Submitted by The Nexenta project, which builds a distribution combining the OpenSolaris kernel with applications from Ubuntu, has announced a new alpha release of NexentaOS: “This release provides a fully integrated Ubuntu Dapper Drake userland, OpenSolaris core (build #40), and contains overall 11800 packages. In addition, Alpha 5 contains: Sun’s Java SE 5.0 Java Development Kit (via NexentaOS APT); live upgrade; and OpenOffice.org 2.0, natively compiled on Nexenta OS.”
solaris seems interesting but why would someone choose to use this over ubuntu ? i ran alphas 3 and 4 in vmware for a while and although they ran great i couldnt see why i would use it over ubuntu. since it is basically the exact same thing as far as i can tell. sure the kernel is different but to an end user like me that makes almost no difference.
Why Not?
> why not ?
Two reasons, for me:
1)
> NexentaOS currently requires 32- or 64-bit x86/x64
> platform with at least 256MB RAM
I’m using kubuntu6.06 on a celeron400 with 128mb of ram.
2)
My pcmcia ethernet card, 3com OfficeConnect 572B, was not supported.
Right; Memory requirements a bit hiher than GNU/Linux.
btw, 3com drivers available on internet. They are closed binaries and can be re-distributed with hardware manufactures only. This is a basic way for HW companies to supply their drivers. Unfortunetly, Linux kernel does not support it. Linux kernel interface s are *unstable*.
And this is another reason why NexentaOS might succeed on a Desktop – it supports binary-only drivers the way Windows XP does via utilizing Kernel Device Driver API interfaces, which are stable.
One of the best things with Solaris is its amazing documentation and polished APIs.
Yes, it supports BLOBs. But we do not need BLOBs. Please do not use them. OpenSolaris mean Open Source Solaris. Blobs are out of the question.
> Yes, it supports BLOBs.
Indeed, hooray.
> But we do not need BLOBs.
Yes we do, if nVidia and ATI and others say so. They sell the hardware and write the drivers, its up to them (and the vendors of technologies embedded in the drivers).
> Please do not use them.
I will use whatever suits me for my convenience, thank you.
> OpenSolaris mean Open Source Solaris.
To you, maybe.
> Blobs are out of the question.
Speak for yourself. I just need something that works. If advocates like you drive all the free systems to take a view in opposition to the hardware manufacturers, personally I’ll drop tehse free systems like hot potatoes and use Vista or MacOS or whatever which Just Works out of the box.
To suggest that stability and quality require no blobs is to deny years of recent history where proprietary systems have been just fine, thank you, and by this I mean not only Windows (which can certainly be stable with care) but also Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and assorted mini and mainframe OSs. The OpenBSD team *may* have a point, but its validity depends on a certain degree of paranoia about information disclosure.
>> Speak for yourself. I just need something that works.
>> To suggest that stability and quality require no blobs is to deny
>> years of recent history where proprietary systems have been just >> fine, thank you.
Just working is an interesting concept and there is a difference between two nines reliability and five nines reliability. To get to the later the experts need open access to all areas in order to get to bottom of problems.
With that open access they stand a chance of finding bugs and also knowing whether the conformance to interface guidelines is correct.
This open access either comes in the OpenBSD manner or in a hardware driver certification scheme that gives commercial kernel developers access to driver source to do their stuff.
How many Windows users have a clue whether even half of the drivers on their machines have been properly checked ?. And how many care?
If we want computers to be reliable appliances then core development activities have to stop being a game of poker. Until then most consumers I know will go on living with the equivalent of a Ford Model T.
solaris seems interesting but why would someone choose to use this over ubuntu ? i ran alphas 3 and 4 in vmware for a while and although they ran great i couldnt see why i would use it over ubuntu. since it is basically the exact same thing as far as i can tell. sure the kernel is different but to an end user like me that makes almost no difference.
Well, the advantage is, you get all the latest applications, running on a consistant, well thought out core operating system. One could ask the same thing, why have a distro based on FreeBSD and uses the Debian packages?
Obviously the developers see that Solaris has potential as a desktop operating system, realise that the direction that ubuntu is going in, is the direction in which distros should be heading, so they’ve decided to use the Solaris core and build upon that.
What I do hope is that the incude the latest version of Xorg as well as using OSS (OpenSound System) for the default audio API/Driver provider as the current default one included with Solaris is lacking – for obvious reasons, server OS’s don’t normally need to have 5.1 surround sound.
nevermind the desktop, but imagine Ubuntu oneclick server stacks running on Solaris kernel
Look up Solaris’s ZFS. Among other things, it’s a self-repairing file-system that can detect file-corruption. Creating the equivalent in Linux would require an intimidating mix of LVM and RAID.
Why would you want this? Well for one thing, it means a hard-disk failure won’t mean the end of all your photos and MP3s, ZFS can recover from this.
See these for more:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/
http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2005/11/20/1886
http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2005/12/9/2049
Personally though, I don’t see why you’d try it if you weren’t interested enough to look up what Solaris has to offer to begin with. It’s a very impressive kernel that in terms of innovation is one of the best.
ZFS, DTrace, and zones (to a lesser extent) come to mind immediately.
Solaris has historically had a pretty good story with binary compatibility and stability of interfaces and underlying libraries etc. Plus Sun has a lot of control and a considerable R&D capability, so they can *in principle* make customer oriented changes that are difficult for Linux (and *BSD) vendors who have to liaise with a community and rely on the community for more changes.
So, if you don’t care so much for freedom (not as in beer) but do want an OS that Just Works, then *in principle* Sun should be able to provide a more complete and polished package, just as Apple does.
OTOH Solaris isn’t competitive yet from a packaging and hardware support point of view, and a number of well-known packages are AWOL. So we can wait and see, but the extra competition can only benefit us (as consumers) in the long term. Even if the main outcome on the desktop of free systems is to force Microsoft to keep prices low and address reliability and performance issues rather than solely add features, that’s a very positive result. Unless you’re a wannabe desktop OS vendor, anyway.
I installed it last night and I’m posting from it now. While some packages don’t work, it seems generally stable. It’s infinitely easier to install than Solaris and it doesn’t require a day of patching and installing additional software.
How cool an OS might be,it can be quite irritating when the package manager or only repository doesn’t seem to work.
Nevertheless i installed it this morning and it’s not bad,mucho better than the default solaris install.Wished though i could add some additional packages.
Did you tried HackZones?
…compared to the Linux kernel: stable API and ABI. Consequence: a driver written for Solaris 9 12/03 will work in Solaris 9 9/05 (for those unfamiliar, the former was a december 2003 release, the latter a september 2005). And this is true throughout the life of any given version of Solaris.
In general, Solaris drivers are very much reusable, while the ones for Linux need a recomplile, generally speaking, with every new kernel. I personally think that’s an advantage for Solaris. Others may think that it’s better the Linux way, as it forces manufacturers to release source releases. (there, I even played the devil’s advocate against myself)
HAL is not fully working yet on Solaris. Without HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer), removable device support in gnome is going to plain suck! Also, the Solaris kernel doesn’t support near as much hardware as the Linux kernel does yet (keyword yet).
Solaris is a great operating system, but still needs work to catch up to Linux in the desktop arena. Once Solaris has a working HAL and better hardware support in the kernel, it will be interesting to see the rivarly with Linux.
Solaris is a great operating system, but still needs work to catch up to Linux in the desktop arena. Once Solaris has a working HAL and better hardware support in the kernel, it will be interesting to see the rivarly with Linux.
Pardon? Why does Solaris need HAL, given that one can plugin a device, and it automatically appears on Solaris 10; I had no problems, plugged in my removable hard disk, and the disk appeared on the desktop, same goes for thumb drive and iPod as well.
If Solaris beefs up hardware support, it could be a great “prosumer” OS. With stuff like a stable kernel interface, it could even be better for gamers as Hardware companies would be able to spend more time making drivers work BETTER and less time fixing code broken by new kernel releases.
I have been becoming more and more interested in Solaris of late, I think I may download this and install it on my spare pc. Any word on hardware requirements?
Read requrements at http://www.gnusolaris.org/Download page.
Also check your HW with Solaris HCL list. Try LiveCD first (it needs 512MB), if it works, try InstallCD.
I couldn’t find anything about Sparc support quickly.
Does anyone here know if this is planned?