The NexentaOS project has released the 2nd alpha of their OpenSolaris distribution, which uses the Debian userland and tools. It includes a new installer (with auto-partitioning), the addition of KDE, WiFi drivers, full support from booting off of removable drives such as USB sticks, the complete Mono platform including Beagle, Java runtime environment, OpenSolaris build 30, and much more. You can visit the getting started page (screenshots included), read the changelog, and then proceed to the downloads.
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Member since:
2005-07-21
Member since:2005-12-13
To my best beliefs, it has the advantage of being based on the most advanced Unix out there (sorry Apple...)...
I cannot wait to install this on my PC, having just deleted Windows XP and decided to settle myself 100% on Unix for my operating system joys.
I am gonna love poking around with ZFS and Solaris Zones and stuff like that...
Member since:2006-01-08
The big advantage of Solaris seems to be the ability to micromanage and fine-tune the system. ZFS, for example, allows as many filesystems as you want, each taking up only as much space as they need, and each supporting independent quotas, reservations, snapshots, compression, etc. Gurus are able to track down obscure problems with DTrace. Unfortunately, as useful as Zones are, I don't think Nexenta supports them yet.
Member since:2006-01-31
ZFS and DTrace are fully supported in Nexenta as well as any other OpenSolaris features like Zones and BrandZ's...
BrandZ is especially cool since one could run multiple OS's with *zero* overhead if OS is OpenSolaris based and very small overhead if it is RedHat GNU/Linux for example.
Member since:2006-01-08
ZFS and DTrace are fully supported in Nexenta as well as any other OpenSolaris features like Zones and BrandZ's...
# zoneadm -z test install
sh: /usr/lib/lu/lucreatezone: No such file or directory
sh: line 0: exec: /usr/lib/lu/lucreatezone: cannot execute: No such file or directory
zoneadm: zone 'test': '/usr/lib/lu/lucreatezone' failed with exit code 126.
#
Member since:2006-01-31
Member since:2006-01-12
Member since:2005-09-16
I haven't had time to play with ZFS, so take this with a grain of salt..
I think there are a few other features to ZFS. For one, it automagically deals with endian issues, which could be a significant boon if you have a mixed sparc/x86/(soon powerpc?) environment. Additionally, it appears to simplify the coordination of multiple filesystems, quotas, and diskspace.
Personally, I'm curious about the differences between SDS/UFS and ZFS io scheduling. UFS has always "felt" rather slow and stagnant. I believe that ZFS schedules disk activity with a very different algorithm and I hope it performs better. My experience could be a product of my antique hardware though :-)
All in all, I feel that there are gains to be had by merging the filesystem and RAID capabilities into a single layer. While there should be a proper distinction between physical devices and filesystems, I don't think that the reasoning behind the fs/volume distinction is as easy to make in 2006. I've got a lot of spindles in my life and I'd like them to coordinate a bit better without the requisite of a fancy RAID controller.
Member since:
2006-01-11
Member since:2005-11-14
Member since:2006-01-31
Absolutely yes! NexentaOS is an open source effort with supporting(Nexenta Systems, Inc) company behind it. http://www.nexenta.com
It is no different from current GNU/Linux offerings like Ubuntu/Canonical, Fedora/Redhat, etc
Member since:2005-08-22
I would say that it's rather strange that there is NO information about any of the staff of Nexenta, no information about any of the core developers, and no information about the company itself. They have great vision and ideals, but this all seems so "in the dark." No question this is completely open source, but almost all projects have at least this basic information.
Member since:2005-11-05
Member since:2006-01-11
Member since:2006-01-12
Member since:2005-09-16
... depends on what duties your data centre hosts are responsible for, of course. If I had a extemely fault tolerant infrastructure, I might be persuaded to try a less mature combinations of software to get better performance. After all, isn't that how windows and linux originally gained server marketshare? Granted, the performance may have originally been in deployment time and hardware/licensing costs, but in terms of achieving a goal on schedule with a fixed budget, those are actually a factor in net performance.
Speaking of fault tolerant infrastructures, know where I can get one? I've got mainframe needs on beige budget :-)
Member since:
2006-01-18
Member since:2005-12-09
Member since:2005-04-01
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-01-12
Solaris (not just OpenSolaris) has allowed you to browse the web during the install since (IIRC) Solaris 8. The wisdom of doing so is questionable, of course - I would prefer my OS install to be done with no internet connection, and only to connect a system to the internet once fully built and patched. Within a corporate environment, allowing some access to the network can make sense. Solaris 2.5.1 (if you go with the "GUI" install) allowed for a GUI with a terminal window, allowing you to do whatever you like during the install (rather like Linux installs allow from then til now, with (typically) Alt-F2)
Member since:2006-01-09
the ability to play tetris while the OS/distro installs is truly awsome. I don't know if this is the first installer to have such a feature; if yes, I hope others (Ubuntu, Debian) will follow suit.
I believe that the first time that I saw that was back then at 1999 or so with Caldera OpenLinux 2.X. That was at a time when SCO didnīt suck big time as they do today. Actually, it was quite advanced compared to most distributions available at the time with its LISA Control Center (which is somewhat similar to YAST on SUSE).
Member since:
2005-07-21
Member since:2006-01-31
Member since:
2005-07-10
I tried the Nextena alpha 1 live-cd. It was amazing how well this was done. I am d/ling the alpha 2 install disk now to give it a whirl. This is truly Ubuntu for OpenSolaris. Literally after trying out their first "aplha" I was really impressed.
I will see how this one goes. This seems to be one great OS so far from my experience.
Member since:
2005-07-06
Member since:2006-01-31
Its clarified by FSF leaders during first GPLv3 draft discussion that there is no *any* licensing issue exists in regards to NexentaOS and similar works when kernel and userland components are CDDL-licensed and the rest of OSS is a mix of other licenses like GPLv2, BSD, etc. More details are here:
http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=5172&tstart=0
So, yes, I beleive it had been settled in a good way.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2005-07-06
I will give it a try as opensolaris v 5.11 B 30 was almost non functional to me on 5 systems. The reason was mainly hardware support any linux beats solaris and its derivatives at least 2 years in hardware support arena. I will try to compare speed of solaris and linux on X86 machines. Windows being the fastest on x86, but its like an ambulance with no brakes.
Member since:2006-01-31
opensolaris is a "raw material" and do not offer some drivers developed outside by OSS. NexentaOS integrates all thes drivers together. Things like popular sound and wireless cards should work out of the box.
But really, drivers availability is the matter of time when you have stable kernel DDI. This is where GNU/Solaris makess a lot of difference comparing to GNU/Linux. You write your driver once and it will work as a binary without rebuild for each minor kernel update. For instance, drivers for Solaris 8 will work with OpenSolaris b30 which proves how good kernel interfaces beeing designed at the first place.
GNU/Solaris brings stability to the GNU world. IMHO
Member since:
2005-07-06
Member since:2006-01-31
Member since:
2005-07-06
I was playing with this OS but the problem is that still hardware wise it's still primitive. This OS reminds me very much with ubuntu; but of course nothing to compare. It didn't recognize 2 very common sound cards that all linux distros (7) recognized them ( AC97 and Audigy 2ZS).
The screen resolution was choosen 1650x1050 which was OK, but not what I wanted 1920x1200. Then came the surprise, after a reboot the system didn't load properly, it said file system corruption then "fsck" didn't solve it. The OS said choose safe mode but safe mode was not available from GRUB menu. Anyway it will take at least 5 years to mature till them I will hibernate the burned CD of the OS.
Member since:2006-01-11
Member since:2005-07-06
> solaris != desktop 
Tell this Sun (and get smashed). Just 'cause Sun wasn't successful yet, in beating Windows on the Desktop it doesn't mean they don't try... Remember that Sun always delievered Workstations and Thin Clients beside their servers, and they all were running Solaris so far... ;-)
Member since:2006-01-11
Well I'm using old Sun workstations almost daily in my university. CDE is not the most comfortable desktop environment - but yes, it does the job
Back to the topic: while I highly appreciate Solaris as on OS, my point is that it isn't geared towards the mass desktop market like Windows or OSX by design.
No doubt it can work well, but it's not Solaris purpose. And market, for instance...
Ever seen a SPARC flavour in a normal user home? (:
I wish NexentaOS a good future, it can be an excellent developer workstation OS imho.
Member since:
2005-07-06
Member since:2005-11-05
"Just wondering why I have to register for trying OpenSolaris. It's exactly this registration crap which holds me back from trying OpenSolaris - be it Sun's or be int Nexentra's flavour."
You don't have to register for OpenSolaris, go to genunix.org and download it. I think you may have mistaken Sun's Solaris as being the authoritive OpenSolaris. Solaris (Nevada releases) is a distro of OpenSolaris. It is a mistake to think of OpenSolaris as a system in which you can download an iso and run OpenSolaris much like you can not download a vanilla Linux iso and expect a functioning OS. Maybe in the future things will change but as it stands now this is the case.
Member since:
2006-01-31
http://www.gnusolaris.org/gsmirror/improbable.org/elatte_installcd_...
http://www.gnusolaris.org/gsmirror/genunix.org/elatte_installcd_alp...
http://www.gnusolaris.org/gsmirror/tdcsong.se/elatte_installcd_alph...
http://www.gnusolaris.org/gsmirror/http.thisway.cz/elatte_installcd...
http://www.gnusolaris.org/gsmirror/http.iasi.roedu.net/elatte_insta...
Member since:
2005-08-13
i've looked at opensolaris.org. developer's documentation of opensolaris is great. you've got there tutorials for making drivers, architecture of system. that is what, i think, makes this project very interesting to developers. opensolaris would have new hardware support very quick.
Member since:
2006-01-15
Member since:
2006-01-04
Member since:
2005-07-06
Has anyone else installed this yet? I installed it last night on a spare hard-drive I had. The first thing I noticed was how long it took to install. It wasn't that big of a deal because I was watching a movie, but I've installed multi-CD distros in less time.
After it was installed, I noticed it took an extraordinarily long time to boot my machine. And once it was booted, I couldn't help but notice how slow everything was in general. Navigating menus, moving windows around the screen, starting programs, etc...
I'm wondering if it's some kind of hard-drive DMA issue?
Member since:2006-01-15
