Oracle Releases DTrace 2.0.0-1.14 For Linux Systems

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Oracle Releases DTrace 2.0.0-1.14 For Linux Systems

DTrace used to be one of the Solaris features long sought after by Linux developers but over time the Linux kernel tracing capabilities have improved and Oracle has been supporting DTrace on Linux now for years without too much fanfare. DTrace 2.0.0-1.14 was released this past week as the latest iteration of this user-space implementation that builds off the Linux kernel tracing functionality like BPF...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/D-Trace-2.0.0-1.14

[skeevy420]

It's funny how Oracle and Solaris are primed to be able to take over the world but, instead, Oracle partnered with IBM so they primarily support Yet Another RHEL Clone and have mismanaged Solaris into the ground. Since Oracle has all the control over the entire Solaris ecosystem, they could create the mythical stable kernel module ABI/API we wish Linux had and license it in a way that companies like Epic or Valve could create closed source kernel level anticheat systems, but instead of being an industry leader and a FOSS leader, they license their stuff to make it hard to play ball which has made Solaris into a Walled Garden that consists of mostly FOSS software.

Why use Solaris when you can get mostly the same software without the walled garden restrictions from practically any Linux distribution? With the world moving towards FOSS that runs SaaS, I don't think Oracle realizes what they have and what they could do by offering a standardized, FOSS OS, that's readily available for anyone to use. It's ironic because an OS that runs SaaS is what Oracle and Solaris are known for.

DTrace on Linux is one less reason to use Solaris. It's cool that Linux is getting better but, simultaneously, it's sad to see Solaris become less and less relevant when it has so much potential.

[spicfoo]

It's funny how Oracle and Solaris are primed to be able to take over the world but, instead, Oracle partnered with IBM so they primarily support Yet Another RHEL Clone and have mismanaged Solaris into the ground

Oracle tried to undercut Red Hat entirely with it's clone. It was certainly not a partnership with IBM. Solaris was well on it's way out by the time Oracle bought Sun and that's precisely what made Sun available for purchase in the first place. Brendan who worked on DTrace for Solaris moved on from it and in 2018 called bpftrace DTrace 2.0. There hasn't been any Solaris exclusive features in a long time. It is in maintenance mode only and OpenSolaris was silently cancelled by Oracle. That was essentially the end of Solaris as we know it.

[kylew77]

FreeBSD also contains a DTrace project embedded in its kernel. Such shame that Oracle killed Solaris basically. You can still find projects like OmniOS, Open Indiana, and Tribblix though as open source Solaris projects. The only problem is even the desktop focused Tribblix lack modern hardware support found in modern laptops and desktops so no you can't stream hardware accelerated videos on it. It really seems to me that with its ZFS support and DTrace support that FreeBSD is the true heir to the throne of Solaris. I'll never forget one of my college classes on being shown open solaris and being told it was the future...

[Volta]

It's funny how Oracle and Solaris are primed to be able to take over the world but, [...] Since Oracle has all the control over the entire Solaris ecosystem, they could create the mythical stable kernel module ABI/API we wish Linux had and license it in a way that companies like Epic or Valve could create closed source kernel level anticheat systems, but instead of being an industry leader and a FOSS leader, they license their stuff to make it hard to play ball which has made Solaris into a Walled Garden that consists of mostly FOSS software.

Everything like this could be done with FreeBSD, but nobody cared. There's no way you could turn slowlaris or freebsd into better Linux. Maybe in early 90's, but not anymore. P.S. We don't want stable ABI and we don't want proprietary friendly trash licenses. Speak for yourself.

[Gonk]

Oracle is a database company. They bought Sun because Sun had a nice storage product lineup, Solaris ran Oracle well, and Sun was cheap. Oracle wanted to sell turnkey DB - and to a lesser extent generic storage - appliances.

A shame because Sun made nice workstations, even after they switched to x86 (they were AMD only IIRC, that was around the time AMD went 64 bit and Intel was playing catchup). We were replacing the workstations in a few labs and they lent us one for evaluation. First thing we do of course is open it up- and what on Earth is that thing? The CPU heatsink+fan had a tall, flared funnel attached to it that nearly reached the side panel we had just removed. Why would they restrict airflow to the fan like that? Then it clicked: they were using the side panel as a heat exchanger and the funnel was just tall enough to pull in air from across the surface of the panel while still getting enough airflow. Such a clever idea. Never seen it in a tower chassis since. Too bad we couldn't get our hands on a thermal camera to see what that side of it looked like under load.

[anarki2]

Everything like this could be done with FreeBSD, but nobody cared. There's no way you could turn slowlaris or freebsd into better Linux. Maybe in early 90's, but not anymore. P.S. We don't want stable ABI and we don't want proprietary friendly trash licenses. Speak for yourself.

Yeah, you do want, you just don't know it. Instead, you keep whining that random stuff breaks all the time, and keep failing to connect the dots.

[jokeyrhyme]

Oracle is a database company. They bought Sun because Sun had a nice storage product lineup...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google...e_America,_Inc.

> Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison called the Java language "the single most important software asset we have ever acquired"

Allegedly, they purchased Sun specifically so they could sue Google

[jacob]

Everything like this could be done with FreeBSD, but nobody cared. There's no way you could turn slowlaris or freebsd into better Linux. Maybe in early 90's, but not anymore. P.S. We don't want stable ABI and we don't want proprietary friendly trash licenses. Speak for yourself.

In an ideal world we WOULD want a stable kernel ABI. It's just that seemingly no-one in the Linux community wants it badly enough to be willing to live with its downsides.

[jacob]

FreeBSD also contains a DTrace project embedded in its kernel. Such shame that Oracle killed Solaris basically. You can still find projects like OmniOS, Open Indiana, and Tribblix though as open source Solaris projects. The only problem is even the desktop focused Tribblix lack modern hardware support found in modern laptops and desktops so no you can't stream hardware accelerated videos on it. It really seems to me that with its ZFS support and DTrace support that FreeBSD is the true heir to the throne of Solaris. I'll never forget one of my college classes on being shown open solaris and being told it was the future...

Oracle bought Sun for their storage systems and for Java. They never wanted to be an OS vendor. Solaris only mattered to them (basically) to the extent that the Oracle database ran on it and it was necessary to support Sun hardware. But since the RDBMS runs perfectly well on Linux, they had no reason to keep investing in Solaris when contributing a little bit to Linux got them what they needed for much cheaper.