All,
FWIW, we have had Solaris x86 lab machines for two years now and have been
very happy with them. They have worked very reliably in a tripple boot
(win95/winnt/sol7x86) environment and other than the occasional
upgrades/patches they have not been a problem (and not to misstate this,
the upgrades aren't a problem just the fact that they are so maintenance
free at other times make them seem cumbersome:)). Our initial reason for
the choice was based on having Solaris Sparc experience, but we have not
regretted it. Our recent addition of McIDAS server from a backend SPARC
server and access from the x86 lab machines has been a charm to set up (if
you disregard the mistakes I made being new to LDM/McIDAS).
The other reason we liked Solaris is because SUN does offer a support
contract option for x86, which we have purchased and which makes it nice
to have that backup of a vendor support team. Their support prices for
educational contracts are far from unreasonable in their pricing from what
I've seen from other vendors.
-Simon
On Fri, 27 Apr 2001, Mark Tucker wrote:
> >
> > If you are a small department without a Linux guru, or without
> > Unix experience, read these messages and strongly consider
> > Unidata's recommendations (I've seen Anne reiterate these recently)
> > and stick with Solaris Intel on Intel boxes. I know Linux is pushed
> > and hyped quite a bit lately especially in academia, but if you
> > aren't very Unix/Linux savvy and want something that will
> > work every time, and will guarantee binary compatibility with
> > upgrades, stick with Solaris.
>
> I would like to add to this comment. I have a fair amount of unix
> experience and have been playing or working with Linux since
> 1994/1995. When I assumed responsibilities here at LSC I
> moved nearly everything to Linux partly because I had experience with
> it. Last year, for various reasons, I migrated our LDM server over to
> Solaris X86. I was impressed with how well it performed and the
> installation of our Unidata related applications was surprisingly
> smooth compared with Linux. The system is much more reliable than it was
> running Linux (the exact same machine) and seems to perform under
> load much more predictably. It has significantly reduced the
> amount of maintenance I was doing to keep the LDM up and running. This
> summer I plan on migrating our lab machines over to Solaris from Linux.
>
> >Note that I am not putting down Linux (it certainly has it's place)
> >but merely pointing out that Solaris for many reasons is a
> >superior choice for many people. People that many times
> >get no opportunity to hear about it..
>
> Solaris X86 does seem to get little mention. The media costs $75 but the
> license is technically "free" so it is nearly as economical as Linux if
> you were to purchase a supported version of Linux.
>
> I will probably continue to use Linux as my desktop and to run our Web
> server but I would concur that Solaris may be a better choice for
> running the Unidata supported applications.
>
>
>
> --
> Mark Tucker
> Meteorology
> Lyndon State College
> tuckerm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu
>
>
>
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Simon Kissler Simon.Kissler@xxxxxxxxx
UNIX Systems Administrator Phone: (219) 464 6773
Electronic Information Services Fax : (219) 464 5381
Valparaiso University
Kretzmann Hall B22
Valparaiso, IN 46383
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