March 10, 2026
Freebie drops, pitchforks rise
A New Version of Our Oracle Solaris Environment for Developers
Free Solaris toolkit lands, support to 2037 — crowd asks who’s still here
TLDR: Oracle released a free developer toolkit for Solaris 11.4 and reiterated support through 2037, pitching the platform as enterprise‑ready. Comments split: skeptics mock the move and question who still uses Solaris, while a few loyalists praise the tech but admit niche hardware support and lingering distrust of Oracle.
Oracle just dropped a new, free “Common Build Environment” for Solaris — a toolkit developers can use to build and test apps — and says the big iron operating system will be supported until at least 2037. It syncs with the newest Solaris 11.4 updates and even allows personal, non‑production use. Oracle is also waving the flag for its SPARC servers and cloud availability, pitching this as proof the platform is still serious for mission‑critical work.
The comments? Spicy. One user painted a vivid picture of past pain, joking Oracle is hunting for people who haven’t “stuck their hand in the lawnmower” yet. Another quipped this looks like a scramble to find a new story as the data center business cools off, while others simply asked the awkward question: who’s still running Solaris in 2026? Cue nostalgic sighs and skeptical side‑eye.
But it wasn’t all snark. A longtime fan praised the Solaris family — especially the community‑run Illumos — saying it installs almost as easily as FreeBSD on wired machines, though Wi‑Fi support is still patchy. That love letter clashed hard with the trust issues: one commenter said they’d rather use ancient rivals than “deal with Oracle.” So we’ve got a free dev goodie bag, a promise of years of support, and a thread split between die‑hards, doomsayers, and curious onlookers. Comeback tour or museum pass? The crowd can’t decide.
Key Points
- •Oracle released a new Oracle Solaris Common Build Environment (CBE) for Oracle Solaris 11.4, free for developers and allowed for non‑production personal use.
- •The CBE aligns with the most recent Oracle Solaris 11.4 Support Repository Update, enabling development and testing against the latest features.
- •Initial CBE launched in March 2022 and was updated in May 2025; the latest release follows soon after, with changes referenced via SRU 84, 87, and 90 'what’s new' blogs.
- •Oracle highlights broader Solaris ecosystem elements: SPARC S7/T8 and Fujitsu SPARC M12 servers, Solaris support until at least 2037, and Solaris availability on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
- •Developers can update via package repository using 'pkg update' or download images from the Oracle Solaris Downloads page.