03-27-2002
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Join Date: Aug 2001
Last Activity: 26 February 2016, 12:31 PM EST
Location: Ashburn, Virginia
Posts: 9,926
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SunOS 5.6 has support for large files but 5.7 is indeed where full 64 bit support starts.
According to Posix standards, with which Sun claims compliance, you run "uname -s" to get to get the name of the OS and you run "uname -r" to get the release.
As near as I can figure, it goes like this: In the beginning there was SunOS and it was based on BSD. But SunOS 5.0 was a major rewrite and at this point SunOS was now based on System VR4. Apparently some marketing droid came along and christened the result "Solaris 2.0". But the kernel programmers ignored him and continue to call the OS "SunOS 5.0".
The kernel programmers continue to use their naming convention and named various releases stuff like "SunOS 5.6" which the marketing droid called "Solaris 2.6".
But with SunOS 5.7, the marketing droid decided to call the OS "Solaris 7". I'm betting that he switches to Roman numerals pretty soon.
So it looks to me like Sun is unable to reach a unified conclusion as to what to call their OS. I wish they would hold a hot dog eating contest or something to settle this. In the meantime you have two choices.