4 ms·

For a curious novice, can anyone point out why one would use Solaris/Illumos over Linux?

• ghaff 9y ago
  There's an argument that Solaris/Illumos have features for which the equivalent doesn't exist in Linux (native ZFS, dtrace, some zone/container features). But for most people those are outweighed by using an operating system that is actively being developed by a large community including many large companies.
• hedora 9y ago
  After evaluating various Linux solutions, then FreeNAS, I went with SmartOS (an Illumnos variant) at home because it was the only one with rock solid secure containers, virtualization and zfs. Unfortunately, I never managed to get single node docker compatibility to work, and then there was a design flaw in the inexpensive atom server processors that it runs well on that leads to failure after a year or so. Faced with a >>$1000 hardware expenditure to get a reliable replacement NAS that's compatible with SmartOS, I jumped ship to Synology and haven't looked back. My Synology box is way more available than my ISP or Amazon Cloud Drive, and I reproduced months of setup work from SmartOS in an afternoon with the Synology.