OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/17965/BeleniX_0_6_Released Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:47:37 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com This looks extremely cool http://osnews.com/thread?242624 http://osnews.com/thread?242624 This looks extremely cool - the problem is that it requires a primary partition - bugger Wed, 23 May 2007 10:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flywheel) Comments Software http://osnews.com/thread?242630 http://osnews.com/thread?242630 Can I install the non-free software from Sun on it? It would be nice if I could use Sun Studio. It's one great professional IDE.

I know there's a Linux version available, but it only supports RHEL4 and SLES9. Wed, 23 May 2007 10:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rx182) Comments Sun Studio 11 http://osnews.com/thread?242640 http://osnews.com/thread?242640 There's absolutely no problem doing this on Nexenta (GNU/Solaris) so I highly doubt there will be a problem with BeliniX.

BeliniX is fully binary compatible with Solaris (since it IS Solaris) so the only problem I could foresee is the possible need for either Gnome or Sun's Java desktop System which is also Gnome, albeit a Sun branded Gnome version, since it comes with KDE and Xfce instead.

Basically, since Sun Studio runs on OpenSolaris it'll run on BeliniX, I'm sure! Wed, 23 May 2007 11:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (s_groening) Comments RE: This looks extremely cool http://osnews.com/thread?242661 http://osnews.com/thread?242661 And where's the problem? Wed, 23 May 2007 13:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (justin.68) Comments Pretty Nice... http://osnews.com/thread?242668 http://osnews.com/thread?242668 Still a bit rough around the edges, but still as close as you can get to Desktop Solaris... Wed, 23 May 2007 13:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (madcrow) Comments Impressive http://osnews.com/thread?242674 http://osnews.com/thread?242674 BeleniX is the most feature packed distro of OpenSolaris and has many good features. One of the most important part of a LiveCD is the boot time and BeleniX boots up real fast. Can't wait to download and try it out soon.

http://osgeek.blogspot.com Wed, 23 May 2007 13:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (osgeek) Comments RE: Impressive http://osnews.com/thread?242699 http://osnews.com/thread?242699
BeleniX is the most feature packed distro of OpenSolaris and has many good features. One of the most important part of a LiveCD is the boot time and BeleniX boots up real fast. Can't wait to download and try it out soon.


And better still, its 100% Solaris, it isn't like GNU Solaris which, quite frankly, uses butchered GNU userspace ontop of a Solaris kernel. IMHO, if one is going to do that, one might as well run Linux and be done with it. Wed, 23 May 2007 15:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[2]: This looks extremely cool http://osnews.com/thread?242712 http://osnews.com/thread?242712 I haven't got any primary partitions. Wed, 23 May 2007 16:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flywheel) Comments RE[3]: This looks extremely cool http://osnews.com/thread?242715 http://osnews.com/thread?242715 You can press p ;) Wed, 23 May 2007 17:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Dually) Comments RE: This looks extremely cool http://osnews.com/thread?242730 http://osnews.com/thread?242730 I think I'm going to try this. ON is outdated at 60 but I'll look into upgrading to latest.

Nexenta is in very pitiful shape; BeleniX is both a LiveCD and installable plus has new packages.

This might be the mini (1 CD) OpenSolaris distro I'm looking for. That would defiently be a plus over downloading 6 CDs or one large DVD and installing all that Solaris Express bloat. Wed, 23 May 2007 18:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Xaero_Vincent) Comments RE[2]: Impressive http://osnews.com/thread?242749 http://osnews.com/thread?242749 "it isn't like GNU Solaris which, quite frankly, uses butchered GNU userspace ontop of a Solaris kernel"

Well, according to BeleniX roadmap they are planning to try to have both: a fully OpenSolaris-based version of BeleniX but also another version of BeleniX that does run a GNU/OSS software stack (including most daemons) on top of the OpenSolaris Kernel, just like Nexenta (=GNU/Solaris) does:
http://www.genunix.org/distributions/belenix_site/?q=roadmap

As OpenSolaris and its "distributions" are still quite new, I suppose that developers still want to experiment a lot and try all sorts of alternatives.

I like the BeleniX choice of using pkgsrc as their software management framework. Although deb/apt-get chosen by Nexenta may be a good choice too, Pkgsrc (developed by NetBSD) might suit Solaris better as it is very OS/platform neutral and may be more advanced (both binary packages and building from source, good security framework etc.).

By the way, there's a good introduction to Pkgsrc in this short pdf
"Pkgsrc - A Framework for Portable Software Management":
http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/advocacy/sschumacher/a4-pkgsrc-en.pdf Edited 2007-05-23 19:48 Wed, 23 May 2007 19:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (irbis) Comments KDE http://osnews.com/thread?242782 http://osnews.com/thread?242782 What version of KDE? Same as in opensolaris? Wed, 23 May 2007 22:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (aliquis) Comments RE: KDE http://osnews.com/thread?242830 http://osnews.com/thread?242830 Yes the same. I believe it is 3.5.1.

Belenix is definitely the best OpenSolaris distro because it uses KDE ;) . I have used Solaris Developer Express and that looks very sleek too. Although I have Solaris installed I switch from my Linux box as there are no compelling reasons for doing it apart from learning a thing or two.

Maybe I should learn to use DTrace ;) Thu, 24 May 2007 02:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zaphod) Comments RE[2]: Impressive http://osnews.com/thread?242831 http://osnews.com/thread?242831 The good thing about Belenix is that it has a lot of GNU userland which is very good for someone transitioning from Linux to Solaris. I have used a stock Solaris system and it is very 'unfriendly' (sh with no tab completion totally sucks) Thu, 24 May 2007 02:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zaphod) Comments RE[3]: Impressive http://osnews.com/thread?242841 http://osnews.com/thread?242841 But at the same time it is unwise to simply replace something with a GNU equivilant simply because applications written against the GNU library is fundamentally broken; case in point being libc - why replace libc with GNU libc when the more prudent step would be to encourage developers to use proper calls rather than hack extensions to the standard.

Bring in parts which aren't available, extend existing components to include features, but don't simply replace something to make it compatible with a poorly written application - because ultimately it ends up being a slippery slope - where does it end? Thu, 24 May 2007 04:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[2]: Impressive http://osnews.com/thread?242920 http://osnews.com/thread?242920 Yes it is 100% Solaris which is 100% Unix. And my previous comment got modded down for some unknown reason.

http://osgeek.blogspot.com Thu, 24 May 2007 15:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (osgeek) Comments Downloading it now. http://osnews.com/thread?242922 http://osnews.com/thread?242922 I can't see me switching to it from Debian or FreeBSD, but it'll be good to learn the Solaris way, I hope Thu, 24 May 2007 16:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BluenoseJake) Comments RE[2]: KDE http://osnews.com/thread?242936 http://osnews.com/thread?242936 Belenix has KDE 3.5.1 as does Nexenta but Belenix's actually works whereas Nexenta's craps out with a Konqueror errors all over.

I think it's possible to get KDE 3.5.6 on Solaris and it's distros too:

http://public.enst.fr/pkgsrc/packages/SunOS-5.10/i386/pkgsrc-essent...

That said, this version of BeleniX comes with build 60 and cannot see my hard drive; I think build 61 is the first to recognize my ICH7 SATA controller. I dont think their is a way to do a BFU from a ramdisk because a reboot is required.

So I'll just have to wait for the next update and hope it comes with the latest ON build.Edited 2007-05-24 17:12 Thu, 24 May 2007 17:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Xaero_Vincent) Comments RE[3]: KDE http://osnews.com/thread?243023 http://osnews.com/thread?243023
That said, this version of BeleniX comes with build 60 and cannot see my hard drive; I think build 61 is the first to recognize my ICH7 SATA controller. I dont think their is a way to do a BFU from a ramdisk because a reboot is required.

So I'll just have to wait for the next update and hope it comes with the latest ON build.


Thats strange, I'm running a ICH7 SATA controller in this laptop, and I can run Solaris from build 55 and up; I think it would be best to make sure that you have AHCI enabled as most motherboards default to EHCI (RAID enabled). Fri, 25 May 2007 03:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments