Solaris

Hello,

I am considering Ubuntu 10.04 (ubuntu-10.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso) and also Solaris 10 (sol-10-u10-ga2-x86-dvd.iso) for different hardware applications and I had a few questions.

The hardware on my laptop is:
HP Pavilion dv4 2045-dx x64 laptop
AMD Turion(tm) II Dual-Core Mobile M500
CPU capacity: 2200MHz - RAM: size: 4GiB

The server is a HP Proliant DL380 server, dual CPU, haven't fired it up yet, so I don't know all the stats.

I have used Ubuntu 11.04 (on this laptop) and liked it. However, I am doing a fresh install, and was considering the most stable 10.04 LTS. Is there any advantage (for laptop application) when it comes to picking 10.04 LTS rather than some other version? I tested 11.10 but it was way to buggy for me. I also like the ubuntu community for support.

I'm considering 10.04 LTS for the Proliant DL380 server. I will run virtual host with multiple servers on this device. VMWare Virtual Server. I will be setting up two Cisco routers 1811W. I will be using it for CCNA practice and video transcoding as well. It will be hosting applications for 6 dumb terminals as well, connected to a NAS, and VPN to remote sites.
I have never used Solaris, and have been considering Solaris as the alternative to Ubuntu on this server. Both the server and the laptop will be hardened to some extent, and I am configuring with security in mind. I had heard that Solaris security is preferable to Ubuntu; I have already heard the argument's about admin ignorance, so I'm not knocking Ubuntu, or trying to say Solaris is better.
How is solaris from a laptop/desktop user perspective? Are there lots of new app solutions coming out for a myriad of different problems users face in Solaris like there are in Ubuntu?
If I have a HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 wireless multi-function printer which I will be using for both will I have trouble utilizing it in Solaris? Is Xsane the best scanner app these days for both environments?

What suggestions and direction can you provide for this setup, and if I choose Solaris for the server and Ubuntu for the laptop, will interaction be a challenge? Also Win 7 will be in a VM on the laptop, does anyone know of a way to Jail the win7 VM in ubuntu?

Any good tutorials on jailing the win7VM, and hardening ubuntu and solaris?

Thanks.

IMHO stick with Ubuntu if you have no previous experience with Solaris.

yeah, solaris is quite different from linux.

people use solaris on home computers partially because of ZFS. but I think there is some not_quite_finished debian/ubuntu port of ZFS.

go for solaris 11 which is much more "linux" like in terms of packagemanagement and other things... but it's still unix in the core.

I will offer one more view, Solaris is quite different in every way and there is a learning curve, one alternative you may want to consider is one that I took. I moved to the root of why eveyone builds on Debian, amazing stability and the originator of the apt package management. It has a great selection of software over 28000 packages. It is a rolling release with great stability, so the advantage of LTS is also the same for this. It has all the desktop bells and whistles but I found it to be much more stable. The only thing I went outside to upgrade was the NVidia driver. They offer the proprietary but it is not as current as ubuntu/Mint Fedora etc. So I installed their version, their way. This did all the neccessary blacklisting then I installed the latest Nvidia from the NVidia site. This brought the graphics up to par. The community is the best I have seen, knowledgeable and willing to help. (Every post I put was answered even just to say they would check it out and if they found something let me know) , I had a lot of peculiar questions. I bounced around for years was on Mint then Ubuntu then I went to Debian the source of about half the distro's out there. Solaris is a hefty powerful beast but will take a commitment to learn and does not have the advantages you grew use to in Ubuntu, one poster mentioned Solaris 11, that would be a step in between, he is right and it is geared more for the modern user but does have the time into that genre that Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/Fedora have. For me it is Debian all the way, stability, speed and versatility, and it is on like almost every platform out there literally amd64, armel, hppa, kfreebsd,ia64,mips,mipsel,powerpc and sparc. Hope this helps( I sounded like a commercial but I can't help it, I bounced around for years.)

--jerry