Solaris 2.1 for x86 (2017)
18 hours ago
- #SunOS
- #x86
- #Solaris
- Solaris 2.1 for x86 was Sun's first entry into the PC market, released in Summer 1993.
- It was developed separately from the SPARC version and targeted standard PC hardware, requiring a fast 486 with 16MB RAM.
- Solaris 2.1 was based on System V, Release 4 (SVR4), implementing both BSD and System V programming interfaces.
- It was distributed on CD-ROMs with a boot floppy, as bootable CD-ROMs were not standardized yet.
- Only SCSI CD-ROM controllers were supported, but installation onto standard ATA disks was possible.
- Solaris 2.1 featured a modern UNIX kernel with loadable modules, multi-threading, and SMP support (though not fully implemented).
- It included excellent diagnostic features like kadb, the Solaris kernel debugger.
- The graphical environment was based on OpenWindows 3.1, a hybrid of X11 and Sun's NeWS, which was slow and on its way out.
- Solaris 2.1 supported 256-color graphics and 1024×768 resolution, with limited acceleration for certain graphics cards.
- Despite its advanced features, Solaris 2.1 for x86 had minimal industry impact, though it paved the way for future x86 Solaris versions.