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I am want to learn Solaris and practice shell scripting on Solaris. I read few things about it (4 months back) like:

It was started by Berkeley students to compete with mainframe, it has got SMF (very useful to system admins for avoiding errors and make working easy).

I am not sure about how close it is to the standard Unix (BSD Unix), perhaps it's pretty close to system V (standard Unix).

One more reason for choosing it was that it could be installed on my PC and it's freely available for practice unlike HP-unix and IBM-unix.

Please suggest, because I might be barking up the wrong tree thinking that Solaris is better than other *nixes (like HP, IBM), and also give your thoughts.

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So what's your real question? How is one Unix "better" over another? Are your criteria "free" and "close to standard Unix"? – slhck Jun 14 '11 at 9:46
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closed as not a real question by slhck, Gareth, random♦ Jun 15 '11 at 17:46

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.

4 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Solaris is the closest you'll probably ever get to an official SVR4 implementation. In my opinion, it's cleaner than either AIX (IBM UNIX) or HP UNIX (HP/UX or DEC) but that's opinion.

(As an aside, UnixWare is holder of the 'real UNIX SVR5 spec, but nobody uses it at all, and there are no free versions).

But the spec means pretty much nothing these days. The real thing is 'what do you want to do?' If you want to learn Solaris, learn Solaris. If you want to learn scripting, there are a lot of other UNIX systems (FreeBSD, Linux, etc) to learn from. If you want to learn skills you can use in a real environment, you should focus on what you're likely to see. In a big shop, you may see some Solaris, maybe Free,NetBSD, but most places will have Linux. Linux skills, except for at the larger firms, will be more marketable.

Also, Oracle has de-emphasized the free versions of Solaris, closing the source. Though learning openSolaris would obviously help in learning any new versions of the paid OS, realize you're learning an OS that won't have new features added (at least not in the free one).

If you like Linux, I'd recommend CentOS. It's a free version of the pay RedHat Advanced Server. You're very likely to come across RedHat AS or CentOS in businesses you want to apply for. There's probably more free tutorials online about CentOS / RedHat than Solaris these days.

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very nice explanation I like it – munish Jun 15 '11 at 2:55
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up vote 2 down vote

Unix is really a specification, that any unix like OS follows. In general, it is a philosophy - each utility does one thing well, and everything is treated like a text file. In addition, there's fairly standard file system layouts and so on. A 'proper' unix is merely one that is certified to work like a unix.

Solaris is one of the older unixes, and well, it has some quirks, and some neat features - many of which may be ported over eventually - dtrace for example.

Personally, if you have access to solaris (and oracle has made it harder than it used to be under sun), and its what you intend to learn, do it. You can always transition to linux or *bsd fairly easily if you need to.

EDIT: headesks Actually http://openindiana.org/ might be what you need. FOSS fork of solaris.

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+1 you beat me to it. – bubu Jun 14 '11 at 10:02
I can't have solaris 11 perhaps but stiil I can install solaris 10(unlike HPunix or IBM which require different hardware to install )and install it and learn practically except for the few changes which oracle mighht bring, and ofcourse I can go with linux.But I think I have already gone a bit far with solaris so i consider going along with it rather than learing from scratch new things in linux – munish Jun 14 '11 at 10:02
you won't be able to update it, possibly.I would have suggested opensolaris, but that's killed off too. – Journeyman Geek Jun 14 '11 at 10:03
I am just learning, why would i need updates anyway..I don't think it would make a big difference(perhaps 95% part would be same even after updates).I feel like going back starting all over again...(with linux) forgetting whatever I have lernt with solaris start up, SMF, user management, pacakage addtion and more Anyway thanks for your useful sugesstion+1 – munish Jun 14 '11 at 10:15
I don't know how similar/different it would be in linux – munish Jun 14 '11 at 10:20
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up vote 1 down vote

Solaris is a great operating system, but after Oracle purchased Sun the future of Solaris is unclear and despite the fact that Solaris is a very good operating system it may be not practical to learn Solaris.

From my point of view, if you wish to learn UNIX and scripting, CentOS Linux, Fedora Linux or Free BSD will be good enough.

All these operating systems are freely available, regularly updated and what is more important tons of material and online help is available.

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I need to think in terms of how marketable I would become. you think that freeBSD,fedora are something to think in that sense.system administration part would be very different for each flavour and I need to pick any one which has good/robust future – munish Jun 14 '11 at 10:07
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May be I am wrong, but according to my knowledge expertise in a single UNIX-Based OS (especially if it is an obsolete OS) will not increase you chances to get a good job. The market of Unix-Based operating systems is highly diversified and almost all enterprises are working with many types of operating systems. CentOS is a clone of the RedHat enterprise Linux, which is a server oriented OS very well regarded in the market. – ocsid80 Jun 14 '11 at 10:27
thanks +1, I do need to make a change and I hope the shell scripting remains almost same in Red Hat – munish Jun 14 '11 at 10:42
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up vote 0 down vote

(This is an offtopic question, if my belief is true)

  1. In the modern world where heritage and lineage does not REALLY matter, there is nothing to stop you from using variants. Even POSIX / Single Unix Specification became unimportant for individual system administrators.
  2. Solaris is not exactly the easiest system to learn (and after acquisition of sun by oracle, you bet...) You will have much more resource learning system like BSDs, or various flavors of linux distribution. My suggestion is FreeBSD and OpenBSD for those dedicated to become system admins, and ubuntu (okay, debian) for those less inclined (please do not flame me for this, I KNEW, I KNEW IT, debian is the best, with all the super cow power of apt-get... )
  3. Nobody talks about SVR4 anymore, except for the older generation. I honestly think I am the last batch of kids to feel the power of SVR4 (and I am already 26 this year). SVR5 is worthless and SVR6 is cancelled, for the matter.

Here's a good tree:

enter image description here

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eh, I have solaris 10 disks that sun sent me for free, in a nice DVD case. Oracle won't even allow updates without a service contract. – Journeyman Geek Jun 14 '11 at 9:51
thus my hate. anyways, i am not a sysadmin anymore and the hospital which i serve runs oracle. – bubu Jun 14 '11 at 9:55
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