How does OpenSolaris, Sun's effort to free its big-iron OS, fare from a Linux user's point of view? Is it merely a passable curiosity right now, or is it truly worth installing? Linux Format takes OpenSolaris for a test drive, examining the similarities and differences to a typical Linux distro.
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Member since:2006-05-19
** I'm a little put off by FreeBSD in this instance due to it only being experimental support.
Do you realise that FreeBSD "experimental" does not mean same thing in Linux.
Networking works differently to Linux - ipconfig exists but has a different syntax, and eth0 isn't the standard interface.
Last time I used ipconfig in WINDOWS. eth0, eth1, eth2 ...errr how the hell should I know what card it what? When I see rl0 in FreeBSD then I am sure it is Realtek chip, bge0 is Broadcom, em0 is Intel gigabit lan, etc. not like in Linux.
I did find it frustrating to have to relearn commands that I've been using without thinking for years now (eg ifconfig), and right now I'm not convinced that for me it's worth the mental effort...
Oh, just shut up and RTFM!
Member since:2006-10-08
It seems that the author's standpoint regarding "relearning the commands" is that Linux is the standard and Solaris is something strange. Of course, Solaris does things different than Linux. Why? Because it isn't Linux. That's nothing bad per se, but you have tho know the OS you're working with. Solaris is mostly targeted at professional users, while Linux is having more and more impact on novice users who do not see any need to know about the OS.
"I did find it frustrating to have to relearn commands that I've been using without thinking for years now (eg ifconfig), and right now I'm not convinced that for me it's worth the mental effort, especially given the relative scarcity of external software available."
When I first used Solaris (coming from a BSD environment) I found that generic UNIX knowledge does help you to find your way through the Solaris architecture, but you simply need to learn things in order to master the power of the Solaris OS. Qell, GUI frontends do help you here, but when it comes down to the basics, knowledge is the key. Most things you may find strange in Solaris are well intended, but you need some knowledge to understand why it has been done this way.
Member since:
2007-03-26
I'm not a UNIX expert (though I have been running FreeBSD and a few flavours of Linux* such as Slackware and Arch) so I'm a little confused by the different licences and builds of the different Solaris projects going on at the moment.
Basically I wan't a monitor-less install of Solaris for it's ZFS support**. what projects would you recommend for a n00b like myself?
* Granted Linux isn't UNIX
** I'm a little put off by FreeBSD in this instance due to it only being experimental support.