Solaris is a
UnixUnix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
operating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
originally developed by
Sun MicrosystemsSun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
. It superseded their earlier
SunOSSunOS is a version of the Unix 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 of SunOS...
in 1993.
Oracle Solaris, as it is now known, has been owned by
Oracle CorporationOracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
since Oracle's acquisition of Sun in January 2010.
Solaris is known for its
scalabilityIn electronics scalability is the ability of a system, network, or process, to handle growing amount of work in a graceful manner or its ability to be enlarged to accommodate that growth...
, especially on
SPARCSPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced in mid-1987....
systems, and for originating many innovative features such as
DTraceDTrace is a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework created by Sun Microsystems for troubleshooting kernel and application problems on production systems in real time...
,
ZFSIn computing, ZFS is a combined file system and logical volume manager designed by Sun Microsystems. The features of ZFS include data integrity verification against data corruption modes , support for high storage capacities, integration of the concepts of filesystem and volume management,...
and Time Slider. Solaris supports SPARC-based and x86-based
workstationA workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems...
s and servers from Sun and other vendors, with efforts underway to port to additional platforms. Solaris is registered as compliant with the
Single Unix SpecificationThe Single UNIX Specification is the collective name of a family of standards for computer operating systems to qualify for the name "Unix"...
.
Solaris was historically developed as
proprietary softwareProprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...
, then in June 2005 Sun Microsystems released most of the
codebaseThe term codebase, or code base, is used in software development to mean the whole collection of source code used to build a particular application or component. Typically, the codebase includes only human-written source code files, and not, e.g., source code files generated by other tools or...
under the CDDL license, and founded the
OpenSolarisOpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems. It was also the name of the project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around the software...
open sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
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. As a result, the OpenSolaris community
forkedIn software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a legal copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software...
as the
OpenIndianaOpenIndiana is a Unix-like computer operating system released as free and open source software. It forked from OpenSolaris after the discontinuation of that project by Oracle and aims to continue development and distribution of the OpenSolaris codebase. The project operates under the umbrella of...
project, a part of the
IllumosIllumos is a derivative of OS/Net , which basically is a Solaris/OpenSolaris kernel with the bulk of the drivers, core libraries, and basic utilities. It is dependent on OS/Net, which Illumos will follow very closely while allowing to retain changes to code which might be unacceptable to upstream...
Foundation. In August 2010, Oracle discontinued providing public updates to the source code of the Solaris Kernel, effectively turning Solaris 11 into a closed source proprietary operating system. However, through the
Oracle Technology Networkis Oracle Corporation's official, interactive online/offline community for Oracle technical professionals. It professes to be the world's largest online community of developers, DBAs, and architects using Oracle products and computer-industry-standard technologies...
(OTN), industry partners can still gain access to the in-development Solaris source code.
History
In 1987,
AT&TAT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
and Sun announced that they were collaborating on a project to merge the most popular Unix variants on the market at that time: BSD, System V, and
XenixXenix is a version of the Unix operating system, licensed to Microsoft from AT&T in the late 1970s. The Santa Cruz Operation later acquired exclusive rights to the software, and eventually superseded it with SCO UNIX ....
. This became Unix System V Release 4 (SVR4).
On September 4, 1991, Sun announced that it would replace its existing BSD-derived Unix,
SunOS 4SunOS is a version of the Unix 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 of SunOS...
, 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. While SunOS 4.1.
x micro releases were
retroactively namedA retronym is a type of neologism that provides a new name for an object or concept to differentiate the original form or version of it from a more recent form or version. The original name is most often augmented with an adjective to account for later developments of the object or concept itself...
Solaris 1 by Sun, the Solaris name is almost exclusively used to refer to the SVR4-derived SunOS 5.0 and later.
The justification for this new "overbrand" was that it encompassed not only SunOS, but also the
OpenWindowsOpenWindows was a desktop environment for Sun Microsystems workstations which handled SunView, NeWS, and X Window System protocols. OpenWindows was included in later releases of the operating systems SunOS 4 and Solaris, until its removal in Solaris 9 in favor of Common Desktop Environment and...
graphical user interfaceIn computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
and Open Network Computing (ONC) functionality. The SunOS minor version is included in the Solaris release number; for example,
Solaris 2.4 incorporated SunOS 5.4. After Solaris 2.6, Sun dropped the "2." from the number, so Solaris 7 incorporates SunOS 5.7, and the latest release SunOS 5.10 forms the core of
Solaris 10.
Supported architectures
Solaris uses a common
code baseIn computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
for the platforms it supports:
SPARCSPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced in mid-1987....
and i86pc (which includes both x86 and
x86-64x86-64 is an extension of the x86 instruction set. It supports vastly larger virtual and physical address spaces than are possible on x86, thereby allowing programmers to conveniently work with much larger data sets. x86-64 also provides 64-bit general purpose registers and numerous other...
).
Solaris has a reputation for being well-suited to
symmetric multiprocessingIn computing, symmetric multiprocessing involves a multiprocessor computer hardware architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single shared main memory and are controlled by a single OS instance. Most common multiprocessor systems today use an SMP architecture...
, supporting a large number of
CPUsThe central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
. It has historically been tightly integrated with Sun's SPARC hardware (including support for
64-bit64-bit is a word size that defines certain classes of computer architecture, buses, memory and CPUs, and by extension the software that runs on them. 64-bit CPUs have existed in supercomputers since the 1970s and in RISC-based workstations and servers since the early 1990s...
SPARCSPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced in mid-1987....
applications since Solaris 7), with which it is marketed as a combined package. This has often led to more reliable systems, but at a cost premium over
commodityIn economics, a commodity is the generic term for any marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs. Economic commodities comprise goods and services....
PC hardware. However, it has also supported x86 systems since Solaris 2.1 and the latest version, Solaris 10, includes support for 64-bit x86 applications, allowing Sun to capitalize on the availability of commodity 64-bit CPUs based on the
x86-64x86-64 is an extension of the x86 instruction set. It supports vastly larger virtual and physical address spaces than are possible on x86, thereby allowing programmers to conveniently work with much larger data sets. x86-64 also provides 64-bit general purpose registers and numerous other...
architecture. Sun has heavily marketed Solaris for use with both its own "x64"
workstationA workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems...
s and
serversIn the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
based on AMD
OpteronOpteron is AMD's x86 server and workstation processor line, and was the first processor which supported the AMD64 instruction set architecture . It was released on April 22, 2003 with the SledgeHammer core and was intended to compete in the server and workstation markets, particularly in the same...
and Intel
XeonThe Xeon is a brand of multiprocessing- or multi-socket-capable x86 microprocessors from Intel Corporation targeted at the non-consumer server, workstation and embedded system markets.-Overview:...
processors, as well as x86 systems manufactured by companies such as
DellDell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...
,
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
, and
IBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
. As of 2009, 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"
- IBM - also distributes Solaris and Solaris Subscriptions for select x86-based IBM System x servers and BladeCenter servers
- Intel
- Hewlett-Packard - distributes and provides software technical support for Solaris on ProLiant
ProLiant is a brand of server computers that was originally developed and marketed by Compaq. After Compaq merged into Hewlett-Packard , HP continued to develop and market these servers as HP ProLiant. ProLiant systems lead the x86 server market in terms of units and revenue...
server and blade systems
- Fujitsu Siemens
As of July 2010, Dell and HP certify and resell Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM on their respective x86 platforms,
and IBM stopped direct support for Solaris on x64 kit.
Other platforms
Solaris 2.5.1 included support for the
PowerPCPowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
platform (
PowerPC Reference PlatformPowerPC Reference Platform was a standard system architecture for PowerPC based computer systems developed at the same time as the PowerPC processor architecture...
), but the port was canceled before the Solaris 2.6 release. In January 2006 a community of developers at
BlastwaveBlastwave.org is a privately-held corporation specialized in building and supporting open source software packages for Oracle Solaris, as well as various operating system distributions based on OpenSolaris...
began work on a PowerPC port which they named
Polaris. In October 2006, an
OpenSolarisOpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems. It was also the name of the project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around the software...
community project based on the
BlastwaveBlastwave.org is a privately-held corporation specialized in building and supporting open source software packages for Oracle Solaris, as well as various operating system distributions based on OpenSolaris...
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
ItaniumItanium is a family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture . Intel markets the processors for enterprise servers and high-performance computing systems...
architecture was announced in 1997 but never brought to market.
On November 28, 2007,
IBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, Sun, and Sine Nomine Associates demonstrated a preview of
OpenSolaris for System zOpenSolaris for System z is a distribution of the OpenSolaris computer operating system designed to run on the IBM System z line of mainframe computers. OpenSolaris is an open source project created by Sun Microsystems to build a developer community around Solaris technology.- History :OpenSolaris...
running on an IBM System z
mainframeMainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
under
z/VMz/VM is the current version in IBM's VM family of virtual machine operating systems. z/VM was first released in October 2000 and remains in active use and development . It is directly based on technology and concepts dating back to the 1960s, with IBM's CP/CMS on the IBM System/360-67...
, called
Sirius (in analogy to the Polaris project, and also due to the primary developer's Australian nationality:
HMS SiriusHMS Sirius was the flagship of the First Fleet, which set out from Portsmouth, England, in 1787 to establish the first European colony in New South Wales, Australia. Sirius was wrecked off the coast of Norfolk Island in the Pacific Ocean in 1790....
of 1786 was a ship of the
First FleetThe First Fleet is the name given to the eleven ships which sailed from Great Britain on 13 May 1787 with about 1,487 people, including 778 convicts , to establish the first European colony in Australia, in the region which Captain Cook had named New South Wales. The fleet was led by Captain ...
to
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
). 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
IFLThe Integrated Facility for Linux is an IBM mainframe processor dedicated to running the Linux operating system, with or without z/VM. IFLs are one of three types of IBM mainframe processors expressly designed to reduce software costs...
processors.
Solaris also supports the
LinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
platform
ABIIn computer software, an application binary interface describes the low-level interface between an application program and the operating system or another application.- Description :...
, allowing Solaris to run native Linux
binariesAn object file is a file containing relocatable format machine code that is usually not directly executable. Object files are produced by an assembler, compiler, or other language translator, and used as input to the linker....
on x86 systems. This feature is called "Solaris Containers for Linux Applications" or 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
OEMAn original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a...
". 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,
OpenCSWThe Open Community Software Project is an open-source project providing Solaris binary packages of freely available or open-source software....
and
BlastwaveBlastwave.org is a privately-held corporation specialized in building and supporting open source software packages for Oracle Solaris, as well as various operating system distributions based on OpenSolaris...
.
Usage with installation
Solaris can be installed from physical media or a network for use on a desktop or server.
Solaris can be interactively installed from a text console on platforms without a video display and mouse. This may be selected for servers, in a rack, in a remote data center, from a terminal server or even dial up modem.
Solaris can be interactively installed from a graphical console. This may be selected for personal workstations or laptops, in a local area, where a console may normally be used.
Solaris can be automatically installed over a network. System administrators can customize installations with scripts and configuration files, including configuration and automatic installation of third-party software, without purchasing additional software management utilities.
When Solaris is installed, the operating system will reside on the same system where the installation occurred. Applications may be individually installed on the local system, or can be mounted via the network from a remote system.
Usage without installation
Solaris can be used without separately installing the operating system on a desktop or server.
Solaris can be booted from a remote server providing an OS image in a
disklessA diskless node is a workstation or personal computer without disk drives, which employs network booting to load its operating system from a server...
environment, or in an environment where an internal disk is only used for swap space. In this configuration, the operating system still runs locally on the system. Applications may or may not reside locally when they are running. This may be selected for businesses or educational institutions where rapid setup is required (workstations can be "rolled off" of a loading dock, the
MAC addressA Media Access Control address is a unique identifier assigned to network interfaces for communications on the physical network segment. MAC addresses are used for numerous network technologies and most IEEE 802 network technologies, including Ethernet...
registered into a central server, plugged in, and be immediately usable) or rapid replacement is required (if a desktop hardware failure occurs, a new workstation is pulled from a closet, plugged in, and a user can resume their work from their last saved point.)
Solaris can also be used from a thin client. Applications, operating system, window manager, and graphical rendering runs on one or more remote servers. Administrators can add a user account to a central Solaris system and a thin client can be rolled from a closet, placed on a desktop, and a user can start work immediately. If there is a hardware failure, the thin client can be swapped and the user can resume their work from the exact point of failure, whether or not the work was saved.
Desktop environments
Early releases of Solaris used
OpenWindowsOpenWindows was a desktop environment for Sun Microsystems workstations which handled SunView, NeWS, and X Window System protocols. OpenWindows was included in later releases of the operating systems SunOS 4 and Solaris, until its removal in Solaris 9 in favor of Common Desktop Environment and...
as the standard desktop environment. In Solaris 2.0 to 2.2, OpenWindows supported both
NeWSNeWS was a windowing system developed by Sun Microsystems in the mid 1980s. Originally known as "SunDew", its primary authors were James Gosling and David S. H. Rosenthal...
and
XThe X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
applications, and provided
backward compatibilityIn the context of telecommunications and computing, a device or technology is said to be backward or downward compatible if it can work with input generated by an older device...
for
SunViewSunView was a windowing system from Sun Microsystems developed in the early 1980s. It was included as part of SunOS, Sun's UNIX implementation; unlike later UNIX windowing systems, much of it was implemented in the system kernel...
applications from Sun's older desktop environment. NeWS allowed applications to be built in an object oriented way using
PostScriptPostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
, a common printing language released in 1982. The
X Window SystemThe X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
originated from MIT's
Project AthenaProject Athena was a joint project of MIT, Digital Equipment Corporation, and IBM to produce a campus-wide distributed computing environment for educational use. It was launched in 1983, and research and development ran until June 30, 1991, eight years after it began...
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 PostscriptDisplay PostScript is an on-screen display system. As the name implies, DPS uses the PostScript imaging model and language to generate on-screen graphics...
support. The graphical look and feel remained based upon
OPEN LOOKOPEN LOOK is a graphical user interface specification for UNIX workstations. It was originally defined in the late 1980s by Sun Microsystems and AT&T.-History:...
. OpenWindows 3.6.2 was the last release under Solaris 8. The OPEN LOOK Window Manager (
olwmolwm was the default stacking window manager for OpenWindows, the original desktop environment included with SunOS and Solaris...
) 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 COSE, the Common Open Software Environment initiative, Sun helped co-develop the
Common Desktop EnvironmentThe Common Desktop Environment is a desktop environment for Unix and OpenVMS, based on the Motif widget toolkit.- Corporate history :...
. CDE was an initiative to create a standard Unix desktop environment. Each vendor contributed different components:
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
contributed the
window managerAn X window manager is a window manager which runs on top of the X Window System, a windowing system mainly used on Unix-like systems.Unlike the Mac OS and Microsoft Windows platforms which have historically provided a vendor-controlled, fixed set of ways to control how windows and panes display...
,
IBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
provided the
file managerA file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to work with file systems. The most common operations performed on files or groups of files are: create, open, edit, view, print, play, rename, move, copy, delete, search/find, and modify file attributes, properties...
, and Sun provided the
e-mailElectronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
and calendar facilities as well as drag-and-drop support (
ToolTalkToolTalk is an interapplication communications system developed by Sun Microsystems in order to allow applications to communicate with each other at runtime...
). This new desktop environment was based upon the
MotifIn computing, Motif refers to both a graphical user interface specification and the widget toolkit for building applications that follow that specification under the X Window System on Unix and other POSIX-compliant systems. It emerged in the 1980s as Unix workstations were on the rise, as a...
look and feel and the old OPEN LOOK desktop environment was considered legacy. CDE unified Unix desktops across multiple
open systemOpen system may refer to:*Open system , one of a class of computers and associated software that provides some combination of interoperability, portability and open software standards, particularly Unix and Unix-like systems...
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. The CDE applications are no longer included in OpenSolaris and Solaris 11, but many libraries remain for binary backwards compatibility.
In 2001, Sun issued a preview release of the open-source desktop environment
GNOMEGNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
1.4, based on the
GTK+GTK+ is a cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL, allowing both free and proprietary software to use it. It is one of the most popular toolkits for the X Window System, along with Qt.The name GTK+ originates from GTK;...
toolkit, for Solaris 8. Solaris 9 8/03 introduced GNOME 2.0 as an alternative to CDE. Solaris 10 includes Sun's
Java Desktop SystemOpenSolaris Desktop, formerly Java Desktop System , is a desktop environment now developed by Oracle Corporation available for Solaris, and formerly Linux....
(JDS), which is based on GNOME and comes with a large set of applications, including
StarOfficeStarOffice, known briefly as Oracle Open Office before its discontinuation in 2010, is a proprietary office suite. It was originally developed by StarDivision which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999...
, Sun's
office suiteIn computing, an office suite, sometimes called an office software suite or productivity suite is a collection of programs intended to be used by knowledge workers...
. Sun describes JDS as a "major component" of Solaris 10.
The open source desktop environments
KDEKDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
and
XfceXfce is a free software desktop environment for Unix and other Unix-like platforms, such as Linux, Solaris, and BSD – though recent compatibility issues have arisen with regard to BSD Unix platforms...
, 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 GlassProject Looking Glass is a now inactive free software project under the GPL to create an innovative 3D desktop environment for Linux, Solaris, and Windows. It was sponsored by Sun Microsystems....
since 2003. The project has been inactive since late 2006.
License
Solaris' source code (with a few exceptions) has been released under the
Common Development and Distribution LicenseCommon Development and Distribution License is a free software license, produced by Sun Microsystems, based on the Mozilla Public License , version 1.1....
(CDDL) via the
OpenSolarisOpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems. It was also the name of the project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around the software...
project. The CDDL is an
OSIThe Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software.The organization was founded in February 1998, by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, prompted by Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the source code for its flagship Netscape Communicator product...
-approved license. It is considered by the
Free Software FoundationThe Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
to be free but the
GPLThe GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
is incompatible with it.
OpenSolaris was seeded on June 14, 2005 from the then-current Solaris development code base; both binary and source versions are currently downloadable and licensed without cost. Source for upcoming features such as
XenXen is a virtual-machine monitor providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently....
support is now added to the OpenSolaris project as a matter of course, and Sun has said that nowadays releases of Solaris proper will henceforth be derived from OpenSolaris.
Version history
Notable features of Solaris currently include
DTraceDTrace is a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework created by Sun Microsystems for troubleshooting kernel and application problems on production systems in real time...
,
DoorsDoors are an inter-process communication facility for Unix computer systems. They provide a form of procedure call.- History :Doors were developed by Sun Microsystems as a core part of the Spring operating system, then added to Solaris in version 2.5 as an undocumented internal interface. They...
,
Service Management FacilityService Management Facility is a feature of the Solaris operating system that creates a supported, unified model for services and service management on each Solaris system and replaces init.d scripts. SMF introduces:...
,
Solaris ContainersSolaris Containers 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 first full release of Solaris 10, 2005.It is present in newer OpenSolaris based...
,
Solaris Multiplexed I/OSolaris Multiplexed I/O , known also as Sun StorageTek Traffic Manager , is multipath I/O software for Solaris OS...
,
Solaris Volume ManagerSolaris Volume Manager is a software package for creating, modifying and controlling RAID-0 volumes, RAID-1 volumes, RAID 0+1 volumes, RAID 1+0 volumes, RAID-5 volumes, and soft partitions.Version 1.0 of Online: DiskSuite was released as an add-on product for SunOS in...
,
ZFSIn computing, ZFS is a combined file system and logical volume manager designed by Sun Microsystems. The features of ZFS include data integrity verification against data corruption modes , support for high storage capacities, integration of the concepts of filesystem and volume management,...
, and
Solaris Trusted ExtensionsSolaris Trusted Extensions is a set of security extensions incorporated in the Solaris 10 operating system by Sun Microsystems, featuring a mandatory access control model...
.
Updates to Solaris versions are periodically released, such as Solaris 10 10/09.
In ascending order, the following versions of Solaris have been released:
| Colour |
Meaning |
| Red |
Release no longer supported |
| Green |
Release still supported |
| Blue |
Future release |
| Solaris version |
SunOS version |
Release date |
End of support |
Major new features |
| SPARC |
x86 |
| 1.x |
4.1.x |
1991–1994 |
- |
September 2003 |
SunOS 4 rebranded as Solaris 1 for marketing purposes. See SunOSSunOS is a version of the Unix 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 of SunOS...
article for more information. |
| 2.0 |
5.0 |
June 1992 |
- |
January 1999 |
Preliminary release (primarily available to developers only), support for only the sun4c architecture. First appearance of NIS+. |
| 2.1 |
5.1 |
December 1992 |
May 1993 |
April 1999 |
Support for sun4 and sun4m architectures added; first Solaris x86 release. First Solaris 2 release to support SMPIn computing, symmetric multiprocessing involves a multiprocessor computer hardware architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single shared main memory and are controlled by a single OS instance. Most common multiprocessor systems today use an SMP architecture...
. |
| 2.2 |
5.2 |
May 1993 |
- |
May 1999 |
SPARC-only release. First to support sun4d architecture. First to support multithreadingIn computer science, a thread of execution is the smallest unit of processing that can be scheduled by an operating system. The implementation of threads and processes differs from one operating system to another, but in most cases, a thread is contained inside a process...
libraries (UIUnix International or UI was an association created in 1988 to promote open standards, especially the Unix operating system. Its most notable members were AT&T and Sun Microsystems, and in fact the commonly accepted reason for its existence was as a counterbalance to the Open Software Foundation ,...
threads API in libthread). |
| 2.3 |
5.3 |
November 1993 |
- |
June 2002 |
SPARC-only release. OpenWindows OpenWindows was a desktop environment for Sun Microsystems workstations which handled SunView, NeWS, and X Window System protocols. OpenWindows was included in later releases of the operating systems SunOS 4 and Solaris, until its removal in Solaris 9 in favor of Common Desktop Environment and...
3.3 switches from NeWSNeWS was a windowing system developed by Sun Microsystems in the mid 1980s. Originally known as "SunDew", its primary authors were James Gosling and David S. H. Rosenthal...
to Display PostScriptDisplay PostScript is an on-screen display system. As the name implies, DPS uses the PostScript imaging model and language to generate on-screen graphics...
and drops SunViewSunView was a windowing system from Sun Microsystems developed in the early 1980s. It was included as part of SunOS, Sun's UNIX implementation; unlike later UNIX windowing systems, much of it was implemented in the system kernel...
support. Support added for autofs and CacheFSCacheFS is the name used for several similar software technologies designed to speed up Network file system file access for networked computers...
filesystems. |
| 2.4 |
5.4 |
November 1994 |
September 2003 |
First unified SPARC/x86 release. Includes OSF/Motif runtime support. |
| 2.5 |
5.5 |
November 1995 |
December 2003 |
First to support UltraSPARC and include CDE, NFSv3 and NFS/TCP. Dropped sun4 (VMEbusVMEbus is a computer bus standard, originally developed for the Motorola 68000 line of CPUs, but later widely used for many applications and standardized by the IEC as ANSI/IEEE 1014-1987. It is physically based on Eurocard sizes, mechanicals and connectors , but uses its own signalling system,...
) support. POSIX.1c-1995 pthreads added. DoorsDoors are an inter-process communication facility for Unix computer systems. They provide a form of procedure call.- History :Doors were developed by Sun Microsystems as a core part of the Spring operating system, then added to Solaris in version 2.5 as an undocumented internal interface. They...
added but undocumented. |
| 2.5.1 |
5.5.1 |
May 1996 |
September 2005 |
Only release to support PowerPC platform; Ultra Enterprise support added; user and group IDs (uid_t, gid_t) expanded to 32 bits, also included processor sets and early resource management technologies. |
| 2.6 |
5.6 |
July 1997 |
July 2006 |
Includes Kerberos 5, PAM Pluggable authentication modules are a mechanism to integrate multiple low-level authentication schemes into a high-level application programming interface . It allows programs that rely on authentication to be written independent of the underlying authentication scheme...
, TrueTypeTrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
fonts, WebNFS, large file supportLarge file support, often abbreviated to LFS, is the term frequently applied to the ability to create files larger than 2 GiB on 32-bit operating systems.- Rationale :...
, enhanced procfsprocfs is a special filesystem in UNIX-like operating systems that presents information about processes and other system information in a hierarchical file-like structure, providing a more convenient and standardized method for dynamically accessing process data held in the kernel than traditional...
. SPARCserver 600MP series support dropped. |
| 7 |
5.7 |
November 1998 |
August 2008 |
The first 64-bit UltraSPARC release. Added native support for file system meta-data logging (UFS The Unix file system is a file system used by many Unix and Unix-like operating systems. It is also called the Berkeley Fast File System, the BSD Fast File System or FFS...
logging). Dropped MCAMicro Channel Architecture was a proprietary 16- or 32-bit parallel computer bus introduced by IBM in 1987 which was used on PS/2 and other computers through the mid 1990s.- Background :...
support on x86 platform. Last update was Solaris 7 11/99. |
| 8 |
5.8 |
February 2000 |
March 2012 |
Includes Multipath I/O Solaris Multiplexed I/O , known also as Sun StorageTek Traffic Manager , is multipath I/O software for Solaris OS...
, Solaris Volume ManagerSolaris Volume Manager is a software package for creating, modifying and controlling RAID-0 volumes, RAID-1 volumes, RAID 0+1 volumes, RAID 1+0 volumes, RAID-5 volumes, and soft partitions.Version 1.0 of Online: DiskSuite was released as an add-on product for SunOS in...
, IPMPThe IP network multipathing or IPMP is a facility provided by Solaris to provide fault-tolerance and load spreading for network interface cards . With IPMP, two or more NICs are dedicated for each network to which the host connects. Each interface is assigned a static "test" IP address, which is...
, first support for IPv6Internet Protocol version 6 is a version of the Internet Protocol . It is designed to succeed the Internet Protocol version 4...
and IPsecInternet Protocol Security is a protocol suite for securing Internet Protocol communications by authenticating and encrypting each IP packet of a communication session...
(manual keying only), mdbMDB may refer to:In computing:* .mdb, a file-extension used in certain versions of Microsoft Access databases* MDB or MDB2, PHP database abstraction layers* Message Driven Bean, a special type of Enterprise JavaBean...
modular debugger. Introduced Role-Based Access ControlIn computer systems security, role-based access control is an approach to restricting system access to authorized users. It is used by the majority of enterprises with more than 500 employees, and can be implemented via mandatory access control or discretionary access control...
(RBAC); sun4c support removed. Last update is Solaris 8 2/04. |
| 9 |
5.9 |
May 28, 2002 |
January 10, 2003 |
October 2014 |
iPlanet Directory Server, Resource Manager, extended file attributes, IKE Internet Key Exchange is the protocol used to set up a security association in the IPsec protocol suite. IKE builds upon the Oakley protocol and ISAKMP...
IPsec keying, and Linux compatibility added; OpenWindows dropped, sun4d support removed. Most current update is Solaris 9 9/05. |
| 10 |
5.10 |
January 31, 2005 |
- |
Includes x86-64 (AMD64/Intel 64) support, DTrace DTrace is a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework created by Sun Microsystems for troubleshooting kernel and application problems on production systems in real time...
(Dynamic Tracing), Solaris ContainersSolaris Containers 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 first full release of Solaris 10, 2005.It is present in newer OpenSolaris based...
, Service Management FacilityService Management Facility is a feature of the Solaris operating system that creates a supported, unified model for services and service management on each Solaris system and replaces init.d scripts. SMF introduces:...
(SMF) which replaces initinit is a program for Unix-based computer operating systems that spawns all other processes. It runs as a daemon and typically has PID 1. The boot loader starts the kernel and the kernel starts init...
.d scripts, NFSv4. Least privilege security model. Support for sun4m and UltraSPARC I processors removed. Support for EISA-based PCs removed. Adds Java Desktop SystemOpenSolaris Desktop, formerly Java Desktop System , is a desktop environment now developed by Oracle Corporation available for Solaris, and formerly Linux....
(based on GNOMEGNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
) as default desktop.
- Solaris 10 1/06 (known internally as "U1") added the GRUB bootloader for x86 systems, iSCSI
In computing, iSCSI , is an abbreviation of Internet Small Computer System Interface, an Internet Protocol -based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. By carrying SCSI commands over IP networks, iSCSI is used to facilitate data transfers over intranets and to manage...
Initiator support and fcinfo command-line tool.
- Solaris 10 6/06 ("U2") added the ZFS
In computing, ZFS is a combined file system and logical volume manager designed by Sun Microsystems. The features of ZFS include data integrity verification against data corruption modes , support for high storage capacities, integration of the concepts of filesystem and volume management,...
filesystem.
- Solaris 10 11/06 ("U3") added Solaris Trusted Extensions
Solaris Trusted Extensions is a set of security extensions incorporated in the Solaris 10 operating system by Sun Microsystems, featuring a mandatory access control model...
and Logical DomainsLogical Domains is the server virtualization and partitioning technology from Sun Microsystems released in April 2007. It has been re-branded as Oracle VM Server for SPARC since Oracle Corporation completed the acquisition of Sun in January 2010. Each domain is a full virtual machine with a...
.
- Solaris 10 8/07 ("U4") added Samba
Samba is a free software re-implementation, originally developed by Andrew Tridgell, of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol. As of version 3, Samba provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients and can integrate with a Windows Server domain, either as a Primary Domain...
Active Directory support, IP Instances (part of the OpenSolaris Network Virtualization and Resource ControlOpenSolaris network virtualization and resource control is a set of OpenSolaris features, currently under development by Sun Microsystems as an open source project...
project), iSCSIIn computing, iSCSI , is an abbreviation of Internet Small Computer System Interface, an Internet Protocol -based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. By carrying SCSI commands over IP networks, iSCSI is used to facilitate data transfers over intranets and to manage...
Target support and Solaris Containers for LinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
Applications (based on branded zones), enhanced version of the Resource Capping Daemon (rcapd).
- Solaris 10 5/08 ("U5") added CPU capping for Solaris Containers, performance improvements, SpeedStep
SpeedStep is a trademark for a series of dynamic frequency scaling technologies built into some Intel microprocessors that allow the clock speed of the processor to be dynamically changed by software...
support for Intel processors and PowerNow!PowerNow! is speed throttling and power saving technology of AMD's processors used in laptops. The CPU's clock speed and VCore are automatically decreased when the computer is under low load or idle, to save battery power, reduce heat and noise...
support for AMD processors.
- Solaris 10 10/08 ("U6") added boot from ZFS and can use ZFS as its root file system. Solaris 10 10/08 also includes virtualization enhancements including the ability for a Solaris Container to automatically update its environment when moved from one system to another, Logical Domains support for dynamically reconfigurable disk and network I/O, and paravirtualization support when Solaris 10 is used as a guest OS in Xen-based environments such as Sun xVM Server.
- Solaris 10 5/09 ("U7") added performance and power management support for Intel Nehalem processors, container cloning using ZFS cloned file systems, and performance enhancements for ZFS on solid-state drive
A solid-state drive , sometimes called a solid-state disk or electronic disk, is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data with the intention of providing access in the same manner of a traditional block i/o hard disk drive...
s.
- Solaris 10 10/09 ("U8") added user and group level ZFS quotas, ZFS cache devices and nss_ldap shadowAccount Support, improvements to patching performance.
- Solaris 10 9/10 ("U9") added physical to zone migration, ZFS triple parity RAID-Z and Oracle Solaris Auto Registration.
- Solaris 10 8/11 ("U10")
|
| 11 Express 2010.11 |
5.11 |
November 15, 2010 |
- |
Adds new packaging system (IPS=Image Packaging System) and associated tools, Solaris 10 Containers, network virtualization and QoS, virtual consoles, ZFS encryption and deduplication, fast reboot, updated GNOME GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
. Removes XsunXsun is an X Window System server implementation included with the Solaris operating system, developed by Sun Microsystems. It replaced the older "Xnews" server, which supported the display of not only X11 applications, but also NeWS and SunView programs...
, CDE. |
| 11 |
5.11 |
November 9, 2011 |
- |
New features and enhancements (compared to Solaris 10) in software packaging, network virtualization, server virtualization, storage, security and hardware support
Solaris Packaging: Image Packaging System, network and local package repositories; Automated Installer to automate provisioning, including Zones; Distro Constructor to create ISOs
Network: network virtualization (vNICs, vSwitches, vRouters) and QoS, Exclusive-IP default for Zones, dladm to manage data links, ipadm to manage IP including IPMP, proftpd and enhancements
Zones: Immutable (read-only) Zones, NFS servers in zones, delegated administration, P2V pre-flight check, zonestat & libzonestat,
Security: root as a role, netcat and enhancements
Storage: ZFS shadow migration, ZFS backup/restore with NDMP, recursive ZFS send
Hardware Support: SPARC T4, critical threads, SDP enabled and optimized, including support for Zones, SR-IOV, Intel AVX |
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 is codenamed
Nevada, and is derived from what is now the
OpenSolarisOpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems. It was also the name of the project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around the software...
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 users recommended to 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 distro to Solaris 11 Express, with different license terms, and released build 151a as 2010.11 in November 2010.
See also
- Blast
Blast or The Blast may refer to:*Explosion, a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner*Detonation, an exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front-Film:...
- software packages for production Sparc and x86/AMD64 Solaris 8 upwards
- Comparison of operating systems
These tables compare general and technical information for a number of widely used and currently available operating systems.Because of the large number and variety of available Linux distributions, they are all grouped under a single entry; see comparison of Linux distributions for a detailed...
- Illumos
Illumos is a derivative of OS/Net , which basically is a Solaris/OpenSolaris kernel with the bulk of the drivers, core libraries, and basic utilities. It is dependent on OS/Net, which Illumos will follow very closely while allowing to retain changes to code which might be unacceptable to upstream...
- OpenCSW
The Open Community Software Project is an open-source project providing Solaris binary packages of freely available or open-source software....
- Software forked from Blastwave
- OpenIndiana
OpenIndiana is a Unix-like computer operating system released as free and open source software. It forked from OpenSolaris after the discontinuation of that project by Oracle and aims to continue development and distribution of the OpenSolaris codebase. The project operates under the umbrella of...
- OpenSolaris
OpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems. It was also the name of the project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around the software...
- Operating systems timeline
This article presents a timeline of events in the history of computer operating systems from 1951 to the current day. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the History of operating systems.-1950s:* 1951...
- Sun Management Center
Sun Management Center is a system monitoring solution from Sun Microsystems.Sun Management Center is a systems management and monitoring tool for enterprise-wide management of Sun servers, desktops and storage devices...
- Sun xVM
Sun xVM is a product group from Sun Microsystems that addresses virtualization technology on x86 platforms.-History:Sun originally announced the xVM product family in October 2007 as a broader product line...
- Trusted Solaris
External links