OpenSolaris 2008.5, the new distribution based on the OpenSolaris operating system, has been released into the wild. This release follows the conventions set by many of the popular Linux distributions, such as being based on a single live CD with installer, but also adds a load of OpenSolaris-specific features such as ZFS, DTrace, Containers, and a new package management system, IPS. OpenSolaris 2008.5 is the fruit of Project Indiana.When Sun started the process of open sourcing Solaris 10 about three years ago, it sufficed to have a website dedicated to programmers. OpenSolaris.org was the place where OpenSolaris was being built, and for a while, according to Dan Roberts, director of product management for Solaris and OpenSolaris at Sun, this worked out just fine. However, later on, people expected something else on OpenSolaris.org: a distribution. “They were looking for something that they could understand, that they could deploy, that they could use.”
He continues to explain that Solaris 10 was mostly a monolithic package, a very complete operating system filled with stuff that a lot of people simply don’t need. More or less he said that Solaris 10 was a bit overkill if you just wanted to deploy a php application on Apache. The new package manager is part of trying to solve this problem, to make Solaris 10 less monolithic. The IPS system also uses ZFS; if your package upgrade goes tits up, you will be able to roll back to a stable system using ZFS snapshots – you can make a ZFS snapshot right before you start the update process.
Jim McHugh, vice president of Solaris marketing at Sun, explains a little further:
Solaris has a very strong following and a very strong user base. Now we’re taking all the benefits Solaris has had and making it more familiar and accessible to what people who have used other open-source operating systems know. It is really giving access to the big features that someone might have associated in the past with just being Unix features.
And they’re going to update the default shell to understand the backspace key. Just so you know.
You can download the new release from the OpenSolaris.com website.
Looks like I was one of first downloaders when I got it earlier this evening! Cool!
Doing a whole system update via web is pretty nice. pkg image-update creates a clone of your current ZFS root and updates that. Whether the update fails or you actually want to continue working as if nothing’s happening, both is no problem. Reboot and the updated ZFS root is active.
This is called boot environments and can also be managed manually using beadm. Personally, I’ve set up the system as I expect it to be after a reinstall and customization, then cloned a BE from it. If something fubars, I can either boot that or better, create another clone from it and preserve the original.
From the management standpoint, it’s pure joy.
Thank god. Having the backspace key spew out useless junk instead of deleting characters is a personal irritant.
[I don’t have any say in the process of shell selection, and I don’t use Solaris enough to make arrangements to get around it.]
It doesn’t take too much time to type stty erase <back space> into your shell’s .rc file.
Seriously people that have never used Unix suddenly think they are experts because they used linux. The basics is what Unix and Unix like Oses are all about.
Edited 2008-05-05 18:25 UTC
Please ask yourself what constructive reason there was to say such a thing. It is perfectly reasonable to expect not to have to edit your profile to make the backspace key work in the year 2008. Instead of placing the blame on the user, fix the problem. I have been a Unix admin for 20 years (next month) and have watched the damage done by arrogant, RTFM, blame the user attitudes for that entire time. As such attitudes, and associated attitudes which spring from them, held Unix back from its rightful place on the desktop as another OS achieved greater and greater market success in that area. IMO, we can no longer afford to harbor such attitudes.
I’m glad to hear that OpenSolaris will be setting ‘erase’ properly by default, or whatever fix they are planning.
Trifles make perfection but perfection is no trifle.
Edited 2008-05-05 19:05 UTC
Depending on who you ask, the function <backspace>, or the act of of deleting a single character to the left (previous), should be mapped the the rubout key, or <delete>.
If default Bourne shell was not mapped with “stty erase”, which is an easy fix, its probably good cause behind this. There were many terminals in use so the path to least resistance was followed by allowing the user to set their own environment.
Have to agree really. When you look at OpenSolaris, and its inability to do Virtual Terminals as well, you really have to ask what you’re getting. All they’re doing is stuff that Linux distros fixed……years ago.
It makes Linux look as ready for the desktop as it ever was, and it’s actually a decent reminder just how much has improved.
Edited 2008-05-05 20:55 UTC
Err let’s see ZFS snapshotting before system updates seem like something no Linux distro supports.
Yet Linux has a minuscule desktop market share of 2.02%. MacOS X doesn’t do Virtual Consoles either but has more market share, 7.3 %. MacOS X has been around since 2001. Linux since 1992. MacOS X
Bottom line virtual consoles don’t sell anything.
Do you really have to pick at straws on every Sun related topic? It would make sense if you ever had a reasonable argument to make.
We’ve been through ZFS before. Some of its features are a bit neater than existing solutions, but alas, a lot of Solaris folks think it’s the second coming of Christ. It isn’t, and they get mighty upset at anyone who thinks that it isn’t.
As I’ve pointed out before, snapshotting isn’t as free as the ZFS folks want to make it look because you still need to account for differences between the original and the snapshot. If you don’t have the space to safely account for a snapshot, and changes between it and the original, you will have trouble. On a desktop, that is nearly always the case.
You’re going to need a lot more than that to attract users, because people would rather updates just, you know, worked. It’s a transparent thing.
Blah, blah, blah, Mac OS X crops up. Shock, horror. Linux is used on more desktops than Solaris is, and the bottom line is, if you want to sell Solaris to those people (which is why OpenSolaris exists) then you’re going to have to fix various things that Linux distros did years ago.
If you believe that educating users that a backspace doesn’t delete text is acceptable then you need a padded cell. Seriously.
You’re very, very anxious about specifics, and people who do that don’t want to face the bigger picture.
Bottom line is that if you are selling OpenSolaris to some people already using Linux, and expect them to contribute to OpenSolaris (which is what Sun is hoping), then giving people less functionality than what they have now with much the same software isn’t really going to work.
I am somewhat suspicious of a company who runs around telling everyone that OpenSolaris is an open source project and is just like Linux, when it just isn’t:
http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/ogb-discuss/2008-February/004…
It just smacks of marketing. It’s OK. I don’t expect you to read it.
Yes we have and your ill conceived ranting about ZFS doesn’t add much.
It is clear you have no idea how this stuff works.
When a snapshot is created it takes no more space. When data is written to the same blocks as the one in the snapshot, ZFS copies the block to a new block and completes the write.
You can create a hundred snapshots and the file system space used will be negligible unless you write to the files.
So because of a corner case, which is actually a non sequitur, the feature isn’t worth having.
That just doesn’t make any sense. What were you trying to say.
MacOS X is very relevant here as I have already pointed out. Apple laptops are selling like gang busters but don’t have a backspace key. Doh!
No you do because according to you it is a death knell but Apple has proven your wrong. So you are the delusional one here.
BTW: http://opensolaris.org/os/project/vconsole/
You should at least know something before you pretend to be an expert.
You brought up Virtual Consoles as requirement that would sink OpenSolaris. Why are you backpedaling when your point has been properly decimated.
Solaris has the same functionality when it comes to backspace. It ships with bash which is what linux uses.
In fact it offers a lot more.
Linux kernel developers have quit publicly too. Your point?
Edited 2008-05-06 00:23 UTC
The delete key on Apple laptops is functionally equivalent to the backspace key; it deletes to the left.
I own a Powerbook, so yes, I would know.
Right back at ya champ.
It’s not an inability, it’s a lack of pre-configuration, just like with the backspace key. With that being said, give the guys time to iron out the bugs and add new features. They’re already doing loads of work on the system, you can’t expect it all in the first release. There has been a lot of work and effort put into getting this first release out.
The plain and simple reason of teaching users the fundamentals of using a system. Majority of the problems faced by computer systems users today would be solved with a little education.
You don’t just give a kid,learning to ride for the the first time, a bike and tell him/her to go around a block for a spin, do you? You don’t just hop on your bike and compete in the tour de france without training. How about when some one decides they want to drive? Similarly even if you know how to drive you just can’t expect a person to drive around a race track.
If a person decides to use the shell on a Unix/linux systems they should at least know the basics of how to set shell properties.
Why? Why is it any more unreasonable than rm not moving a file to the trash can/recycle bin? The desktop environment has that as the mechanism for deleting a file why shouldn’t the shell in 2008?
You are assuming it is a problem and not just a user preference.
Unix had a lot more problems than user attitudes that prevented it from making it on the desktop. Linux has had a shell that does erase on backspace for almost a decade, how much desktop market share has it gained?
If a system doesn’t use the backspace to delete text then it is dead in the water. End of story. If you have to teach a user that that kind of ‘fundamental’ isn’t what they think it is then you’re in trouble.
Hey Solaris. Welcome to all the stuff Linux distros have learned over the past ten years (and how far they still have to go) ;-). It’s an interesting ride.
Oh dear.
More than Solaris, let’s put it that way.
Please leave your ignorance about Solaris and Sun technologies out and lay down the crack pipe.
Solaris has shipped with tcsh and bash for years now. The default shell has always been the bourne shell. Linux uses bash as the default. The bash that ships with Solaris works the same as the one on linux.
If you are using the command line your should know how to switch your default shell.
The system is not the problem here.
Linux users switch their desktops out and replace it with a million non standard ones like enlightenment etc. Compile the kernel or packages with ./configure and make install. Deal with dependency hell.
Nitpicking about the backspace in the default shell is dubious at best.
New users to linux have to deal with silly stuff just to watch videos on YouTube.
Solaris has just started to compete in the space. When Linux takes over MacOS X’s or windows’ market share come see me.
That’s the problem with Unix and Linux users nitpicking about useless, easy to fix things when the real problems are much larger.
Correction. Some Linux users do all that. Others just start the programs they need and get work done, and wouldn’t know where to begin to install the latest enlightenment or how (or why) to recompile their kernel.
Assuming a good working knowledge of Unix fundamentals as a prerequisite to use an OS is a good way to limit your potential audience (although I know a fair few people who would argue that that’s a good thing).
True. Would it be ok for someone trying to install a driver on linux to say “Oh come on I need to compile this thing in 2008! Why can’t I just double click on the installer?”.
All unix releases HP UX, AIX and Solaris have bourne shell as the default and all of them require your to stty erase. There is a reason for that.
There are paying customers that have billions invested that have backward computability requirements.
OpenSolaris.org is targeted at the desktop users. They are rightfully changing the default shell to bash. I find it disingenuous for someone to claim that every OS in 2008 should have backspace behavior as erase.
OpenSolaris exists as an ‘open source’ project to attract existing Linux users, and Linux contributors. If the backspace doesn’t actually delete anything and they have less features than they do now the those users and contributors simply won’t got for it.
As has been pointed out to you by others, blaming users for illogical and stupid settings is simply not going to work. Take it or leave it.
OpenSolaris exists to attract existing open source Linux users and contributors.
As lots of Linux distros have found out, the large problems are a whole series of small ones ;-).
Solaris: Reinventing the wheel. Again.
Linux user who can do this might do it … and so they have choice. Linux users who are unable to do this don’t do it, and so for them too it is not an issue in any way.
Also not an issue. Never once have I had to do any of this in years of Linux use.
Not any more. Just install the latest gnash … works pretty well on Ubuntu Hardy Heron, and it is GNU software, available via the standard repositories.
The EEEPC and its various competitors will see over 10 million new pre-installed desktop Linux systems being sold this year, in an entirely new category of machine that Intel have called “netbooks” and Microsoft have dubbed “ULCPCs”.
This is Linux just starting to compete in the space as well. This is the very first time that Linux and Windows have been for sale to the general public (i.e. pre-installed) on the same machine, and so comparable side-by-side by avearge users in a standard computer store. The Windows variant is the same price but has 8GB less memory and it has no software other than the bare OS. By the time you have added proprietary Windows applications and ant-virus etc for the Windows machine, you have doubled the price, you still have 40% less storage, and you have made your machine run much slower. Lets take a look at market share after this message has begun to get through to people.
The real problems with Solaris you mean? I’d say that the main real problems are likely to be: (1) significantly less hardware drivers supported, and (2) much smaller number of applications available to install via repositories, and (3) far less help to be had via user communities.
With five pages of whining about a damn backspace key and users attacking each others massive egos tit for tat I’d say that there isn’t a lot to entice new users to the *NIX community anyway, at least not if you go by what you read on OSnews.
Back on topic, I think OpenSolaris has offered a great new foray into the alternative desktop market with this new OS, however small that may be. With easy to install live-CD, killer features like ZFS and snapshots, OpenSolaris has every bit as much to offer as other OSs. Maybe its package repository isn’t as brimming as Debian’s or Gentoo’s and maybe it doesn’t have the latest driver for every esoteric piece of hardware available…yet but for a first attempt its not bad. What I see is a powerful, professional desktop or server OS that’s ready for use today. This will be an interesting OS to watch and as the number of Linux distributions keep expanding (and diverging) and Microsoft keepsj up its unrelenting FUD assault, BSD and other Unix workalikes like OpenSolaris may become more attractive alternatives in the long run.
How would a new linux user know what gnash is and why that is needed to play Adobe flash?
I haven’t used linux in a few years and I certainly don’t know that.
Every year is apparently the year linux takes over the desktop and has been for the past 5 years. But so far nothing has happened. Yet every year linux proponents announce it religiously. The problem is linux users have blinders on and their everything OSS/GPL attitude is what is hampering that progress.
Ubuntu is making great progress is no where near as good as MacOS X or windows in terms of user experience.
I think more people will still pick the windows variants because in most asian countries people don’t buy software they just get it if you know what I mean. That’s where the growth is in the future and I doubt
linux is going to dominate. Linux does well on appliances or devices like routers or phones where the UI is different enough from desktops to not matter.
When my non-tech friends tell me they just bought this laptop running linux and how cool it is and how cheap it was I’ll accept that linux has some game to bring to town. That day hasn’t come yet.
Make no mistake my opinions for OpenSolaris are the same. The computing paradigm will change before anything non microsoft or Apple becomes dominant on the desktop. By the time they do desktops will not be the primary mode of computing in a home.
Pretty much any App written for Linux can be compiled for Solaris. I don’t think Apps are a problem.
Hardware support is not a problem because unlike linux, OpenSolaris doesn’t have a school boy infatuation with GPL non binary drivers. Once OpenSolaris has gotten enough mindshare expect binary drivers to show up.
Edited 2008-05-06 16:02 UTC
If you try to open a page with flash on it, Firefox on Hardy Heron will tell you about missing plugins, and offer you a button to install required software.
Click that button and it offers you three choices: Adobe, Gnash and Swfdec.
The Adobe one will work with YouTube for Video, but you cannot get sound because of a conflict with PulseAudio. Swfdec doesn’t work with YouTube AFAIK. Gnash is the only option that actually works.
You can install Gnash from Firefox (by selecting it as one of the three options offered) without even having to know about package managers.
Anyone curious to know about what they are offered, then when one types “gnash” in the google search bar in firefox, the very first hit leads you to this page:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/
… which says this:
“Streaming Video
Gnash supports the viewing of streaming video from popular video sharing sites like Lulu.tv or YouTube.com.”
Of course it hasn’t come yet. Linux is only just now appearing for the very first time alongside Windows on the same machine in computer stores as an option for consumers to buy off the shelves. This is a sterling compliment to the level of lock-in that Microsoft has been able to coerce on to the OEM market.
Not yet for Solaris. With this announcement, Solaris has only just got to the position that Linux was in about five years ago … if motivated to do so you can download it, try it out on your hardware with a LiveCD, and perhaps install it … you have to do all the work for yourself, however.
Meh.
There are approximately 1.5 million open-source developers. I’d estimate that: Linux has about 90% mindshare amongst that population; GPL has about 70% mindshare; Solaris is nowhere … an immeasurable amount … amongst that population.
Don’t hold your breath.
Edited 2008-05-07 00:46 UTC
Wasn’t that my point in the first place? Why would any new user deal with all that for some thing that just plain works on MacOS X, Windows and even Solaris on SPARC?
Sure Joe 6pack is going to do all that just to watch YouTube!!!!
Some magic fairy helps you with Linux?
You are conflating the linux kernel with Open Source. How many linux kernel developers are there? Last I checked not more than a few thousand.
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6925891609.html
“Every Linux kernel is being developed by nearly 1,000 developers, working for more than 100 corporations.”
OpenSolaris uses a lot of the same stuff for the UI that Linux distros use. So the developers there are the same. Like I said before most of the software developed for linux can easily be compiled for Solaris.
Please don’t be unduly negative. Linux’s driver inventory didn’t spring up in a day either. In general, vendors are becoming more OSS aware. And although the licenses will not allow actual migration of code between the OpenSolaris and Linux kernels, using Linux drivers as a source of information about how to write a Solaris driver is perfectly OK, and of great benefit, I should think. OpenSolaris may gain drivers faster than you expect.
And besides, I don’t see why we Linux folks should not be happy about OpenSolaris’ progress.
Edit: BTW, could someone point me at the current OpenSolaris hardware compatibility list?
Edited 2008-05-07 01:09 UTC
https://cds.sun.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/CDS-CDS_Developer-…
Thanks. As I mentioned last night, my Marvell Gigabit chipset had no driver. I just found a Linksys 10/100 card laying around (tulip compatible) and it works fine. In fact, I am currently posting from OpenSolaris. 🙂
Did you install it and use the new packaging system?
Not yet. I still don´t have a SATA drive in this box. Now that I have the live cd working and talking on the network, I´ll probably do an install today. This is definitely the best *Solaris experience I have had to date, and I look forward to exploring further.
The new installer gui looks a lot like Synaptics with some elements from Ubuntu´s Add/Remove software app. It is written in Python. It does a ¨search as you type¨ when you use the search box and that is pretty slow in this release. It seems to be processor intensive, as the CD and network show no activity, but the processor is pegged. I suppose that is to be expected, this being the first release. Premature optimization is the root of much evil.
I´ll post more observations later. Thanks for the help.
I too think that more choice is better than less … however I’m just pointing out the realities as I see them.
People are often very negative about Linux and point out that it has not gained market share.
I am pointing out here the this release of OpenSolaris is in a position that Linux has been facing for the last five years or more.
Linux hasn’t gained much adoption (in terms of market share) from the position that OpenSolaris is now in.
To gain market share, an option has to be available to the market. Linux hasn’t been in that position until possibly just recently, when some small number of options to buy a Linux system or a Windows system are being offered side-by-side in the same general-public computer store for the first time. Until it comes pre-installed on a mass-market consumer computer product, it will not get appreciable market share. OpenSolaris is a long way away from that position. Linux is a lot closer right now.
As for “mindshare” amongst programmers … openSolaris belongs to Sun, and because of its license it will continue to belong to Sun. The BSDs (which currently have far larger mindshare than openSolaris, but not nearly as much as Linux) are virtually public domain … given away and liable to be usurped by proprietary interests at any time. GPL software is the only option for a programmer to share his/her efforts yet expect improvements from the wider community to be given back to improve on those original efforts. Sun’s CCDL license means that the programmer is working for Sun for free.
IMO OpenSolaris is going to really struggle to get even as much mindshare as the BSDs have now.
Sorry to be negative, but that is how it looks to me right now. OpenSolaris is not offering anything much in any area that Linux distributions don’t already have far better appeal to a far wider audience.
Edited 2008-05-07 03:29 UTC
You completely missed the point. You said what you said to try and make yourself look cool/smart/whatever and make the other guy look dumb. I am pretty much new to GNU+Linux and Unix, so I can’t say I’ve been able to personally witness this over the last 20 years, but let’s just say it’s hardly inconceivable that people like yourself have probably forced quite a few people away (from *nix) over the years (potential developers and users). It has nothing to do with having backspace delete characters to the left in the default terminal…
I believe in recommending the right tool for the job. If someone is better suited to Windows or a Mac, i’d recommend that. If linux fits someone’s needs that would be fine to.
I agree that the backspace key has nothing to do with driving people way from a platform nor is the opinion of a group of people. People are driven away from stuff that doesn’t meet their needs.
As I explained IBM, Apple and the personal computing industry decided to use a different OS for personal computer industry other than Unix. Why they chose to so has nothing to do with attitudes of Unix users or backspace keys.
Well said and I’m almost in total agreement, except on letting another OS take over the desktop 😉
I personally find that a major issue with Unix, especially in the workstation market, was that none of them interacted very well with one another as well as the fact that they cost so much and mostly needed proprietary hardware. Sure, the BSD’s where around but due to the AT&T court case, nobody wanted to touch em with a barge poll.
I must say that the amount of times I have heard users complain about the arrogant behavior of Unix admins is quite shocking.
Knowledge of Unix systems, especially shell scripting, is often worn like some kind of badge of honor and anyone not privy to the secret handshake must be some kind of dim wit. Failure to hide such dimwitedness, especially if the dimwit in question has the incredible stupidity to express a dislike, or even just ask a pertinent question, must be met with ridicule and denunciations as otherwise, how else will the admin be able to show off his incredible esoteric knowledge of Unix?
The arrogance is truly pathetic, not to mention unfounded, but unfortunately, I come across it far too often. It seems like you do too Steve.
That’s why Unix utterly and completely failed at its chance on the desktop around Windows 3.0 and OS/2. A bunch of people got together into a club, created a set ‘standards’ and assumed that because they had created a set of said ‘standards’ that it didn’t matter what anyone else did, or how people expected their systems to work.
That attitude still remains today. Honestly, I ask you. ‘Educating’ users that the backspace button won’t delete text?
Windows, DOS and Mac OS were designed for personal computers and didn’t even support proper virtual memory subsystems till the year 2000. Case in point Windows XP and MacOS X. Unsurprisingly one of them uses Unix as the base.
The problem was not Unix or its philosophy but the Industry in general making a choice about the kind of OS a personal computer needed.
Ok I’ll have to come down one level to get this point across.
There is a reason certain German AutoBahns have no speed limits and they still have lesser accidents than the US. The simple reason is the drivers are better trained and the process of getting a license in much harder.
You have to know how something works. Claiming ignorance is not a design defect. Like opening/running on a file you got from someone that might contain a virus or trojan.
When the backspace key does not do it’s intended function, no amount of claiming user ignorance can hide the fact that it’s a design flaw, in this case left over from long ago. Dressing it up in car language, a metaphor depressingly often used in these forums and not even close to providing a valid picture of computers, does not change that fact.
People need licenses to drive cars because a car, even in licensed and trained hands, can quickly become a deadly weapon. I have never seen someone kill another person by typing on a keyboard.
Expecting people to get some kind of technical training in order to do something as basic as delete a character in a terminal with the backspace key is absurd, no matter how you attempt to couch it.
No wonder Sun lost out on a vast amount of workstation sales if they are so out of touch they can even see that as being a problem.
WTF? Backspace has behaved the same on certain shells for ever. How is it not working as intended?
It is called an Analogy. Look up the definition of a metaphor.
What about bicycles? Did you conveniently ignore that analogy?
Oh! It depends on what the system is running.
In your opinion, may be. Not knowing the default behavior of a system you are using is no less heinous.
I don’t think that was the reason for that. How much desktop market share has AIX gained? What about Linux?
This is my post in this thread. Your inability to keep your temper is truly telling.
The backspace button is used to delete things. End of. If a shell doesn’t do that then existing Linux, BSD and other Unix users and contributors (and those using other platforms) are not going to go for it. End of.
The fact that you are willing to perform some serious mental gymnastics over this to convince yourself that this is OK is truly, truly, truly sad. I didn’t realise you were quite that bad.
Utter BS. I have already answered this and provided ample data to the contrary.
I can say the same for you. I realizes that you were worse a few years ago.
Why would the dimwit be using the command line in the first place?
The pertinent question would be “How does one set the backspace to delete on the Bourne shell or default shell?”.
Not “Oh come on don’t tell me backspace doesn’t work on this thing in 2008”.
I find the later to not only be ignorant but extremely ignorant. As if someone is entitled to some thing.
I am ok with such reactions from end users who have never used a similar system. But coming from linux users just rubs me the wrong way. That’s my point.
Because perhaps the ‘dimwit’ wants to copy some files, convert his latex document to pdf or start a program and finds the command line a easy way to do so.
I think expecting the backspace key to work the way it works everywhere else is something that comes pretty close to entitlement.
I know plenty of Linux users who’ll be happy to admit that they are a) perfectly happy with Linux and b) know very little about Unix or Linux internals. Linux has moved beyond being purely a plaything for hardcore computer nerds. A lot of ‘normal’ people use it these days as well.
Assuming the dimwit spent time learning cp and how to set the PATH variable or even use & to send a job to the background. Why is it a stretch for that person to know stty?
Define everywhere else? All major Unix systems (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris) have always had the same behavior for backspace.
Oh you meant linux! Now you know why I said what I said.
It still hasn’t come nearly far enough to replace Windows or MacOS X. There is still a learning curve.
The bottom line is users need to be aware of that. Moving from linux to Unix and expecting backspace to work the same is not different from a Windows user trying to install a package by double clicking an Icon.
Because they are two totally different levels of knowledge.
Teaching someone to put an & after they type the name of the program they want to run is trivial. teaching them to use cp not much harder and they’ll be doing both of these things often enough so that they’ll learn quickly. Setting PATH is rarely necessary for most normal users. Knowing stty on the other hand is pretty damn obscure for a normal user to have to know.
Just about every single application where you type text on just about any OS the person is likely to have come across.
Or DOS, Windows, Mac OS or OS X, or most non-command line application that run on AIX, HP-UX or Solaris.
I disagree.
I think teaching some one background and foregorund jobs which is far more complex task then showing them that stty is meant to set terminal options. It is not different than teaching users how to edit firefox preferences.
Apple laptops don’t even have the backward deleted/backspace key. fn+delete does the equivalent of backspace. Even the Pro models. Which means no application, forget the terminal, can use backspace.
I am just using this as an example of how silly this thread is. Obviously Apple laptop sales have been growing every quarter. Remapping keys is far more complex for the average Mac user than it is for a user using the command line to learn stty.
Here you have people claiming the death of an OS because of the default behavior of the backspace key. What’s more apparently the whole reason Unix didn’t succeed on the desktop becuase of some attitude against changing default behavior. The fact that Apple’s laptops are selling like hotcakes to first time user is more telling than the opinions presented here.
Reality doesn’t match the conjecture apparently.
Edited 2008-05-05 23:19 UTC
My point exactly, thanks you.
Come again? When you offer a system for users to try out in the hope of attracting developers, not to mention attempting to break into a market dominated by another company, it’s often in your best interest to set things up in a way that those developers are used to and expect things to behave, hence the fact that this situation is being corrected for in the first place. That has nothing to do with someone ‘ignorant’ users expecting something and everything to do with good marketing, i.e. listening to what your users want.
So your pissed off because a Linux user said so? How about this former Solaris and current AIX admin saying so? It’s been a long time since sh on AIX behaved in such a ridicules manner so frankly, I’m siding with the Linux dudes.
And Sun hasn’t? Did you even read this thread?
Same opinion. How long in AIX? Which release? What is the default shell?
Edited 2008-05-05 22:39 UTC
Again, my point exactly.
Did you even read my post properly?
Since version 5L 5.1, released in 2001, at least that’s what my boss tells me and he’s been at it for a while. The current default shell is ksh. Remember, Google is your friend.
Did you read the article?
Yes.
Yes it is. Google “AIX backspace” and there are posts all over on various forums about how to set the backspace to erase in 2006. I didn’t look that hard to see if there are any more recent ones.
I believe that you will find, as time goes on, that such arrogance and lack of diplomacy will serve your cause more and more poorly. I started out, in 1988, as a Unix advocate. And I am still a Unix advocate, although I mostly wear my Linux hat today. I was drawn to Linux because it was the first of the POSIX OSes, in my opinion, to get a clue that if you want mindshare you can’t just focus on one group of people. You’ve got to reach out to widely disparate groups of people at various skill levels. You’ve got to learn the value of diplomacy. And you’ve got to know when to listen to users and fix the brain dead problems, like this backspace key issue, rather than blame the user and continue to ignore the problem. And it doesn’t matter if the problem is large or small. In this case, fortunately, it’s small. It should have been fixed before, but late is infinitely better than never.
You see, although I’m currently in the Linux camp, it’s only because I feel that Linux has been great for Unix. I am still, first and foremost, a Unix advocate. In fact, as deeply as I care for OSS, I would have to place my faith in Unix at an even more fundamental level. I want to see OpenSolaris and the *BSDs succeed. And that is why I took the time to criticize your undiplomatic response to the OP. Not because I don’t like you, or I don’t like *Solaris, but because I have seen the costs of that kind of attitude, and how Linux users have, to an imperfect extent, risen above them, and benefited as a result. I would like to see OpenSolaris benefit as well.
It is possible and beneficial to encourage users to pursue further self-education using friendly and diplomatic techniques that encourage continued participation and do not make enemies of people or groups of people.
The Linux community is fertile ground for attracting new users to OpenSolaris. Many have started with Linux due to the substantial mindshare it enjoys. For some of them, OpenSolaris could actually be more their “cup of tea”. But you are certainly not going to encourage them to sample OpenSolaris by gratuitously insulting them.
Edited 2008-05-05 22:33 UTC
That’s good to know. But making a mountain out of a mole hill has only lead to the discussions here to ignore the more important announcements in the article.
I disagree. Linux users are not above this attitude, neither are the developers.
Sun has fixed a lot of what users have given as feedback, including the backspace problem. My attitude has nothing to do with Sun’s direction for OpenSolaris.org. They are completely orthogonal don’t you think. The article clearly mentions Sun is changing the default shell.
How did your disagreement with my opinion suddenly become an issue with the official attitude of OpenSolaris.org and Sun?
I provided a solution first.
I agree and once again you are talking to me as if I am the person solely responsible for OpenSolaris.org’s direction and that it is some how the official stance.
I have no problem with your disagreeing with my opinion or they way I expressed it. Criticism taken. But projecting a mere opinion into a systemic problem was not necessary.
Edited 2008-05-05 22:57 UTC
” The arrogance is truly pathetic, not to mention unfounded, but unfortunately, I come across it far too often. It seems like you do too Steve.”
That is exactly the reason I do not use Linux in any serious way these days. The arrogance on the forums was intolerable. So if what you say is true it would appear that UNIX does not have a lock in that department.
I am downloading Open Solaris as I type and intend to give it a try. I may not like it, but just because you like the delete on backspace does not mean that every OS has to do that. It would be a rather dull world if every OS was the same. Anyway, if you want to use an OS you have to learn the quirks, and they all have them.
Yeah, well, one can at least expect that a keyboard acts like it should act, that each key does what it was designed for, especially if it’s one of the basic operations you kinda really need when using a command line.
But you shouldn’t have to. Any organization with an ounce of attention to detail would already have done that for you.
If it would fail gracefully and not do anything that would be one thing, but it doesn’t. It spits out characters.
Thanks for the info. I’ll have to try that when I spin up a VM for Solaris. I do know that editing the .rc, or .cshrc, depending, file for the shell will load my preferences each time I login, but I haven’t run into this problem outside of Solaris. Consequently, it’s never been a priority for me to find a fix. Yes, I can read documentation and use a search engine.
Also, I couldn’t implement the fix if I wanted to. I don’t admin boxes, the standard for root is default, and there are 500+ boxes where I work. I don’t want to change the shell when I’m work on recovering a crashed box. I’m not sure what will break, and I don’t want to introduce variables.
There are perfectly good reasons I haven’t found a solution to the problem, and none of them are related to me not knowing to the .rc file or my Linux usage.
I’ve never claimed to be a Unix expert, anywhere. I’m just happy Solaris will have an updated root shell, and I won’t have to deal with that silliness if I decide to run it as my main OS.
I’ve used Unix, and Linux, Fedora, is the first Unix or Unix-like OS with the features to enable me to stick with it for a long period of time. I have to be able to get done what I need to get done. Which is the nice thing about Linux, it’s Unix-like without making too many comfort sacrifices.
I use Linux to learn the fundamentals of Unix and Unix-like OSes. I threw threw myself into the deep end, so I couldn’t retreat to a familiar OS. (I still have many OSes around, OS X, FreeBSD, Vista, XP, but I use Linux as my primary) Granted all the learning isn’t one for one, but I learn the concepts.
That’s because the character is not mapped by the shell. It is not failing, per se. Just behaving differently.
You can exec bash at the prompt or tcsh or whatever shell you want.
That’s beside the point.
If you are root on a box or 500+ at my company and called basic stuff like stty, silliness. I would be very worried.
That’s fine and totally understandable. But just because something is not what you are used doesn’t mean it is broken. That was my point.
Ah I remember the good old days when I was in college and made the same statement (running linux as my main Os and having others around to play with). 🙂 That’s not a bad way to go about learning keep at it and all the best.
I must admit I was a little harsh and the discussion spun out of control.
I’m still learning!
I work as Datacenter Site Support. If I’m root in a box, I’m taking commands from an Unix Engineer over the phone. I don’t get free reign at all.
Thanks for pointing stty out. Now I know.
(Also, I was saying backspace not being mapped is silliness, not stty is silliness. Stty looks to be very useful. I wasn’t clear on that one.)
I understand it’s personal preference, and my knowledge was the thing that was broken. You educated about the solution, and the problem, my knowledge, has been fixed.
I my statements can be brash sometimes, so no problem. It was an interesting thread.
It’s certainly a different day and age today. 🙂 I’ve seen so much:
\E[23~
\[7m
\E[!p\E[?3;4l\E[4l\E>
in my time. Fixed so many broken terminfo and termcap definitions. Diagnosed so many flow control glitches and mismatched terminal settings on AT&T 4410s and 605s and Wyse50s and Wyse60s. Done so much blind typing into terinals whose screen contents were completely unrecognizable, that when I see a few strange characters, it takes my brain a moment to recognize that there is actually something wrong.
There are only really two important terminal types that I work with today, and those are “linux” and “xterm”. And those work so consistently well these days that I can fully understand the surprise that the non-graybeards must experience when a key isn’t mapped right. It’s a sign that some of the more stupid crap I used to have to deal with is now truly history. Or at least a rarity. Praise the Lord! (And I’m an atheist!)
The backspace thing was, indeed, an embarrassing issue for the year 2008. Especially since, if I understand correctly, it was not a matter of the erase character not being set, but of the shell not handling the defined erase character properly. But it *does* seem to be history. I’m not sure what the old config was, but when I bring up gnome-terminal in 2008.05 I get bash, and the backspace works just fine. I was expecting to be able to ctrl-alt-F1 to check out a text console, but that doesn’t seem to be the right key sequence. Unix is Unix is Unix[1]… except for all those little things we take for granted about our usual flavor. :0
[1] That would be “POSIX-like OS is POSIX-like OS is POSIX-like OS” for you anal retentives regarding Linux not being Unix. But even you have to admit it loses something in the translation. 😉
Edited 2008-05-06 22:29 UTC
This almost as silly as an American going to london and complaining that the steering wheel is on the “wrong side” and they drive on the “wrong side” of the road and vice versa.
ergo not understanding the hex code for backspace to mean erase. There is no properly here. If that particular shell revision always behaved that way by design then it isn’t a bug. The user expectation is, in effect PEBKAC.
Like I said mountian out of a mole hill.
Which other major Unix (AIX, HP-UX) has a key sequence that switches to a virtual console?
POSIX doesn’t define the things you are complaining about.:-)
Edited 2008-05-06 22:42 UTC
Actually, it’s more like going to London and complaining that their rental car does not have a steering wheel at all, and being told that it is in the trunk and just needs to be gotten out and placed on the splines at the end of the steering shaft. If the user were connecting to the machine via a Wyse60, it might be understandable. But there was really no excuse for not setting up backspace to work by default on the console and in the provided xterms.
It is difficult to believe that you actually believe that. Your position is so absurd that it’s hard to even know how to respond. Backspace should work on the Solaris console and provided xterm out of the box. If it’s not designed that way then that is an obvious design flaw, and not a valid reason for it not to work. Like I say, thinking otherwise seems quite bizarre.
Every single Unix I have ever used, going back to 1988. AT&T Unix 386, AT&T Unix for 3B2, Xenix, Altos Unix, SCO Unix, SCO OpenServer, Unixware, Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, BSDi. (For that matter, backspace always worked on the console on all of these, too.) Are you saying that OpenSolaris doesn’t have such a key sequence?! I was assuming I just needed to look it up or that the live CD didn’t have any gettys running.
(Actually, scratch 3B2, above. It had a serial console.)
Edited 2008-05-06 23:17 UTC
In your opinion. But Solaris hasn’t done that for a while. Niether my Solaris 10 nor my Solaris express installs behave that way.
I believe this argument began as a discussion on how to treat users.
Define a bug?
Apparently the backspace behavior has existed for quite a while on different systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backspace
“Pressing the backspace key on a computer terminal would generate the ASCII code 08, BS or Backspace, which would delete the preceding character. That control code could also be accessed by pressing Control-H, as H is the eighth letter of the Latin alphabet. Terminals which do not have the backspace code mapped to the function of moving the cursor backwards and deleting the preceding character would display the symbols ^H (caret, H — see Caret notation) when the backspace key was pressed. This sequence is still used humorously by computer literates to denote the deletion of a pretended blunder, much like overstriking.”
This is almost like the emacs vs vi debate.
As far as I know HP-UX, AIX, IRIX and Solaris have never supported virtual consoles that could be switched using a key sequence like linux. Looks like you haven’t used any of those versions.
There is a project to support virtual consoles in OpenSolaris. It’s on the website.
I think it is absolutely amazing that you go to such lengths to defend this deficiency. If Solaris got it fixed in 10 and in the current OpenSolaris release that’s great. About 20 years late. But still great.
The original problem, of course, was that way back at the dawn of history, Unix took on the ambitious task of supporting every terminal in existence. I was going to suggest that curious parties might take some time to browse the /etc/termcap file and /usr/share/terminfo subtree, but on the Ubuntu system I am using now, there are actually very few entries. Someone has done a boatload of housecleaning. Used to be, there were hundreds, or perhaps even thousands of definitions for terminals, the vast, vast majority of which I have never actually seen in the wild, like the Beehive Super Bee here:
http://tinyurl.com/52mzej
Unix abstracted all of these into sets of definable capabilities and supported them all. (Like I say, it was exceedingly ambitious, and such a very “Unix” thing to do that it always gives me the warm fuzzies to think about it.) Some of the more basic capabilities, like backspace and interrupt/break, the tty driver knew about and could process directly. But these had to be declared separately with “stty” as you have mentioned. There was probably a lot of variation in what all the terminals Unix supported sent for backspace, but in later years, meaning by the late 80’s, when I got involved, there were really only 2 sequences sent by the common terminals of the day for backspace. The most common was ^H. The other character used was del, or octal 177. The Linux console uses del because Linus apparently liked the DEC vt420. (It is a decision about which I believe Linus later had doubts. But hey, it’s done.) The wyse60 was an interesting case. The delete key and the backspace key *both* sent octal 177. (What fun I had with that! Users, demanding and thankless creatures that they are, tend to expect to be able to delete and backspace.)
I gather that Solaris uses ^H for backspace? So it is quite reasonable to expect to have to define the erase character when ssh’ing between Linux and Solaris. It’s unfortunate, but understandable. What I find not to be understandable is for backspace not to have worked in the default shell on the system console and xterms. But at any rate, it all seems fixed now, which is what matters.
OpenSolaris and Indiana, are all about taking a hairy-knuckled but exceedingly solid and performant server system and refining it into a dapper and cultured man about town. And that is not going to happen in a day. Solaris has strengths enough as a server that there is really no point in going to such lengths to defend every little usability skeleton that gets dragged out of the closet and sent off to the GoodWill. The result will still be a solid server system with a more refined usability than before, which is, IMO, what Solaris fans should be excited about.
Edited 2008-05-07 00:44 UTC
Agreed. I was being a little pigheaded in the heat of the debate and let it get out of control.
As I have said before, I am, and always will be, for anything that means a better and stronger Unix ecosystem. Sun’s OpenSolaris moves and Linux are both pushing in that direction.
Like a real unix box. 🙂
It’s the old Bourne shell that doesn’t support backspace. You’re still free to use any other shell, you can change it with usermod.
Indiana comes with ksh93 replacing sh and as default shell for root, and bash as shell for regular users. Both do support backspace.
I ordered the cd because I’m not in a hurry to install it but I am looking forward to trying it. Never used Solaris before but I’m guessing it has the same commands as linux and the bsd’s. Into a virtual image she will go.
I installed nexenta on a Thinkpad, and though I liked the packaging system (from debian), I felt uneasy since it was unlikely that it would become the default or option for general release solaris.
IPS seems to be able to use Sun’s or sunfreeware as package repositories. I hope this won’t mean it is as limited. For all my solaris installs, I’ve been using pkgsrc (http://pkgsrc.org) from the NetBSD team, which has a much wider range of updated packages.
http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/screenshots/index.p…
Thanks for the screeshots. I am confused, however, when I hear zfs being used, are they using ZFS for root/boot – whats the story with that? I’ve also avoided 2008.5 because it is based off b86 which includes a nasty Intel 4965 bug which results in crappy wireless performance.
ZFS root and boot and boot environments (clones).
Is there an improvement in performance when compared to UFS? I’ve only ever used it briefly, but would sooner allow others to experience problems (and iron out those issues) before moving to it.
I never had Indiana installed on an UFS filesystem, but based on moving /usr, /var and /opt to a ZFS pool I did back with SXCE, you should notice a rather nice improvement in boot times.
–edit: There are no UFS pools >_>
Edited 2008-05-06 11:04 UTC
Thanks for that; I’m going to wait till the final edition; the current one (as said before) includes a nasty 4965 bug which is fixed in b87 (2008.5 is based on b86). I just hope that as well as improving the package manager, they get the Network Magic working as well – currently it is very basic when it comes to networking.
They really need a way to configure the bootloader setup during the install. There’s no conceivable excuse in the world for having the installer nuke a pre-existing grub setup as the only behavior. None. Dunno if they thought streamlining it out would be a “good idea” or if someone got lazy on the technical side, but it’s not even remotely amusing
Edited 2008-05-05 20:18 UTC
Who is OpenSolaris for?
I’ve had a quick look at the website and am none the wiser. There is no pitch to a market. The site seems to assume that the people who want to know all about OpenSolaris are the people who already know all about OpenSolaris.
This does not bode well. I’ve always liked the sound of OpenSolaris but why would I, or anyone else, want to use it?
Come on Sun, there must be at least one reason.
http://www.opensolaris.com/learn/faq/index.html#23
🙂
You’re not the only one.
They want to attract Linux users, and especially contributors, who they expect to work for free on a project that they ultimately control to make the whole thing seem ‘open source’ so they can tell their customers that it’s all just like Linux and there’s no reason to panic (that’s what it’s mainly about):
http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/ogb-discuss/2008-February/004…
This is hilarious:
http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/ogb-discuss/2008-February/004…
They then proceed to have a go at Roy Fielding because he hasn’t been enough of a member of the Solaris ‘community’.
Basically, the whole thread is then one long argument between Sun employees and their own potential contributors(!) about the arrangement of the deckchairs on the Titanic and what Sun didn’t promise when they started OpenSolaris.
Project Indiana now is OpenSolaris, and that’s an internal Sun project with decisions made purely by Sun lead by Ian Murdoch where some source code might end up on the OpenSolaris site and servers and where you’ll get a downloadable ISO. Don’t get fooled, no matter how much they pretend otherwise.
Oh Looks OpenSolaris is just like linux then.
http://apcmag.com/why_i_quit_kernel_developer_con_kolivas.htm
Again your ineptitude in reading and comprehension fails you. The argument was about the OpenSolaris trademark for a distribution and nothing about code.
Well, you can’t even read what graphs are actually telling you when they actually have, you know, labels telling you exactly what they show and where what they show is actually described in the article:
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?312929
I suggest you read the entire thread as I did (which is a waste of time where you’re concerned, obviously). What Roy Fielding was talking about was an awful lot more than any trademark issues and promises (which Sun decided to go back on).
Go back to that thread and read my response to your post.
Go read that thread again. BTW I am done with your Anti-Sun bashing. Good riddance.
You absolutely, cannot read sweetheart, as you have ably demonstrated.
Those two graphs showed server unit growth, versus how much their x86 sales are growing as a proportion of that. What they did not show was total units sold as you still think that they do. From the actual FA itself:
That’s it. No, really. It is.
That tells me what, exactly apart from the fact that you can’t read what’s going on?
In that thread it becomes painfully obvious that Project Indiana now is OpenSolaris (it’s the only officially sanctioned OpenSolaris project that can use the name in any way), and if Sun starts accepting any real patches any time soon then they may or may not get into Project Indiana, and Sun may or may not share what it puts into Indiana back with everybody else. That’s not the collaborative development process that was painted by Sun, and it’s an expensive way to go about doing things.
Nexenta and others may see the some improvements in the way of code from Indiana, but then again they might not, but any improvements in Nexenta can go straight into Indiana ;-). OpenSolaris is just a code dumping repository that Sun aren’t using for their own development of Indiana and Solaris.
I don’t see the point in spending time, money and resources on a project where no real collaboration is taking place at all in the way you see with the Linux kernel itself, or in OpenSuse, Fedora or Ubuntu. The people involved there at least understand the need for two-way giving and collaboration over not just code. You just get the impression that you’re being hoodwinked, and that Sun is just using it to run around trying to tell everyone that Solaris is open source for the sake of it.
I have no problem with Sun personally, but for a company that should be doing far, far better than it is there are an awful lot of funny decisions being made for no logical reason at all.
Here is my response.
http://tweakers.net/reviews/649/last/database-test-sun-ultrasparc-t…
What does the ServerUnits (thousands) on the y axis mean?
From the charts it is obvious that Sun sold a total of 100,000 in q406 servers out of which close to 30,000 were x86.
The 14% growth number is growth from q405. If you look at the chart q405 has less than 100,000 units if the chart were bigger we could easily see that the difference in q405 and q406 in total server shipments would be 14%. Indicating a growth.
Same fort the x86 chart. Q406 close to 30,000 and q405 close to 21,000 or so. So 83% growth.
The statement Sun sold more servers is true because they sold 14% more server YoY. The sale of SPAC systems seems flat to slightly more. if in Q405 Sun sold 90,000 units and in q406 they sold 100,000. In Q405 they sold 21000 x86 boxes and q406 they sold 29,000. then they sold 2000 more Sparc boxes than before.
Sun sells an order of magnitude more SPARC boxes than x86. Your claim that x86 systems make up most of the sales for Sun is just plain wrong and the fact that your point to charts that disprove your own claim is just astounding.
Sun sells more than Niagara boxes. In 2006 Nigara based boxes were only 2 models. 2 Models selling 100 million worth with the year they were introduced is a good thing. Your assumption is that Sun’s only SPARC offering was niagara and that is how you erroneously concluded what you did.
If you do want to bash Sun at the very least familiarize your self with the products.
Did you even attend high school? Seriously. This is a simple exercise in comprehension.
Look who is talking.
Ergo the argument was about the trademark OpenSolaris. My point is proven again.
Care to post the quotes and link to the messages in that thread where one might draw that conclusion?
Again with the may and might, coulda woulda shoulda talk. Where is the evidence that this is happening?
That’s it exactly linux is a kernel. OpenSolaris is a distro. Let’s see you start an OpenRedhat and see how RedHat reacts or an OpenSUSE X and see how Novell reacts.
There is a reason CentOS can’t use the RedHat name even though it is just a rebranded RedHat distro. Or ubuntu doesn’t call its self ubuntu debian.
That’s all that discussion was about. Sun wants to have the only distribution named OpenSolaris because it owns the Solaris and OpenSolaris trademark. The kernel for Solaris is open source just like linux and anyone can create a distro just like with linux, for example Nexenta, Bellenix. Patches can be submitted to the various pieces that make he userland and the kernel. Since OpenSolaris uses mostly OSS stuff anyway, like Gnome etc, it is no different than submitting patches to any linux distro.
Let’s see you fork the linux kernel and call it Linux2 see how that works out in the linux world.
Seriously you grasp at straws and down right FUD. No one challenges you on OSnews. But I will.
Edited 2008-05-06 17:07 UTC
I’m waiting for my download to complete and figured I’d post something positive which might not turn into a nasty Linux vs Solaris brawl. (One can hope.) 😉
Distributing this as a live CD was a good move. It has been a while since I have tried installing anything Solaris since, in the past, the install has gotten stuck early in the installation process. Hardware support is no doubt better than it once was, but if it were several CD’s and then a regular install, I might not have decided to try it out. I suspect I am not alone. The live cd approach is definitely a good one for OpenSolaris.
But wait hasn’t ubuntu used this for a while. A modern OS in 2008 would be dead in the water if it didn’t use a live CD. 🙂 Just kidding.
Give us an impression of how it goes. I haven’t installed Solaris on an x86 machine since Solaris 7/8. I might just have to dust off my old pc to check it out. That’s the problem with only having PPC macs at home.
Alas, it didn’t get very far. Grub came up and looked quite nice. The little dots marched across the screen as it read in the kernel. I got a text screen with 3 lines ending in “Use is subject to license restrictions” or something like that, and then it froze. lspci output follows, in case someone spots an obvious problem. I do not have any sata or pata drives in this machine. (We had a multi-day power outage over the winter that convinced me of the advantages of a USB-based system.) Perhaps it’s expecting to see an ata or scsi drive? Or maybe it doesn’t like my nforce3 chipset? (Or maybe it’s just the Steve Bergman curse on home Solaris installation.) This was a sort of spur of the moment decision, so I didn’t check the hardware compatibility list before hand. (Hey, that’s what live cd’s are for!) 😉
—–
00:00.0 Host bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb Host Bridge (rev a1)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb LPC Bridge (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation nForce 250Gb PCI System Management (rev a1)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK8S USB Controller (rev a1)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK8S USB Controller (rev a1)
00:02.2 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2)
00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb AC’97 Audio Controller (rev a1)
00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK8S Parallel ATA Controller (v2.5) (rev a2)
00:0a.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK8S Serial ATA Controller (v2.5) (rev a2)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb AGP Host to PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb PCI-to-PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon R200 QM [Radeon 9100]
02:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8001 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 13)
Edited 2008-05-06 01:44 UTC
Ouch that sucks!
Are you booting the text or the graphical version?
The CD has grub configs for both. I get stuck at the same place each way.
Solaris prints the license banner at the very beginning of kernel initialization.
Can you edit the Grub Menu using the ‘e’ option?
add kernel/unix -v to the line that has
kernel /platform/i86pc/multiboot
Edited 2008-05-06 02:38 UTC
I noticed that the last thing that happened before the freeze was that the light on the connected USB drive blinked once. I turned the drive off and OpenSolaris was able to boot all the way up to a rather nice looking desktop. It does not like the Marvell Gigabit adapter built into the motherboard, but it has a nice gui to tell me about which drivers are installed and which are not. It brought my radeon r200 up at 1680×1050 which is optimal. The gui for the new package manager looks friendly enough, but it’s hard to tell much without network access. It’s been a long day, and that’s all I’m up to for tonight. But perhaps tomorrow I will round up a NIC it likes and explore some more.
Good debugging!
They stole that idea from Linux too.
which in turn stole it from macos and beos – big deal.
I have a simple question were is the SPARC Version ?
this is for linux users, sparc is not a priority
So far so good. Their server let me have plenty of bandwidth and I got the download in about 10 minutes. The live CD booted up to a nice looking desktop. The live CD seemed to run slower than others I have used, but still worked just fine.
All in all it looks good enough to do an install and take a better look at it. It is a far cry from the last Solaris i looked at several years ago.
looks like a killer. You can do a snapshot, patch the system and when you boot – you can choose which snapshot to boot from GRUB. If the system behaves strange, just rollback in an instant. All snapshots are available via GRUB.
Imagine doing that in a production system. If something goes wrong, just rollback. If you get virus, just rollback. Version control, like CVS or SVN, for the entire system. Wow! Only ZFS allows this feature. And someone said that ZFS is just like another file system, albeit a little better? He seems to haven’t understood anything. If he can’t imagine the benefits of this, then his loss. Right?
Edited 2008-05-06 10:28 UTC
Christ. This is why you have test environments (not that you can’t do this on other systems), regardless of what you can and cannot snapshot on a production system…… I really worry about some people, and some of the people on the OpenSolaris lists are really worrying.
Yes, it’s really lovely that ZFS is detecting some potential corruption that you didn’t have when you had a working system before. It’s also really lovely that ZFS is silently handling it. You still have to deal with this. The question is, why on Earth do you have that problem now where you didn’t before, and why are people seeing the same thing with the same disk controller? Good luck with that one.
Roll back to what, exactly?! Do you know how far the virus went back? Have you just taken a snapshot of the infected system? How do you know it hasn’t affected ZFS itself? Do you know what state the snapshot is in?
No. The only way you’ll be able to make this work is through an adequate back up system (which snapshots simply cannot replace) with adequate checksumming on a per file and directory basis so you know exactly what has changed and when as a form of IDS.
Even then, it’s possible to do much the same thing with LVM snapshots or Volume Shadow Copy.
Errr, no, because CVS, SVN or a backup system provide checksumming and diff changes on a per file and directory basis. Unless you make a snapshot for each and every change you don’t have that with a snapshot system. If you do, you’ll have to allocate a spectacular amount of space to account for divergences.
It’s no replacement for a backup system.
You’re an excitable one.
Edited 2008-05-06 17:39 UTC
Wow more FUD with no basic understanding.
Err. Because before they had nothing to detect the silent bit rot and now they do! Duh!.
How about the first snapshot of a freshly installed system.
ZFS send can send a snapshot to a file and zfs recieve can restore it. You can have this snapshot on a completely different drive. Reinstall and restore from that snapshot. Much faster than setting everything up again. So you can send any number or snapshots to a different disk and maintain known good copies that are free from virii. If the snapshots in the system are not working out restore from the external disk. If you want this disk can be powered of when not in use.
None of that invalidates the benefits of ZFS snapshots and would hold true for even NetAPP filers. But the bottom line is such a system was not available for laptops or desktops in such a simple and extensive way.
But ZFS makes that so easy. It tracks the changes when you snapshot, can compress the snapshots and even export it to a file. Let’s see you do such a backup that with LVM and ext3. You’ll need external tools and more work.
Volume shadow copy doesn’t have the ability to export a snapshot or compress a snapshot.
It’s not a replacement for a backup system but it enhances a backup system substantially. Your argument is it doesn’t replace a back system so it is no good is pretty dubious and ignorant.
Edited 2008-05-06 18:19 UTC
So you don’t have any test environments because ZFS is so great? Pffffffff……… That’s what I thought, and what I thought when I wrote that comment, and that’s the impression some of the OpenSolaris list topics have given me.
Lovely.
Errrrr, the problem is that there are people on that list, who are seemingly dumping working systems for ZFS, are encountering corruption issues that they never saw before with no indication of what on Earth caused them (did the move cause it?) or how to solve them now, and a lot of them are using the same drivers. Hmmmmmmm.
But hey, ZFS detected it, right?
That’s a bare metal image backup, right? This is new and cool because……….? I don’t really know of anyone who reinstalls from scratch.
Yep. Already doing it.
It sill isn’t. There is ample evidence, especially from the FreeBSD guys, that you will need several gigabytes to run ZFS and take advantage of its features, and once you do it will simply grow unbounded with any job that you give it. Snapshots are also expensive, even with all the block saving features that ZFS has, so again, they need to be used sparingly.
ZFS would have been a pretty good candidate for all those ARM based NAS boxes you can pick up for very reasonable prices. Not going to happen as it is. Does Solaris run on ARM, by the way?
Not really. Snapshots are great, and being able to manage them is even better. However, going beyond that doesn’t replace a backup system as some people seem to think it does, and a great deal of what people think is brilliant about ZFS is regularly being done by lots of people everywhere. ZFS gives you a nicer set of tools and a userland stack to do it, but still.
Within the context of the article and getting people using OpenSolaris though, will ZFS be enough to get people flocking? We’ll just have to see.
Edited 2008-05-06 22:45 UTC
That’s what I do when ever I see your brain dead posts. I didn’t say you don’t have test environments.
You have test environments before your deploy something in production. With ZFS your test environments become an order of magnitude more prodcutive. Snasphot, install, oh crap, restore, start again. Far better than install update, oh crap, reinstall OS, Apps.
Reading comprehension fail your much recently?
Yes… Oh so you’d rather not know that your controller is silently corrupting your data. Blissfully unaware is nice way to safe gaurd your data. You should be nominated for the Darwin Awards.
So bare metal backups give you instant snapshots? How long does a backup take?
What I pointed was added security to add value to the already available snapshots.
What exactly?
Oh cut the crap. Provide data or shut up! Please go ino technical details as to why snapshots are expensive and provide a good alternative using another technology.
I have asked for this before but you balked on it. So until you come up with something more you are just talking out of your nether regions.
Linux + LVM + ext3 is somehow? What’s the alternative?
No one argued that it did. Another strawman just to spread ZFS FUD.
Yes we will and OpenSolaris offers a lot more than just ZFS.
For example,
http://blogbeebe.blogspot.com/2008/05/opensolaris-20085.html
“One feature that finally (finally!) worked for me is the gears inside the cube effect. I’ve never gotten it to work in any of the Linux distributions, but it worked like a champ on OpenSolaris. I know it’s silly, but hey, if you’re going to have eye candy, then it should all work.”
Edited 2008-05-06 23:06 UTC
For years, the thought of Solaris on my laptop was just a dream. I have a high-resolution wide-screen and a pcmcia wireless card. These used to be no goes for Solaris. Well, not for OpenSolaris. I downloaded and ran the live CD, and it instantly detected my 1500×1050 screen, and my wireless card. I typed in the encryption key and was on the net! Wow!
The downside, it didn’t detect my touchpad or my pointing stick (both are enabled), so I had no mouse. Darn! So close!
[OT] Man, these non-Linux OS’s are realling improving. I currently am using OpenBSD on the above laptop. Everything works – I didn’t even have to configure the video. It just worked. Also, Gnash has come a long way. I was able to watch Youtube videos with Firefox on OpenBSD. And for the first time on a modern laptop for me, OpenBSD was able to suspend and resume the laptop without a problem. I like how even though it is using ACPI, the command to control ACPI are done using just apmd and apm. Thus, I set the “cooler” frequency scaling mode by “apm -C”. I put it to sleep with “apm -S”. It reminds of how OpenBSD uses ifconfig to manage wireless cards. Who needs separate commands like iwconfig. Simplicity rocks!
So who says the choice in OS’s is only the big three. Not!
It would be interesting to read more about IPS, the OpenSolaris package management.
Any experiences? What might be its pros and cons compared to other package management systems?
For my personal needs and hopes, pkgsrc developed by NetBSD, and now used by an increasing number of other operating systems, might be the state of the art of package and source management systems nowadays (however, naturally, every different approach has its pros and cons). I wonder how IPS compares to pkgsrc, or to apt in Debian & Ubuntu? Was it worth for them to reinvent the wheel, and has IPS some features or potential lacking from other systems?
I’ve browsed some IPS documentation online, but I guess one should try it in order to get a good enough impression. Anyway, OpenSolaris documentation has a rather good introduction to IPS here: http://dlc.sun.com/osol/docs/content/IPS/ggcph.html
I’ve been intensively testing Solaris 10u4, u5, patches to both, SXDE 1/08 with SunVTS 6.4, 7.0 and with a bunch of home grown load tools. OpenSolaris.com’s 2008.05 release is a huge regression in my opinion, and it is clear to me that this was rushed. Man pages are missing, install bugs galore, fmd actually claimed a perfectly working ethernet adapter was broken, removed it, and I had to turn off fmd and remediate the problem by hand. Not a good start for “Solaris 11” / Indiana at all.
I have filed about 20 bugs against solaris 10u5 and 2008.05 in the past few months. Sun needs to slow down and get this right.
Does OpenSolaris support ipw2200????
I was able to install it on my Dell Inspiron 600m laptop
but i did not find any support for ipw2200.
thanks…
-2501
Nice effort, but I fail to see its target hardware. Can’t be my machine, because neither my soundcard, nor my ethernet, neither wifi nor SATA are supported on my notebook. Well, that’s that then
After all the complaining about Linux vs. BSD “attitudes” and the meaning of the “Backspace” key (which I thought was obvious to begin with–I agree with the guys who say it should delete the character to the left), I almost forgot what this article was all about.
Anyway, I have tried this release of OpenSolaris, 2008.05, on a few machines. I tried it on a somewhat newer Dell desktop machine, and was quite surprised by what I saw. Not only did the system boot up without a problem, it set up virtually everything–except the wireless card–with no problem.
The LCD monitor was at the correct resolution of 1680×1050 (though likely not at the correct refresh rate and no easy way to change it; a lot of page tearing). The nVidia drivers were automatically set up and loaded, and even Compiz worked without any additional setting up. The theme and wallpaper looked nice, and the programs you would expect to be there, were there.
Because it wasn’t my computer, I didn’t get to do all that much with it, but from what I saw I was impressed. Especially where on the desktop right-click menu, under “Appearances,” they also conveniently placed “Screen Resolution.” I liked that. I mentioned the page tearing; that became obvious when I tried moving windows around, with Compiz’ “Wobbly Windows” effect. It would have been nice to see something other than 50.0Hz on that panel.
I tried it on a brand-new Dell laptop also (and also very briefly), and while there were a lot more hardware devices which didn’t have drivers, IMO that’s understandable. Like I said, this is a brand-new laptop and, being a laptop, it’s bound to have special hardware whose manufacturers don’t release specs.
My biggest problem: Its 512MB RAM requirement. It’d be nice if it ran on 256MB… then I would have been able to run it on my machine for a longer look at it. My 1.7GHz P4 is in desperate need of a memory upgrade… almost everything else inside has been. Damn RDRAM.