My review of Open Solaris 2008.05 was a rant of a dissatisfied Linux user, who found the fresh new Open Solaris desktop edition to be too messy and difficult for daily usage. I decided to try the latest release, Open Solaris 2008.11.

Lines are beginning to blur between the open source and commercial versions of the Sun Microsystems Solaris Unix operating system.

I have come across Solaris a few times. Sun makes its own Unix operating system, called Solaris. I have heard and read many good things about Solaris, especially on Sun hardware and in big enterprise environments.

I was recently checking to see what, if any follow-up there had been from Sun’s ham-handed handling of the Open Solaris Trademark, and I ran across this very interesting comment from John Plocher’s Candidate Statement for the Open Solaris Governing Board.

Back in August we shared that Sun would be discontinuing SXCE, or formally known as Solaris Express Community Edition.

In 1997, I decided to come join the kernel team at Sun Microsystems because I was eager to work on Solaris-- the best operating system on the planet. I was very privileged to work on some incredible technology over many years with some of the most talented engineers in the industry.

If you use Solaris or Solaris Express, you may want to also use Wine to install Windows programs. There are few ways, but I will write about my favorite - one that uses SFE repository, which enables you to use other fantastic open source programs not packaged for Solaris yet.

An internal Oracle memo that was released last week provides a detailed summary of the company's plans for the Solaris operating system, which Oracle obtained when it acquired Sun. The memo offers a mix of good and bad news for Solaris enthusiasts.

Oracle Corp. has rekindled its Solaris love. Sun's Solaris operating system will underlie new high-end data center appliances running the Oracle software stack. And Oracle EnterpriseLinux now becomes the preferred OS for lower-end commodity hardware.