SunOS

SunOS was an operating system made by Sun Microsystems for their workstations and servers from 1982 until the mid-1990s. It was based on Unix, a system that helps computers run programs and manage tasks.

The name SunOS was mostly used for the early versions, from 1.0 to 4.1.4. Later versions, starting with 5.0, were built on UNIX System V Release 4 and were sold under a different name, Solaris. These systems were important because they helped powerful computers work efficiently and were used in many places where big computing tasks were needed.

History

SunOS was an operating system made by Sun Microsystems for its computers. SunOS 1 only worked on early Sun computers called Sun-2 series, including upgraded Sun-1 systems. Later, SunOS 2 added support for Sun-3 series computers. SunOS 4 could run on Sun-2, Sun-3, Sun386i, and Sun-4 (SPARC) computers, though full support for SPARC came later.

The last version, SunOS 4.1.4, came out in 1994 and worked on many computer types, but not all. Sun kept updating SunOS 4.1.3 and 4.1.4 until 2003.

Version history

"SunOS" and "Solaris"

In 1987, AT&T Corporation and Sun worked together to create a new system called System V Release 4. This system combined popular versions of Unix, including features from SunOS.

On September 4, 1991, Sun announced a big update for their operating system. They decided to change from their old style to one based on SVR4. The internal name for this update was SunOS 5, but Sun used the marketing name Solaris. Solaris would include SunOS, the OpenWindows desktop, and Open Network Computing features.

Before the new system was ready, Sun called their current SunOS 4 release Solaris 1.0. Later, SunOS 5.0 became part of Solaris 2.0. Small updates to SunOS 4 were still released through 1994, and each got a matching Solaris 1._x name. Many people still used the SunOS names.

Today, SunOS 5 is commonly known as Solaris. The SunOS name is still seen inside the system — in startup messages, the uname command, and man page endings.

Matching a SunOS 5.x version to its Solaris name is simple: each Solaris name includes the SunOS 5 minor version number. For example, Solaris 2.4 included SunOS 5.4. After Solaris 2.6, the "2." was dropped, so the SunOS number was used alone. The latest Solaris version is named Solaris 11 and includes SunOS 5.11.

User interface

When SunOS started with version 1.0, it had a special way to show pictures and graphs on the screen, called the Sun Window System. This included a tool called Suntools to help users.

Later, in version 3.0, this was renamed to SunView.

Sun also made a new system called NeWS, which used a special language called PostScript for drawing. In 1989, they released something called OpenWindows. This worked with X11 and could support both SunView and NeWS programs. It became the main way to use SunOS starting with version 4.1.1.