Server - Solaris or Linux

[persia]

I'm setting up another file server and rather than Linux I thought I would use Solaris.  Anyone have any familiarity with it?

[orange]

I've installed it on x86 (Gnome), IIRC the free Solaris 10 version. It was a disappointment for me as a novice user. Debian is much much better because it has infinitely bigger software support.

Solaris has its own "apt-get" system, which works but good luck finding software for it.

I also used a bit Solaris on some expensive SUN server (rackmount) but only with telnet. Its not mine and must be run 24/7 so I couldn't really 'play' with it.

The only advantage might be ZFS (but sooner or later Linux will have that too or maybe it already has?). Its supposed to be "revolutionary", but I'm skeptic.
oh, and boot-up time is quick compared to Linux.

edit: Solaris on PC won't start at all if I keep web camera in USB. If something goes wrong with it, it will be hard (impossible?) writing to its OSF filesystem from Linux. Many people use Linux so its much easier to find (free) help.

[Boudicca]

why not try both ?

http://www.opensolaris.com/get/index.html

[J-Golden]

I'm running a Linux Router/NAs/Everything-else off of the clarkconnect community distro.  Take a look...

http://www.clarkconnect.com/


J-Golden

[LoadWB]

I prefer Solaris, myself.  It's free for personal or education use, or you can use OpenSolaris (I don't have experience with the later.)

If you do get Solaris, check out SunFreeWare (http://sunfreeware.com) for some good packages.

I run my servers on them, privately and professionally, and have done so for almost 10 years.  I have worked with various distros of Linux, some I liked and some I hated, none-the-less I still prefer Solaris.

[webmany]

While ZFS is nice, the requirements to run a stableish system are rather high.  Last time I looked it was 2GB ram and a 64Bit CPU.

The newest version of OpenSolaris installs from a bootable CDROM and runs ZFS default.

[LoadWB]

webmany wrote:
While ZFS is nice, the requirements to run a stableish system are rather high.  Last time I looked it was 2GB ram and a 64Bit CPU.

I've seen this in regards to the ZFS port for Linux, but not specifically for Solaris 10.  But I can imagine it would definitely help.

In Solaris 8 and 9, I use UFS with logging on in vfstab, and I have yet to suffer a damaged file system.  My test installation of Solaris 10 puts UFS in logging mode automatically.

[TheMagicM]

for such a simplistic server I'd run Linux.  Solaris IMO is much more secure than Linux, equal or better stability.  Wider  range of hardware is supported under Linux.   More software available under Linux.  All in all in your application I think Linux would be the better decision.

[Nlandas]

I'd run OpenSuSe it's easy to set up and has a lot of support. I also like the company that helps develop it.

-Nyle

[LoadWB]

TheMagicM wrote:
for such a simplistic server I'd run Linux.  Solaris IMO is much more secure than Linux, equal or better stability.  Wider  range of hardware is supported under Linux.   More software available under Linux.  All in all in your application I think Linux would be the better decision.

I can dig this.  Some Linux distros out-of-the-box (OOB) are ready to roll as file servers, and it can be much more friendly with hardware.

But the question here is, why not just use a USB NAS device?  D-Link, Linksys, Buffalo... don't they make the server part for around $100, then you just attach your external hard drive and viola.  Or are you looking for a little internal admin xp?

That's why I built my Solaris 8/x86 box.  400MHz AMD K6-III+, 128MB RAM, Intel NIC, Matrox PCI video.  Runs Bind as a cache and internal IP resolution, native DHCP, and Sendmail.  Same specs should run most Linux distros nicely.

With a Linux box, you could also take a Windows-formatted hard drive with a butt-load of your files and slap it in the box -- it can read FAT32, and I believe the NTFS is mature at this point.

[Chieftain]

If you're aiming for just a fileserver, have a look at http://www.freenas.org/ , it's based on FreeBSD rather than Linux or Solaris. It's also small enough to fit on a CF card or a USB Memory stick.

[tiffers]

@LoadWB

Solaris is now free for commercial use too (and I mean SOlaris 10, maybe 9 also). Of course now there's OpenSolaris. They've only released the x86 version. I wonder how long it will take to get SPARC OpenSolaris out?

Oh and all future commercial Solaris will be free, and based on OpenSolaris.

You can order a free CD of OpenSolaris x86, shipped to you for $0 :-D

tiffers