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@xxxxxx> Pollard Banknote Limited Systems Administrator 1499 Buffalo Place Tel: (204) 474-2323 ext 276 Winnipeg, MB R3T 1L7
