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Using Sun Ultra 10s with 512 MB of RAM and 4-GB EIDE disks, we tested Solaris 7 in our University of Wisconsin Real-World Labs®. We were pleased with its logging file system, Java management tools and 64-bit kernel, among other features. Like earlier releases, Solaris 7 is a solid performer.

The Solaris operating environment is made up of a base OS and optional server software extensions. We tested a pre-release version of one extension, Solaris Easy Access Server (SEAS) 2.0, the successor to Solaris Server Intranet Extension 1.0.

To view the Report card on Solaris 7
Should you make the move to Solaris 7? While Solaris 7 does provide significant enhancements, Solaris 2.5.1 and Solaris 2.6 are also solid performers, and it makes sense to stick with your tried-and-true Solaris 2.5.1 or 2.6 installation unless you can truly make use of the new features in Solaris 7. But if you are purchasing a new machine or would like to take advantage of the enhancements, Solaris 7 is a safe choice.

A Solid Foundation Power-hungry users will be pleased with Solaris 7's 64-bit kernel and address space. Cautious users will love the log-based UFS (Unix file system). And Unix-interface-wary users will welcome the look and functionality of Solaris' CDE (Common Desktop Environment) 1.3.

The Solaris 7 operating environment is a complete 32-bit and 64-bit application and development environment. Previous releases of Solaris provided some 64-bit support, but Solaris 7 adds a new 64-bit kernel on 64-bit hardware. Solaris 7 lets you access large virtual memory addresses and allows swap spaces greater than 2 GB. As a result, Solaris 7's 64-bit kernel provides performance improvements on previously supported 64-bit operations.

Because Sun has made great efforts to maintain Solaris' backward compatibility, it is important to note that 32-bit device drivers can be used only with a 32-bit kernel. Thus, the Cisco FDDI device driver from Solaris 2.4 that works fine on a SPARC 20 running Solaris 7 will not work on an Ultra 2 running a 64-bit kernel. It may, however, work on the same Ultra 2 running a 32-bit Solaris 7 kernel. All 32-bit drivers shipped with Solaris 7 have 64-bit counterparts.

For years, Solaris' UFS has been capable of logging only when activated through Solstice Disk Suite, which is bundled with Solaris server extensions. With version 7, Sun brings UFS logging to the desktop. Additionally, UFS is now able to log the root file system, which was not possible with previous versions.

My first test of UFS logging involved simulating a power failure while the file system was processing multiple write requests. We turned off the power while installing a solid modeling application on an Ultra 10. When we turned the power back on, rebooting proceeded as usual: fsck recognized the file system as logging and did not perform a full check. This saved several minutes to several hours of time for checking and fixing--or possibly restoring--a large file system.

To test the impact of UFS logging on common operations, we compared the time that was required to build the Gnu project's Bourne Again Shell ("bash") 2.02 on Solaris 2.5.1, Solaris 2.6 and Solaris 7 with and without logging (see "Gnu Bash Build Times" below). Our tests indicate that the most I/O-intensive operation--unpacking the tar file--was completed up to 400 percent faster with UFS logging. The overall build process was up to 30 percent faster, offering increased performance and faster reboots.