Solaris Freeware Project News - Old Posts

As I had mentioned earlier, the new one is as efficient as the earlier ones you built. We attempted to build the source with gcc and the Sun compiler, but performace was about 40% less in both cases. If you don't mind sharing a "trade secret"... would you mind showing your compile and build flags? --- from a major telecom company regarding the release of bind-9.5.0-P2 last week.

The last time you did an excellent update service on demand. Thank you very much. --- from a very large aerospace company who requested a fast update of bind 9.

I am so surprised at your quick response. Even some of the paid supports are not that efficient.

Solaris is my favourite OS, and Sunfreeware.com is an invaluable extension of it. Actually, I always thought Sunfreeware was part of Sun before this noon.

I really appreciate the work you are doing, and I will be telling my friends about this.

I found that the visibility of having my project listed on Sunfreeware was invaluable in attracting a large number of downloads, and quickly bringing a great deal of constructive feedback my way - enabling me to fix issues quickly and develop a quality tool, tested in a wide range of situations.

Without this feedback, a complex tool such as Seccheck would have undoubtedly contained issues that would have been hard to track and fix. But thanks to the project being listed on Sunfreeware, I've received the required feedback, and it's been of a very high quality - which is a great testament to the users that your site attracts - professionals, developers and sysadmins who know where to go when they want quality Solaris packages.

As a Solaris System Administrator, I know that I can always find the packages I am looking for on Sunfreeware, and am very pleased that I have been able to share my work through this avenue.

Thanks again for the listing.

Kevin

Subject: Great site!

Just wanted to thank you for this site. I'm spoiled by GNU/Linux. At work I've got an old Sun box that we still use for certain clients that need ftp. I always dread having to do any admin tasks on it because I get no colors with ls, no vim (just vi), and I can't pipe between tar, gzip and ssh! All of this freeware is great! I'm in heaven!

From a very large aerospace company -
Yes!!!
Thanks Steve, this will help much.
Your site is a fantastic resource, I appreciate your assistance.

I would like to mention here that sunfreeware is an indispensable site and we would be lost without it. We are a solely Sun Solaris site relying on it to provide all server functions to our 2500+ user community. Keep up the excellent work and thanks again.

I was hired a few months ago into a team of programmers who are spending an increasing amount of time using PuTTY to communicate with a SunFire V890 running Solaris 9. Having been thoroughly spoiled by Linux terminals, I was quite shocked by how user-antagonistic the whole thing was. Ancient versions of bash, vi, sysutils, etc, that couldn't function if you resized your window and didn't understand color. Then two wonderful things happened. First, I discovered that I had admin rights on the machine, and second, I stumbled onto your page. Now I walk past coworkers' desks and see beautiful, syntax-highlighted vim sessions and colorful ls readouts, and I feel genuinely useful. I thank you sincerely for your work.

Hello. After years of use by myself, my staff, and my colleagues, I want to thank you for building and maintaining a service that has saved hundreds of hours of effort building software that your site provides to the community for free. The sunfreeware site has become one of those tools that, before you know it, you can't live without. Thank you very much.

Thanks for taking a lot of the work out of software installations. Several of the packages that you offer change quite often, especially the ones dealing with security. Using your pre-packaged software makes these frequent updates a lot easier, especially since we don't have to deal with the compiling. Thanks for the peace of mind. I have been using your site for a few years, now. All of my old servers are running Solaris 8, but my new ones are all Solaris 10. Thanks for both versions -- no hassles, no worries.
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I don't know if you get paid to run sunfreeware.com - but it SO VALUABLE to me. I use it all the time to make sure I have the latest releases and all the packages work great.

Just want to say thanks - I'm sure it takes a lot of effort to keep everything up to date.

Thanks again for continuing to run such a useful website. There aren't many websites that I use for more than a year or two because they lose their relevancy, but your site is one I come back to year after year.

A note to say "THANKS!" for all you do for the SUN community of users across the world. We would not even be a "Blip" on the radar screen without your invaluable work. We sing your praises EVERY DAY !!

Sunfreeware.com is the single most useful site for Solaris admins, and I deeply appreciate the difference its made in my own existence.

Great work on the site! You've saved thousands (millions?) of man hours. Thanks!

Thanks so much for putting up this great site. It's an excellent resource for those of us who need some of the standard GNU tools in a Solaris environment. It's easy to use, it has all the necessary stuff in one central place, all the packages work like a charm - nice work.

I really appreciate all the hardwork you put into it.

From a large telecommunications company in the UK -

I'd like to add the thousands of thank yous and kudos you've already had. Sunfreeware is without doubt one of the most useful sites I use on a day to day basis for administering hundreds of Solaris servers - you make my job a whole lot easier! So may I take this opportunity to thank you whole-heartedly.

Thanks, Steven. Your Apache 2.0.55 is now working with your PHP 5.0.4 on my servers.

I really appreciate all the work you put into sunfreeware.com It is a sine qua non for me!

Thanks also for your reply to my query. Very few people of your fame even return emails.

First and foremost, thanks a million times over for supporting and maintaining sunfreeware. I can't even imagine where my career would be today without it.

I first discovered Sunfreeware.com several years ago when setting up a Solaris 8 box. Right now I am working on a pair of Solaris 9 machines and your pre-compiled packages really help. I come from a Linux background so Solaris seems kind of limited and clunky to me... until I install all the GNU utilities off of your site. We also use Apache and a few other daemons that you provide. THANK YOU very much for the time you have put into this incredible resource.

From a user who needed ImageMagick 6.2.6 for SPARC/Solaris 8 (supplied in one day) -

Installed and works like a champ. I so appreciate this. With the staff cuts we've had the past couple of years I would never be able to keep our stuff up to date without this service.

Thanks again.

Let me say what an incredible site and service you perform for Solaris admins like me around the world. You have saved me immeasurable time and grief on so many projects.

Subject: RE: Secure Shell (ver. 4.2p1)

I tested the package out and it works great. Thanks a ton!

Again, thanks for your help on providing this pre-compiled package. It's always good to know that your site is constantly providing the best, most up-to-date freeware out there. We all thank you very, very much!

Subject: PHP 4.4.0 or earlier

Thanks for the quick turnaround! I contacted the vendor before contacting you, and you created a package and made it available to me before the vendor responded (and we pay them for support... sad).

I installed the package and the software works perfectly. You are a valuable resource.

Subject: Wonderful SSH Packages!

Steve,

I was having trouble getting SSH to compile on some Solaris 8 i386 machines, and decided to try Google for further help. Your site got the first hit, and I was amazed at what I found. Your packages not only worked, but are current versions, so I don't have to worry about security as much when implementing them.

I had to drop you a line and thank you for keeping such a thorough repository of precompiled Solaris resources available. If you're ever in Florida, let me know; I owe you a beer.

Please, for our sake, keep up the good work! :)

I KNOW you just did rsync version 2.6.4 [2.6.5 is now done - smc] - but there were some serious bugs (including this one ) introduced in that version. One of those bugs is preventing my customer from upgrading, and thus preventing me from completing my work. Version 2.6.5 just came out and fixes many of these bugs. I could compile this myself, but the customer doesn't want to upgrade until the software is released on your site... they are a loyal follower!

I've used your site numerous times over the years (I've worked on Sun since '88!), and I don't think I've ever had a chance to drop a note and thank you for all you've done. I figured you probably don't get to hear it often, so I would like you to know there are plenty of us out here who greatly appreciate your site! Thanks for your continued good work!

In the next few weeks I will be offering freeware packages for Solaris 9 on SPARC on sunfreeware.com.

Here is an announcement from Sun regarding freeware. sunfreeware.com cooperates closely with Sun on freeware issues.

Previously available only with the Solaris 8 media kit, the Solaris 8 Companion CD is now available for free download at the following location:

http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/freeware.html

The companion CD contains a wide variety of popular freeware, including samba, vim, pine, rsync, many GNU commands, and development tools. Both SPARC and Intel versions are available.

*Note: This is the 07/01 update of the Solaris Software Companion CD and corresponds to the 07/01 update of the Solaris 8 Operating Environment. Proper installation has not been verified on previous updates. Freeware for previous releases of the Solaris Operating Environment, as well as a number of packages that are not on the Companion CD, are available at http://sunfreeware.com, an independent Web site maintained by Steve Christensen.

The 7/01 update of Solaris 8 is available for download at the following location:

http://www.sun.com/solaris/freeware/download.html

Thanks to the NCE Team at Sun for their past hosting of the freeware and for their support in setting up the new server here in North Carolina.

If you are mirroring sunfreeware.com, please note this change and contact me at steve@smc.vnet.net for details.

Do you want to run your Linux programs from within Solaris 7? Lxrun allows you to access your Linux programs while running Solaris 7 on your Intel/x86 systems. For details on lxrun and how to download the software, carefully study the links:

• General Sun/Linux Info
• Lxrun Main Page
• Download Information
• Reference Document

• Official Lxrun Linux Emulator Page

The lxrun related files can be found by selecting the Intel/Lxrun link to the right or by clicking here

© Copyright 2011 Steven M. Christensen and Associates, Inc.

This page was last updated on January 1, 2011.