SillyDog701

[Antony]

Sun Microsystems is offering free software on DVD for free. (Free delivery)

For a limited time, Sun is offering a choice between 2 free DVD software kits. To receive this offer, please fill out the following form, which includes mailing label details.

Option 1:
Sun Developer Tools and the Solaris 10 Operating System: The most advanced OS on the planet - available for no charge. With industry-leading stability, security,and scalability combined with over 600 new features, such as DTrace, you can trust your most important application deployments to Solaris 10. Includes Sun Studio and NetBeans software.

Option 2:
Solaris Express, Developer Edition for x86 systems: Provides a modern desktop environment for Solaris, Java, and Web 2.0 application development. With its simplified installation experience coupled with additional support for common laptops and desktops, developers can more easily create and deploy applications for Solaris 10. Includes Sun Studio and NetBeans software.

For more detail, please visit Solaris 10 Operating System download page or this page

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[Don_HH2K]

Good deal, free software and shipping. I remember Microsoft did this in the early days of Windows Server 2003; the trial on CD is still free but you need to pay shipping for it now (you can still download it for free).

According to Sun my copy of Solaris Express will arrive in two to four weeks.

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[Antony]

I don't think Solaris expires after certain days. Although it may be outdated after some period of time.

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[Pu7o]

My Solaris Express DVD arrived!


Expect pictures from the operating system itself soon

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[Antony]

I haven't received mine yet. They must not like black guys.

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[Pu7o]

No pictures yet, but a general review of my very limited experience with Solaris Express, Developer Edition:

- It seems to be very well organized. Upon my first login as root, it immediately asked me to create a regular user account, and opened the users and groups control panel for me to do so. I did that, and logged in as the user account that I had just created. As soon as that happened, Firefox launched, showing me a welcome screen with links including detailed instructions on how to access the software.

- Sun Studio 11 and NetBeans were not preinstalled by default, but they can be easily installed by running the "install_devtools" script on the DVD (which I am doing right now). It does take quite some time to install, as I started it 20 minutes ago, and it's not finished yet.

- The latest version of Java, 1.6.0, is included, as well as Firefox 2.0, GNOME 2.16, StarOffice 8, Thunderbird 1.5.0.8, GIMP 2.3.12, GTK+ 2.10.6, etc.

- Accelerated drivers for my NVIDIA graphics card were included and automatically installed, something you don't see often in Linux distributions, or in Solaris 10. (Although the accelerated graphics won't be very useful on a Riva TNT...)

- Adobe/Macromedia Flash plugin is included, again a rarity in UNIX distributions. (Java's inclusion is also rare in UNIX distributions, but having it in Solaris is expected, since Sun, the guys who make this thing, also made Java).

- The user interface got slightly retouched, with a look that reminds of a mixture of sorts of Windows XP and Mac OS X, along with some things of their own.

- Interestingly, the sound card was not detected. This does not happen (usually) in other UNIXes, the onboard sound card in this PC is fairly standard.

- Antony is white, speaks English, and he is not poor.

I'll post more things here about Solaris Express as I notice them, as well as screenshots!

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[Don_HH2K]

I forgot about that -- my Solaris disc came about a week and a half ago.

I haven't had a chance to install it yet -- maybe I'll give it a go on this machine. I didn't get a chance to install NVIDIA's actual drivers for my TNT2, and the reverse-engineered one bundled with my old copy of Mandrake 10.1 only seems to accelerate the pointer and nothing else.

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[Antony]

Finally I picked up my copy of Solaris from the Post Shop. It was delivered on the 12th.

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