Open Solaris Derivative Available

tezbobobo writes "Well, Open Solaris has only been available a matter of days and already there are new projects available. SchilliX is an OpenSolaris-based live CD and distribution that is intended to help people discover OpenSolaris. When installed on a hard drive, it also allows developers to develop and compile code in a pure OpenSolaris environment. More details are available on the author's blog."

Re:Derivation on the purest form

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems just a cut-down version (text only) of Solaris, so where's the improvement?

The improvement is that it's a LiveCD.

Re:Oh great, let the fun begin

[FidelCatsro]

Honestly i think your Jumping the gun a little. This wont happen to solaris , solaris will always be solaris and compatible with itself . If this distros goes so far as to be incompatible with Solaris main then it will cease to be a solaris.
Solaris is an OS as opposed to linux which is just a kernel

Re:Good news!

[njcoder]

I don't think that Jörg is part of xcdroast. He wrote and maintains cdtools. xcdroast is just a gui for cdrecord. cdtools is released under the GPL. Why don't you find some open standards minded people yourself and fork it to fix it. From what I've read on the lkml it doesn't seem to have anything to do with open standards anyway and you can get around it by running it as root.

That's one of the benefits of open source. :)

Coding in Parallel

[Anonymous Coward]

You gotta love it. We need more open source desktops, word processors, image editors, code editors, FTPers, news readers, groupware, web browsers, mulimedia players, and so on...

The more parallel libraries that I have to install on my machine...the better. Sure, the libraries perform the same task, and you have to have at least 2 gigs to fit a common distro, but that's how the ball bounces when you're dealing with egos the size of china managing projects.

LET THE FLAMES BEGIN: (i'll help)

- freedom of choice
- competition is good
- projects don't have similar licenses, so if one license fails it won't kill everything
- freedom of choice
- it's difficult to get many programmers working on the same project. (Tell that to Linus)
- I'll do what I want to do


You know, after reading those points again....I've thought about it and I actually like the idea of coding in parallel. HEY LINUS, you have too much control of the kernel and we need more freedom. I say we fork the kernel into 10 different projects. And I'm not talking about the standard forks where the good stuff is added back into the main branch....I'm talking about permanent forks baby. I want each kernel fork to reinvent the same wheels, solve the same problems, deal with the same issues. I mean, you expect me to believe that the hundreds of people can contribute to the same project....THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE. It will surely fail. In addition, if the GPL fails, we're in big big big trouble. LINUS, please, for me, fork the kernel.

Here's the deal: the majority of the OSS community is made up of ego driven men striving to be the alpha. It needs a benelovent dictator (like Linus is with the kernel) to get all this crap cleaned up.

Re:When I choose ___ OS, it is because...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a very stable, scalable and secure OS with extremely good backwards compatibility, derived from BSD UNIX and created by a reputable company.

Re:BSD, Linux and now Solaris-derivatives..

[node 3]

And Darwin.

Battle of *nix(es) is on!!

This time, it's all open (amazing!).

This time, everyone's a winner.

Re:Derivation on the purest form

[node 3]

It seems just a cut-down version (text only) of Solaris, so where's the improvement?

It's a milestone.

After months (years?) of "show us the code" from the /. crowd, this sort of makes Open Solaris real.

OSS?

[pedantic bore]

... majority of the OSS community is made up of ego driven men striving to be the alpha.

No need to smear the OSS community. That describes the non-OSS community perfectly also.

There are people who hack for the love of it, and there are people who write code because they have a vision of making the world a better place through better technology... you just don't hear about them too much. They don't feel the need to self-promote.

Re:When I choose ___ OS, it is because...

[pedantic bore]

Why run OpenSolaris:

Tools like DTrace. The ability to scale to large numbers of processors. A security model that is quite strong. A stable code base. A reasonable license. Decent management tools; a server mindset.

There's nothing all that revolutionary about it; it doesn't so much as fill a hole as provide another choice. Personally I see it as something to use when I would have used *BSD but I don't want to deal with the politics...

You're an idiot!

[Some Random Username]

He does cdrecord, not xcdroast. And he does use open standards, that's why it works on several unix OSs. Just because linux developers make some random change does not mean its magically an "open standard", its non-standard, linux-specific behaviour. Linux making random stupid changes and not informing people who use the now altered API is entirely the fault of linux developers. If you don't like it, use an OS that doesn't do this, or complain to the linux developers who created the problem.

Re:author is well known

[vsprintf]

You might know the author from cdrecord. He has a rather low opinion of the ide-scsi/ide-cd component of the kernel in general and Linus in particular. Good to see him where he is happy.

If you have any evidence to support your claim that he has ever been happy, quite a few of us would like to see it. Or maybe all those caustic replys to mailing lists are a sign of hidden joy?

Re:Oh great, let the fun begin

[mph_az]

BSD is an OS as opposed to linux which is just a kernel, and yet look at how fragmented BSD is.

Re:When I choose ___ OS, it is because...

[njcoder]

If you read that quote directly, the licensor has to specifically state [fsf.org] "any later version" in the license. "If each program lacked the indirect pointer, we would be forced to discuss the change at length with numerous copyright holders, which would be a virtual impossibility. In practice, the chance of having uniform distribution terms for GNU software would be nil."

So if the file doesn't say "Version 2 of the GPL or any later version" then that clause does not apply.

If you look at the linux kernel readme it says "It is distributed under the GNU General Public License - see the 19 accompanying COPYING file for more details. "

Also note that in the COPYING file it specifically states

"Also note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as the kernel is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated."

And there were only a couple files I found that explicityly stated it.

Next time, know what you're talking to before you call bullshit. This is from the 2.6.11 kernel. I didn't look at 2.6.12

Re:BSD, Linux and now Solaris-derivatives..

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that Darwin should be put in the same category as BSD, Linux or Solaris...

While it's quite a bit more common to set up BSD, Linux or Solaris up as a server, you don't see deployments of Darwin other than among Mac enthusiasts...

It's not really a viable option for any other setting. And its Unix roots, I will say (and probably get flamed for saying), are somewhat less than pure. You can tell it was not designed to be a "traditional" Unix, if you get my drift. It was meant for something else.

Yet, Apple marketing hype have led to the (mistaken) idea that OS X is as hardcore Unix as any of the others. Not quite.

Bigotry

[Craig Ringer]

The bigotry being displayed here is astonishing. Between whining about cdrecord, making uninformed snipes about how Linux is better, and writing off Solaris because of the CDDL, it's a pretty poor show. I know slashdot can do better than this :S

note: I have concerns about the CDDL too, but it ONLY MATTERS if you want to contribute your code into the core codebase, use Solaris code in your own, or redistribute modified Solaris code. The contributor agreement only matters if you want to have your code merged into Solaris - you can simply maintain an outside patch/dist if you have a problem with it. I'm 99% sure none of the loud complainers here will be doing any of the above anyway.

I also tried Solaris 10 - and got rid of it. It's not much of a desktop yet - old software, and it needs a comprehensive package collection of libs and GNU tools REALLY badly. It does, however, serve some people's needs fantastically, especially in the server space. Let's not write something off entirely because "sun are bad, mmkay" or because it doesn't have the latest GNOME.

As for cdrecord ... come on. The fellow can be abrasive but I don't see how that's important here, and he can do what he wants with his code. He did license it under the GPL in the first place, which I for one appreciate, so we can use it and the extended DVD-supporting derivatives of it available in Linux distros. I don't see why him deciding *not* to give away *more* of his work draws such incredible indignation here. Sure, it'd be nice (FSF zealous would argue "morally required"), but really it's his work and his code.

Re:Been in dev for some time.

[mre5565]

> Why do your own distro?

So that the open solaris community can create independently from Sun. So that the community knows this is real. Without the real potential of independence, non-Sun developers won't spend time on open solaris verus Linux, *BSD, etc.

And if independence is achievable, it won't be possible for Sun to take its ball and bat home like it did with its aborted Community Source Solaris 8 effort. Sun can pull the plug on opensolaris.org when it wants, but if an independent distro is possible, Sun won't be able to kill interest in open solaris.