I have used Solaris back it the days when they were made for the SPARC processors only. Its just a *nix clone. Why dont you do this get VMware and install solaris 10 in it, if you can get a copy of MAC OS X try that too, coz MAC platform is also good for JAVA Platform. I dont see why you would need Solaris to do you J2EE stuff, i would see the need of solaris OS only if you are programing very specalized or server environment Apps. for ASP.NET there are lots a tutorials, try downloading appdata videos on P2P apps.