OpenSolaris has started branching into the mobile computing domain. That’s a notable step given that Solaris is generally designed for much more powerful servers. The OpenSolaris Laptop Community website was launched earlier this month. It features support for Atheros’ 802.11b/g wireless networking chip and said that drivers for Intel’s wireless chips is “being evaluated.” In addition, Sun engineers are working on adding Solaris support for various power-saving techniques important to the battery-constrained world of mobile computing.
This is amazing news for all Unix/Linux geeks all over. It means that solaris will leave the myth and come to reality. Hope to see low priced sparc workstations to run this wonderful OS. And hope to see Xview/OpenLook again. Good luck SUN.
That’s nice and all, but they need to concentrate on getting ndiswrapper ported over.
And while they’re at it, http://rtl8180-sa2400.sourceforge.net/. The infamous realtek 8180 chipset now has an open source driver for linux that could also be ported over.
That’s nice and all, but they need to concentrate on getting ndiswrapper ported over.
They actually have it working internally from what I hear, but there are a significant number of legal considerations surrounding it. Don’t assume because you don’t see something that it isn’t already esentially done or in progress.
And while they’re at it, http://rtl8180-sa2400.sourceforge.net/. The infamous realtek 8180 chipset now has an open source driver for linux that could also be ported over.
That’s a GPL driver. It can’t be integrated into the OpenSolaris project because of it’s license. The community should port it instead since there is little to no benefit in SUN porting it due to licensing.
That’s a GPL driver. It can’t be integrated into the OpenSolaris project because of it’s license. The community should port it instead since there is little to no benefit in SUN porting it due to licensing.
It doesn’t matter if it’s GPL or not because you can’t just copy-n-paste the code over anyway. The point is that you find out what is going on at the register level.
I thought about this before and unless you’re doing whole sale copy-n-paste then I don’t there’s problem with the GPL virus infecting Solaris. And if the attitude that you can’t even look at GPL driver code then Solaris is going nowhere except back in the server room.
I thought about this before and unless you’re doing whole sale copy-n-paste then I don’t there’s problem with the GPL virus infecting Solaris. And if the attitude that you can’t even look at GPL driver code then Solaris is going nowhere except back in the server room.
Unfortunately, there are still legal considerations. You make broad assumptions. Nevermind that SUN already has NDA access to a lot of information or other drivesr for reference. The main problem with wireless drivers on Solaris at this point is legal conditions from what I have been told. And lastly, yes there is no point in porting drivers that won’t contribute to the OpenSolaris project. Your comment was about porting, my reponse was accurate. You now changed your story to using it as a point of reference…
It’s not about attitude, it’s about legal realities that too many people overlook without understanding.
The main problem with wireless drivers on Solaris at this point is legal conditions from what I have been told.
Unless you can back up your statements about “legal consideration” then there’s no points in bringing it up.
I could care less about open source or binary. I’ll let the “everything must be open source” freaks worry about that. If they need an NDA from realtek or whoever so be it.
If ndiswrapper is gpl, then Solaris should just grab BSDs version or get out their “internal” version.
My point still stands. I have no interest in Solaris as a desktop/workstation unless they can get drivers out there.
Regarding legal considerations, there are two major factors for wireless drivers. Firstly, the manufacturers are incredibly protective of their hardware specs. Believe me, I’ve seen the hoop that our driver teams have to jump through and it’s not pretty. The second reason, which is just as important, is that in the USA (and I suspect, most other countries) wireless cards must contain a binary-only HAL component for things like transmit/receive power levels and operating frequencies. If the card doesn’t contain binary-only HAL bits, then the manufacturers won’t be allowed to release the product. Sun has to abide by those rules and regs too.
As an earlier poster mentioned, just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean that it’s not happening. There is a great deal of frustration surrounding getting drivers out to the community / user base — of all the developers that I know within Sun, the vast, vast majority want to get our code out there as fast as possible and as soon as possible.
dont know why, but i prefer true open source drivers over ndiswrapper any day. atleast if its a bug in the driver on can find it and fix it ratehr then sit back and hope that it gets fixed by the corp making the driver.
Awesome!!!!!!!
what next solaris on your desktop? in your games console? on yur mp3 player? …
[/i]What next solaris on your desktop? in your games console? on yur mp3 player? …[/i]
On your toaster?
Old news. Sun’s products have been running on toasters for a while now.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/03/30/java_toaster_prints_weather…
Toaster? Nah, that’s NetBSD’s realm.
http://www.embeddedarm.com/news/netbsd_toaster.htm
Not to mention CATs.
linux has already all those driver.. and we hate Sun/Microsoft ..
No, no, no, you got it all wrong..
Its: Linux already has all those drivers,
and,
I hate Sun, Microsoft, SCO, Haliburton, Enron, CNet, AOL, CNN, Fox, the MPAA and the RIAA, and maybe Sony..
I’ll could think up some more but I’m kinda baked, atm.
Regarding legal considerations, there are two major factors for wireless drivers. Firstly, the manufacturers are incredibly protective of their hardware specs. Believe me, I’ve seen the hoop that our driver teams have to jump through and it’s not pretty.
Yeah, that’s why Linux and BSD have NDIS solutions. What are the legal considerations that prevent Sun from doing that?
The second reason, which is just as important, is that in the USA (and I suspect, most other countries) wireless cards must contain a binary-only HAL component for things like transmit/receive power levels and operating frequencies.If the card doesn’t contain binary-only HAL bits, then the manufacturers won’t be allowed to release the product. Sun has to abide by those rules and regs too.
By HAL, I’m assuming you mean the firmware that the newer cards require. Yeah, I can see that would be problematic as far as shipping it with Solaris, but users could get that on their own if they had to. The realtek 8180 doesn’t require external firmware, is in a large number of cards, and supposedly Realtek is being somewhat cooperative concerning the sourceforge project – giving cards to work with and stuff. I’m sure Sun could at least work out a deal with them even if came down to an NDA.
http://redmoon.openbsd.de/~merith/RTL8180spec_1_2.pdf
That is from 2003, I wonder why it took so long for a linux open source driver (non ndiswrapper) to come out of that. Oh well, at least Realtek is more open than Broadcom.
Solaris is amazing system with a great documentation…and it’s free!…but my wireless adaptor based in ralink don’t work in solaris.There is some driver for that chip ?
Thanks
I like Solaris..
Kind of offtopic: Suppose I install a OpenSolaris/SolarisExpress/whatever base system. Can I then install typical Linux distribution packages like rpm, deb, tgz, etc. through some sort of conversion layer like alien or apt4rpm?
What is the native packaging system used by the OpenSolaris-based OS distributions? How is the application availability these days?
As I see it, OpenSolaris, despite its compelling advantages over Linux and BSD as a UNIX-style OS for Intel hardware, has two problems: hardware support and application support. People seem to be talking about the former and not the latter.
And what applications are those?
“And what applications are those?”
Nothing in particular, that’s not the point. I don’t know what packages I might find unavailable for OpenSolaris because I don’t know how I would even go about installing packages on OpenSolaris. This seems to be the weakspot in the hype around OpenSolaris.
I understand that you can only build or install OpenSolaris from a Solaris Express environment. I know that there’s a “Software Express for Solaris” utility that allows for the installation of bleeding edge software releases from the Sun developers.
However, what about third party software? What if I want to install GNOME 2.12 on Solaris Express or OpenSolaris (or whatever I would call my OS)? Is there a binary package repository or something? Is there a package format and/or package manager for OpenSolaris?
I tried searching the OpenSolaris site and the Solaris Express page on sun.com, but the best info I can find is that they support 187 open source packages. It doesn’t explain how I can select from these packages or get other ones (this is like 2% of the amount of packages available for most linux distributions).
How about using pkgadd? And I am sure the software available from SunFreeware, Blastwave, and the Software Companion CD will work just fine. And if all else fails since Sun gives away Sun Studio to people in the OpenSolaris community, compile the software you want, and if you are really nice, package it and make it available to the community.
For distributions that could use a different packaging method (GNUSolaris?), I don’t know.
> Kind of offtopic: Suppose I install a
> OpenSolaris/SolarisExpress/whatever base system.
> Can I then install typical Linux distribution packages
> like rpm, deb, tgz, etc. through some sort of
> conversion layer like alien or apt4rpm?
Not quite, you can however use pkgsrc for building a system up, Eric Boutilier wrote an excellent selection of blog postings on doing this, see http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/eric_boutilier?entry=unix_from_scr…
The application support comment is moot, between sunfreeware.com and blastwave.org there is a huge amount of stuff already precompiled. And there is a massive amount of software installed in /usr/sfw/ on a Solaris Express distro plus you have the option of using the companion cd.
“between sunfreeware.com and blastwave.org there is a huge amount of stuff already precompiled.”
ok, so those are the repositories. thanks.
This is interesting to see unfold, the same evolution of a OS that Linux and BSD underwent. From workstation, to high performance server and then into embedded platforms. Really goes to show that projects like Linux and BSD weren’t freaks of the OS world, but part of the natural progession. The more the marrier I say.
is there any stable release of open solaris to be used in production env.? when will it be ready?
The Solaris 10 is not open sourced, but it is the stable version, and it is free. This is comparable to RHEL 4.0 AS.
This is comparable to RHEL 4.0 AS.
Does that mean OpenSolaris is comparable to Fedora Core 4?
Not really. Afaik, OpenSolaris is comparable to Linux (the kernel) + GNU userland.