Submitted by Nexenta Core Platform RC3 is available for download now. Main feature is Xen Dom0/DomU platform support. Other changes in this release includes: critical fixes for native CIFS server, critical fixes for ZFS, critical bug fixes for SATA and networking stacks. CIFS client now included. The Debian apt repository is now complete, with about 2500 tested packages.
Xen dom0 support, a great addition to already big feature list, Nexenta looks very promising OpenSolaris based OS.
… Now if only someone would club nVidia into supporting Xen. (Xen under Solaris, just like Linux, is unsupported.)
– Gilboa
A project to provide hardware accelration to Xen domU guests already exist, and even works, here:
http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~andreslc/xen-gl
I’m aware of this project.
However, this project requires at least basic support from the driver.
However, at least in my experience, the nVidia module blows up when being loaded into a Xen aware kernel *, so this project is limited to OSS/Built-in drivers.
– Gilboa
* Only under Linux; Never tested Xen under OpenSolaris.
Can anyone tell me how the OpenSolaris kernel is advantageous compared to the Linux one? I can see the benefits of having access to all those packages but (being ignorant) I have no idea apart from some of the headline-grabbing stuff (ZFS) why opting for this kernel/userland mix would offer an advantage over a stock Linux installation.
Can anyone explain in Joe User language?
Appreciated
Read this for some advantages that Solaris has:
“Just to be explicit: on the same hardware, solaris 10 fixed your corruption/read-only /data problem?”
“Yes. Same exact hardware. We reinstalled Linux twice even to make sure there wasn’t something wrong with the install. I’ve had lots of other people chime in reporting very similar problems.”
http://www.lethargy.org/~jesus/archives/77-Choosing-Solaris-10-over…
Joe User is probably not going to care. Very rarely (these days) does the kernel matter much to the user. ZFS and DTrace are good examples of something a user *might* care about, on the OpenSolaris side (if he likes to tinker). Or on the Linux side maybe you want Samba in the Kernel. There are a few other things.
I personally love OpenSolaris, and the idea of OpenSolaris. I am a long time Sun Solaris administrator and enjoyed working with the OS. I think that open sourcing the OS has brought new life, and a new future to it.
but its getting really hard to tell myself not to use this, when it supports:
* Xen dom0 and domU
* ZFS
* DTrace
* apt-clone hotness
* gnu core-utils
What more can I ask for?
does aiglx work?
With NVidia drivers the graphics support should be exactly as on Linux, and since X.org is the same as well AIGLX will work with an NVidia supported graphics card.
By the way, regarding advantages over Linux I’d say the stable driver interface allowing you to use the same stable drivers with a newer kernel build is worth settling for …
I’d imagine that the hardware driver support is far more extensive for Linux that it is for Solaris.
Having siad that, the bulk of the Nvidia driver is a binary blob that should work on any x86 machine, and the interface from that blob to the kernel is compiled anyway, so nvidia drivers should work.
Minus Xen.
Last time I checked (with nVidia; ~3 months ago), they clearly stated that Solaris/Xen is unsupported.
– Gilboa
Edited 2008-01-28 16:49 UTC
critical fixes for ZFS
Are these fixes to Nexenta’s specific or did they just grab the latest ZFS from the OpenSolaris guys and list any changes?
The reason I ask is because I’m looking to build a box for the sole purpose of running ZFS. Nexenta seemed attractive to me but in the end I want to use whatever is stable.
If you want stable, you should wait for the next Solaris Express Developer Edition. Those get extensive testing and are being respun with fixes if there are critical issues. The next one’s coming in February (–edit: And is based on build 80).
Edited 2008-01-28 14:06 UTC
I’m using Nexenta as a storage server – ZFS and nfs – and have been running it for some 5 months now. No crashes, no problems. It’s very stable (even their alpha:s were stable). I’ve only tested it as a server, not any kind of desktop functionalities.
Upgrades were a breeze – it did a snapshot of the root file system and then performed the upgrade there, and finally asked if it could reboot the system. Once rebooted, and I saw it worked fine, I sent a command to make the recently created snapshot the current boot. If things would have gone bad, you’d be able to back out all the changes made in a jiffy. I’m quite impressed how smooth it went.
I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this to any home or small office user.
They are not Nexenta specific. A build of SXCE may not exist that has these changes, but eventually there will be one. Both distros draw from the same base of OpenSolaris code.
I tried the last RC on my system, but it did not have a driver for my SATA chipset. I hope this RC fixes that. I am looking forward to giving it a try. Apt-clone looks very handy and I ma sure I will take advantage of it.
(For people not familer with it, apt-clone will make a snapshot of the current filesystem prior to installing new stuff. It them makes a grub entry of the old FS and the new. So if you want to revert back, you just reboot and pick your backup.)
apt-clone sounds pretty fantastic and I’m thinking about using Nexenta 1.0 on my new file server. I’ve been building a home file server out of a Sun Ultra 40 M2 (using 1TB drives purchased from newegg – Sun’s hard drives are too expensive for me).
For anyone interested in using an Ultra 40 as a file server – it has 8 hard drive bays and a decent price tag. The only catch is that you have to buy hard drive brackets for the additional drives if you don’t want to buy them from Sun. You can usually find them on ebay or refurb vendors (the old model brackets are <$10 usually, though for some reason the new ones are $70 – they are identical except for the color). The Ultra 40’s case is *Very nice* – my first time working with something other than a home built system or a dell/gateway/etc.
I like the quality of Sun hardware too. But still, the only thing an Ultra 40 does better than a similar x86 system is support more RAM and cost more money.
Edited 2008-01-28 20:40 UTC
support sata? E.g. AHCI? I know it doesn’t what are these sata fixes?
SunOS loki 5.11 NexentaOS_20080124 i86pc i386 i86pc Solaris
man -k ahci
ahci (7d) – Advanced Host Controller Interface SATA controller driver
It has AHCI support for some controllers, my supermicro 8-port PCI-X card seems to support it. Running “cfgadm” and checking the output for signs of SATA.
From the manpage “the ahci driver currently only supports hard disk, ATAPI SATA DVD, hot-plug and NCQ (Native command queuing).”