Made the move to Linux System Administrator

UnixGuy

Pupil wrote: »

I've heard others say something similar. What's the best way to go about gaining hands-on experience with Solaris outside of a job?

As others have pointed out, you can download and install Solaris 11 for x86 architecture and run on a VM (works for VirtualBox and VMware).

JockVSJock wrote: »

I'm not looking to start a fight, I am genuinely curious. Its obvious that you have the experience and knowledge and I'm willing to listen.

I have never worked with Solaris. Its always been Linux. I didn't even realize that you could download a live disk from Oracle's website until I googled it.

I know you're not looking to start an OS war, it's just with these comparisons there are different opinions.

My experience has been this, if I'm running any mission critical financial services system, I'd choose Solaris any day for the rock solid stability, premium support, security, and super advanced features. Sure you have to pay, but you get what you pay for. If I have web application (or any light weight distributed application), I'd choose Linux (mostly CentOS).

What people don't realize is that they end up paying a lot more for VMware license and Red Hat subscription and more often than not they get a substandard support. There's a place for Solaris, and I think it's best suited to run Oracle database at the moment, and possibly SAP.

After Oracle bought Sun, things changed, and I'm not sure that Solaris will survive. I hope it does because it's a very advanced OS. Think ZFS, STABLE zones (ages before linux KVM), Sun Cluster, dtrace...etc. These things come to Linux later (sometimes years later) but that's alright. At the end of the day, it's a sales and marketing game, and we have to work with what we have

UnixGuy

jdancer wrote: »

... It's great there are lots of options.

yes but I can't keep up with all the news tools in the market There is always a new hip language or tool, and I'm too sure I can keep on learning them all.