Sun Revs Solaris Express Developer Edition, Adds Non-Sun Iron Support

Published: June 21, 2007

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

A few weeks ago, Sun Microsystems announced a new release of its compiler set, Studio 12, that had tweaked features to support the efficient running of applications on quad-core X64 processors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. At the time, Sun said that the compilers were available for free and that they would be included in an upcoming snapshot of Solaris Express Developer Edition. Now, this new rev of Developer Edition is out.

Developer Edition was first announced in March of this year, and is based on the future "Nevada" release of the Solaris operating system that is being created by the OpenSolaris project. OpenSolaris is, of course, the 2-year-old community created by Sun that is the home of the open source variant of Solaris and where the community steers the development of the Nevada release and subsequent versions of Solaris; Solaris 11, if it is indeed called that, will be a commercial snapshot of the Nevada code (build 64a, to be precise) that Sun will harden, preload on its systems, offer in binary form on non-Sun systems, and offer for-fee commercial support. This latest rev of Developer Edition is technically called Solaris Express Developer Edition 5/07.

Developers are, of course, cheap and they don't like to pay a lot for their operating systems and tools. Rather than try to fight this, Sun has embraced it, figuring that by providing free and often open source tools to developers, it can create a huge pool of enthusiasts that will, in the long run, drive the adoption of Solaris and related technologies into the data centers of the world. But Solaris 10 has some issues, among them is the fact that it is not as easy to install on a machine as Linux or Windows.

"While Solaris 10 is the best operating system on the planet," says Dan Roberts, director of developer tools product marketing at Sun, "it has been difficult for developers to install it and to get all of the tools they need to work." You had to get the open source code, you had to hunt around for the compilers, and the installer was a bit cranky. With Developer Edition, the OpenSolaris code is tweaked just for laptops and workstations. This time around, Sun has worked with Intel to get better drivers for the wireless chipsets used in laptops into the code. Developer Edition also has an automatic network configuration tool (similar to that in Linux and Windows) that has default configurations for wireless networks, making it easier to get online.

Developer Edition uses a Gnome interface (like most Linuxes do today as default) and includes the Mozilla Firefox 2.0 Web browser and Thunderbird 2.0 Beta 2 email client. Sun is also throwing in StarOffice 8 Update 6, which is the Sun variant of the OpenOffice suite. (Sun acquired OpenOffice several years ago and took it open source to give Microsoft some headaches.) The NetBeans 5.5 integrated development environment is also part of Developer Edition.

Solaris Express Developer Edition is only available on X64 laptops, desktops, and workstations; Sparc-based workstations come with the Solaris 10 operating system and the Studio 12 compilers already loaded on them, obviating the need for a Developer Edition.

Sun also has announced that it is now offering tech and hardware support for non-Sun servers under its SunSpectrum Enterprise Service Plan. Sun is billing this as "one point of contact for one low price," but when asked what the prices were, the company said that it was not providing list pricing for the support contracts and that each deal was negotiated independently.

With the SunSpectrum Enterprise Service Plan, Sun is consolidating disparate hardware and software support contracts down to one contract, which can include Sun servers and its software stack as well as servers from other vendors who are running Sun's software. The contract also has options for on-site Sun engineers and system administrators if you don't want to put your own on the payroll as well as provisions for keeping spare parts near the data center, environmental assessment, remote monitoring, and patch services for software and hardware microcode.

Nearly three-quarters of the more than 8 million Solaris 10 downloads that Sun has shipped in the past two and a half years have gone onto X86 and X64 machines that do not bear the Sun label, so Sun has to make some money, some how, off that big base on alien iron. Services is the way Sun wants to do that, and this has been the game plan all along.

RELATED STORIES

Sun Adds Quad-Core X64 Chip Support into Studio 12 Compilers

Sun Provides Starter Kit for OpenSolaris, Puts Out Developer Edition

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