UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

I think you didn't have much exposure to Solaris either SPARC or x86. Comparing Solaris running on x86 to Linux is.. funny. It is still Solaris, with all the things which Linux doesn't have, like ZFS, Zones, SMF, Dtrace, FMA, etc etc. Those things are identical (for the end user) on both Solaris versions...

Basically, if you want run distributed computing your choice would be either Solaris or Linux if you don't have a budget of a bank.

HP-UX and AIX you can run only on their hardware afaik, but you can run above mentioned on most of HP's or IBM's HW.

Don't get me wrong, both HP-UX and AIX are excellent products with a big price tag for any sort of features.

not much... only 20years or so, how bout you??

you say in one quote that you don't have much experience in AIX / HP yet you say in another that all three meet the OPs needs - strange?

Absolutely, but you've missed the point i was trying to make & we're getting away from it here....which is hardware versus cost versus functionality.

AIX = Proprietry
HP-UX = Proprietry
Solaris (Sparc) = Proprietry
Solaris (express) / Linux / Bsd = Open Source - that was as far as my comparison went, & is why i made the comment no system hardware was specified - comparison can be difficult if some of the details are amiss.

OpenSolaris and Oracle Solaris 11 Express both support SPARC and x86.

What do you mean by this?

Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 Express is free to run on any platform for development purposes. If you want to run Solaris on SPARC, you just have to get some second hand SPARC server install Solaris and you are set.

Cmon guys, gimme a break here - it's been a long day!

Bartus - Bingo! Sound like the OPs setup to you? The clue here is in the sentence "Workstations for lab work" - i'm assuming that second hand sparc servers are not in scope here - maybe i'm wrong that's why i mentioned hardware....

Jilliage - I know.... <see above>

<sigh> all i'm saying here guys is the choice of hardware will have an impact on the OS. 95% of "workstation" lab work that i've been involved with - you could discount AIX & HP-UK off the bat......

I think you didn't understand what I said. You CAN use Solaris on SPARC for development, but if you don't have really really good reason to do it (developing for some bigger SPARC machines etc), then Solaris on x86 will be as good. And x86 = 99% of the workstations on the market, so here you have a choice of the platform to use. With AIX or HP-UX you don't.

PS You still didn't answer what you mean by: