WTB CHEAP SOLARIS DISTRO

[radrob]

i want buy a solaris distro for my sun ultra1 and sparcstation lx
so
i don't need the las one
but only one to learn solaris

let me know
rob

[arthur wouk]

ebay

[Paul]

If you are using it just to learn/develop, and NOT commercially (i.e.
running a for pay webserver), you can download Solaris 9 (and currently a
beta of 10) straight from Sun.com

http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/binaries/get.html
Look for Download, and follow the forms. It's 3 CD's, but you don't really
need the 1st (installer) cd, just use the first non-installer CD.
(especially on an LX...the 'installer' is a X-server/Java combo and on my
lx, I gave up after 4 hours.)

Post by radrob
i want buy a solaris distro for my sun ultra1 and sparcstation lx
so
i don't need the las one
but only one to learn solaris
let me know
rob

[Dr. David Kirkby]

Post by Paul
If you are using it just to learn/develop, and NOT commercially (i.e.
running a for pay webserver), you can download Solaris 9 (and currently a
beta of 10) straight from Sun.com

That's not true - see my response under the post by Alan Coopersmith.

[Alan Coopersmith]

***@softhome.net (radrob) writes in comp.sys.sun.wanted:
|i want buy a solaris distro for my sun ultra1 and sparcstation lx

For non-commercial use, you can download Solaris 9 for free from
http://www.sun.com/solaris (look for the red "Get the Software" button).

[Dr. David Kirkby]

Post by Alan Coopersmith
|i want buy a solaris distro for my sun ultra1 and sparcstation lx
For non-commercial use, you can download Solaris 9 for free from
http://www.sun.com/solaris (look for the red "Get the Software" button).

Alan,
whilst you can certainly download Solaris 9, in the way you state,
most non-commerical users can't legally use the software. In the case
of someone wanting a 'CHEAP SOLARIS DISTRO' to run on a SPARC 1 or
Ultra 1, I suspect it is most unlikely to be legal.

It is stated quite clearly on many places on Sun's web site, that to
qualify for the free licence, the computer MUST BE SUPPLIED TO YOU BY
SUN OR AN AUTHORISED DISTRUBUTOR. See for example question #8 on the
'Free Solaris[sm] Binary License Program' FAQ:

http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/binaries/faq.html#0q7

"Q. I have a remanufactured or used Sun computer system; how do I get
the Solaris Operating System for my system?

A. This program is limited to supplying non-commercial licenses for
use with 1 CPU systems in the following
categories:

Systems supplied to you by Sun or its authorized
distributors
Systems based on the x86 architecture

All other systems, new or used, require the purchase of a license
through Sun or its authorized distributors. Please contact
www.sun.com/sales for more information."

Another page on Sun's website
http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/binaries/index.html

says much the same thing "You can use the software for non-commercial
usage on single processor systems supplied to you by Sun or its
authorized distributors or based on the x86 architecture."

Does Sun, or any of its authorised distributors sell SPARC 1's in
2004? I doubt that very much. How about Ultra 1's? Again I doubt it,
but just possibly so.

Would someone looking for a 'CHEAP SOLARIS DISTRO' be buying a SPARC 1
or Ultra 1 from such a Sun authorised distrubutor? I doubt that
somehow.

There are two stupid restrictions on Sun's Solaris Binary Licencing
Program, which make it unusable (legally) by home/non-commercial
users.

1) The machine must be capable of taking only one CPU, not just be
fitted with one CPU. We are told at

http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/licensing/policies.html

"For systems with a capacity of 2 or more CPUs, users can purchase
licenses from a Sun sales rep, Sun authorized reseller or Sun online
store (US only)"

I own 6 Suns (1 x Ultra 80, 5 x SS20) all of which can take more than
one CPU, so none of them would be covered.

2) The machine must be supplied to you by Sun or one of its authorised
distributors. Home users don't buy from such places. All my machines
were bought used via ebay or similar, or scronged from work when they
were not wanted any more.

You can obtain a free licence for educational use, but that too is
VERY restrictive.

The full terms of the licence can be found at:
http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/binaries/bcl.html

About the only way to get a free licence for home use seems to be to
get a 60-day trial. At the end of the 60-day trial, get another 60-day
trial. There seems to be no restriction on how many times you can do
that (at least I've never seen one). Strangly enough, that would be
valid for commercial use too.

I think to be more reasonable for home users, the licence should not
restrict where the machine came from and preferably not the number of
CPUs either.

The older Solaris 8 free licence allowed up to 4 CPUs. That would
cover most home usage, although there are a few home users with bigger
machines, as those machines are now getting well within the budgets of
home users.

If this
http://www.computerweekly.com/Article130333.htm
is to be belived, Solaris might be GPL'ed, which would add a new
twist.


Dr. David Kirkby

[Barbie LeVile]

On 16 May 2004 13:25:30 -0700

Post by Dr. David Kirkby
The older Solaris 8 free licence allowed up to 4 CPUs. That would
cover most home usage, although there are a few home users with bigger
machines, as those machines are now getting well within the budgets of
home users.

It was 8 cpus actualy, and it was free even for commercial use.
Now that was a damn nice license imo.

[slrn]

Post by Barbie LeVile
On 16 May 2004 13:25:30 -0700

Post by Dr. David Kirkby
The older Solaris 8 free licence allowed up to 4 CPUs. That would
cover most home usage, although there are a few home users with bigger
machines, as those machines are now getting well within the budgets of
home users.

It was 8 cpus actualy, and it was free even for commercial use.
Now that was a damn nice license imo.

Interesting, I thought Solaris 8 _always_ was for non-commercial,
academic, and home usage only, and it was for 8 CPUs. However,
the current and previous OS does not have any restrictions on the
number of CPUs, only the license.

Even so, I wonders why Sun changed the policy to one CPU, it was a big
deal, I think it was modified during the last release of Solaris 8?

[Rich Teer]

Post by slrn
Interesting, I thought Solaris 8 _always_ was for non-commercial,

Nope, originally it (S8) was free for all uses.

Post by slrn
Even so, I wonders why Sun changed the policy to one CPU, it was a big
deal, I think it was modified during the last release of Solaris 8?

Yes; the licensing model change was coincident with the release
of Solaris 9.

[slrn]

Post by Rich Teer

Post by slrn
Interesting, I thought Solaris 8 _always_ was for non-commercial,

Nope, originally it (S8) was free for all uses.

Post by slrn
Even so, I wonders why Sun changed the policy to one CPU, it was a big
deal, I think it was modified during the last release of Solaris 8?

Yes; the licensing model change was coincident with the release
of Solaris 9.

Wasn't there a significant code change/rewrite with Solaris 9?
Hence, the change in licensing? If so, it's unlikely Solaris
will GPL --and I would think enterprise users would prefer not
to have an enterprise OS code wide open.

[Rich Teer]

Post by slrn
Wasn't there a significant code change/rewrite with Solaris 9?

Every new Solaris release has a fair amount of new and rewritten
code, although I don't know the specifics (I'm privvy to SOME
inside knowledge, but not THAT much!).

Post by slrn
Hence, the change in licensing? If so, it's unlikely Solaris

I think the change in licensing derived from SUn's desire to
earn some revenue from Solaris. Also, I think many of their
VARs were complaining about it because of the competition from
places like eBay. (That is, one could buy a machine from eBay
much cheaper than from a VAR, and get a free Solaris license.
I guess the resellers don't like competition...)

Post by slrn
will GPL --and I would think enterprise users would prefer not
to have an enterprise OS code wide open.

I agree; I think it would be great if the Solaris source code
could be made available again, like the Solaris 8 Foundation
Source, but I don't think a GPL license would be appropriate.

The trick is making the license open enough for community
developers to contribute their efforts, without Sun giving
away their crown jewels. I mean, Sun HW is pretty sexy, but
Solaris is probably the reason many users stick with Sun.

[Dr. David Kirkby]

Post by Barbie LeVile
On 16 May 2004 13:25:30 -0700

Post by Dr. David Kirkby
The older Solaris 8 free licence allowed up to 4 CPUs. That would
cover most home usage, although there are a few home users with bigger
machines, as those machines are now getting well within the budgets of
home users.

It was 8 cpus actualy, and it was free even for commercial use.

I stand corrected then. The number 8 does 'ring a bell' as we say in
England. I see a post by one hobbyiest with 6 CPUs, but I'm not aware
of any home user with more than 8 CPUs.

The way Sun promotes this licence program causes nothing but
confusion. There have been numerous newsgroup posts (several by Sun
employees) saying Solaris 9 is free for non-commerical use, yet my
understanding is that this is no so at all. It just appears that way
until you read the fine print.

Post by Barbie LeVile
Now that was a damn nice license imo.

Perhaps a compromise between the old Solaris 8 licencing program (8
CPUs, commerical use) and this new Solaris 9 licencing program
(suitable for about 0.01% of the machines held by non-commerical
users) would be a good idea. How about it Sun ? With Solaris 10 to be
released, why not come up with a new licencing policy that is less
confusing and allows reasonable non-commerical use?

Dr. David Kirkby

[Rich Teer]

Post by Dr. David Kirkby
Perhaps a compromise between the old Solaris 8 licencing program (8
CPUs, commerical use) and this new Solaris 9 licencing program
(suitable for about 0.01% of the machines held by non-commerical
users) would be a good idea. How about it Sun ? With Solaris 10 to be
released, why not come up with a new licencing policy that is less
confusing and allows reasonable non-commerical use?

Personally, I like the idea of free for any use with <= 4 CPUs,
free for non-commercial use for any number of CPUs (to cover
those fortuante enough to have an E3000 at home!). With no
caveats about "purchaes from Sun or a Sun VAR.

[Bruno Saverio Delbono]

Post by Rich Teer
Personally, I like the idea of free for any use with <= 4 CPUs,
free for non-commercial use for any number of CPUs (to cover
those fortuante enough to have an E3000 at home!). With no
caveats about "purchaes from Sun or a Sun VAR.

Make it 12 CPU's for me with an E4500 at home. I don't quite like the
E3X00 as they remind me of trash bins :)

[Barbie LeVile]

On Tue, 18 May 2004 04:40:05 GMT

Post by Bruno Saverio Delbono

Post by Rich Teer
Personally, I like the idea of free for any use with <= 4 CPUs,
free for non-commercial use for any number of CPUs (to cover
those fortuante enough to have an E3000 at home!). With no
caveats about "purchaes from Sun or a Sun VAR.

Make it 12 CPU's for me with an E4500 at home. I don't quite like the
E3X00 as they remind me of trash bins :)

You want to make th 14, in case you only need one i/o board and stuff
the remaining slots full of cpus :)

I myself are quiet happy with just 8 cpus for the moment :)

[Dr. David Kirkby]

Post by Bruno Saverio Delbono

Post by Rich Teer
Personally, I like the idea of free for any use with <= 4 CPUs,
free for non-commercial use for any number of CPUs (to cover
those fortuante enough to have an E3000 at home!). With no
caveats about "purchaes from Sun or a Sun VAR.

Make it 12 CPU's for me with an E4500 at home. I don't quite like the
E3X00 as they remind me of trash bins :)

Perhaps I might be able to twist your arm to test some GPL'ed
multi-threaddd software for me at some time. I've never manged to get
it tested on any machine with more than 4 CPUs. However, for now at
least, I'm re-writing the multi-threaded section.

[Bruno Saverio Delbono]

Post by Dr. David Kirkby
Perhaps I might be able to twist your arm to test some GPL'ed
multi-threaddd software for me at some time. I've never manged to get
it tested on any machine with more than 4 CPUs. However, for now at
least, I'm re-writing the multi-threaded section.

Sure. Email me off-list and I can run tests you want

-Bruno

[Dr. David Kirkby]

Post by Rich Teer

Post by Dr. David Kirkby
Perhaps a compromise between the old Solaris 8 licencing program (8
CPUs, commerical use) and this new Solaris 9 licencing program
(suitable for about 0.01% of the machines held by non-commerical
users) would be a good idea. How about it Sun ? With Solaris 10 to be
released, why not come up with a new licencing policy that is less
confusing and allows reasonable non-commerical use?

Personally, I like the idea of free for any use with <= 4 CPUs,

We are all entitled to our own opinions Rich, but I feel if you make
your living by using a commerical product, it does not seem
unreasonable to pay for it.

Post by Rich Teer
free for non-commercial use for any number of CPUs (to cover
those fortuante enough to have an E3000 at home!).

I think limiting the 'number of CPUs' is a bit silly. I'm not
convinced there is much correlation between either

1) Performance and the number of CPUs. The old SS20's are pretty slow
by modern standards. Even if fitted wtih 4 CPUs, they will not match a
blade 100 (I doubt anyway, having not played with a Blade 100).

Machines like the Ultra 80 I own might well out-perform a cheap modern
Sun as a server, but whilst home users might well use a U80 as a
server (I do), they probably don't really server peformance for a home
machine.

It's a bit like equating car performance to the number of cylinders,
or engine capacity. I once owned a Rover 3500S car, with a 3500 cc
(215 cubic inch) V8 engine. That engine will put out less power than a
modern motorbike and the car would be no match in peformance for a
modern car with a 4-cylinder engine of less than half the size.

2) The value and the number of CPUs. These old machines, even with
multiple processors, are not as valuable as a decent modern machine
with one CPU.

3) The likehood of something being used commerically.

If some hobbiest is going to take the trouble to obtain large old
machines, paying the transport and probably high electricity costs
associated with them, I don't think its unreasonable to allow free use
of the OS.

I think Cray are particulary bad from this point of view, as they
won't sell UNICOS cheaply, even for old machines. You have to be a
pretty dedicated hobiest to go to the effort of running a Cray, yet
from what I understand, getting the OS is one of the biggest hurdles.
(I don't own a Cray I might add, and have no intentions of doing so,
but I have made use of the free public access Cray at
http://www.cray-cyber.org/general/start.php to test the portabilty of
some GPL software I wrote).

Post by Rich Teer
With no
caveats about "purchaes from Sun or a Sun VAR.

Yes, that is the bit that really hits the hobbiest, making this
so-called 'Free Solaris Binary Licence Program' a colllection of five
useless words. Any hobbiest using Suns is unlikely to purchase
directly from Sun or a VAR. It is difficult enough to justify the
performance (for home use) of used Suns compared to a modern PC,
without factoring in some huge markup by a VAR.

Let's hope some of the complaints about this subject don't go to
/dev/null at Sun.

Dr. David Kirkby

[Rich Teer]

Post by Dr. David Kirkby
We are all entitled to our own opinions Rich, but I feel if you make
your living by using a commerical product, it does not seem
unreasonable to pay for it.

Agreed.

Post by Dr. David Kirkby
I think limiting the 'number of CPUs' is a bit silly. I'm not
convinced there is much correlation between either

It is a bit silly, but I guess there has to be some way of limiting
it use to "hobbyists". A free license for any EOLed machine, whatever
its capacity might be a good starting point.

Post by Dr. David Kirkby
1) Performance and the number of CPUs. The old SS20's are pretty slow
by modern standards. Even if fitted wtih 4 CPUs, they will not match a
blade 100 (I doubt anyway, having not played with a Blade 100).

I have both, and trust me, the SB 100 is MUCH faster than the SS20
(nice as the latter is)!

Post by Dr. David Kirkby
2) The value and the number of CPUs. These old machines, even with
multiple processors, are not as valuable as a decent modern machine
with one CPU.
3) The likehood of something being used commerically.

These two points help add weight to my "any EOLed machine" suggestion.

Post by Dr. David Kirkby
If some hobbiest is going to take the trouble to obtain large old
machines, paying the transport and probably high electricity costs
associated with them, I don't think its unreasonable to allow free use
of the OS.

Agreed, and I think that this is Sun's view, unofficially. But at
least officially, they have to keep their VARs happy. I really don't
think that Sun's Lawyers will be wasting time sending Cease and Desist
notices to hobbyists. :-)

Post by Dr. David Kirkby
Let's hope some of the complaints about this subject don't go to
/dev/null at Sun.

It's something we've discussed on more than one occassion at the
monthly Sun Community conference calls.

[Andre]

Post by Rich Teer
free for non-commercial use for any number of CPUs (to cover
those fortuante enough to have an E3000 at home!). With no

Indeed! They're getting pretty cheap now.

prtdiag | more
System Configuration: Sun Microsystems sun4u 4-slot Sun Enterprise 3000
System clock frequency: 82 MHz
Memory size: 6144Mb
psrinfo | wc -l
6

Good, solid machines. Add an SSA and you've got a neat little cluster member.

Not to mention the fact that it cost me less than a decent PC.

[slrn]

Post by radrob
i want buy a solaris distro for my sun ultra1 and sparcstation lx
so
i don't need the las one
but only one to learn solaris

www.sun.com --> Downloads.

[radrob]

i'm sorry
for the flame i created..
i had a sparcstation lx for free
i've cleaned the machine and
upgraded some parts
that's the lunchbox i ever dreamed
i want learn some OLD sunos on it

...yes i can run openbsd on it
but i would know if someone
can tell me if i can find
an old sunos distro like
that was originally on the machine
..

i know i can get solaris 9
but would you try winxp on a 386 peecee?

i'd like know if i can get an old sun os like 2.4 .
..i'm a neewbie on sun so please understand my imprecisions


thanks for all
and sorry again

[Rich Teer]

Post by radrob
i know i can get solaris 9
but would you try winxp on a 386 peecee?

no - but your comparison isn't quite valid. Given enough RAM,
S9 on even an old machine should be "acceptable".