Compare the differences in Linux and Solaris of the ENV environment variables.
. It *used* to be the same (and in most cases still is) but I've seen different behaviors among different platforms before. Not sure that is your problem, but it's a simple thing to check. I've also heard (Monks -- please correct me if I'm wrong) that it's just better programming practice because its considered "better OOP" to use the ->new method instead of using the new keyword... (Hopefully I worded that correctly)