Analysts familiar with Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Project Indiana say that as early as this week the company could reveal plans to revamp the OpenSolaris operating system by incorporating key pieces of Linux software.
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Member since:2005-07-08
Thanks, and +1 for you. While I agree that petty squabbles get us nowhere, but unfortuantely I see the "usability gap" as potential for Sun to waste a lot of time trying to make some people happy who might not ever be happy.
Usability of anything is based on education and experience, and what I see and hear is people who have very little experience with Solaris making a lot of noise and instead of actually learning how to use Solaris, they want Sun to change Solaris so it fits their experience level.
The link provided by jwwf exemplifies part of my point about usability from the perspective of a user who is determined not to learn anything about the OS. It is not that he could not have downloaded top from any number of sources including SunFreeware and Solaris4u or compiled it himself if he could have figured out how to add /usr/sfw/bin to his PATH. Funny, I have no problem using gcc on Solaris 10 or Solaris Express with seconds of completing an installation. Creating a PATH is part of UNIX 101 and if somebody cannot do that they quite frankly should not be using UNIX or Linux.
Another is the recent article linked here about the "Solaris Installation Experience" by Michael Larabel of phoronix.com. When an article starts out with "There's a problem with Solaris and Sun knows it. The installation experience of Solaris (along with other areas) could be greatly improved." and then compares an installation of Solaris Express to Fedora 7 that ends up pointing out nothing more than semantical differences between the two operating systems does nothing for anyone.
A more insightful article would of been to compare a Solaris 10 to Solaris Express installation to see what Sun has changed to make it easier for neophyte users. From the viewpoint of an experienced Solaris administrator much has changed with Solaris Express. A Solaris 10 installation gives you six choices including Custom JumpStart and two text modes, where the Solaris Express installation gives you two. Solaris 10 does give you the ability to manage packages and dependencies during the installation while Solaris Express does not. Considering the learning curve of understanding six install metaclusters for Solaris 10 and the certain dependency Hell associated with that level of complexity, it only makes sense for Sun to minimize choices to what is actually necessary to get a working system with the least effort. This was not pointed out in the article because Michael didn't evaluate Solaris 10 against Solaris Express.
Several OSNews readers have complained about the graphical installer as well. Here's a tip, right click on the background and you get a menu that you can use to launch a terminal session. Among other things you can use that terminal window to reset the root (or any other user's password).
For those who want full control of the installation process I would use Solaris 10. For those who want to work with bleeding edge features or want to work with OpenSolaris use Solaris Express.
My concern is that Sun is going to waste a lot of time trying to make people who can't take the time to actually learn Solaris happy by adding a lot of Linux features rather than make better documentation available. I would rather see Sun concentrate on improving specific features of Solaris that appeal to a large number of users then try to win "mindshare" by attempting to cater to a handful of users who basically have no intention to spend a dime on any Sun product or service. I learned a long time ago that the customer isn't always right.
My comments are the result of years of experience working with Solaris from 2.5.1 to 11, including 4 years of Beta testing. At some point the users themselves have to take responsibility for their actions and I don't see the point in Sun bending over backwards to please people who do not want to learn, especially when the information is readily available.
Member since:2005-07-24
I would suggest that the Solaris-related communities simply do what makes sense for them, while keeping in mind that needless and arbitrary differences put up walls that reduce the overall productivity of the universe in which they exist.
As a real world example, look at the standardization of the world on the English language. Now, I would *never* claim that English, my own native language, is superior to French, Dutch, German, Italian, or Russian. (I'd take Esperanto any day, but no one seems to care about it.)
But imagine an internet which had not standardized upon a language, with everyone speaking the language of their own country. And if a German-born programmer and an Itialian-born programmer wanted to converse, one or the other of them would have to learn the other's language. And if they then needed to collaborate with a fellow from France... well... things would get complicated very quickly. And the fruits of collaboration would be catastropically curtailed.
So, if Solaris' implementation of 'tar' is actually superior to GNU tar, then by all means, keep it. But if it is just *different*, why not move toward a common standard?
Sun really does not have to waste effort trying to please the Linux world. They simply need to look to what would benefit them, and the rest kind of falls out of that, naturally.
Edited 2007-07-14 18:00
Member since:
2005-07-24
Robert,
I was afraid that my post might have come off as calling you arrogant. That's my mistake. Not really what I intended.
Windows certainly *is* perceived as being more user friendly than Linux. And in some ways it very much is.
In others, Linux actually does better in an objective sense. But people like what they are familiar with, and for most folks, Windows is it. (Not to mention the unnatural degree of ISV support.)
So please focus on the part of my post which is about drawing upon each other's strengths rather than fighting over differences. Because I *really* *really* *really* do think that is important.
And as big a Linux fan as I am... believe me... I am solidly in favor of the Unix way more than anything. And if I felt that Solaris might be a better fit for my campaign, I might be inclined to make the jump sooner than I should. Or... I might find, in restrospect, that I had clung to Linux, out of familiarity, longer than I should have.
I really don't know.
But I *do* know that petty conflicts are detrimental to us all.