I asked:
> Solaris 2: Time to Convert? Request for experiences
> With the announcement today of Solaris 2.3 coming "real soon now", I
> wonder if it's time to convert most of our C software development
> workstations from SunOS 4.1.3 to Solaris 2.3. I would like to hear
> from any people writing software on SPARCS in C who have studied the
> transition to Solaris 2 and either decided to go for it or to stay
> where they were: what did you decide, and why. Especially people who
> have tested pre-release versions of Solaris 2.3. The question is how
> much trouble the conversion cost, and what were the benefits. Send
> email to jocko@validgh.com, and I will summarize to these newsgroups.
> How does your experience mesh with the claims?
> From the announcement it sounds as if there have been substantial
> performance improvements. On the other hand many of them seem to be
> for servers, and so you could get the benefit by converting the file
> server and leaving the desktops at SunOS 4.1.3. Of course the server
> version of Solaris 2.3 is more expensive. Most of the desktop
> performance comparisons are relative to Solaris 2.2, so it's not clear
> whether Solaris 2.3 is better than SunOS 4.1.3. Most of our desktops
> are the older kinds that run fine on SunOS 4.1.3, and we'd rather not
> pay for RAM or disk or CPU upgrades too, if those are required to
> obtain comparable desktop performance.
> It sounds from the announcement that the binary compatibility mode
> makes it possible to continue program development on SunOS 4.1.3 and
> have the programs run on either SunOS 4.1.3 or Solaris 2.3. Are there
> any C software development tools that run on Solaris 2.3 and not on
> SunOS 4.1.3? Are there any tools for converting Makefiles and shell
> scripts from 4.1.3 to 2.3, since many of the command names and options
> are different?
> What about the outcome of all these "unification of Unix" deals.
> Incompatible Solaris 3 coming soon? Sort of argues for skipping
> Solaris 2. But nothing much has come out of these "unification of
> Unix" announcements in the past.
I got useful responses from
Robert Ogren <uunet!teltechlabs.com!rmo>
uunet!aggregate.com!mark (Mark P. Gooderum)
uunet!contec.COM!len (Leonard Mills)
uunet!lia.com!steve (Stephen Williams)
uunet!lia.di.epfl.ch!simon (Simon Leinen)
uunet!servio.slc.com!jason (D. Jason Penney)
uunet!sunbim.be!db (Danny Backx)
uunet!uniq.com.au!kevin (Kevin Sheehan {Consulting Poster Child})
uunet!viewlogic.com!bpaulsen (Bill Paulsen)
The highlights of the responses were as follows:
(Four votes)
Solaris 2.2 is slower than 4.1.3.
(Three votes)
GCC etc make a nice development environment on Solaris 2.2.
Solaris 2.2 performance is adequate for doing real work.
(Two votes each)
Solaris 2.2 reliability is adequate for doing real work.
Solaris 2.2 sucks.
Solaris 2.2 is faster than 2.1.
(One vote each)
SPARCworks is unstable on 2.2.
Solaris 2.2 is less reliable than 4.1.3.
Porting to Solaris 2 is not hard.
SPARCcompilers/SPARCworks work well on 2.2.
Centerline works well on 2.2.
No way Solaris 3 will be incompatible with Solaris 2.
Solaris 2.2 with SPARCompilers/works
positively attracts internal developers away from 4.1.3.
Some program conversions are hard, such as those involving networking
API's.
System administration is hard: everything you know from 4.1.3 is wrong.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:08:26 CDT