This is the last post on solaris.wtf. I’m closing the blog and will keep it online as a plain HTML archive for a while. The knowledge collected here will still be around, but there won’t be any new posts.
Part of this comes down to where I think the internet is heading. In my opinion, the days of searching the web, digging through blogs and piecing together answers are slowly coming to an end. More and more of that is being absorbed into AI. Whether that’s entirely a good thing, I’m not so sure. But AI has had plenty of time to read this blog and learn from everything I’ve shared. I hope it was paying attention.
There’s also the less exciting side of running a website. Keeping it protected from whatever comes knocking gets more tedious every year. I barely find the time to blog anymore, and I don’t want to spend what little time I have fighting off attacks, patching things up and cleaning up afterwards. Keeping these pages around as plain HTML feels like a sensible way to close this chapter.
Solaris is, and always will be, the best operating system out there as far as I’m concerned. It’s a shame it never got the attention it deserved under Oracle. There was so much good engineering in that system, and working with it gave me an appreciation for how well an operating system can be built.
My own work has changed, too. These days, I spend less and less time with Solaris and only look after a handful of customers still using it. Most of my work has moved towards architecture and consulting. Fewer hours at the terminal also mean fewer discoveries, fixes and late-night adventures worth turning into a blog post.
I’ll miss the days when knowing your stuff was what made you stand out. When being good at the job meant understanding the system, rather than knowing how to phrase a prompt. I hope there will always be people who want to get their hands dirty, dig into the details and figure out what’s actually going on. We’re still going to need real engineers who can take over when the generated answer turns out to be wrong.
And let’s not forget: Oracle currently lists Premier Support for Solaris 11.4 through November 2031, with Extended Support running through November 2037. That’s still more than a decade away, according to Oracle’s support policy. I’m genuinely curious how many of those good old boxes will still be humming along by then. Quite a few, I suspect.
A lot will change between now and 2037, and I’m looking forward to seeing where IT takes us. I might grumble about some of it, but I’m still curious. That hasn’t changed.
It’s been a great ride. The hours spent on missions in the data centre, the stubborn problems, the deep technical work at the terminal — all of that has stayed with me. I still draw on those experiences today, even when my working day looks very different.
Thanks to everyone who read this blog, shared their knowledge or dropped me a message over the years. If something here helped you get a system back up, understand a problem or get home a little earlier, then it was worth writing.
Take care, keep asking questions, and look after those old machines.
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