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Archive-name: Solaris2/FAQ
Version: 1.74
Last-Modified: 2002/11/17 12:43:54
Maintained-by: Casper Dik
The following is a list of questions that are frequently asked about
Solaris 2.x and later. Where the FAQ mentions "Solaris 2.x", it
really refers to Solaris 2.x, Solaris 7 and later.
You can help make it an even better-quality FAQ by writing a short
contribution or update and sending it BY EMAIL ONLY to me. A
contribution should consist of a question and an answer, and increasing
number of people sends me contributions of the form "I don't know the
answer to this, but it must be a FAQ, please answer it for me"; please
don't send me those.
Thanks!
As you may have noted, I have switched employers and work for Sun as of
April 1st 1995. Sun is in no way responsible for the contents
of this FAQ.
The latest Solaris 2 FAQ, including an HTML version, and some other goodies
|can be obtained through ftp from .
A new version of the FAQ is available with an index separate from
|all questions, it's .
So it's a lot quicker to download. Also, an experimental FAQ search service
|at is now available.
Please note that these addresses have changed because of a reorg. Just
|replace "fwi" or "wins" in the old addresses with "science".
|The HTML version
of the FAQ contains references to most FTP sites and files mentioned
in the FAQ. The references to ftp sites are always to either HTML
files or directories, never to binary files.
I've added an index of questions and marked changed(*) and added
questions(+). The FAQ is being reorganized, time permitting.
The index is generated automatically, so there may be errors there.
Not all questions are in the section they belong in. Suggestions on
how best to subdivide/order the FAQ are welcome.
1. GENERAL
1.1) What's Solaris anyway?
1.2) Why should I upgrade?
1.3) Should I move to Solaris 2.x now, or later, or never?
1.4) What is Solaris 2? Is it really SVR4 based?
| *1.5) What machines does Solaris 2.x run on?
1.6) Will my old applications from 4.1.x run on Solaris 2?
| *1.7) Will my SPARC binaries run unchanged on UltraSPARC machines?
1.8) Will my old applications from SVR3 on the 386 run on Solaris 2/x86?
1.9) Where has the XXX command gone now?
1.10) When I upgrade, should I use SunInstall "upgrade", or start over?
1.11) Is Solaris 2.x reliable/stable enough to use?
1.12) Why do some people dislike Solaris2?
1.13) Why do some people *like* Solaris2?
1.14) What is Sun doing to help me migrate?
1.15) Can I use my SunOS 4 disks on Solaris 2.x?
1.16) How can I enable System V IPC? Ipcs says it isn't configured in.
1.17) Solaris 7 is 64 bit, does that affect Solaris/IA-32?
*1.18) Solaris 7 is 64 bit, does this mean I can no longer use my old SPARCs?
1.19) Where can I download Solaris binaries from?
| 1.20) What Solaris release am I running on my system?
2. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
2.1) How can I RTFM when I don't have it anymore?
2.2) Why is "man -k" so confused?
| *2.3) What Software is available for Solaris 2.x?
2.4) What FTP/WWW sites do I need to know about?
2.5) What other FAQ's do I need to know about?
2.6) What mailing lists should I get?
2.7) What books should I read?
2.8) What hardware is supported by Solaris 2.x for Intel?
2.9) What is Wabi?
| *2.10) I'm running into some limits of SunOS 4.x, will upgrading to
Solaris 2.x help?
3. SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION
3.1) How much disk space do I need to install Solaris 2?
3.2) How can I convert all my local changes that I've made over the
years into their corresponding forms on Solaris 2?
3.3) What are "packages"?
3.4) Why can't I write in/mount over /home?
3.5) Why can't I access CDs or floppies?
3.6) Why are there no passwords in /etc/passwd?
3.7) Why can't I rlogin/telnet in as root?
3.8) How can I have a user without a password?
| +3.9) How can I have a "su-only" user?
| *3.10) How can I set up anonymous FTP?
| 3.11) How can I print from a Solaris 2 (or any System V Release 4) system
to a SunOS4.x (or any other BSD) system?
| 3.12) How can I print to a non-Postscript/non-ascii printer?
| 3.13) How can I print to a networked printer?
| 3.14) Why does lp complain about invalid content types?
| 3.15) My jobs stay in the queue after printing.
| 3.16) Are there any alternatives to the system V spooler?
| *3.17) What happened to /dev/MAKEDEV? How do I add devices?
| 3.18) Why isn't my tape/cd player or new disk/device recognized?
| 3.19) What happened to /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local?
| 3.20) Can't I have /etc/rc.local back?
| 3.21) Why are there two versions of shutdown?
| 3.22) When will somebody publish a package of the BSD (4.3BSD Net2)
"init", "getty", and "rc/rc.local", so we can go back to life
in the good old days?
| 3.23) What has happened to getty? What is pmadm and how do you use it?
| 3.24) How do I get the screen to blank when nobody's using it?
| 3.25) And what about screendump, screenload and clear_colormap?
| 3.26) Where did etherfind go?
| 3.27) Can I run SunOS 4.1.x on my SPARC Classic, LX, SS5, SS4, SS20, Voyager,
SS1000, SC2000, CS6400, Ultra?
| 3.28) The "find" program complains that my root directory doesn't exist?
| 3.29) I'm having troubles with high-speed input on the Sparc serial
ports. What should I do?
| 3.30) How do I make ksh or csh be the login shell for root?
| 3.31) What is this message: "automount: No network locking on host,
contact administrator to install server change."?
| 3.32) I have all kinds of problems with SCSI disks/RAIDs under Solaris 2.x
They worked fine under SunOS 4.x.
| 3.33) How do I make Solaris2 use my old ADAPTEC ACB-4000 and
Emulex MD-21 disk controllers?
| 3.34) Should I wait installing the latest Solaris release until there
are enough patches?
| 3.35) Why are there so many patches for Solaris 2.x?
| *3.36) What are the ``mandatory'' patches I keep hearing about?
| 3.37) Which patches should I apply?
| 3.38) Where do I get patches from?
| 3.39) Where can I obtain Solaris 2/x86 driver updates?
| 3.40) Why does installing patches take so much space in /var/sadm?
| 3.41) Do I need to back out previous versions of a patch?
| *3.42) How can I have more than 48 pseudo-ttys?
| 3.43) How can I have normal users chown their files?
| 3.44) How can I get ps to print %MEM and %CPU?
| 3.45) How can I get the DOS and Unix clock to agree on Solaris/x86?
| 3.46) How can I increase the number of file descriptors per process?
| 3.47) Can I install both SunOS and Solaris on the same machine,
and choose between them at boot time?
| 3.48) How do I disable banner pages under Solaris?
| 3.49) How do I change my hostname?
| 3.50) Can I run multiple terminals on the console of Solaris x86
like those supported on Interactive Unix and SCO?
| 3.51) How can I prevent daemons from creating mode 666 files?
| 3.52) How do I change the terminal type for /dev/console?
| 3.53) If I login over the network, my terminal type is set to "sun"/"AT386"
How can I change that? In SunOS 4.x the type would have been "network"
| 3.54) How can I change the SYSV IPC parameters?
| 3.55) How do I enable/disable dtlogin?
| 3.56) How do I configure dtlogin?
| 3.57) How can I configure a second monitor or change X server options?
| 3.58) How can I have more than 128 X windows clients?
| *3.59) Xvnc/Xnest/Xvfb can't create a socket in /tmp/.X11-unix.
| 3.60) How can I restrict remote access through dtlogin?
| 3.61) How do I disable the 2.6+ configuration assistant?
| 3.62) How do I convert SunOS 4.x style /etc/passwd to Solaris passwd & shadow.
| 3.63) How can I obtain the PROM level without halting my SPARC?
| 3.64) How can I use Solaris 2.6+ formatted disks on SunOS 4.x?
| 3.65) Can I use soft mounts with NFS?
| 3.66) How can I boot a 32 bit kernel when a 64 bit kernel is installed?
| 3.67) How can I tell whether I'm running a 32 or 64 bit kernel?
| 3.68) How do I get rid of the Solregis pop-up?
| 3.69) Where do I get Disksuite for Solaris 8?
| 3.70) How do perform an old-fashioned interactive install in Solaris 8?
| 3.71) Now that Solaris install from several CDs, how can I jumpstart?
| 3.72) How can I grow a UFS filesystem?
| 3.73) How do I install without starting OpenWindows?
| 3.74) How do I set up Solaris for my time zone and daylight saving rules?
| 3.75) I always install my own perl, can I remove the Sun installed one?
| 3.76) Where did kgmon go?
| +3.77) Why do swap -l, swap -s and /tmp disagree about the amount of swap?
| +3.78) How do I secure my Solaris system?
4. NETWORKING
4.1) How do I use DNS w/o using NIS or NIS+?
4.2) What is /etc/nsswitch.conf?
4.3) What does [NOTFOUND=return] in nsswitch.conf mean?
4.4) Can I run a nis/yp server under Solaris 2.x?
4.5) Can I run NIS+ under Solaris 1 (SunOS 4.1.x)
4.6) With NIS+ how do I find out which machine a client is bound to?
4.7) Ypcat doesn't work on the netgroup table on a NIS+ server, why?
4.8) Why is rpc.nisd such a memory pig according to ps?
4.9) How do I tell my NIS+ server to service DNS requests from
4.x clients?
4.10) How can I have multiple addresses per interface?
4.11) Solaris 2.x supports filesystem sizes up to 1TB. Will this
give interoperability problems with NFS?
4.12) Where can I get an SNMP agent for Solaris?
*4.13) How can I use full-duplex ethernet?
4.14) Where can I get BOOTP/DHCP for Solaris?
4.15) What kind of multicast support does Solaris have?
| *4.16) How can I have NAT or a firewall on Solaris?
*4.17) Where can I get an IPv6 capable version of tcp wrapper?
5. TROUBLE SHOOTING
5.1) The Solaris 2.x application XX fails with a mysterious error condition.
5.2) In Solaris 2.5 nm is slow or dumps core.
5.3) Why can't I run Answerbook on a standalone machine?
5.4) Why can't I display Answerbook remotely?
5.5) Why can't I run filemgr, I get ``mknod: permission denied''?
5.6) Why do I get isinf undefined when linking with libdps on Solaris 2.3?
5.7) I can't get PPP to work between Solaris 2.3 and other platforms.
5.8) Using compat mode for passwd doesn't work in 2.3?
5.9) Why do I get __builtin_va_alist or __builtin_va_arg_incr undefined?
5.10) When compiling, I get "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"?
5.11) My machine hangs during the boot process. It seems related to ps.
5.12) Syslogd doesn't seem to log anything.
5.13) Syslogd in 2.6 runs with -z -n, what's up?
5.14) I get ``Invalid client credential'' when mounting filesystem on
Solaris client from non-Sun fileserver.
5.15) After upgrade to 2.4, ls on NFS mounted directories hangs.
5.16) After installing patch 101945-xx, I have NFS problems (ksh looping).
5.17) I messed up /etc/system, now I can't boot.
5.18) The /etc/path_to_inst file is corrupted, I can't boot.
5.19) TCP/IP connections time out too soon, especially on slow links.
5.20) Sendmail connection to non-Unix hosts don't work.
5.21) Solaris 2.x can't set up any TCP/IP connections to certain hosts.
5.22) I read 5.21, but I still have connectivity problems.
5.23) When reading mail on non-Solaris clients of a Solaris mail
server, or with non-Solaris mail readers, some messages get split
into multiple messages.
5.24) Mail/mailx often send reply to wrong user or show wrong sender.
5.25) One of my users can't login (one some machines).
5.26) My clients with remote /var (/var/adm) partitions won't boot.
5.27) Vacation doesn't work reliably in a mixed Solaris/SunOS environment.
5.28) I have a lot of processes. How do I get rid of them?
5.29) I get /dev/ptmx: No such device when attempting to telnet/rlogin in.
| +5.30) I get Could not grant slave pty on telnet/rlogin
| 5.31) ld bails out with msync errors.
| 5.32) su responds with "Sorry" and doesn't prompt for a password.
| 5.33) Why can't I install 2.4 from a non-Sun CD while I could do so with 2.3?
| 5.34) ifconfig can't find my network interface
| 5.35) I have an application that compiled fine, but when I run it I get:
fatal: libfoo.so.2: can't open file: errno=2 or No such file or directory
| 5.36) Motif programs dump core almost immediately.
| 5.37) cc complains that "language optional software package not installed".
| 5.38) thr_create/pthread_create and other thread functions always return -1
| 5.39) Solaris 2.4 is getting slower over time/seems to have a kernel
memory leak.
| 5.40) Why do I get ``Unable to install/attach driver 'xxx''' messages?
| 5.41) I can't run nfs: netdir_getbyname failure, /dev/udp: bind problem
| 5.42) Why do I get ``named[]: rt_malloc: memdebug overflow'' errors?
| 5.43) The ld command dumps core on Solaris/x86
| 5.44) In Solaris 2.4 my TCP performance is extremely poor.
| 5.45) Solaris 2.4 in.tftpd is terribly slow.
| 5.46) I get "df: Could not find mount point ..."
| 5.47) I changed root's shell, forgotten root's password, and I can't login.
| 5.48) How do I boot single user from CD?
| 5.49) How do I interrupt the system boot sequence on SPARC?
| 5.50) How do I reset the NVRAM to factory defaults?
| 5.51) When linking C++ programs, I get "_ex_keylock" undefined.
| 5.52) My NFS server hangs when I get filesystem full/over quota errors.
| 5.53) OpenWindows fails with "Binding Unix Socket: Invalid argument"
| 5.54) Why is Xsun such a memory pig, especially on the SX, S24 and FFB?
| 5.55) Solaris 2.5 and Solaris 2.4 patch 101945-34+ have poor TCP performance
over slow links.
| 5.56) After install x86 patch 101946-29, I have problems with sockets and
TCP/IP throughput.
| 5.57) The commands du and ls show funny block counts on NFSv3 filesystems.
| 5.58) When I halt/reboot my system I get "INIT: failed write of utmpx entry"
| 5.59) Patch installation often fails with "checkinstall" errors.
| 5.60) Why do I get a CPU-bound rpc.ttdbserverd process?
| 5.61) What is /proc? Can I safely remove the large files there?
| 5.62) What does "named[XX]: Lame server on 'hostname' ...." mean?
| 5.63) I installed Solaris on a new/big disk, but now booting fails.
| 5.64) I have a problem with large disk drives.
| 5.65) When I try a network install I get:
"WARNING: using boot version 8, expected 9"
| 5.66) My Ultra shuts down with "WARNING: THERMAL WARNING DETECTED!!!"
| 5.67) Power management shuts down my monitor, but it never comes back.
| 5.68) I can't seem to disable power management in 2.6!
| 5.69) Power management no longer kicks in when xlock runs
| 5.70) Orainst 7.3.2 dumps core in 2.5.1 with patches and in 2.6.
| 5.71) My dial-on-demand link keeps dialing out, seems DNS related.
| 5.72) Processes hang in door_call(), hostname lookups hang.
| 5.73) When using Solaris 2.6, many fonts don't show up properly in Netscape 4.
| 5.74) When using virtual interfaces in 2.6, the system picks a random
source address. How can I fix this?
| 5.75) A downloaded binary complains "libresolv.so.2: can't open file"
| 5.76) Ypserv/NIS w/ DNS is very unreliable in Solaris 2.6.
| 5.77) When trying to install Solaris 2.x on an Ultra-5/Ultra-10/Ultra-60,
it can't find "kernel/unix".
| 5.78) After the system has been up for a while, freemem is only a couple of MB.
| 5.79) A device driver that worked fine under S2.6 stopped loading under S7
| 5.80) I get a lot of "late collisions", what are those?
| 5.81) I can't mount an NFS filesystem, I get "RPC: Program not registered".
| 5.82) How do I automatically NFS share inserted CD-Roms?
| 5.83) I cannot run remote tooltalk sessions on Solaris 8 displays and
recently patched older systems.
| 5.84) Where is all my memory in use?
| 5.85) Tcpd prints "connect (refused) from 0.0.0.0" in Solaris 8 and later?
| 5.86) The permissions on /tmp are wrong after a reboot?
| +5.87) After upgrading to Solaris 9 vold no longer mounts CDs.
6. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
6.1) Where is the C compiler or where can I get one?
| *6.2) Which packages do I need to install to support a C compiler?
6.3) Where has ranlib gone?
6.4) What do I need to compile X11R5?
6.5) I can't compile X11R6 on Solaris 2.4
6.6) X11R6 on Solaris 2.4 won't run. Xinit dies with "User Signal 1".
Xterms won't die. Dired doesn't work in emacs-19.
6.7) I get undefined symbols when compiling R6 in Solaris 2.2.
6.8) After compiling X11R6 with gcc 2.7.0, X programs won't find their
libraries.
6.9) How can I run X11R6 on my SS4 w/ TCX?
6.10) Can I run X11R6 on my SX, ZX, TCX, Creator, Creator3D or Elite3D?
| 6.11) I can't get perl 4.036 to compile or run.
6.12) I can't get sockets to work with perl.
6.13) I have problems compiling MH 6.8.3
6.14) I can't get XV 3.x to compile or run correctly.
6.15) What happened to NIT? What new mechanisms exist for low-level
network access?
6.16) Where are all the functions gone that used to be in libc?
6.17) I'm still missing some functions: bcopy, bzero and friends.
6.18) Can I use the source compatibility package to postpone porting?
6.19) Why doesn't readdir work? It chops the first two characters of
all filenames.
6.20) Why do I get undefined symbols when linking with curses/termcap?
6.21) Where are the Motif includes and libraries?
6.22) When I call semctl(), my program crashes. It works fine elsewhere.
6.23) Traceroute to Solaris 2.x machines gives many timeouts.
6.24) I have problems linking my application statically.
6.25) I get '"/usr/platform/SUNW,Ultra-1/lib/libc_psr.so.1": not in
executable format: format not recognized' from gdb on my Ultra.
6.26) How can I make Gdb work with Sun's C compiler?
6.27) Does Solaris have problems with dates in the year 2000 and after?
6.28) I can't seem to get older gcc releases to work under Solaris 2.6
6.29) Gdb doesn't fully work on Solaris 2.6.
6.30) I can't get gdb to compile with Sun's C compiler
7. KERNEL PARAMETERS
7.1) Where can I find a list of all Solaris kernel parameters?
| 7.2) How can I guard my system against stack buffer overflow exploits?
7.3) How can I restrict the number of processes per user?
7.4) What purpose does the maxusers variable serve?
7.5) How can I have a clock resolution better than 10ms?
7.6) How can I have more than 16 groups per user?
7.7) How can I disable _POSIX_CHOWN_RESTRICTED? My users want to chown files?
7.8) How can I make the NFS server ignore unprivileged clients?
8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1. GENERAL
1.1) What's Solaris anyway?
Solaris(tm) is Sun's name for their UNIX-based user environment,
including the UNIX(tm) operating system, window system (X11-based),
and other stuff too.
Solaris 1.x is a retroactive (marketing?) name for SunOS 4.1.x
(x>=1), a version of UNIX that is BSD-like with some SVR4 features,
along with OpenWindows 3.0.
Solaris 2.x (which is what most everybody means by "Solaris")
includes SunOS 5.x, which is an SVR4-derived UNIX, along with
OpenWindows 3.x, tooltalk, and other stuff.
Solaris 7 and later are basically newer revisions of Solaris 2.x
with the leading "2." stripped.
This FAQ covers Solaris 2.x and later.
(See 1.5 for a chart with more info)
1.2) Why should I upgrade?
Solaris 2 is more compatible with the rest of the UNIX industry.
Other major UNIX vendors including IBM, HP, SGI, SCO, and others
are based on System V rather than on BSD (though some of them
are on SVR3, not SVR4). All but one commercial PC-based UNIXes
are System V based (and mostly SVR4); the only commercial exception
is from a small but interesting firm called BSDI.
Solaris 2 is where Sun has been putting almost all its development
for the last few years now. There will be no new development on
SunOS4; already much of Sun's add-on software is only available
for Solaris 2. Solaris 2 is the only supported MP OS on all but
the old 4/6x0-1x0 w/ Ross 605 modules. All the UltraSPARC systems
require Solaris 2.x.
Sun software is being released first for Solaris 2.x and usually
no longer for SunOS 4.1.x (No Sun JVM for 4.1.x)
Solaris 2.3 and above feature a standard X11R5 release of The X
Window System, a benefit for those who didn't like NeWS or the
V2/V3 OpenWindows server. (It's still called OpenWindows, but it is
the X11R5 server with Adobe DPS added in). It is as fast or faster
than MIT R5 or XC R6 (depending on the platform) and supports all
Sun graphics hardware.
Solaris 2 is more standards-compliant than Solaris 1/SunOS 4.
Solaris 2.6 is also Y2000 compliant, so upgrading to the latest
Solaris release is a must.
1.3) Should I move to Solaris 2.x now, or later, or never?
That depends - on you, your situation, your application mix, etc.
Some year SunOS4.1.x will go the way of the 3/50 - it'll still
be around, but Sun will no longer support it.
You don't have to upgrade immediately, but you should be
planning your upgrade path by now.
If you would rather stay with a BSD-style operating system, you
should consider OpenBSD or NetBSD. OpenBSD is regarded as the
world's most secure OS, and NetBSD is the world's most portable OS.
Both are BSD-style OSes in the spirit of 4.xBSD, which SunOS4 was
also derived from. Both run on SPARC, have SunOS emulation, and are
Y2K compliant.
1.4) What is Solaris 2? Is it really SVR4 based?
Solaris 2 is an "operating environment" that includes the
SunOS 5.x operating system and the OpenWindows 3.x window
environment.
SunOS 5.x is based on USL's SVR4.0. SVR4.0, in turn, was
developed jointly by AT&T and Sun while Sun was developing 4.1.0,
which is why things like RFS, STREAMS, shared memory, etc.,
are in SunOS 4.1.x, and why things like vnodes, NFS and XView
are in SVR4.0. (RFS, by the way, was dropped effective Solaris 2.3).
|*1.5) What machines does Solaris 2.x run on?
Solaris 2.0 only ran on desktop SPARCstations and a few other Sun
machines.
Solaris 2.1 and 2.4 and later come in two flavors, SPARC and "x86".
Solaris 2.1 (and 2.2, ...) for SPARC run on all SPARCstations and
clones, as well as all models of the Sun-4 family. The old FPU
on the 4/110 and 4/2x0 is not supported, so floating point
will be SLOW, but it does work.
Starting with 2.5 support for machines with kernel architecture
"sun4" is dropped. I.e., the machines on which "uname -m" and
"arch -k" return "sun4"; not the machines on which those commands
return sun4c, sun4m, sun4u or sun4d. The unsupported machine
include the sun4/110 (not to be confused with the SS4 @110MHz),
sun4/2xx, sun4/3xx and sun4/4xx. These are all VME based
deskside/server configurations.
All version of the SPARC PROMs should work under Solaris 2.x,
but you can run into the following problems:
1) No part of the boot partition may be offset more than 1 GB
into the disk, unless you have a PROM with rev 2.6 or better.
Note that the number behind the point is not a fraction, it's
an integer. Hence 3.0 > 2.25 > 2.10 > 2.9 > 2.1 > 2.0 > 1.6.
2) If booting diskless, you need a link in the /tftpboot
directory, "tftpboot -> .". Admintool will make that
link automatically.
A Solaris port for the PowerPC has been completed, and has been released,
effective Solaris 2.5.1. But support for it was dropped almost
immediately as it went nowhere.
Solaris 2.1, 2.4 and above for x86 have been released to end users.
It runs on a wide range of high-end PC-architecture machines.
"High-end" means: 16MB of RAM and an 80486 (or 33MHz or faster
80386DX). It will not run on your 4 MB 16MHz 386SX, so don't
bother trying! Also, floating point hardware (80387-style) is
absolutely required in 2.1. Starting with Solaris 2.4 for
x86, a fp CO-processor is no-longer required, though still
recommended. With the world moving to PCI, MCA support
is now gone and ISA support is dwindling.
The following OS revision chart maps the major Solaris releases.
Not all HW releases have been included as some are relatively
unimportant.
Solaris SunOS OpenWin Comments
1.0 4.1.1B 2.0
4.1.1_U1 2.0 sun3 EOL release (not named Solaris)
1.0.1 4.1.2 2.0 6[379]0-1[24]0 MP
1.1 4.1.3 3.0 SP Viking support
1.1C 4.1.3C 3.0 Classic/LX
1.1.1 4.1.3_U1 3.0_U1 4.1.3 + fixes + Classic/LX support
1.1.1 B 4.1.3_U1B 3.0_U1 1.1.1B + SS5/SS20 support
1.1.2 4.1.4 3_414 The "final" 4.x release (SS20 HS11)
2.0 5.0 3.0.1 sun4c only
2.1SPARC 5.1 3.1 Dec '92
2.1 x86 5.1 3.1 May '93
2.2SPARC 5.2 3.2 May '93
2.3SPARC 5.3 3.3 Nov '93
OpenWin 3.3 is X11R5 based: Display
PostScript instead of NeWS, no SunView.
It is still primarily OPEN LOOK.
The Spring 1995 OpenWin will be Motif
and COSE-based.
Statically linked BCP support
2.3 edition II SPARC Special Solaris 2.3 distribution for
Voyager and SparcStation 5
2.3 HW 8/94 SPARC Supports S24 (24 bits color for SS5),
POSIX 1003.2, Energy Start power management
and SunFastEthernet + patches.
2.4 5.4 3.4 From this moment on, the SPARC and x86
releases are in sync. Q3 '94
Adds motif runtime and headers (not mwm).
2.4 HW 11/94 First SMCC release of 2.4
2.4 HW 3/95 Second SMCC release of 2.4 (includes support
for booting from SSA)
2.5 5.5 3.5 UltraSPARC support, PCI support.
NFS V3, NFS/TCP, ACLs, CDE, Sendmail V8
name service cache, dynamic PPP
Posix threads, doors (new IPC mechanism)
many "BSD" type functions back in libc,
many "BSD" programs back in /usr/bin.
mixed mode BCP support (e.g., apps only
dynamically linked against libdl.so)
2.5 HW 1/96 Creator3D support (Creator3D/FFB+ is not
supported in 2.5 11/95, though the files
are present but of unsupported,
"mostly works", beta quality)
2.5.1 Ultra-2 support, Sun Enterprise
server support. Large (32bit UID)
support. 64bit KAIO (aioread64/aiowrite64),
3.75 GB of virtual memory.
Pentium/Pentium Pro optimizations.
(upto 25% for certain database apps)
Ultra ZX support.
Initial and last PowerPC desktop release.
2.5.1 HW 4/97 Support for Starfire (E10000) and Ultra-30
2.5.1 HW 8/97 Support for the Ultra-450
2.5.1 HW 11/97 Support for Ultra-5, Ultra-10 and Ultra-60 as
well as Elite3D
2.6 5.6 3.6 Largefiles, JVM + JIT, Hotjava, X11R6,
Web based answerbook, BOOTP/DHCP, SNMP agents,
VLSM, in-kernel sockets, XNTP, PAM,
CDE 1.2 as default desktop.
2.6 HW 3/98 Support for Ultra-5, Ultra-10, Ultra-60 Elite3d
and Starfire (E10K)
2.6 HW 5/98 DR Support for Starfire
7 5.7 3.6.1 64-bit OS support, logging UFS.
7 HW 11/99 Added UDF filesystem, consadm, X11R6.4 server
8 5.8 3.6.2 Dropped support for sun4c and Voyager;
added IPv6, IPsec, modular debugger (mdb), high
granularity interval timers, consadm, /dev/poll,
MAP_ANON, forced unmount, extended memory for
Intel, in-kernel mnttab, audio mixer, NFS
server logging, Starfire Interdomain networking,
Kerberos v5 client support, /proc tools core aware,
prstat (like top), perl and other free utilities
included, Apache, apptrace (symbolic library
call traces), loopback file mounts (lofi),
Intel CD boot, Intel large IDE disk support,
8 06/00
8 10/00 Sun Blade 100 & Sun Blade 1000 support.
8 01/01
8 04/01 Sun Fire server support, cdrw
| 8 02/02 UltraSPARC III cu (aka UltraSPARC III+),
| Sun Blade 2000
| 9 5.9 - Solaris 9; supports all hardware from the
| Solaris 8 HW releases.
| No Intel release at FCS
| OpenWindows applications removed.
| 1-1 thread library.
| iPlanet directory server
| IKE, SSH, secure LDAP client, bundled
| encryption, bundled Solaris Logical Volume
| Manager (formerly Disksuite), including
| support for upgrades of systems with DiskSuite,
| Live Upgrade 2.0, Multiple page size support,
| Solaris 9 resource manager, IPsec for Ipv6,
| bundled tcp wrappers, wu-ftpd based FTP server,
| Solaris PPP 4.0 (based on ANU PPP),
| Extended File Attributes, DNLC improvements,
| UFS snapshots, KDC, Netscape 6.2.1
| X11 -nolisten and IPv6 support, Xnest/Xvfb,
| Freeware libraries, RSM, perl 5.6.1,
| 9 U1 IPQoS, RIPv2, tunneling over IPv6, Memory
| Placement Optimization, DISM, Netscape 6.2.3
| 9 U2 First Solaris 9 Intel release, LX50 Support
1.6) Will my old applications from 4.1.x run on Solaris 2?
There is quite a bit of support in SunOS 5.x for running 4.1.x
binaries in an emulation mode called "Binary Compatibility"
(BCP). This works by dynamically linking the 4.1.x binaries
with a shared library that emulates the 4.1.x binary interface
on top of 5.x, so there is some overhead.
In Solaris 2.2 and earlier, the programs needed to be
fully dynamically linked.
In Solaris 2.3 and 2.4 fully statically linked programs are
supported as well. However, they won't obey nsswitch.conf, but
use the standard "use NIS if present, fall back to files" approach
of SunOS 4.x. Those programs may therefor require a "passwd:
compat" line and will only talk to NIS (or NIS+ in emulation mode)
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