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Operating Systems Software Sun Microsystems

Solaris 10 Installation and Desktop Walkthrough 370

Posted by timothy from the drag-out-your-grudges-and-polish-them dept.
linuxbeta writes "On OSDir they've got a whole whack of screenshots of Sun's Solaris 10 from the first boot screen, through an x86 installation, and through either a Java Desktop System 3 or CDE (Common Desktop Environment) 1.6 desktop. It's nice to have a look at Java Desktop System 3 while it's not even available for Linux (yet). I dunno... looks like Linux to me. I know about the licensing issues with Solaris 10, but I think they've got something going on here."
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Solaris 10 Installation and Desktop Walkthrough More

Solaris 10 Installation and Desktop Walkthrough

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  • Glass (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Azadre ( 632442 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:12PM (#11929429)
    What is to become of the looking glass theme I saw a while back? It was definately cutting edge.

  • Take this with a pinch of salt (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rupy ( 782781 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:13PM (#11929430)
    IMO the whole "Solaris has gone open source" is just too little too late.

    • Re:Take this with a pinch of salt (Score:5, Insightful)

      by blastwave ( 757518 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:34PM (#11929787)
      Well, I have been in the pilot project from the very beginning and there are builds of OpenSolaris up and running. We have the source and are working on a PowerPC port to the Open Desktop Workstation : http://www.pegasosppc.com/odw.php We all don't live in the Linux world. Some of us want an OS that can run on 128 simultaneous processors as well as one or four or twelve all with the same kernel. Not a cluster. One big computer.

      • When a hardware company makes a big deal about how many cpus they can support with SMP, you know the processers are slow.

        About 1996 when IBM had trouble ramping up the speed of thier Power chips, all the sales bumf emphasised how good the SMP performance was.

        Now the positions are reversed. Solaris has to scale to 128 processers to compete with the competitions 32 processor systems. With the next generation of Opteron chips Linux only needs to scale to 16 processors to compete with 128 processor Solaris/Sp

        • Re:Take this with a pinch of salt (Score:4, Informative)

          by The Man ( 684 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @11:54AM (#11933394) Homepage
          Now the positions are reversed. Solaris has to scale to 128 processers to compete with the competitions 32 processor systems. With the next generation of Opteron chips Linux only needs to scale to 16 processors to compete with 128 processor Solaris/Sparc system.

          Opteron is great. We all love Opteron. But Opteron only supports 8 CPUs per system (3 HT ports per chip) without some really serious hackery, and even if that limitation were removed, a 16-Opteron (I assume you mean 16 cores) system wouldn't be faster than a 144-core F25K. Sun sells Opteron machines alongside SPARC, so if you think SPARC is too slow and/or expensive, just choose another machine.

          Scalability, whether horizontal or vertical, has to be a property of all the components of a system or it's not really present at all. If a 16-CPU XXX machine were as fast as a 144-core starcat (Hitachi might be able to say that, but I doubt it), why wouldn't manufacturer XXX want to make a machine with 72 or 128 or 144 of those CPUs, and be 5 or 6 times as fast as the starcat? They would, of course. And when they figure out hardware scalability, they'll need an OS that will scale up with them.

          But really, what's any of this got to do with Solaris? It runs on Opteron machines too, whether made by Sun or not, and 32-bit x86 machines if you're stuck in the 90s. For that matter, Linux will run on SPARC machines. x86 boxes - even 64-bit ones - aren't the competition for the starcats, regardless of what OS they run. The lesson here is that scaling up allows you to take advantage of more CPUs in any kind of machine. Sooner or later it will become practically impossible to clock CPUs any higher, and if you'd examined your argument at all - and its basis on multicore Opterons - you'd realize that we're pretty much there now, which is why every CPU manufacturer, not just Sun, is looking at CMT and multicore as the paths to increased performance in the future. This is not a fringe technology - every vendor including Intel and AMD clearly thinks it's important. If that turns out to be true, OS scalability and workload parallelism will be the limiting performance factors for nearly all computers. Not CPU clock rate. Regardless of what you think of SPARC, considering your implicit admission that even Opteron clocks won't increase without bound, you ought to recognize that Solaris is probably in a good position to take advantage of an important ongoing cross-market trend in hardware design.

    • Re:Take this with a pinch of salt (Score:5, Insightful)

      by node 3 ( 115640 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:39PM (#11929807)
      IMO the whole "Solaris has gone open source" is just too little too late.

      How so? Sun's revenue last year was over $10bn, and their move to open sourcing Solaris, some impressive new features in Solaris 10, and their work on the Java Desktop as well as Project Looking Glass all show they are not standing still.

      Sun's move to open source can only help them on the desktop. Java Desktop is really slick for the corporate environment. Project Looking Glass could really pay off big for them if they are able to refine it properly (think about OS X's aqua interface. 3d has a lot of potential on the desktop).

      And if Sun manages to move Solaris to 100% open source, expect it to be *huge* competition to Linux.

    • Re:Take this with a pinch of salt (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SunFan ( 845761 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @11:32PM (#11930041)

      They've actually been working on OpenSolaris for five years, and this summer it will be a genuine OSS _UNIX_. Not a work-alike UNIX but the real deal with more than two decades worth of production system use. It hasn't scaled to 64+ CPUs just this year, but more than five years ago. It hasn't just gotten solid virtualization technology, it's had it for years. For example.

  • Err...looks like Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by deong ( 88798 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:13PM (#11929432) Homepage
    Funny, I didn't see a picture of a kernel. It looks like Gnome, an event deemed less shocking by the fact that it is Gnome.

    • Re:Err...looks like Linux? (Score:3, Informative)

      by fm6 ( 162816 )

      I didn't see a picture of a kernel. It looks like Gnome...

      You've never heard of Colonel Gnome?

      Seriously, though, Java Desktop is just Sun's version of Gnome [osnews.com]. They must of done something serious with it to justify charging $50 for it. Not clear what though.

      Oh yeah, and it is available for linux [sun.com].

      • That $50 pays for the support and StarOffice (which includes support and a supposedly a few fonts lacking in the OO version).

        You dont want or need support? no prob, just use your $LINUX_DISTRO_OF_CHOICE. That said, a lot of companies out there dont mind tossing $50 a year toward a desktop just so that they can call and yell at somebody when something goes wrong.

        Personally, I'll stick with FC3 on my desktop and solaris (mostly sparc with a growing number of opteron based systems) in the datacenter.

      • Re:Err...looks like Linux? (Score:4, Informative)

        by tonyr60 ( 32153 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:25PM (#11929750)
        What $50? It is a free download, which also includes Star Office.

        f course if you want support.....

        • Re:Err...looks like Linux? (Score:4, Informative)

          by SunFan ( 845761 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @11:11PM (#11929970)

          I'm typing this comment from my _free_ downloaded Solaris 10 with JDS3, right now. Great system, but just like other GNOME/KDE desktops, don't skimp on your RAM, though. Any computer better than say a 400MHz Pentium with 256MB should be okay (not super but okay).

          Probably the best aspect of JDS3 is that everything is pretty well integrated, clearly laid out, and there are few problems with it. It really is as easy to use as Windows. It comes with Acroread, Mozilla, Evolution, and Staroffice, among other things, too. Add Moneydance for covering finances, and it really can replace Windows for a lot of people.

          With these sorts of GNOME/KDE desktops maturing, Microsoft really needs to get their ship in order!
    • It is SO not. It's much uglier.. and... eh... it has a "Launch" button. Do you see a foot anywhere? I-didn't-think-so-mister!

    • Upon further scrutiny... (Score:4, Funny)

      by itistoday ( 602304 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:04PM (#11929641) Homepage
      we have determined that the only difference between Sun's Solaris OS and Microsoft's Windows OS, is the executive decision to refer to the computer as "This Computer".
    • You didn't bother to taste it. It had provocative hints of BSD, and a nutty aftertaste reminiscent of Warp.

      Yeah, I thought that was an incredibly dumb comment, too, and I haven't RTFA.

  • Text Based Install (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:13PM (#11929433)
    I'd like to see the output of a non GUI installation. Makes me have the warm fuzzies more seeing that.

  • Screenshots of an OS install...what next? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kenrod ( 188428 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:18PM (#11929454)

    Screenshots of the writer defragging his hard drive?

  • It looks like it's running through vmware (Score:3, Informative)

    by drewz ( 592542 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:20PM (#11929460)
    Did anybody notice - it's running through vmware http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?re lease=279&slide=4 [osdir.com]

  • Default CDE desktop (Score:4, Interesting)

    by moonbender ( 547943 ) <moonbender AT gmail DOT com> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:23PM (#11929476)
    What the heck - are they kidding? The default desktop background [osdir.com] looks like on of those 3D images, which is to say it looks like ass. Maybe there's a subliminal message, I don't know, but I certainly wouldn't want that as my desktop background. Of course, the fact that CDE is running on top of it doesn't help. Sorry if I seem harsh, I'm still not sure if it's a joke. OTOH maybe I'm the only one who doesn't like it...
    • I heard one of the advanced features, available if you buy the upgraded deluxe version, is the ability to switch to a desktop background that ISN'T the default. So yeah, it's ugly, but if you fork over the premium dollars, then you can afford cutting edge, never-before-seen technology like switching the desktop background. (I heard there is some 1337 hacker trick to do this in Windows, but let's not kid ourselves - it's impossible with such a rudimentary OS!)

  • Here comes the sun! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Error629 ( 528269 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:26PM (#11929493) Homepage Journal
    Eh, it's alright.

  • I installed it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by delirium of disorder ( 701392 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:26PM (#11929494) Homepage Journal
    (Since this article is almost a re-post, my comment is too)

    Solaris 10 is a great technical computing or server OS. GNU/Linux has some advantages over it, for example debian's package system and free organisation. Overall Linux is easier to get up and running. Knoppix is trivial to boot. Paths and default executable placement are simpler in Linux. Linux is more ported. X11 support seams better in most Linux distros. (X worked fine thoughout my install, but when i rebooted, my display was messed up and I had to console login and set X to a lower resolution) Virtual consoles are a big plus when X gets messed up, and solaris misses them badly.

    But Solaris has some cool features. Zones, dtrace, exellent SMP support, and surprisingly, a great price/performance ratio. I donno how well sun will do (I would guess they'll make some money in the short term on Opeteron systems and probably in the long term with Fujitsu massivly multi-core SPARC). But the current market for used sun workstations/servers is great because of Sun's overall decline. I was able to get (on ebay) a quad 450mhz ultrasparcII box with 2 gigs of ram, and dual 36 gig scsi drives, quad redundent power supples (800 watt), etc: for a measily $200. Solaris 10 installed great. Sun hardware is built to withstand hell and admins, students, hobbiests, or whoever, who normally couldn't afford this quality should really check it out. I also actually like CDE and the old Motief look. It's clean, simple, easy to work with, and doesn't try to be Microsoft Windows or MacOS.

    • Re:I installed it (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Metzli ( 184903 )
      I'm curious, what about the paths and default executables do you find difficult in Solaris? I'll agree that /usr/ccs/bin appears goofy for the compiler (to me, at least), but I don't see what's odd about everything else. Then again, I'm used to running Solaris, AIX, Tru64, etc. and Linux seems weird to me. I expect most of my optional software to be self-contained, say in /opt, and not scattered about various other dirs. But, that's just my opinion.

    • Re:I installed it (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rs79 ( 71822 )
      What we seem to want of an OS these days (besides GPL) is:

      1) Runs well as a server
      2) Runs well as CLI desktop
      3) Runs ok as a desktop of you like to fiddle
      4) Works seamless with random peripehrals (ie OSX)

      I already know it does 1 and 2 better than (gasp) PC BSD, I'm assuming 3) but until it's at 4) Apple will continue to sell a lot of hardware. That's gonna be the one to beat and as OSX gets better (hire Brian Reid, you morons) Apple as a unix distro company will continue it's ascendancy despite t

    • I too installed it (Score:4, Interesting)

      by reachbach ( 832571 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @01:09AM (#11930389)
      I installed S10 on a test box at office, and the installation was pretty cool. If you want to compare it to linux for "user friendliness" of the installer, well,i'm afraid you're on the wrong track.Because, if you're talking about an installer made for a dumb user (as tech ignorant as your grandmom), you're tending towards windoze. You don't even deserve to be posting here on /.
      In addition,it was good to see the slick JDS3. Two things stood out after the installation of S10 -
      1) The installer was a lot easier than was made out by S10-flamers at /.
      2)S10 is not just for admins who telnet to the machine and issue arcane incantations. JDS3 make S10 a strong candidate for a corporate desktop. Add a Sun Ray to it, and you have a sure-fire windoze killer.
      And running my apps on S10 has been, without doubt, one of the greatest joys of life.There isn't enough room here on /. for me to describe the sheer thrill that i experienced when my first DTrace script gave an inside look into the system resources that my app was consuming. The rush of adrenalin has to be experienced to be believed. And if you want to learn operating systems from scratch, Solaris is your reference manual. Sun deserves countless belssings for such a beauty of an implementation. Long live Solaris!!!

  • Still with CDE? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:27PM (#11929500) Homepage Journal
    Oh dear, CDE, what has become of you? Apparently nothing has changed since the mid 90's. Can anyone honestly tell me that they've looked through the CDE and JDS (GNOME) screenshots and would choose CDE? I've used CDE. It works well enough, but it really is lacking in functionality compared to GNOME.

    Is it really that hard to transition people off CDE? Are there actually that many people that are that heavily wedded to CDE? Provide some legacy support, sure, but shouldn't GNOME (aka JDS) be the default by now? Why are they still mentioning CDE as anything other than a minor product they've attached on some extra CDs as support for legacy users?

    Jedidiah.

    • Should be Openlook (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bluGill ( 862 )

      Speaking as an old school sunOS fan (Anything pre-Solaris), CDE was almost as big a mistake as going sysV for Solaris. Openlook was much better. I never even looked at CDE, it was so ugly on my neighbor's desktop. (I was one of the last to get rid of the ELC off my desk, one of the downsides of being a intern, so I didn't have it as an option for years after a few switched to it)

    • Because their customers are used to having it, and don't want to upgrade anything they don't have to. They'll often have heavily customised CDE environments, or be an ISV that integrates apps into the CDE, etc.

      I imagine that once they have good management tools for GNOME they'll push it a bit harder, but even so they can't offer the same sort of stability (in terms of compatible changes only, etc) for GNOME.

      Personally, I logged into CDE only to go "gah!" and log back out ... and I like XFCE. However, I'm
      • Because their customers are used to having it, and don't want to upgrade anything they don't have to. They'll often have heavily customised CDE environments, or be an ISV that integrates apps into the CDE, etc.

        Believe me, I know - I've worked in exactly such an environment. That doesn't mean they need to keep providing CDE as the default desktop on every new version of the OS.

        Back with Solaris 8 there was an extra optional CD that contained all the GNU tools and GNOME. It was easy enough to throw that
    • I reckon the people who still like (and use) CDE do so because they are happy with how it is at the moment. Those who want something else have already moved away to XFCE, Gnome, KDE, etc. So since the only users of CDE are happy with it... why change what works? :)
      • I reckon the people who still like (and use) CDE do so because they are happy with how it is at the moment. Those who want something else have already moved away to XFCE, Gnome, KDE, etc. So since the only users of CDE are happy with it... why change what works?

        Because you are introducing all your new users to the "joys" of CDE. It hardly represents a good solution, not a migration path (handing new users something you want to migrate away from as the default is not exactly good). Sun can provide CDE up
    • I like CDE. But then my prefered environment on linux is Xfce4. I don't want icons on the root window, I'm not that into the pointy clicky thing.

      The screenshots show the default CDE desktop at a low resolution. Yep, it looks like crap. But CDE is quite customizable. Probobly the first thing to do is just click the middle mouse button and iconify the ugly app bar, then change the background to something not ugly, then set the resolution to something reasonable.

      I have CDE running on Solaris 10 on an old U
      • The last time I was using Solaris seriously I spent a while in CDE, got annoyed with its general lack ability to do anything useful for me, and switched to fluxbox. I get the same great lack of functionality in a lighter package. Heck, I even get to tab together my terminals and have window shading.

        The time before that when I was using Solaris seriously I went straight to FVWM2 which, at the time, was the most featureful kickass window manager around. And it was still lighter than CDE.

        CDE is light on f

    • Re:Still with CDE? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SunFan ( 845761 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @12:09AM (#11930157)

      One of the absolutely huge advantages of Sun over, say, Red Hat, is that Sun doesn't pull the carpet out from under their users every three years. OpenWindows stuck around until Solaris 9, I think, which means CDE is good to be around for quite some time. Sun always provides predictable transitions and always documents what will happen in advance for customers to plan ahead.

      Sun also has a good record for maintaining compatibility to older versions of Solaris. I was quite pleased to see that older SunPCi IIpro cards can still work under Solaris 10 with JDS (with Windows 98, at least). Officially, these cards are supported only up to Solaris 9.

      If I were running a big shop with my behind accountable for more than a year in the future, Sun is not a bad bet.

  • Real Picture of Kernel (Score:5, Funny)

    by NoGuffCheck ( 746638 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:40PM (#11929557)
    sorry here is the real picture [stripes.com]

  • My own Solaris 10 experience (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:46PM (#11929577)
    I installed it and was basically extremely disappointed in it as a desktop. I imagine it's actually quite good as a server, but the interface is just nowhere near the level of GUI integration that something like Ubuntu or Fedora have. That is the ultimate appeal of Linux to me. It can (potentially) have the same level of GUI integration that Windows has, yet much, much greater flexibility, openness, security, stability, and eventually usability. It's actually really getting close. As soon as a project like http://www.autopackage.org makes some more strides and gets near universal acceptance among distributions and application developers, it could actually be there finally. As much as I had really high hopes for Solaris 10, it's just not going to cut it. Among other things, I think Sun really needs to fire whoever is in charge of marking and branding for the company. It's fine if you want to have your corporate colors as yellow and purple, but for god's sake, please keep those colors away from my desktop AND applications!

  • Install Walkthrough (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Metzli ( 184903 )
    vi /etc/ethers
    vi /etc/hosts
    add_install_client
    boot net - install

    There you are, the installation walkthrough for jumpstarting Solaris. Tune in for our next episode, when we cover logging onto the console.

  • Other features? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lewiz ( 33370 ) <purple@@@lewiz...net> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:27PM (#11929761) Homepage
    I'd be much more interested to know how Solaris 10 handles things like:

    CD/DVD writing,
    wireless cards,
    PCMCIA/Cardbus devices,
    USB hotswapping (i.e. does it pop up and say you've plugged a USB HDD in and offer to mount it?),
    Input types (i.e. Japanese, Chinese, etc.).

    I've recently been trying out many Linux distros (FC3, SuSE 9.2, Mandrake (latest -- 10.1?), Gentoo and Debian) to check out how well they handle these things. So far I've been most impressed with Ubuntu. As a long-time FreeBSD user I have been very impressed how things have advanced with Linux in the last four or five years.

    I'm aware how well Solaris 10 cuts it in the server arena but does it even come close to the likes of FC, SuSE and Ubuntu for desktop use?
    • Its never been a server OS, and never really aimed to. Even the gnome desktop is due to pressures on solaris to act like a desktop, and due to people comaring solaris to everything else by virtue of its window manager alone.

      It has a nice standardized kernel, many commercial drivers out there are designed to plug into its kernel, like the numerous telecom equipment. Solaris also has arguably the best threading implementation, and the kernel works better than most OSes, including Linux, on SMP and massively
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I haven't tried it, yet, but it looks like there is support for Windows-like CD burning in the Nautilus ("This Computer") application. There is also Windows-like printer management, which is nice.

  • Well, I must have fallen victim to some serious hype aka marketing lie^H^H^H fantasy but looking at those JDS screenshots Im just disappointed.
    Where did I grasp that idea that there was a 3D desktop concept growing - something that would in fact justify the financial and noise - toll of a "current" graphic card for me if I could dolly and rotate my desktop environment, building galaxies and clusters of desktop links, windows and whatever and let me dive through it like I dive through Celestia?
    A pipe dream,
  • not to post pages full of screenshots or video clips here?

    Or at least post a mirror instead?

  • Seriously.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by asaul ( 98023 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @11:22PM (#11930012)
    "Look like linux" - what exactly does "linux" look like? Oh, you mean it looks like GNOME, which is available on Solaris and Linux and probably a host of other UNIX operating systems....

    "know about the licensing issues" - what is that supposed to mean? That because it doesnt use GPL but another OSI approved license it is an "issue"?

    "Have something going on here" - well, if that aint flamebait I dont know what is. Yes, Sun have a high quality OS that integrates GNOME and a host of other FOSS software with appropriate licensing and acknoledgements and because you think it looks like _your_ "linux" desktop (and not KDE or blackbox or fvwm or tvm) they are supposedly doing something dastardly?

    And really, if OS install snapshots were news worthy, whatever you do dont look at docs.sun.com, there are just too many consipiricies there to report!

  • Just installed on Ultra-60 (Score:5, Informative)

    by CrazyWingman ( 683127 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @09:13AM (#11931715) Journal

    I know I'm a bit late in the conversation, but anyway...

    It's amazing that this story is up today, as I just spent the weekend loading Solaris 10 on my Ultra-60. It had been running Debian, but I thought it might be fun to run Sun's OS on Sun's hardware. :)

    I have run Solaris 8 in the past. That just seemed like a bunch of junk to me. The main problem was that my main "unix" experience was Linux and IRIX. So, missing most of the commands and options I wanted, I was a bit dissapointed.

    I'd just like to say, though, that it looks like Sun really has done quite a bit of work on this new version. The only reason it took me "all weekend" to install Solaris 10 was that the only SCSI CD-ROM drive I have is a 1x or 2x, and I can't trust my x86 box to stay up for longer than an hour any more (it's had a _rough_ life). The install process itself, though, is easy.

    Once installed, I fiddled around a bit as root to make sure everything was working. I stuck with CDE for root loggin, just in case something was broken in JDS. CDE is exactly the same as it has always been, for those worried about it. I used the Sun Management Console to setup a new user - slick. The only thing I don't like about SMC is that it seems a bit lacking on features. What it has is good, but I think there could be a lot more in there.

    With my normal user created, I logged in and setup JDS. I had been running Gnome in Debian, so I was pleased with how my desktop was setup. It runs very nicely. A bit of logging on to the web, and I had added Firefox. A bit more tooling around, and I had my printer working. It really does seem like Sun has gone to the trouble of making the things that people commonly do easy to do, or at least making them function like they would in other environments.

    Now the only thing I'm missing is a way to move the data that I had in Linux over to the Solaris partition. Unfortunately I was using ext2/3 in Linux, so I can't mount it out of the box. I've found the LXRUN utils, but they say they're for x86. Probably a bit of hacking away at source code in my future. We'll see if that's even possible. If anyone here has a better idea - post it?

    Next up for this machine: second processor and more RAM. Then maybe a SunPCi board ... just because I can. :)

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