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Explanation: What are those spots on Jupiter? Largest and furthest, just right of center, is the Great Red Spot -- a huge storm system that has been raging on Jupiter possibly since Giovanni Cassini's likely notation of it 357 years ago. It is not yet known why this Great Spot is red. The spot toward the lower left is one of Jupiter's largest moons: Europa. Images from Voyager in 1979 bolster the modern hypothesis that Europa has an underground ocean and is therefore a good place to look for extraterrestrial life. But what about the dark spot on the upper...

SKAERSOGAARD, Denmark — On a mild autumn morning, Sven Moesgaard climbed a sunbathed hill and inspected an undulating expanse of neatly planted vines. A picking crew was harvesting tons of hardy Solaris grapes that he would soon turn into thousands of bottles of crisp white and sparkling Danish wine. A decade ago, winemaking was regarded as a losing proposition in these notoriously cool climes. But as global temperatures rise, a fledgling wine industry is growing from once-unlikely fields across Scandinavia, as entrepreneurs seek to turn a warming climate to their advantage. “We’re looking for the opportunities in climate change,” said...

Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006) "skillfully dissected the 20th century's foolhardy efforts to create utopias by stifling individuality and economic freedoms." So said cultural critic Bruce Edward Walker. Lem was best known internationally as author of the classic Solaris - twice adapted for the silver screen - but the majority of his fiction featured damning allegories against the suppression of the human spirit.

Sure there are technical forums that discuss btrfs, the shiny new filesystem for Linux but my experience has shown that FReepers meet or exceed the technical expertise anywhere on the net. The two cutting-edge filesystems that are (supposedly) impervious to bitrot are btrfs and zfs (which has a Linux implementation, older than what Oracle has now closed off).

Any Stanislaw Lem science fiction fans? I started Solaris last night and I was wondering if there were other fans and if any one could recommend any other of his works?

My new position has me dealing with several Sun Terminals controlling industrial equipment. I have ZERO experience with this O/S though I did manage thru an fsck command the night before (multiple power outages). I am looking for FReeper advice: recommended books, forums, classes, etc. Thanks in advance . . .

Sun seeks to apply the lessons of Linux and turn open source Solaris into an operating system to rival Linux and to be as commonly used as Java. Sun Microsystems has ambitious plans for the commercial and open-source versions of its Solaris operating system, hoping to achieve for Solaris the kind of ubiquity already enjoyed by Java. To come close to reaching that goal, Sun needs to reach out more to developers and endeavour to overcome some long-held prejudices against the OS. Sun's Java programming language, which debuted in 1995, is present in most of today's PCs, mobile devices and...

Sun Microsystems has managed to nurture a blade server business, only it's on a rival's hardware. IBM today has become the first major server vendor - other than Sun - to ship Solaris x86 on its mainstream systems. (Yes, we know Compaq once sold Solaris x86. Thanks for the memories.) IBM has agreed to sell Sun's operating system with its BladeCenter servers in "the coming months," according to an IBM spokesman. This is quite the surprise given IBM's contentious relationship with Sun. IBM's services organization, however, does do a large amount of business selling Sun servers and Solaris, which may...

Sun Microsystems is working on releasing an easy-to-install binary version of its OpenSolaris open source operating system Manage remotely with one interface -- the HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server. with delivery planned for early 2008, the company told the press Thursday in a meeting in San Francisco. The idea is to deliver OpenSolaris in a packaged distribution method modeled after the ease of distribution used with Linux. The initiative is called "Project Indiana," and it's a key component of Sun's open source efforts. It, along with Sun's OpenSolaris.org community, is facing a mixed bag of challenge and opportunity.

Oliver Jones provides an even-handed summary: "I've been a stalwart Solaris x86 user for many years now - I refuse to run Linux on my hardware, when Solaris makes the penguin look decidedly second-rate." For reliability, he says: "I truly can't fault the Sun option: I consider that if Solaris is good enough for the banks, it's good enough for me." But, he also says: "To be honest, Solaris isn't without issues - the number one I see at the moment is the user experience (especially with regard to hardware support). Sun really needs to plough some more development resources...

When it comes to open sourcing Solaris and Java, patents and politics are leading Sun toward a change of heart. The question is which open source licence should govern the building of projects out of the company's technology crown jewels. The open source Solaris project began with a Community Development and Distribution License (CDDL), and open source Java employs version 2 of the General Public License (GPL). Now, though, Sun likes the idea of governing both projects with the upcoming GPL version 3, chief executive Jonathan Schwartz said in a speech and an interview at the company's analyst summit in...

Reaction to the Free Software Foundation's upcoming revision of the GNU Public License (GPLv3) has been mixed so far, with many participants taking a wait-and-see attitude while others (such as Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds) actively opposing certain provisions. Now Sun has apparently decided to put its weight squarely behind the FSF and GPLv3. The reasons may not be as pure as you think.

Sun to Use Intel Chips in Some Servers Server and software maker Sun Microsystems Inc. has agreed to use chips from Intel Corp. in some of its servers and for Intel to endorse Sun's Solaris operating system, a person close to the deal told the AP late Sunday night. An announcement is expected Monday, according to the person, who requested anonymity because the deal had not been made public. Specifics of the arrangement were not disclosed. The companies scheduled a joint news conference with Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini and Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz for Monday morning in...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Computer server maker Sun Microsystems Inc., whose revenue has declined four years in a row, said Wednesday it planned to cut 4,000 to 5,000 jobs in an effort to return to consistent profitability. The cuts, which will reduce Sun's 37,500-person work force by 11 percent to 13 percent over the next six months, will cost Santa Clara-based Sun from $340 million to $500 million over the next several quarters, the company said. Sun executives expect the plan, which also includes selling real estate and exiting leases, to save the company from $480 million to $590 million, once...

Despite the obvious driver problems experienced on commodity x86 hardware, there is not much else to criticize about Solaris 10/OpenSolaris. There are some obvious gaps which should be addressed over the long term--better updates and patching processes, for example, and an improved administration framework would go a long way to help new users unfamiliar with the Solaris environment. Is it a viable alternative to Linux? Absolutely. In the last six months I've had no problems with Solaris 10 crashing, locking up or exhibiting odd behaviour. By comparison, my Gentoo-based systems have not been so well behaved. A SPARCserver 20 running...

SAN JOSE, Calif. - After investing roughly $500 million and spending years of development time on its next-generation operating system, Sun Microsystems Inc. on Monday will announce an aggressive price for the software — free. Sun, which has never completely rebounded from the tech collapse in 2001, hopes the no-cost of Solaris 10 will not only attract customers but also expand the number of developers who write programs that work on computers running the operating system. The result, Sun believes, will be renewed demand for its servers and services. The company also will charge subscription fees for Solaris support and...

'Open Source Solaris' to debut this year Published: September 13, 2004, 12:49 PM PDT By Martin LaMonica Staff Writer, CNET News.com BURLINGTON, Mass.--Sun Microsystems will create an open-source project around its Solaris 10 operating system by the end of the year, company executives said Monday. Through the initiative, Sun engineers, partners and other programmers will be able to contribute to the development of the Unix operating system. Sun is testing the program right now with customers and will finalize it by the end of the year, according to Mark McClain, Sun's vice president of software marketing. Sun discussed its open-source...

Less than one week after Sun Microsystems’ chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz pledged to open source its Solaris operating system, The SCO Group has stated that licence restrictions prevent Sun from contributing its work to the GPL (General Public Licence). Solaris is based on Unix System V, the source code to which has since been acquired by The SCO Group. The SCO Group’s marketing manager Marc Modersitzki said although the company can't discuss specific details of its licence agreements, it is confident that Sun will be very rigorous in complying with its Unix System V licence as the company defines...

un Microsystems is considering offering a free, open-source version of its flagship operating system, Solaris, and offering the system with a version of its Java Desktop System, said president and chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz. Schwartz described a number of initiatives in the works intended to make Solaris more competitive with Linux, which has been taking market share from the low end of Sun's product line.Until now, Sun has made Solaris freely available to certain non-commercial users, but it has not released the Solaris source code, and still charges $99 for a single-processor licence.Schwartz said there was "not a lot"...

O-088: Sun passwd(1) Command Vulnerability [Sun Alert ID: 57454] March 2, 2004 22:00 GMT PROBLEM: The passwd command computes the hash of a password typed at run-time or the hash of each password in a list. A vulnerability exists in this command. PLATFORM: Solaris 8, 9 (SPARC and x86 Platforms) DAMAGE: A local unprivileged user may be able to gain unauthorized root privileges due to a security issue involving the passwd(1) command. SOLUTION: Install the security patch. VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT: The risk is MEDIUM. A local unprivileged user may be able to gain unauthorized root privileges. LINKS: CIAC BULLETIN: http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletins/o-088.shtml ORIGINAL...