Solaris (operating system) Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s version of the Unix operating system. As well as the core operating system, Solaris inludes networking software, the Java Virtual Machine, the CDE/Desktop that includes an X11-based windowing environment and graphical user interface.
Sun claim that Solaris is not just an operating system but an "operating environment". Solaris 1.x was a retroactive (marketing?) name for SunOS 4.1.x (where x>=1). Solaris 2.x (which is the first version most people call "Solaris") includes SunOS5.x, which is an SVR4-derived Unix, OpenWindows 3.x, and tooltalk. Version 2.7 ("Solaris 7") was around in 1999-03-02. Version 2.8 was released in June 2000. Latest version: 9, as of 2002-07-15. http://sun.com/solaris/. Last updated: 2002-07-15
