Submitted by Project Indiana, Sun Microsystems’ Linux-like OpenSolaris effort, will begin shipping to developers before the end of October, the company announced Oct. 15 at its open-source summit press event here. The developer release will include Image Packaging System, a new package manager slated for inclusion in the next version of Solaris, but won’t be back-ported to Solaris 10, the most recent version to ship, said Ian Murdock, Sun’s chief operating systems platform strategist, in an address to the media. All of the technology developed under Project Indiana will be delivered through OpenSolaris going forward, he said. The full release is expected in March. More here.
I am actually really excited about project indiana. I’ve been a Linux user for about 8 years now, if SUN delivers, this could very well get me to switch.
Why?
You’ll switch from Linux to Solaris just to learn a set of different commands with equivelent functionality and run the same GUI applications and desktop environments on top.
Edited 2007-10-16 23:18
Why?
Why not?
Solaris gets you different interesting features. ZFS, zones, DTrace, SMF, fault management, etc.
Or maybe someone just doesn’t like the recent ideology around the kernel project and wants to switch because of that (i.e. my reason for avoiding Linux).
–edit: Double post.
Edited 2007-10-16 23:30
Zones, ZFS, and DTrace, not to mention better throughput and stability.
…not to mention better throughput and stability.
And that’s undoubtedly a fact, right?
A different operating system isn’t equal to some GUI mumbo jumbo. There is one different league, apart from Linux, BSD and Solaris both of them with stable ABI and real quality. This I call quality!
I’m interested but I think that driver support is still lacking.
I installed SolarisExpressDeveloperEdition 9/07 on my DellInspiron6400 and the driver for my network card was not detected.
I’d have to install a third-part driver located somewhere at some website, which is a no-sense because the network card doesn’t work so I could not download it…
So yes Gnome 2.20, compiz, eye-candy, etc, but I’d prefer also better driver support.
What type of card is it – and have you emailed the author of the driver to see if they’re willing to submit the driver to the OpenSolaris consolidation?
Sitting on this forum complaining about the lack of driver support isn’t going to do anything – its a community effort. Yes, Sun contributes but they have limited resources and must focus in those areas which yield their customers benefit and pay for themselves.
Yes, there are developers in Sun, whom in their own time, contribute to Solaris, but at the end of the day, it is still an opensource project in its infancy.
The drivers are here:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/mrym3/taiyodo/eng/
(bfe is needed)
as suggested by sun:
http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/data/systems/details/2046.html
I will e-mail the author then.
Is Ian trying to do another distribution? Well – I think Debian is very well Linux distro, but is Solaris going to find its niche? Time will tell…
It has a niche already, but it’s world domination that I am hoping for
LOL! I hear you and definitely hope the same!
I disagree wish the niche statement though, at least in the server room. In my contracting days I never worked in a medium sized to large sized business that did not have at least one Solaris server running.
Man, there where times where the admins had no idea how to administer the Sun box! Often, the Sun systems was a component of a solution that was bought, installed and then left to run until it either broke down, where the company would call in tech support, or was replaced by a new solution.
Talk about getting more bang for your buck! 😉
To be realistic Im not expecting something that big already in the beginning. But with the time yes… for sure.
I hope that they will make it easy to install like Ubuntu it’s and also the package management so good like in Debian. Installation in Solaris was kinda complicated.
And I have no doubt that with the time it will mature to be a good product. Ian did it with open source, in way that he didnt have so many resources, and now with a wealthy company backing his ideas along with the open source fellows I believe/hope/wish that will be a good system.
Years late. This will end up nowhere similar to JDS. Ubuntu is the future.
EH? JDS is alive and well … Install Nevada sometime you will see it in all its glory ….
Maybe he means JDS as in Sun’s Linux distro.
JDS is Gnome plus Sun’s patches. And it’s soon going to be renamed back to simply Gnome.
Also, you’re being the same dick like on Channel9. Might consider going back there.
It’s the 90’s all over, the Unix Wars, or the not invented here syndrome.
Why do we need another package manager? We have Apt, Emerge, Rpm, Mandrake’s system, and more.
Yes we are all supposed to scratch an itch in Open Software but this is like the early 90’s and Unix had the opportunity to rule. But we lost out because every dist had it’s own ‘features’.
Stop the madness and start standardising!
while i agree there are many, and personaly i think to many, none of them are without their flaws. if SUN can do it better I welcome it.
Yes, most do have flaws (even my beloved dpkg+apt), but there is more to the debate. I think that it would be a great boon for Solaris to combine packaging forces with Debian and Ubuntu. I’ve tried Nexenta and despite its alpha status, it is budding candidate to be the best that modern unix and OSS has to offer.
“not invented here” walks hand in hand with “not cooperating here”.
I realize there are technical considerations too, but you can’t argue about the lost opportunities.
Because all of the current packaging methods have flaws. Oh, and remember “choice”?
while it’s not too late! That way we could have a cross-*nix front-end API for installing packages that works regardless of the underlying backend (such as conary, apt, yum or this new Image Packaging System).
http://www.packagekit.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Edited 2007-10-17 07:01
A package manager is great, but is Sun going to charge you for access to the repositories behind it? (as they do for non-security updates in Solaris 10)
They’re going to adapt the Ubuntu model of official and unofficial repositories. If Sun would make their repository for-pay (which they don’t intend to, alone because it would be counterproductive to adoption rates), someone could just mirror their repository and host it out of their jurisdiction.
To be honest, I believe Sun, Canonical, Redhat, Mandriva, Suse, et al. SHOULD charge for their update service. If ever there was a way to recoup the cost of creating this excellent software, the service of providing high-speed, reliable, up-to-date, verified packages for updating your system is a service the should be charged for. I am so SICK of the get everything free (cost) mentality that pervades much of the Free (freedom) software world.
> I am so SICK of the get everything free (cost) mentality that pervades much of the Free (freedom) software world.
Another one who doesn’t understand freedom or just open source at all. In dubio pro libertate.
So now they have the best package manager in the world and the most advanced filesystem. I wonder what comes next? I know, they’ll rewrite the GUI from scratch
Whether it will be the best or not, remains to be seen. Why they’re not just using apt is because the package manager has to be fully SVR4 packaging compliant. At least that was the reason IIRC.