kernel-2.6.9-1.6_FC2 boot failure where kernel-2.6.9-1.3_FC2 works

Aleksandar Milivojevic amilivojevic at pbl.ca
Mon Nov 29 16:05:41 UTC 2004


John Summerfield wrote:
> Sun controls the hardware; that makes Sun's task much easier.

This is only partially true.

People put all kind of stuff in Sun boxes too.  Your Sun brand 
controller fails, you go and replace it with Adaptec and download the 
drivers from Adaptec's web site.  You can by SPARC based ATX size 
motherboard from Sun, put it in normal PC case, and fill it with 
standard PC components.  How is this different from Intel based PC, 
Linux, and users putting random hardware in it?  Not much, other than 
you have to be a bit more carefull and check there is Solaris driver 
available (if you go with major brands, you can almost bet there is a 
Solaris driver for the card).  And don't forget Solaris for Intel, that 
basically always run on non-Sun hardware.  And again, the /devices and 
/dev directories organization works just as good as it works on SPARC.

Yeah, Sun is controlling Sun-made hardware.  But there is so much 3rd 
party hardware (and 3rd party device drivers) for Sun boxes, that "Sun 
controlls hardware" argument doesn't have any touch with reality.

Furthermore, it is much easier to add 3rd party device driver to Solaris 
box, than it is to add driver (that is not shipped standard with Linux 
kernel) to Linux.  And this with Solaris being closed, running on "Sun 
made hardware" (yeah, right).  And Linux being open, and running on 
everything.  Go figure.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not ranting agains Linux here.  All I'm saying 
is that there is still a (lot of) space for improvement.

-- 
Aleksandar Milivojevic <amilivojevic at pbl.ca>    Pollard Banknote Limited
Systems Administrator                           1499 Buffalo Place
Tel: (204) 474-2323 ext 276                     Winnipeg, MB  R3T 1L7




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