Sun Microsystems has released the 10 5/08 update for its Solaris operating system which is currently being offered to users for free.

The vendor has been working with Intel for more than a year on the update to offer improved support for Intel processors.

The two companies also worked together on new power management tools. The latest version of Solaris will feature SpeedStep, which allows users to fine-tune power management according to each system's consumption.

The update introduces a feature which allows for a cap to be placed on CPU usage, and a new component lets users run previous versions of Solaris in a virtualised environment.

Sun said that the virtualisation tool will be of special interest to users looking migrate from a machine running an older version of the operating system.