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OpenSolaris 2008.11 – Year of the Laptop? 223

Ahmed Kamal writes "Is Linux getting too old for you? Are you interested to see what other systems such as OpenSolaris have to offer? OpenSolaris has some great features, such as ZFS and dtrace, which make it a great server OS — but how do you think it will fare on a laptop? Let's take an initial look at the most recent OpenSolaris 2008.11 pre-release on recentish laptop hardware."
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OpenSolaris 2008.11 – Year of the Laptop?

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  • by KnowledgeEngine ( 1225122 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @02:01AM (#25692605)
    I am interested to see more stories that are not advertising or shout outs develop on laptops reading slashdot. Down with the "Check out my favorite thing" posts.
    • by INT_QRK ( 1043164 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @10:12AM (#25694179)
      I tried it. I installed it on my spare laptop (IBM T-41, ~4 years old). Pros include excellent speed, and easy install. Cons, especially when compared with consumer grade Linux distributions like Ubuntu, include extremely sparse OSS application repository to draw from, and wireless support that I just never could get to work. Having been there and done that, with a tee-shirt, I kept it for a week and reloaded Linux. Not ready yet.
  • Why? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by drhank1980 ( 1225872 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @02:06AM (#25692627)

    I know it is cool to try out different OSes from time to time, but is there really any solid technical reason why anyone would choose solaris on a laptop over linux?

    • Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by armanox ( 826486 ) <asherewindknight@yahoo.com> on Sunday November 09, 2008 @02:48AM (#25692797) Homepage Journal
      Sun's License vs. GPL? Solaris comes with multimedia codecs (such as MP3) that Linux distro's don't ship out of the box. Solaris (and maybe OpenSolaris) also comes with the proprietary nVidia video driver already installed for use.
      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Lord Kano ( 13027 )

        I'm not going to name names, because I do not wish to enter the distro jihad, but the distro that I use comes with MP3 codecs.

        LK

        • by armanox ( 826486 )
          I know some that do too. But, they're not supposed to ship with the MP3 codecs.
          • I know some that do too. But, they're not supposed to ship with the MP3 codecs.
            Why not? They're a pretty handy thing to have, after all...

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Draek ( 916851 )

            Why not? they're only of dubious legality in the US and other countries with software patents, but there's plenty of countries that have saner legal systems, and no reason why distros can't cater to them instead.

          • by Haeleth ( 414428 )

            I know some that do too. But, they're not supposed to ship with the MP3 codecs.

            Whyever not? They've paid for patent licenses, so it's perfectly legal, even in the USA.

            Of course, we might be thinking of different distros.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jhol13 ( 1087781 )

      Binary drivers.

      I am, at the very moment, trying desparately to get EeePC to work with Ubuntu.

      If Linux had binary drivers I would just copy them from the original distro. Now it is huge PITA.

      • Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)

        by jalefkowit ( 101585 ) <jason@jaBALDWINs ... com minus author> on Sunday November 09, 2008 @05:21AM (#25693267) Homepage

        This [array.org] should fix most of your problems. It got Hardy working great for me on an Eee 1000.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by flosofl ( 626809 )
        I have a 900 (the one with the 900MHz Intel Mobile) and use it mostly for pentesting. I got it because it was a) cheap ($299) and b) has an atheros chipset (for monitor mode and packet injection). I usually spend most of my time on it in Backtrack on a 4GB SDHC --1.5GB for Backtrack proper, 2.5GB for results and persistent config changes. However, I carry the thing around with me to quickly check my IMAP accounts or do a little browsing and I found Ubuntu-EEE [ubuntu-eee.com]. It's 8.04.1 with the array.org changes and th
    • Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @03:55AM (#25692993)

      I know it is cool to try out different OSes from time to time, but is there really any solid technical reason why anyone would choose solaris on a laptop over linux?

      If you truly are a Linux fan - isn't your first phrase answer enough? I've asked this sort of question about Linux enough times (e.g. "Do we really need another distro?" or "Do we really need yet another window manager?"), and Linux fanboys all think that "because we can" is a good enough answer in and of itself. That's fine; but if it's true when we talk about Linux, it's also true when we're discussing other operating systems.

      • Not all of us, thank you. I'm a strong proponent of modifying the existing deployed toolkits and communicating with the authors to integrate your features or changes. This often works quite well, and the exceptions seem to be people who refuse to use the GPL. (Dan Bernstein and qumail come to mind, although he has since changed his licensing model.)
      • I know it is cool to try out different OSes from time to time, but is there really any solid technical reason why anyone would choose solaris on a laptop over linux?

        If you truly are a Linux fan - isn't your first phrase answer enough?

        What? All "true" Linux fans should use Solaris as their laptop O/S because trying things out can be fun? Bit of a non-sequiteur there, I can't help feeling. Besides which, if true it would also mean I had to have MinuetOS, Haiku, some flavour of BSD, ReactOS, and probably

      • Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jedidiah ( 1196 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @09:56AM (#25694115) Homepage

        The availability of "yet another option" doesn't make any year "a year of that yet other option".

        It's nice that Solaris x86 is finally not being treated like
        an ugly redheaded stepchild. Although it's about 10 years too
        late and that ship has sailed already.

        I would imagine any OEM would have this nagging doubt in the
        back of their mind about Sun and the future of Solaris and
        what Sun might do in the future to screw things up again.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by oakgrove ( 845019 )
        An interesting thing happened while I was visiting my girlfriend's work last night. She's a project coordinator at a call center here in Atlanta that handles tech support for hotel guests' wi-fi connections. I happened to be loitering by one woman's cubicle as she was taking a call. The word "Xandros" uttered by her immediately got my attention. I quickly concluded that someone had an Eee PC and was trying to get it connected. Now, ordinarily, you would think, a call center would just say something lik
    • Some people work with/on Solaris and wouldn't mind taking it with them on the road.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by samkass ( 174571 )

      I was thinking the same thing about MacOS. You get a full UNIX plus the benefits (zfs, dtrace) mentioned in the summary on top of an excellent platform with probably the best app support of any UNIX.

      • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        If I could install MacOS on any random hardware
        including a $300 mini laptop, I would be doing
        back flips for the rest of the month. As a desktop
        OS, Apple actually has something interesting to
        bring to the table. Besides, I already have 2 MacOS
        licenses that I'm not otherwise using.

      • by Draek ( 916851 )
        Too bad the hardware is expensive as hell, comes from only one company, and you lose a lot of that wonderful app support if you decide to use a different interface than the non-UNIXy one Apple provided you with. Me, I'd go with Solaris.
        • Microsoft isn't evil, they just make really crappy operating systems. -- Linus Torvalds

          With respect to Linus, I see this quote and now I have to mention
          a few things.

          Microsoft did everything in its power to kill Netscape.

          Microsoft intentionally made other companies software run slow
          to make theirs look better ( Lotus vs. Excel ).

          The Dept. of Justice case against Microsoft clearly showed
          that while their corporate charter might not be evil,
          some of the ppl making the choices for the company
          most certainly were ev

      • by Haeleth ( 414428 )

        OS X has a nice kernel and a decent BSD-derived userland, but the GUI is not universally appreciated -- some of us find it restrictive, dumbed-down, inefficient, and poorly integrated with X11. Heck, you have to install a third-party utility just to get the mouse acceleration to work properly!

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @09:28AM (#25694005) Journal

      The Solaris kernel is very nice - good performance, good scalability, zones, ZFS, dtrace, an incredibly scalable TCP/IP stack, a stable driver ABI, and so on. It's fully supported by OSS (Sun paid 4Front to develop it) and I believe it now has a DRI implementation too. The userspace is a bit archaic - it's classic System V, which makes even a GNU userland look nice.

      Or, to turn your question around, what is the compelling reason for choosing Linux over OpenSolaris or, say, PC-BSD, on a laptop?

      • Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by pablomme ( 1270790 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @11:06AM (#25694425)

        what is the compelling reason for choosing Linux over OpenSolaris or, say, PC-BSD, on a laptop?

        Frequency scaling support for the processor to save power? Hardware support in general? I tried OpenSolaris 2008.5 on my laptop, and this was the main issue.

        The userspace is a bit archaic - it's classic System V, which makes even a GNU userland look nice.

        I was interested in trying OpenSolaris for this very reason, since I wanted to see e.g. if I could build Makefiles that worked with GNU make, Sun make and BSD make, and that type of stuff. But to my surprise the userland tools I tried were all GNU.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          I was interested in trying OpenSolaris for this very reason, since I wanted to see e.g. if I could build Makefiles that worked with GNU make, Sun make and BSD make, and that type of stuff. But to my surprise the userland tools I tried were all GNU.

          This is one of the big areas where OpenSolaris differs from Solaris. There are many more GNU utilities installed by default and in your PATH, but I don't believe any of the versions from Solaris have disappeared, just moved elsewhere.

      • > what is the compelling reason for choosing Linux over OpenSolaris or, say, PC-BSD

        VMware. Only thing stopping me from running FreeBSD on my work desktops

  • by Drinking Bleach ( 975757 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @02:09AM (#25692639)

    I've never quite gotten what people mean by classifying operating systems in these two categories. Okay, it runs GNOME, office programs, and Firefox, isn't that enough to make it a desktop operating system? Hey look, it can run apache, sendmail, and bind, it's a server operating system too!

    Seems to me it's just an operating system well-rounded for any task, and such vague categories don't really apply to it.

    • by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @02:17AM (#25692669) Journal

      I would agree with you but for one point: The desktop arena is the general purpose 'swiss army knife' area, while server software has specific issues of speed, security, and robustness. Sure, they have overlap, but there are different generalized criteria for both.

      I like what Solaris is becomming, and there are definite advantages to running Solaris in certain environments on certain hardware, especially when speed and robustness are critical factors.

      Now I'm not talking about running DukeNukem, I'm talking about when an extra 100 transactions per second makes meaningful differences to your bottom line. This is when server OS software is a critical thing. Typically, desktop software OS is not what you want running a server with such critical issues under the microscope.

      Solaris has historically been an OS which can be trusted in the server environment. I look with hope that they will continue and build on such a reputation.

      • by itzdandy ( 183397 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @02:49AM (#25692803) Homepage

        I disagree. Desktop OS and Server OS do not overlap. I know that Linux can and is BOTH but it is not really. A server OS is an OS built on stability and security. A desktop OS is one built on user experience and usability. There is sometimes a fine line, and a server can have a Desktop, but it is typically a trimmed version of a Desktop with many services not running that would be on the "desktop" release.

        A desktop OS will have services and programs enabled that specifically disqualify it from being a server OS. Programs that listen on network ports, dont provide any kind of authentication to access devices or write to files, dont have a thorough firewall. A webserver should listen only on webserver specific ports and those necessary for remote admin. I can think of less than 10. (do a `netstat -a|grep LISTEN` and count the ports your desktop is listening on and then do the same on a server(http,ftp,ssh,rsync,and some specifics for server type like imaps or smb).

        The analog here is a brand new Lincoln truck. Sure it looks like a truck, but its very nature says that it cannot be a worktruck without losing its status as a luxury vehicle. You could dis-acknowledge its luxury status and MAKE it a work truck, but then it is no longer a luxury vehicle because there has been consideration to the nice paint job, the chrome, the soft leather seats, etc.

        So the point is:
        Ubuntu 8.04 server is a server OS. If you add everything to make it a desktop OS, it is now Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop.

        • I do not disagree. The kernel is where they overlap. UI is a matter of choice. Linux has shown that the same Kernel can be compiled to do the server job AND the desktop job. You can even compile the kernel and OS to do BOTH jobs.

          The thing is that the 'idea' of server environment vs. desktop environment means that a successful OS for either area would have to meet the exacting criteria for that application. In this respect, server and desktop are the same underneath, yet different in operation. This gives th

          • Damn, clicked too soon. Server OS software has to meet those functions which are critical to servers, I.E. that extra 100 transactions per second. This same OS can have a desktop interface. There is one of several overlaps.

            The point is that a generally good desktop OS might not be able to give you that extra transactions per second that you need, yet the OS that can, might also give you a nice desktop interface. This particularly is why I hope Solaris builds on their reputation. Server performance is not ne

        • In the various Unixes, Linux, and Windows, many of the distinctions between server OS and desktop OS are to some extent artificial. I mean, you said it yourself: Ubuntu 8.04 server is a server OS and Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop is a desktop OS, but they aren't different operating systems. Change the configuration and installed applications of either one, and you get the other.

          So there generally is overlap between the server OS and desktop OS, and the overlap is the OS. Where they don't overlap is on things that

          • The difference is especially artificial in the RedHat world: the difference is primarily support levels and licensing for some fascinating tools that the average installation does not need, such as number of CPU's, number of virtual installations, and some very sophisticated clustering tools.
        • by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @04:41AM (#25693121) Homepage

          A desktop OS will have services and programs enabled that specifically disqualify it from being a server OS. Programs that listen on network ports, dont provide any kind of authentication to access devices or write to files, dont have a thorough firewall. A webserver should listen only on webserver specific ports and those necessary for remote admin. I can think of less than 10. (do a `netstat -a|grep LISTEN` and count the ports your desktop is listening on and then do the same on a server(http,ftp,ssh,rsync,and some specifics for server type like imaps or smb).

          Huh? This sounds like a bad idea for both server and desktop alike.

          Firstly, it's pretty well-worn knowledge by now that it's a darn good idea to run a firewall in any context, unless you positively, absolutely trust your local network.

          Second, any extraneous services should either be disabled by default on a desktop machine, or be able to be disabled quite easily. As you mentioned, it's a trivial task to take a look at what ports are open, and is equally trivial to close those ports and/or kill the underlying processes if necessary.

          Microsoft learned this lesson with Windows 2000. By stripping down their "Server" OS, they (possibly inadvertently) produced what was arguably the desktop best operating ever made by the company. Sure, it didn't come bundled with much, although that was a large part of the beauty of it. Most of the "value-added" features that came with XP were crap, and rarely used by anybody. For its time, it was fast, stable, secure, and quite easy to use. The architectural differences between the 'Server' and 'Workstation' versions were virtually nonexistent.

          Unfortunately, they forgot whatever lessons they might have learned with Win2k, and came out with XP, which though a step up from 98/Me!, wasn't nearly as fast or secure as 2k, and eventually Vista, which predominantly added bloat, and none of the much touted architectural improvements that were supposed to have been in the pipeline.

    • by eln ( 21727 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @02:20AM (#25692681)

      The difference between a server OS and a desktop OS is not necessarily what they're capable of...most operating systems these days can serve as a halfway decent server or desktop system. The difference is really what each of them are optimized for.

      A distribution or release that's designated as a "desktop OS" will tend to include a lot more software for that purpose, such as multiple desktop environments, 3D video drivers, drivers for various sound cards, calendar apps, word processors, and the like. It may also have a kernel optimized for those components.

      A server OS, on the other hand, will likely be missing a lot of the eye candy, may not have any 3D or advanced sound drivers, and may be missing a bunch of the applications you would expect on a desktop machine. It may also come pre-installed with various server apps that would be of little use on a desktop machine, like a web or DNS server. Likewise, its kernel may be optimized for these server tasks.

      For example, if you're building a desktop system, you might want something that will automatically install several desktop managers, the full suite of KDE and Gnome apps, etc on it. If you're looking for a server OS, such things are just a waste of space, and the installer adding them to your machine automatically is not desirable.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by TheRaven64 ( 641858 )

          No, the point is what they are optimised for. For example, a desktop OS will have a scheduler optimised for latency while a server OS will have one optimised for throughput. Other aspects, such as the memory allocation policy, filesystem, networking stack, and so on are all differently optimised for server and desktop use.

          Some operating systems try to do both, but they generally do one better than the other.

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by DeadInSpace ( 320683 )

            For example, a desktop OS will have a scheduler optimised for latency while a server OS will have one optimised for throughput.

            Linus Torvalds seems to disagree [lkml.org] with that notion:

            When it comes to schedulers, "performance" *is* pretty damn well-defined, and has effectively universal meaning.

            The arguments that "servers" have a different profile than "desktop" is pure and utter garbage, and is perpetuated by people who don't know what they are talking about. The whole notion of "server" and "desktop" schedu

            • by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @12:51PM (#25694997) Journal

              With respect to Linus, he's wrong there. People running servers care about how many of their clients they can service without interruption. Scheduling latency often doesn't matter because it is dwarfed by network latency.

              In any scheduler, throughput and latency are at odds. You get the best throughput from cooperative multitasking. Each context switch has a fixed cost, and the more context switches you do the lower your throughput, but you improve the responsiveness of each process. A UI process has much higher latency constraints than a server process. A desktop user cares more about dropped frames in their video than CPU utilisation. If the CPU is at 60% usage instead of 50% then the user won't care, but if the are getting stuttering in their audio playback then they will. In contrast, a server operator is less likely to care if requests take 60ms instead of 50ms, because the network latency is adding 100ms or 200ms to each one anyway.

              Now, a good scheduler can be tuned to favour either throughput-sensitive or latency-sensitive workloads, and can run multiple tasks with both requirements (see HP-UX for some inspiration), but that doesn't mean that the requirements are the same.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        Forget the eye candy, it should be the kernel that really should matter . Here are my suggestions -- not saying they are how they are, just that thats how it ought to be

        On a server OS, the kernel should be optimised to run background applications faster. On a desktop the kernel should drop everything and respond to user requests.

        Once you step away from the kernel, the userland services should be similarly different. A server should run services to avoid crashes and losses of data - A server can afford to i

    • You could argue X Window systems are not really a suitable platform for a completely local desktop machine, and never was meant to be. In which case Windows XP is a better desktop OS by architectural design than Ubuntu, for example.
  • Senseless (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nulled ( 1169845 )
    Sorry, but what in the hell does openSolaris have to do with 'Year of the Laptop'?
  • by Anonymous Coward

    You're doing this on purpose now, it's never the year of anything.
    Plus 2008.11 isn't really a year

  • by sudog ( 101964 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @03:55AM (#25692997) Homepage

    If you thought the driver situation was bad for Linux, and worse for *BSD, it's even worser fro OpenSolaris. Yes, I said worser. It's worser enough for me to want to use a fake, worse word to describe it. :(

    I mean, great idea guys, but in execution, any OS that locks up solid so you have to ssh in remotely and kill your login session so you can log in, or that makes compilation of something as simple as Quake practically impossible--installed GNU toolchain or not--is it really worth it on commodity hardware?

    We have OpenSolaris desktop machines installed at work, and the amount of effort the OpenSolaris users go through.. my god, it's herculean. And I'm making this judgement call sitting atop a farm of NetBSD machines. So you fucking know--you KNOW--that when I say something's a rough ride, you better fucking listen.

    Not that it's a complete dearth of utility. There's lots of stuff going for it. I'm just saying. Fair warning.

    (P.S. Tinkering with it? Good luck.)

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by dfn_deux ( 535506 )

      any OS that locks up solid so you have to ssh in remotely and kill your login session so you can log in

      If you can log in via ssh and have enough process control to kill a session then your OS didn't "lock up solid".

      that makes compilation of something as simple as Quake practically impossible--installed GNU toolchain or not

      A compiler toolchain isn't even part of an Operating system, but even if it was... I would hardly say that your inability to compile a game on a given OS has much to say about the valid uses for that OS especially when you follow that sentiment with your experience using it as "desktop work machines" which I wouldn't suppose would gain much additional usability from being able to easily and clean

      • I don't have any real desire to use solaris on any of my desktop machines until/if it supports full root ZFS on raw disk (not on parts/slices as it is currently implemented)

        That's an interesting quibble. Why does this matter to you?

      • by jimicus ( 737525 )

        any OS that locks up solid so you have to ssh in remotely and kill your login session so you can log in

        If you can log in via ssh and have enough process control to kill a session then your OS didn't "lock up solid".

        True, but if you're describing how ready or otherwise the system is for a "typical user" (by which I mean someone who isn't familiar with Unix) to run on their own PC, there's not a lot of difference between "locked up solid login session" and "locked up solid OS".

        (FWIW I think anyone who doesn't have a rough idea what they're doing needs their head examining if they really want to run Solaris, but it takes all sorts...)

      • I don't have any real desire to use solaris on any of my desktop machines until/if it supports full root ZFS on raw disk (not on parts/slices as it is currently implemented)

        I can only answer this part.

        It is done this way because otherwise you won't be able to boot from the disk "fully" owned by ZFS. Disks fully owned by ZFS have EFI label. They do not have partition table and are fully managed as a block device by ZFS.

        The BIOS and most boot loaders do not understand this scheme. They needs an MBR & part

    • it's even worser fro OpenSolaris. Yes, I said worser.

      Worser is an understatement. Its even worserer than that! Sun dont even support their own framebuffer cards properly. I use OpenBSD on my Sun servers, (I have 10 to manage) It doesnt supoport the fb's either. fortunately they are servers, and I ssh into them from Intel kit :-{ (or use the serial line for initial installation).

      Sun hardware rocks, (We plan two years uptime, and I have not seen that fail in 15 years of Sun use) but their drivers suck.

      • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        Err, so your sun servers run a non sun OS and you complain that sun don't support the framebuffers?
        I'm sure if you put Solaris on your sun servers it would support the framebuffers just fine. What type of framebuffers are you having issues with?

        On the other hand, they are servers, why the hell would you want to use a framebuffer on them? Serial is the only way to manage a server since then you don't need to set foot inside the datacenter.
        All of my servers run from serial console, and most don't have any kin

        • by fm6 ( 162816 )

          I'm sure if you put Solaris on your sun servers it would support the framebuffers just fine.

          Also Windows and Linux. These are the OSs that Sun supports on x64 servers.

          On the other hand, they are servers, why the hell would you want to use a framebuffer on them? Serial is the only way to manage a server since then you don't need to set foot inside the datacenter.

          Actually, most current Sun servers support remote graphic console via ILOM [sun.com].

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by mickwd ( 196449 )

      So you fucking know--you KNOW--that when I say .........., you better fucking listen.

      Your way of expressing yourself would suggest otherwise.

    • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      Yes, i agree with the lack of drivers...
      But on Sparc systems the opposite is true, Solaris supports everything out of the box with zero hassle. In that respect it's a bit like OSX, you *can* run it on commodity hardware, but don't expect the smooth experience you get on hardware designed to run it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by caindie ( 1341685 )

      Would be interested if you elaborated a bit on the problems you have experienced. From your perspective and from your users perspective. This is not a, I'm going to argue with you post, but rather a request for more detail - as what you have to say sounds interesting.

      I used opensolaris 2008.05 for a month and stopped as it was too rough round the edges to use day to day. But it got most of my hardware just fine. Only sound was missing and OSS handled that just fine.

      I just upgraded to 2008.11 RC1 - snv-10

  • Linux is just fine OS. You can build software systems what you want top of it. Now we have over 400 such systems. Some people say that over 400 distributions are too much and those should be limited for 3-5.

    Those who like to play with other OS's than just Windows and Linux (Who says two is enought?), they can get then this OpenSolaris or one of three BSD's.

    But question is, who would like to get OS from OpenSolaris, when it is not so different of Linux distributions what use Gnome desktop environment?

    OpenSol

  • Get yer torrents! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Niten ( 201835 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @04:49AM (#25693159)

    The server at http://www.genunix.org/ [genunix.org], where this OpenSolaris 2008.11 ISO is hosted, is responding rather slowly right now (indirect Slashdotting?). So I want to point out that if you'd like to download this build and try it for yourself, you can get it as a torrent here [sun.com].

  • I understand that the only problem with 2008.11 is that the WiFi support was written by a dyslexic :-)

  • by SkullOne ( 150150 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @07:25AM (#25693593) Homepage

    So this guy tests the Install process, running Firefox and navigating to Youtube, to find out he has to manually install Flash.
    He then puts the laptop into suspend, with a successful resume.
    Then he declares OpenSolaris the year of the laptop.

    Am I missing something? Any additional unit testing? Benchmarks? Usability? Application availability?

    Nice Slashvertisement.

    Warning: I use OpenSolaris a lot as well, love it for the sake of some serious faults, but it does its job well. That job is NOT running on a laptop however. Good luck to the poor souls who try to use it as a daily driver.

    • Running software, supporting hardware, and suspending well are about all I expect from a laptop OS. I used OS X 10.4 for ages, and it had terrible performance (although better than 10.0 to 10.3. 10.5 is the first release to not be an embarrassment in that regard). It's not a comprehensive test, of course, but it does show that OpenSolaris is a usable option, even if it isn't the best. I was surprised when I saw OpenSolaris running on a laptop a few years ago, but it seemed to do the job.
  • by lokpest ( 1136949 ) on Sunday November 09, 2008 @10:11AM (#25694173)
    Wow, I wonder what year will be "Year of Plan9 on the laptop"
  • WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday November 09, 2008 @10:53AM (#25694357) Homepage Journal

    Is Linux getting too old for you?

    Oh right, if Linux is getting too old for you, then clearly what you need to do is pick up a direct genetic (source code) descendant of AT&T System V.

  • Dear Sun, license it under GPL3 and I'll give it a try. Otherwise, I don't see enough advantages over Linux.

    • So, what, exactly are you planning on doing with your OS which makes the GPLv3 more attractive than the CDDL? Both give users the same rights, the CDDL gives (kernel) developers more rights to their own code, and gives distributors more rights.
  • Maybe most of the posters here just haven't been around long enough.

    The significance of this achievement is that we're talking about the first major, major commerical UNIX having gone to an open source model. We're talking about Solaris running on a laptop of all things, with close to x86 desktop parallelism with Linux. I can't think of IBM (AIX), HP (HP-UX), SGI (Irix), or anyone else even thinking about doing this.

    We're talking an operating system with decades of history, gigantic commerical lever
  • As far as I can see Opensolaris as well as Solaris is not widely used on portable computers yet. TuxMobil provides a Survey of Solaris, OpenSolaris & NexentaOS Installation Guides for Laptops and Notebooks [tuxmobil.org]. The survey contains links to around 70 installation guides. The overall number of installation guides for Unix operating systems listed at TuxMobil is almost 8,000.

Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing.

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