From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Nov 6 06:05:53 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id GAA20596 for questions-outgoing; Wed, 6 Nov 1996 06:05:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from horton.iaces.com ([204.147.87.98]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id GAA20591 for ; Wed, 6 Nov 1996 06:05:50 -0800 (PST) Received: (from proot@localhost) by horton.iaces.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA04948; Wed, 6 Nov 1996 08:05:21 -0600 (CST) From: "Paul T. Root" Message-Id: <199611061405.IAA04948@horton.iaces.com> Subject: Re: SunOS and Solaris? To: sln@public.jn.sd.cn Date: Wed, 6 Nov 1996 08:05:21 -0600 (CST) Cc: questions@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <32803AD4.58F2@public.jn.sd.cn> from Song Lining at "Nov 6, 96 03:14:28 pm" X-Organization: !nterprise Networking Services - ACES X-Phone: (612) 663-1979 X-Fax: (612) 663-8030 X-Page: (800) SKY-PAGE PIN: 537-7270 X-Address: 200 S. 5th St., Suite 1100 X-Address: Minneapolis, MN 55402 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In a previous message, Song Lining said: > Hi, > > I know it's not a proper place to post this question but anybody's > answer would be highly appreciated. My question is: What's the > difference between Sun's SunOS and Solaris. I can't find out any > difference by myself. There are 2 answers to that: 1) Solaris = SunOS + Openwindows + Desktop tools (Calendar Manager etc). So SunOS 4.1.3 plus Openwindows 2 is Solaris 1.1.1 And SunOS 5.5 plus Openwin 3.5 is Solaris 2.5 2) SunOS is the common name for the previous operating system. Ie. SunOS 4.1.3, which is based on BSD 4.2 with some 4.3 extensions. Solaris on the other hand, is SVR4 based, starting at Solaris 2.0 up to Solaris 2.5.1. Conventional wisdom is 2.0 to 2.2 is unstable and vertually unusable, 2.3 is fair, 2.4 is much faster and 2.5 is pretty stable and fast. Why are there 2 answers? Marketing. When Sun switched to SVR4 and came out with Solaris, they wanted to say that Solaris had more apps written to it than any other commersial Unix. To be able to say that, they retro- actively re-named SunOS 4.1.3 to Solaris 1.1.1 Generally, I have found in the user community, when a person says SunOS, they mean 4.1.x (or rarely now 3.5). It they say Solaris, they mean 2.x Paul. -- Paul T. Root E/Mail: proot@iaces.com 200 S. 5th St. Suite 1100 PAG: +1 (800) SKY-PAGE PIN: 537-7370 Minneapolis, MN 55402 WRK: +1 (612) 663-1979 NIC: PTR FAX: +1 (612) 663-8030