The sun goes down on Sun Linux

After diving into the Linux market last summer Sun last week announced that it will be discontinuing its Sun Linux distribution. The company said it did not want to sully up the current Linux distribution market with yet another version of the open source operating system.

Sun said it would work to support existing commercial Linux versions, as do its competitors HP, IBM and Dell.

Sun was one of the last data center server vendors to holdout from joining the Linux craze until last August at LinuxWorld 2002 when the company launched an entry-level Linux server with its own branded distribution. At that time, Sun said it wanted its own distribution so that it could more closely tie its middleware and messaging products to the operating system. The distribution was gleamed largely from Sun’s Cobalt line of Linux-based appliances, which run their own distribution.

The question now is what will Sun support? Red Hat and United Linux (SuSE, SCO Group and TurboLinux) are the obvious choices for enterprises. But those camps have been so aggressive in marketing themselves as alternatives to Sun (especially Red Hat), it will be interesting to see how such a relationship will pan out.