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Ask HN: Should I choose Sun Solaris or Linux?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I choose Sun Solaris or Linux?

#11

Post by gexla »

You left out a big piece of information. Are you going to be setting up these servers physically (colocation?) or are you going to be going with a hosting provider?

Pick what you know, though from what you have posted I'm not sure you know either of the systems you mentioned very well. Actually, unless you are a professional systems administrator then even picking what you know may not be good enough. You can setup your own servers if you are running on a low budget, but ideally you would be paying someone to take care of all your administration needs.

So, I assume from your budget you won't be buying your own servers and even if you were interested in buying your own servers you don't have the expertise to set them up properly. You will then be looking at hosting.

You should probably be looking at a hosting provider which offers managed hosting. This will be your support. Don't worry so much about the distribution, just choose whatever that provider has available.

Arguably Solaris is superior to Linux in many ways. If you want to go that route I would suggest Joyent as a provider. Linux is wide open for hosting choices. Find one you like and is within your price range and go with them.

You probably need to start out with a VPS as opposed to a dedicated server. Done right, a dedicated server is generally much more expensive than a VPS. Also, a dedicated server requires a lot of knowledge just to know what to look for.

Your widest choice of offerings for a VPS is linux. Pick one which offers a managed plan and go with whatever that plan ships with. If you have a choice, just go with CentOS. Personally, I prefer Ubuntu, but that's not on your list.

Re: Ask HN: Should I choose Sun Solaris or Linux?

#12

Post by gaius »

davidw wrote: post #9
gaius wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oracle is going to drive Solaris into the ground On what do you base this? Larry is spending more on SPARC and Solaris than McNealy ever did! It's possible that Solaris will become less suited to (for example) HPC over time but for anything related to commercial data processing, including Java and web serving, expect for it to continue to occupy a leading position among the Unixes.

"A leading position among the Unixes" is sort of like "a leading horse-buggy manufacturer" isn't it? I don't see it "running into the ground" - people will be using it for many years in the future. However, the supply of people picking it for new projects probably just dried up quite a bit. People will 'grow up' knowing how to work with Linux, because that's what they tried at home, at school, what they learned on th…

Well, no, not really. Just one example, Sun developed DTrace, a bit later Red Hat got SystemTap. Who's leading and who's following there? Sun has ZFS and Oracle has BTRFS and SGI released XFS, all of which are well in advance of ext3. So while it is fashionable to bash Unix for being old-fashioned and praise Linux for being "advanced", the reality is a lot more subtle than that.

Re: Ask HN: Should I choose Sun Solaris or Linux?

#13

Post by mseebach »

Tomer wrote: post #7
mseebach wrote: post #6

None of your requirements, at least when they're as unqualified as they are, can help you to pick an OS. Ask yourself where your bottleneck will be, then ask yourself if the OS is going to make any difference there. The answer is very likely no. No modern OS is going to give you any significant performance/cost advantage over another in serving regular web apps. Most of your trouble will be in setting it up and maint…

Why not CentOS? what would you recommend then? I saw that oracle are really emphasizing how their OS has much higher performance than linux I wondered if its correct or if their benchmarks are good: http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/performance-scalability/b... http://jp.sun.com/solutions/infra/eda/pdf/solaris-linux.pdf So I wondered if i'm missing some tens of percents in performance by not choosing Sun Solaris...

CentOS is binary compatible with RedHat, so it's for people who need the enterprise-ness of RedHat, but can't/won't run RedHat. An example I've heard is running RedHat in production for the support, but CentOS for devs and stating. The reason to run RedHat is usually something like needing to run Oracle or a number of other very complex software suites (the keyword is complex, not better or faster) that are only supported on specific platforms.

If you're running Oracle on Sun hardware, go for Solaris, sure, if for no other reason the support. If you're running "regular" open source software on generic hardware, just use Linux/BSD. There's nothing in Solaris that'd make Postgres faster than Linux or BSD on the same hardware.

Re: Ask HN: Should I choose Sun Solaris or Linux?

#14

Post by davidw »

gaius wrote: post #12
davidw wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A leading position among the Unixes" is sort of like "a leading horse-buggy manufacturer" isn't it? I don't see it "running into the ground" - people will be using it for many years in the future. However, the supply of people picking it for new projects probably just dried up quite a bit. People will 'grow up' knowing how to work with Linux, because that's what they tried at home, at school, what they learned on th…

Well, no, not really. Just one example, Sun developed DTrace, a bit later Red Hat got SystemTap. Who's leading and who's following there? Sun has ZFS and Oracle has BTRFS and SGI released XFS, all of which are well in advance of ext3. So while it is fashionable to bash Unix for being old-fashioned and praise Linux for being "advanced", the reality is a lot more subtle than that.

I never said Linux was more advanced. What it is, is "good enough" and improving all the time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Disruptivetechnology.gif

Especially since it's easier to find people to work with it, more open, and not driven by a billionaire who wants you over a barrel.

Also, I think that Oracle is quickly putting paid to the sort of environment where innovations like dtrace happen, although I could be wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Should I choose Sun Solaris or Linux?

#15

Post by bni »

Tomer wrote: post #8
madhouse wrote: post #5

Whatever you choose, stay clear of Solaris. Especially OpenSolaris (that's a dead-end). If you're unfamiliar with both, Linux systems are easier to get used to, in my experience.

So how come many "big" companies are using solaris with much success?

Legacy and inertia.

Re: Ask HN: Should I choose Sun Solaris or Linux?

#16

Post by CrLf »

Tomer wrote: post #8
madhouse wrote: post #5

Whatever you choose, stay clear of Solaris. Especially OpenSolaris (that's a dead-end). If you're unfamiliar with both, Linux systems are easier to get used to, in my experience.

So how come many "big" companies are using solaris with much success?

Many "big" companies are using Solaris (and other UNIXes) because they have been for a long time, and there is a cost to switching.

Upgrades to the kind of systems Solaris is being used (core systems and databases) tend to stay in the same course, not only because there is a lower risk in staying on the same OS/architecture combo, but also because most of those systems are old and tied to Solaris/SPARC. Unless there is a sufficiently strong reason to switch, most "big" companies prefer to pay the premium (in SW and HW) than assume the risk.

Solaris on commodity funcions is dying rapidly, if one can't already consider it dead.

The notion that Linux is less advanced is bogus. In some aspects Solaris is more advanced, in others Linux has the lead. What matters is what's the best choice for a each task given constraints of cost, reliability and availability of skilled technicians.

Re: Ask HN: Should I choose Sun Solaris or Linux?

#17

Post by CrLf »

paol wrote: post #10
gaius wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oracle is going to drive Solaris into the ground On what do you base this? Larry is spending more on SPARC and Solaris than McNealy ever did! It's possible that Solaris will become less suited to (for example) HPC over time but for anything related to commercial data processing, including Java and web serving, expect for it to continue to occupy a leading position among the Unixes.

"a leading position among the Unixes": that's the position that it already occupied: the biggest fish in a rapidly drying pond. The killer combo of free Unixes on commodity (read x86) hardware cannibalized the proprietary Unix market. Where that trajectory will lead has been obvious for quite some time now. Sun's measures to try to make Solaris survive that were a) port to x86 architecture and b) open source the OS.…

"As for SPARC, I seriously doubt they will pour significant money into it. Trying to compete with x86 is akin to setting $100 bills on fire at this point. They will no doubt keep the Sun brand alive and use it to sell x86 based machines (which is the strategy Sun itself started of course)."

I believe they will. And they will also tailor it for Oracle DB and change the licensing plans to make SPARC a "wiser" choice, locking the customer both on SW and HW. The competition does it, so why shouldn't they do it also?

Re: Ask HN: Should I choose Sun Solaris or Linux?

#18

Post by paol »

CrLf wrote: post #17
paol wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a leading position among the Unixes": that's the position that it already occupied: the biggest fish in a rapidly drying pond. The killer combo of free Unixes on commodity (read x86) hardware cannibalized the proprietary Unix market. Where that trajectory will lead has been obvious for quite some time now. Sun's measures to try to make Solaris survive that were a) port to x86 architecture and b) open source the OS.…

"As for SPARC, I seriously doubt they will pour significant money into it. Trying to compete with x86 is akin to setting $100 bills on fire at this point. They will no doubt keep the Sun brand alive and use it to sell x86 based machines (which is the strategy Sun itself started of course)." I believe they will. And they will also tailor it for Oracle DB and change the licensing plans to make SPARC a "wiser" choice, l…

I still don't see a business case for it, though. Continuing to develop SPARC will cost a lot of money and won't buy them any extra lock-in. As far as DB apps are concerned Oracle is the platform, what it runs on is transparent. Edited to add: and the same goes for Java, which on Unix accounts for 99% of enterprise sw development.

As far as I can figure out the only reason IBM has to keep developing POWER is their mainframe business, which is the king of platform lock-in :)

Re: Ask HN: Should I choose Sun Solaris or Linux?

#19

Post by Tomer »

mseebach wrote: post #13
Tomer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not CentOS? what would you recommend then? I saw that oracle are really emphasizing how their OS has much higher performance than linux I wondered if its correct or if their benchmarks are good: http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/performance-scalability/b... http://jp.sun.com/solutions/infra/eda/pdf/solaris-linux.pdf So I wondered if i'm missing some tens of percents in performance by not choosing Sun Solaris...

CentOS is binary compatible with RedHat, so it's for people who need the enterprise-ness of RedHat, but can't/won't run RedHat. An example I've heard is running RedHat in production for the support, but CentOS for devs and stating. The reason to run RedHat is usually something like needing to run Oracle or a number of other very complex software suites (the keyword is complex, not better or faster) that are only supp…

What distribution do you recommend? (which is stable enough...) I wanted to choose CentOS because I know RedHat are saying they do lot of tests to their distribution before they release... so I wanted something that is fully tested and reliable.

Re: Ask HN: Should I choose Sun Solaris or Linux?

#20

Post by gaius »

paol wrote: post #18
CrLf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As for SPARC, I seriously doubt they will pour significant money into it. Trying to compete with x86 is akin to setting $100 bills on fire at this point. They will no doubt keep the Sun brand alive and use it to sell x86 based machines (which is the strategy Sun itself started of course)." I believe they will. And they will also tailor it for Oracle DB and change the licensing plans to make SPARC a "wiser" choice, l…

I still don't see a business case for it, though. Continuing to develop SPARC will cost a lot of money and won't buy them any extra lock-in. As far as DB apps are concerned Oracle is the platform, what it runs on is transparent. Edited to add: and the same goes for Java, which on Unix accounts for 99% of enterprise sw development. As far as I can figure out the only reason IBM has to keep developing POWER is their ma…

POWER is bloody good, tho', check out the SPECInt results. If you have a workload you can't parallelize you can get double the performance of the best x64s.
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