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Yes! People today may not realize how huge Sun was in the 90's. Almost all startups ran on Sun gear. Almost all ISPs had a Sun system for their "shell account"

Yes! People today may not realize how huge Sun was in the 90's. Almost all startups ran on Sun gear. Almost all ISPs had a Sun system for their "shell account" servers. Also, I had a SparcStation 10 at home in 1996 or so (which was kind of unheard of!)

pjmlp 5y ago
I only really cared about GNU/Linux in production around 2006, until then it was a means to have a cheap UNIX clone at home, while we were deploying Solaris, HP-UX and Aix into production. Most of the deployments were naturally Solaris based.
- icedchai 5y ago
  About 2002 here. Some companies were more conservative than others. One was okay with Linux for dev systems, but not production. Another had a "low end" product ported from AIX, which ran on Linux.
pklausler 5y ago
It wasn't just startups, of course; we used Sun gear at good ol' Cray Research in that era and it was our first upgrade from dumb terminals on mainframes (& vaxen). Good times. (I still remember when Sun introduced color systems, and they were such status symbols that they went mostly to managers, including one who was color-blind. A warning sign in retrospect, I suppose.)
endymi0n 5y ago
Totally honest question: WHY does everyone think it was cool? I can still remember running it in Uni on some of the prized workstations with everyone raving about it but never got the point about it. Back then I was on Windows and everything I saw on Sun systems looked weird, laggy and just super obscure to me. The whole UI felt like a mix of enterprise and neckbeard charme despite being non-open. It did not seem to run none any of the things I cared about back then. Later on I remembered Sun mainly in context of their stewardship of Java which also didn't help connecting any good feelings to it. So maybe in 2022 someone could enlighten me about what exactly was so cool about Sun?
- rusk 5y ago
  > everything I saw on Sun systems looked weird, laggy and just super obscure To me this describes what it’s like trying to develop software for Windows vs Unix
- copperx 5y ago
  I had the same experience. The Sun workstations that I was able to use were very slow compared to the same era PCs running Windows. The keyboard was cool as hell, though. The control key was in the correct position (where Caps Lock is in the standard layout). I do remember that the font rendering was horrible. There was no anti aliasing. Windows had just came up with Cleartype.
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  In the 90s, commercial Unixes really still ruled the roost. Linux was getting traction, but slowly, so for big-biz use you were looking at AIX from IBM, Solaris from Sun, HP/UX from HP, or something like it. The Sun hardware was materially better, or so I recall. It was also more attractive. I actually still have an Ultra5 on a shelf in my office that, for a time, ran Oakley's online store (which my old company built). It's still a good looking machine. Solaris, too, was widely viewed as better/more workable/easier to use than its competitors. It had more polish. If you're looking at Solaris with the latest build of Ubuntu or whatever in mind, yeah, it's gonna look neckbeardy and hokey. But that's not the world Solaris was the king of. Back then, using a commercial Unix meant you got a LOT of shit that Just Worked out of the box, and generally an easier time getting your shit running.
- icedchai 5y ago
  The GUI apps were generally pretty bad. I didn't use the default Sun window manager (CDE), which was kind of slow and bloated. I installed either WindowMaker or Afterstep. I forget which, but it made it look like NeXT. The only GUI app I used on my Sun was Netscape. Everything else was done in a terminal (xterm window.) I probably spent most of a week building stuff from source and customizing my system. If you wanted a "Unix workstation", Sun was the best. SGI looked cooler but often getting open source stuff built on it was a PITA. This was during the Windows 95 / NT 4.0 era, so it was definitely a step up on Windows.

pjmlp 5y ago

I only really cared about GNU/Linux in production around 2006, until then it was a means to have a cheap UNIX clone at home, while we were deploying Solaris, HP-UX and Aix into production. Most of the deployments were naturally Solaris based.

icedchai 5y ago
About 2002 here. Some companies were more conservative than others. One was okay with Linux for dev systems, but not production. Another had a "low end" product ported from AIX, which ran on Linux.

pklausler 5y ago

It wasn't just startups, of course; we used Sun gear at good ol' Cray Research in that era and it was our first upgrade from dumb terminals on mainframes (& vaxen). Good times. (I still remember when Sun introduced color systems, and they were such status symbols that they went mostly to managers, including one who was color-blind. A warning sign in retrospect, I suppose.)

endymi0n 5y ago

Totally honest question: WHY does everyone think it was cool? I can still remember running it in Uni on some of the prized workstations with everyone raving about it but never got the point about it. Back then I was on Windows and everything I saw on Sun systems looked weird, laggy and just super obscure to me. The whole UI felt like a mix of enterprise and neckbeard charme despite being non-open. It did not seem to run none any of the things I cared about back then. Later on I remembered Sun mainly in context of their stewardship of Java which also didn't help connecting any good feelings to it. So maybe in 2022 someone could enlighten me about what exactly was so cool about Sun?

rusk 5y ago
> everything I saw on Sun systems looked weird, laggy and just super obscure To me this describes what it’s like trying to develop software for Windows vs Unix
copperx 5y ago
I had the same experience. The Sun workstations that I was able to use were very slow compared to the same era PCs running Windows. The keyboard was cool as hell, though. The control key was in the correct position (where Caps Lock is in the standard layout). I do remember that the font rendering was horrible. There was no anti aliasing. Windows had just came up with Cleartype.
ubermonkey 5y ago
In the 90s, commercial Unixes really still ruled the roost. Linux was getting traction, but slowly, so for big-biz use you were looking at AIX from IBM, Solaris from Sun, HP/UX from HP, or something like it. The Sun hardware was materially better, or so I recall. It was also more attractive. I actually still have an Ultra5 on a shelf in my office that, for a time, ran Oakley's online store (which my old company built). It's still a good looking machine. Solaris, too, was widely viewed as better/more workable/easier to use than its competitors. It had more polish. If you're looking at Solaris with the latest build of Ubuntu or whatever in mind, yeah, it's gonna look neckbeardy and hokey. But that's not the world Solaris was the king of. Back then, using a commercial Unix meant you got a LOT of shit that Just Worked out of the box, and generally an easier time getting your shit running.
icedchai 5y ago
The GUI apps were generally pretty bad. I didn't use the default Sun window manager (CDE), which was kind of slow and bloated. I installed either WindowMaker or Afterstep. I forget which, but it made it look like NeXT. The only GUI app I used on my Sun was Netscape. Everything else was done in a terminal (xterm window.) I probably spent most of a week building stuff from source and customizing my system. If you wanted a "Unix workstation", Sun was the best. SGI looked cooler but often getting open source stuff built on it was a PITA. This was during the Windows 95 / NT 4.0 era, so it was definitely a step up on Windows.