Sun Releases OpenSolaris to Developers

Sun Microsystems has released OpenSolaris 2008.05, which is based on the company’s Solaris kernel and has been created through the OpenSolaris open source community collaboration. The operating system is seen as a rival to Linux.

The software, previously available only in preview releases, combines Solaris technologies and desktop applications tools.

Sun said the OS features Sun’s Zettabyte File System technology as its default file system, which scales beyond 64-bit file systems and protects data with 256-bit checksums for data consistency. The OS also includes Solaris Containers, a server virtualization technology that allows multiple virtualization applications to be deployed on top of a single OS.

Rich Green, executive vice president of software at Sun, said: “Sun aims to continue to offer additional options to use and deploy our open source platforms covering the spectrum from small home-grown installations through to on-site data centers and hosted environments such as Amazon EC2.”

The operating system is available now for free download and beta testing on Amazon EC2.