On December 20, sthaug@nethelp.no wrote:
> >   Eeeek.  NIS operability as a reason to use Solaris.  Sounds like
> > their marketing is becoming more effective these days.  I wouldn't run
> > NIS if you paid me. :)
> 
> No, *DNS* operability. This is a valid reason, IMHO. Certainly you can
> do the libc trick on SunOS (I've done it myself on all the SunOS systems
> I've been responsible for), but it's so much nicer to have the support
> built in from the start.

  I'm not squeamish about adding DNS support to the shared libraries.
The libraries in SunOS are good and stable otherwise, which I can't
say for Solaris...so you've got DNS support built-in, but all the
bugs are built-in too.

> As for another reason, how about *stability*? We run a decent sized News
> server on an Ultrasparc/2.5.1/NetApp system. It's been working very well
> for us for about a year so far, with *no* crash of any kind. It's by far
> the most stable News server I've ever run (and I've tried SunOS, HP-UX
> and Digital Unix).

  You and I have apparently had very, very different experiences with
SunOS and Solaris.  When I was running lots of those boxes, the
Solaris uptimes were measured in days...and the SunOS uptimes were in
months, sometimes in excess of a year.

> I might say that SunOS4 *had* great potential, way back. But Sun stopped
> developing it. The world has moved on, and today I find it very hard to
> imagine any place where I'd choose SunOS 4.1.x over Solaris 2.5.1.

  Well, we simply disagree.  I can't think of anywhere I'd run Solaris
over SunOS.

> Anyway, this is no longer NetBSD related, so maybe we should take it to
> private email?

  We should probably just drop it here...This is more a matter of
opinion and religion than anything else.  You've got tons of
ammunition saying SunOS sucks, and I've got tons of ammunition saying
Solaris sucks.  If we use it all, there'll be nothing but scorched
earth.  I'd rather have some peace on a friday night. :-)


                           -Dave McGuire
                            mcguire@neurotica.com