
. Through the
Oracle Technology Network (OTN), industry partners can gain access to the in-development Solaris source code.
Solaris is developed under a
proprietary development model, and only the source for open-source components of Solaris 11 is available for download from Oracle.
History
In 1987,
AT&T Corporation
AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...
and Sun announced that they were collaborating on a project to merge the most popular Unix variants on the market at that time:
Berkeley Software Distribution,
UNIX System V
Unix System V (pronounced: "System Five") is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by AT&T and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, numbered 1, 2, 3, an ...
, and
Xenix. This became Unix
System V Release 4 (SVR4).
On September 4, 1991, Sun announced that it would replace its existing BSD-derived Unix,
SunOS 4
SunOS is a Unix-branded operating system developed by Sun Microsystems for their workstation and server computer systems. The ''SunOS'' name is usually only used to refer to versions 1.0 to 4.1.4, which were based on BSD, while versions 5.0 and l ...
, with one based on SVR4. This was identified internally as ''SunOS 5'', but a new marketing name was introduced at the same time: ''Solaris 2''. The justification for this new overbrand was that it encompassed not only SunOS, but also the
OpenWindows graphical user interface and
Open Network Computing
__NOTOC__
Open Network Computing (ONC) Remote Procedure Call (RPC), commonly known as Sun RPC is a remote procedure call system. ONC was originally developed by Sun Microsystems in the 1980s as part of their Network File System project.
ONC is ba ...
(ONC) functionality.
Although SunOS 4.1.''x'' micro releases were
retroactively named ''Solaris 1'' by Sun, the Solaris name is used almost exclusively to refer only to the releases based on SVR4-derived SunOS 5.0 and later.
For releases based on SunOS 5, the SunOS minor version is included in the Solaris release number. For example, Solaris 2.4 incorporates SunOS 5.4. After Solaris 2.6, the ''2.'' was dropped from the release name, so Solaris 7 incorporates SunOS 5.7, and the latest release SunOS 5.11 forms the core of Solaris 11.4.
Although SunSoft stated in its initial Solaris 2 press release their intent to eventually support both SPARC and x86 systems, the first two Solaris 2 releases, 2.0 and 2.1, were SPARC-only. An x86 version of Solaris 2.1 was released in June 1993, about 6 months after the SPARC version, as a
desktop and uniprocessor workgroup server operating system. It included the
Wabi emulator to support Windows applications. At the time, Sun also offered the
Interactive Unix
Interactive Systems Corporation (styled INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation, abbreviated ISC) was a US-based software company and the first vendor of the Unix operating system outside AT&T, operating from Santa Monica, California. It was founded in 1 ...
system that it had acquired from
Interactive Systems Corporation. In 1994, Sun released Solaris 2.4, supporting both SPARC and x86 systems from a unified source code base.
On September 2, 2017,
Simon Phipps, a former Sun Microsystems employee not hired by Oracle in the acquisition, reported on
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
that Oracle had laid off the Solaris core development staff, which many interpreted as sign that Oracle no longer intended to support future development of the platform. While Oracle did have a large layoff of Solaris development engineering staff, development continued and Solaris 11.4 was released in 2018.
Supported architectures
Solaris uses a common
code base
In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communica ...
for the platforms it supports: 64-bit
SPARC and
x86-64
x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging ...
.
Solaris has a reputation for being well-suited to
symmetric multiprocessing
Symmetric multiprocessing or shared-memory multiprocessing (SMP) involves a multiprocessor computer hardware and software architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single, shared main memory, have full access to all ...
, supporting a large number of
CPUs. It has historically been tightly integrated with Sun's SPARC hardware (including support for
64-bit SPARC applications since Solaris 7), with which it is marketed as a combined package. This has led to more reliable systems, but at a cost premium compared to
commodity
In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them.
The price of a co ...
PC hardware. However, it has supported x86 systems since Solaris 2.1 and 64-bit x86 applications since Solaris 10, allowing Sun to capitalize on the availability of commodity 64-bit CPUs based on the
x86-64
x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging ...
architecture. Sun heavily marketed Solaris for use with both its own x86-64-based
Sun Java Workstation
Sun Java Workstation was a line of computer workstations sold by Sun Microsystems from 2004 to 2006, based on the AMD Opteron microprocessor family. The range supplanted the earlier Sun Blade workstation line. These were the first x86-architecture ...
and the x86-64 models of the
Sun Ultra series
The Sun Ultra series is a discontinued line of workstation and server computers developed and sold by Sun Microsystems, comprising two distinct generations. The original line was introduced in 1995 and discontinued in 2001. This generation wa ...
workstations, and
servers based on
AMD Opteron and
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...
Xeon processors, as well as x86 systems manufactured by companies such as
Dell
Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies.
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
,
Hewlett-Packard, and
IBM. , the following vendors support Solaris for their x86 server systems:
* Dell – will "test, certify, and optimize Solaris and OpenSolaris on its rack and blade servers and offer them as one of several choices in the overall Dell software menu"
* Intel
* Hewlett Packard Enterprise – distributes and provides software technical support for Solaris on BL, DL, and SL platforms
* Fujitsu Siemens
Other platforms
Solaris 2.5.1 included support for the
PowerPC
PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple– IBM ...
platform (
PowerPC Reference Platform), but the port was canceled before the Solaris 2.6 release.
In January 2006, a community of developers at
Blastwave
In fluid dynamics, a blast wave is the increased pressure and flow resulting from the deposition of a large amount of energy in a small, very localised volume. The flow field can be approximated as a lead shock wave, followed by a self-similar sub ...
began work on a PowerPC port which they named ''Polaris''. In October 2006, an
OpenSolaris
OpenSolaris () is a discontinued open-source computer operating system based on Solaris and created by Sun Microsystems. It was also, perhaps confusingly, the name of a project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around t ...
community project based on the
Blastwave
In fluid dynamics, a blast wave is the increased pressure and flow resulting from the deposition of a large amount of energy in a small, very localised volume. The flow field can be approximated as a lead shock wave, followed by a self-similar sub ...
efforts and Sun Labs' ''Project Pulsar'', which re-integrated the relevant parts from Solaris 2.5.1 into OpenSolaris,
announced its first official source code release.
A port of Solaris to the Intel
Itanium architecture was announced in 1997 but never brought to market.
On November 28, 2007,
IBM, Sun, and Sine Nomine Associates demonstrated a preview of
OpenSolaris for System z running on an
IBM System z mainframe under
z/VM, called ''Sirius'' (in analogy to the Polaris project, and also due to the primary developer's Australian nationality:
HMS ''Sirius'' of 1786 was a ship of the
First Fleet to
Australia). On October 17, 2008, a prototype release of Sirius was made available and on November 19 the same year, IBM authorized the use of Sirius on System z
Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) processors.
Solaris also supports the
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...
platform
application binary interface
In computer software, an application binary interface (ABI) is an interface between two binary program modules. Often, one of these modules is a library or operating system facility, and the other is a program that is being run by a user.
An ...
(ABI), allowing Solaris to run native Linux
binaries on x86 systems. This feature is called ''Solaris Containers for Linux Applications'' (SCLA), based on the
branded zones functionality introduced in Solaris 10 8/07.
Installation and usage options
Solaris can be installed from various pre-packaged software groups, ranging from a minimalistic ''Reduced Network Support'' to a complete ''Entire Plus
OEM''. Installation of Solaris is not necessary for an individual to use the system. Additional software, like Apache, MySQL, etc. can be installed as well in a packaged form from ''sunfreeware'' and
OpenCSW
The Open Community Software Project (OpenCSW) is an open-source project providing Solaris binary packages of freely available or open-source software.
It is an Association in terms of Article 60-79 of the Swiss Civil Code with domicile in Greife ...
. Solaris can be installed from physical media or a network for use on a desktop or server, or be used without installing on a desktop or server.
Desktop environments

Early releases of Solaris used
OpenWindows as the standard desktop environment. In Solaris 2.0 to 2.2, OpenWindows supported both
NeWS and
X applications, and provided
backward compatibility
Backward compatibility (sometimes known as backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with input designed for such a system, especially ...
for
SunView
SunView (Sun Visual Integrated Environment for Workstations, originally SunTools) is a discontinued windowing system from Sun Microsystems developed in the early 1980s. It was included as part of SunOS, Sun's UNIX implementation; unlike later U ...
applications from Sun's older desktop environment. NeWS allowed applications to be built in an
object-oriented
Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of " objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of ...
way using
PostScript
PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, ...
, a common printing language released in 1982. The
X Window System
The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems.
X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting ...
originated from
MIT's
Project Athena in 1984 and allowed for the display of an application to be disconnected from the machine where the application was running, separated by a network connection. Sun's original bundled SunView application suite was ported to X.
Sun later dropped support for legacy SunView applications and NeWS with OpenWindows 3.3, which shipped with Solaris 2.3, and switched to
X11R5 with
Display Postscript support. The graphical look and feel remained based upon
OPEN LOOK. OpenWindows 3.6.2 was the last release under Solaris 8. The OPEN LOOK Window Manager (
olwm) with other OPEN LOOK specific applications were dropped in Solaris 9, but support libraries were still bundled, providing long term binary backwards compatibility with existing applications. The OPEN LOOK Virtual Window Manager (olvwm) can still be downloaded for Solaris from sunfreeware and works on releases as recent as Solaris 10.
Sun and other Unix vendors created an industry alliance to standardize Unix desktops. As a member of the
Common Open Software Environment (COSE) initiative, Sun helped co-develop the
Common Desktop Environment
The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) is a desktop environment for Unix and OpenVMS, based on the Motif widget toolkit. It was part of the UNIX 98 Workstation Product Standard, and was for a long time the Unix desktop associated with commercia ...
(CDE). This was an initiative to create a standard Unix desktop environment. Each vendor contributed different components:
Hewlett-Packard contributed the
window manager,
IBM provided the
file manager, and Sun provided the
e-mail
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...
and calendar facilities as well as drag-and-drop support (
ToolTalk). This new desktop environment was based upon the
Motif
Motif may refer to:
General concepts
* Motif (chess composition), an element of a move in the consideration of its purpose
* Motif (folkloristics), a recurring element that creates recognizable patterns in folklore and folk-art traditions
* Moti ...
look and feel and the old OPEN LOOK desktop environment was considered legacy. CDE unified Unix desktops across multiple
open system vendors. CDE was available as an unbundled add-on for Solaris 2.4 and 2.5, and was included in Solaris 2.6 through 10.
In 2001, Sun issued a preview release of the open-source desktop environment
GNOME 1.4, based on the
GTK+
GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and prop ...
toolkit, for Solaris 8.
Solaris 9 8/03 introduced GNOME 2.0 as an alternative to CDE. Solaris 10 includes Sun's
Java Desktop System (JDS), which is based on GNOME and comes with a large set of applications, including
StarOffice, Sun's
office suite. Sun describes JDS as a "major component" of Solaris 10. The Java Desktop System is not included in Solaris 11 which instead ships with a stock version of GNOME. Likewise, CDE applications are no longer included in Solaris 11, but many libraries remain for binary backwards compatibility.
The open source desktop environments
KDE and
Xfce, along with numerous other
window managers, also compile and run on recent versions of Solaris.
Sun was investing in a new desktop environment called
Project Looking Glass since 2003. The project has been inactive since late 2006.
License
Traditional operating system license (1982 to 2004)
For versions up to 2005 (Solaris 9), Solaris was licensed under a license that permitted a customer to buy licenses in bulk, and install the software on any machine up to a maximum number. The key license grant was:
In addition, the license provided a "License to Develop" granting rights to create derivative works, restricted copying to only a single archival copy, disclaimer of warranties, and the like. The license varied only little through 2004.
Open source (2005 until March 2010)
From 2005–10, Sun began to release the source code for development builds of Solaris under the
Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) via the
OpenSolaris
OpenSolaris () is a discontinued open-source computer operating system based on Solaris and created by Sun Microsystems. It was also, perhaps confusingly, the name of a project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around t ...
project. This code was based on the work being done for the post-Solaris 10 release (code-named "Nevada"; eventually released as Oracle Solaris 11). As the project progressed, it grew to encompass most of the necessary code to compile an entire release, with a few exceptions.
Post-Sun closed source (March 2010 to present)
When Sun was acquired by
Oracle
An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination.
Description
The wor ...
in 2010, the OpenSolaris project was discontinued after the board became unhappy with Oracle's stance on the project. In March 2010, the previously freely available Solaris 10 was placed under a restrictive license that limited the use, modification and redistribution of the operating system. The license allowed the user to download the operating system free of charge, through the
Oracle Technology Network, and use it for a 90-day trial period. After that trial period had expired the user would then have to purchase a support contract from Oracle to continue using the operating system.
With the release of Solaris 11 in 2011, the license terms changed again. The new license allows Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 to be downloaded free of charge from the Oracle Technology Network and used without a support contract indefinitely; however, the license only expressly permits the user to use Solaris as a development platform and expressly forbids commercial and "production" use. Educational use is permitted in some circumstances. From the OTN license:
When Solaris is used without a support contract it can be upgraded to each new "point release"; however, a support contract is required for access to patches and updates that are released monthly.
Version history

Notable features of Solaris include
DTrace,
Doors,
Service Management Facility,
Solaris Containers
Solaris Containers (including Solaris Zones) is an implementation of operating system-level virtualization technology for x86 and SPARC systems, first released publicly in February 2004 in build 51 beta of Solaris 10, and subsequently in the ...
,
Solaris Multiplexed I/O,
Solaris Volume Manager Solaris Volume Manager (SVM; formerly known as Online: DiskSuite, and later Solstice DiskSuite) is a software package for creating, modifying and controlling RAID-0 (concatenation and stripe) volumes, RAID-1 (mirror) volumes, RAID 0+1 volumes, RAID ...
,
ZFS, and
Solaris Trusted Extensions.
Updates to Solaris versions are periodically issued. In the past, these were named after the month and year of their release, such as "Solaris 10 1/13"; as of Solaris 11, sequential update numbers are appended to the release name with a period, such as "Oracle Solaris 11.4".
In ascending order, the following versions of Solaris have been released:
A more comprehensive summary of some Solaris versions is also available. Solaris releases are also described in the Solaris 2 FAQ.
Development release
The underlying Solaris codebase has been under continuous development since work began in the late 1980s on what was eventually released as Solaris 2.0. Each version such as Solaris 10 is based on a snapshot of this development codebase, taken near the time of its release, which is then maintained as a derived project. Updates to that project are built and delivered several times a year until the next official release comes out.
The Solaris version under development by Sun since the release of Solaris 10 in 2005, was
codename
A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...
d ''Nevada'', and is derived from what is now the
OpenSolaris
OpenSolaris () is a discontinued open-source computer operating system based on Solaris and created by Sun Microsystems. It was also, perhaps confusingly, the name of a project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around t ...
codebase.
In 2003, an addition to the Solaris development process was initiated. Under the program name ''Software Express for Solaris'' (or just ''Solaris Express''), a binary release based on the current development basis was made available for download on a monthly basis, allowing anyone to try out new features and test the quality and stability of the OS as it progressed to the release of the next official Solaris version. A later change to this program introduced a quarterly release model with support available, renamed ''Solaris Express Developer Edition'' (SXDE).
In 2007, Sun announced ''Project Indiana'' with several goals, including providing an open source binary distribution of the OpenSolaris project, replacing SXDE. The first release of this distribution was ''OpenSolaris 2008.05''.
The ''Solaris Express Community Edition'' (SXCE) was intended specifically for OpenSolaris developers. It was updated every two weeks until it was discontinued in January 2010, with a recommendation that users migrate to the OpenSolaris distribution. Although the download license seen when downloading the image files indicates its use is limited to personal, educational and evaluation purposes, the license acceptance form displayed when the user actually installs from these images lists additional uses including commercial and production environments.
SXCE releases terminated with build 130 and OpenSolaris releases terminated with build 134 a few weeks later. The next release of OpenSolaris based on build 134 was due in March 2010, but it was never fully released, though the packages were made available on the package repository. Instead, Oracle renamed the binary distribution Solaris 11 Express, changed the license terms and released build 151a as 2010.11 in November 2010.
Open source derivatives
Current
*
illumos – A fully open source fork of the project, started in 2010 by a community of Sun OpenSolaris engineers and
Nexenta OS. Note that OpenSolaris was not 100% open source: Some drivers and some libraries were property of other companies that Sun (now Oracle) licensed and was not able to release.
*
OpenIndiana – A project under the illumos umbrella aiming "''... to become the de facto OpenSolaris distribution installed on production servers where security and bug fixes are required free of charge.''"
* SchilliX – The first LiveCD released after OpenSolaris code was opened to public.
* napp-it – A webmanaged ZFS storage appliance based on Solaris and the free forks like OmniOS with a Free and Pro edition.
*
NexentaStor – Optimized for storage workloads, based on Nexenta OS.
*
SmartOS – Virtualization centered derivative from
Joyent.
Discontinued
*
OpenSolaris
OpenSolaris () is a discontinued open-source computer operating system based on Solaris and created by Sun Microsystems. It was also, perhaps confusingly, the name of a project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around t ...
– A project initiated by
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, ...
, discontinued after the acquisition by Oracle.
*
Nexenta OS (discontinued October 31, 2012) – First distribution based on
Ubuntu userland with Solaris-derived kernel.
* StormOS (discontinued September 14, 2012) – A lightweight desktop OS based on
Nexenta OS and
Xfce.
* MartUX – The first
SPARC distribution of OpenSolaris, with an
alpha prototype released by Martin Bochnig in April 2006. It was distributed as a
Live CD but is later available only on DVD as it has had the
Blastwave
In fluid dynamics, a blast wave is the increased pressure and flow resulting from the deposition of a large amount of energy in a small, very localised volume. The flow field can be approximated as a lead shock wave, followed by a self-similar sub ...
community software added. Its goal was to become a desktop operating system. The first SPARC release was a small Live CD, released as marTux_0.2 Live CD in summer of 2006, the first straight OpenSolaris distribution for SPARC (not to be confused with GNOME metacity theme). It was later re-branded as MartUX and the next releases included full SPARC installers in addition to the Live media. Much later, MartUX was re-branded as OpenSXCE when it moved to the first OpenSolaris release to support both SPARC and Intel architectures after Sun was acquired by Oracle.
* MilaX – A small Live CD/Live USB with minimal set of packages to fit a 90 MB image.
*
Dyson – illumos kernel with
GNU userland and packages from
Debian
Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...
. Project is no longer active and the website is offline.
* EON ZFS Storage – A
NAS implementation targeted at embedded systems.
* Jaris OS – Live DVD and also installable. Pronounced according to the IPA but in English as Yah-Rees. This distribution has been heavily modified to fully support a version of Wine called Madoris that can install and run Windows programs at native speed. Jaris stands for "Japanese Solaris". Madoris is a combination of the Japanese word for Windows "mado" and Solaris.
* OpenSXCE – An OpenSolaris distribution release for both
32-bit
In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calcula ...
and
64-bit x86 platforms and
SPARC microprocessors, initially produced from OpenSolaris source code repository, ported to the illumos source code repository to form OpenIndiana's first SPARC distribution. Notably, the first OpenSolaris distribution with illumos source for SPARC based upon OpenIndiana, OpenSXCE finally moved to a new source code repository, based upon DilOS.
Reception
*Robert Lipschutz and Gregg Harrington from
PC Magazine reviewed Solaris 9 in 2002:
*Robert Lipschutz also reviewed Solaris 10:
*Tom Henderson reviewed Solaris 10 for
Network World
International Data Group (IDG, Inc.) is a market intelligence and demand generation company focused on the technology industry. IDG, Inc.’s mission is centered around supporting the technology industry through research, data, marketing technol ...
:
*Robert Escue for
OSNews:
*Thomas Greene for
The Register
''The Register'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information tech ...
:
See also
*
IBM AIX
*
HP-UX
HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is Hewlett Packard Enterprise's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on Unix System V (initially System III) and first released in 1984. Current versions support HPE Integrit ...
*
illumos
*
Trusted Solaris
*
Oracle VM Server for SPARC
References
External links
*
Solaris Documentation*
Lifetime Support Policy: Oracle and Sun System Software and Operating Systems*
SunHELP– Sun/Solaris News, References, and Information
Nikolai Bezroukov. Solaris vs. Linux: Ecosystem-based Approach and Framework for the Comparison in Large Enterprise Environments– Large Softpanorama article comparing Solaris 10 and Linux 2.6
* – Solaris information site by
Michael Holve
{{DEFAULTSORT:Solaris (Operating System)
1993 software
Formerly free software
OpenSolaris
Oracle Corporation
Oracle software
Proprietary operating systems
Sun Microsystems software
UNIX System V
X86 operating systems