6 ms·

Can someone explain this in words that a time traveller from 2010 would understand?

by SandB0x 12y ago

simtel20 12y ago
Well, since 2010 Sun has died, and opensolaris is no more. It lives on as an open source effort called Illumos. At one point, solaris could run Linux binaries unmodified under a solaris kernel and userspace. That became un-maintained, but it is now working again. One of the reasons this feature fell out of use was because it could only run 32-bit linux binaries. Now it can run 64-bit binaries too. If you want to try it out there is a company you may not be familiar with, dear time-traveler from 2010, called Joyent, that will let you use this. What is very interesting dear time traveler is that there is a format for containing programs and their environments called docker that allows you to use features, as you could in a zone, but which is easier to use than zones. You can deploy your containers built on linux to solaris zones with this feature, and Joyent lets you do it.
- pyre 12y ago
  Oracle bought Sun in 2009 and finalized in Jan. 2010, so this time traveller would have to be from a very specific slice of 2010 to not know about the demise of Sun. :P
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
kordless 12y ago
Remember when virtual machines came out? That technology gave us tools to create a 'layered' effect for compute related resources on a single, managed machine. Microservice technologies, like Docker containers, are a logical extension of that layering into the process space on the machine, and in many cases multiple virtual machines running on a single machine. It's all about the layers, man.
- steeef 12y ago
  Joyent actually extends this and allows you to treat an entire datacenter as your docker host, similar to how you can use a product like VMware to cluster ESX hosts together.
mrfusion 12y ago
Love the question. This should be the new ELI5. I think a lot of articles on here would benefit from answering that question.
- evanspa 12y ago
  Based on your username, I'm not surprised you like the time-traveling angle.
- tomcam 12y ago
  Ditto. It was a boon to me too.
- raus22 12y ago
  The Explain it like i have been in a coma for 5 years... Elihbiacf5y or just 5 years in coma, explain! 5YICE.... Or ETTT5YA or ET5... explain to time traveler from 5 years ago
pgeorgi 12y ago
I assume that the time traveller knows Open Solaris up to 2010. Someone used Linux facilities that are somewhat similar to Solaris Zones and ZFS snapshots (you'll know those, since Solaris 10 from 2005 shipped with that and wasn't even the first) to build an ecosystem for lightweight virtual systems with standardized interfaces. That system is called Docker (and runs on Linux, obviously) OpenSolaris is all but dead, but a community succeeded it, called IllumOS. People from that community decided to attempt to use Solaris Zones, with Linux branded zones (that capability was dropped in the meantime so they had to invest some effort to bring it up again) to reimplement Docker on an IllumOS (ie. OpenSolaris) foundation.

Can someone explain this in words that a time traveller from 2010 would understand?

by SandB0x 12y ago

Can someone explain this in words that a time traveller from 2010 would understand?

Well, since 2010 Sun has died, and opensolaris is no more. It lives on as an open source effort called Illumos. At one point, solaris could run Linux binaries unmodified under a solaris kernel and userspace. That became un-maintained, but it is now working again. One of the reasons this feature fell out of use was because it could only run 32-bit linux binaries. Now it can run 64-bit binaries too. If you want to try it out there is a company you may not be familiar with, dear time-traveler from 2010, called Joyent, that will let you use this. What is very interesting dear time traveler is that there is a format for containing programs and their environments called docker that allows you to use features, as you could in a zone, but which is easier to use than zones. You can deploy your containers built on linux to solaris zones with this feature, and Joyent lets you do it.

pyre 12y ago
Oracle bought Sun in 2009 and finalized in Jan. 2010, so this time traveller would have to be from a very specific slice of 2010 to not know about the demise of Sun. :P

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

kordless 12y ago

Remember when virtual machines came out? That technology gave us tools to create a 'layered' effect for compute related resources on a single, managed machine. Microservice technologies, like Docker containers, are a logical extension of that layering into the process space on the machine, and in many cases multiple virtual machines running on a single machine. It's all about the layers, man.

steeef 12y ago
Joyent actually extends this and allows you to treat an entire datacenter as your docker host, similar to how you can use a product like VMware to cluster ESX hosts together.

mrfusion 12y ago

Love the question. This should be the new ELI5. I think a lot of articles on here would benefit from answering that question.

evanspa 12y ago
Based on your username, I'm not surprised you like the time-traveling angle.
tomcam 12y ago
Ditto. It was a boon to me too.
raus22 12y ago
The Explain it like i have been in a coma for 5 years... Elihbiacf5y or just 5 years in coma, explain! 5YICE.... Or ETTT5YA or ET5... explain to time traveler from 5 years ago

pgeorgi 12y ago

I assume that the time traveller knows Open Solaris up to 2010. Someone used Linux facilities that are somewhat similar to Solaris Zones and ZFS snapshots (you'll know those, since Solaris 10 from 2005 shipped with that and wasn't even the first) to build an ecosystem for lightweight virtual systems with standardized interfaces. That system is called Docker (and runs on Linux, obviously) OpenSolaris is all but dead, but a community succeeded it, called IllumOS. People from that community decided to attempt to use Solaris Zones, with Linux branded zones (that capability was dropped in the meantime so they had to invest some effort to bring it up again) to reimplement Docker on an IllumOS (ie. OpenSolaris) foundation.