Results tagged “OpenSolaris” from CLICK

I see the resemblance.

While OpenSolaris 2008.05 refused to do just about anything on every computer I've tried, the OpenSolaris-based MilaX runs like the proverbial wind on most of those boxes. So I figured it was time to try BeleniX, another project that brings a GUI and live-CD environment to OpenSolaris.

Belenix didn't boot on my VIA C3 Samuel box, but I didn't expect that. It did boot on one of our Dell Optiplex GX520 desktops (Pentium 4, 3 GHz, 512 MB RAM).

It ran well both in KDE and Xfce modes ... but.

And there is a "but."

The OS didn't find my Ethernet interface, and that made getting networking into the box impossible with my level of skill in Solaris (which, in case you didn't know, is none).

The folks at Belenix say in their how-to that writing a static IP helper app is on their list of things to do.

Luckily MilaX already has one -- and a good one at that. Now all MilaX needs is a few more applications, especially Firefox. It's a sweet little system, for sure.

I should try version 0.3, in which the Netsurf browser has replaced Dillo.

And the bigger OpenSolaris-based projects would do well to look at what MilaX is doing right.

Sam Varghese of iTWire finds a whole lot wrong with just about every aspect of Sun's new, somewhat-but-not-so open desktop initiative (still dubbed in some circles Project Indiana):

Project Indiana is headed by Ian Murdock who started the Debian GNU/Linux project in 1993 and led it for three years. After leaving Debian, Murdock started another distribution called Progeny based on Debian, but that shut shop after a while. People often have the perception that if one touch turns something into gold, then it works every time. Sadly, such is not the case.

There has been some acrimony over the fact that Murdock's project seems to have appropriated the name OpenSolaris. So much so, that one well-known participant in the OpenSolaris project, Roy Fielding of Apache HTTP Server Project fame, quit in disgust earlier this year. He had this to say, in part: "What is the point of creating the OpenSolaris Community governance if the community isn't even allowed to decide what is called OpenSolaris? This isn't an abstract discussion of trademarks. It is the fundamental basis for making technical decisions of any kind for the project."

Commenting on his departure, Emily Ratliff of IBM's Linux Technology Centre pointed out that until that point there had been 578 patches contributed to the OpenSolaris project, a rate of 0.6 patches a day. "Linus (Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel) gets more patches while he is brushing his teeth than OpenSolaris gets in a week. Despite Roy's efforts to build a real community, contributing to OpenSolaris always has been and seemingly always will be, corporate welfare," she commented.

And, she added: "For me, the realization (sic) that Sun just doesn't get it, and never will, was crystallized (sic) the day I was turned away from an OpenSolaris Users' Group meeting for refusing to sign an NDA."

I have no firsthand knowledge of all the community acrimony over OpenSolaris. And I do want there to be more than one -- and more than two or three -- viable open-source operating systems out there, so I'm rooting big time for OpenSolaris to find its legs and really start making an impact.

Even though the current version hasn't worked for me, I have enjoyed using MilaX and will try Belenix as soon as I'm able. And I'm game for the next rendition of OpenSolaris whenever it's released. Hopefully Sun and its community (such as it is, or becomes) can right the ship and start making some waves out there.

After being assured that my test on the Dell Optiplex GX520 didn't work because 512 MB of RAM is usually enough but not always, I tried to boot OpenSolaris 2008.05 on my Gateway Solo 1450 -- featuring a 1.3 GHz Celeron M processor and a whopping 1 GB of RAM.

I got to the console, but no GUI, no matter how hard I tried. At least on the Dell I got a GUI, albeit one I couldn't use because the CD-ROM wouldn't stop running.

And I even tried the official OpenSolaris CD I got in the mail. Sure it was a little scratched (what are they doing up there in Sun country, anyway?) but I tried it and one of the two I burned myself. Same results. Console only, no GUI.

Other reviewers seem to be having better luck. I think OpenSolaris is TRYING to start the X Window system, but it can't properly do the auto-configuration.

I'm sure I could hack into xorg.conf and try to make it work, and I might just do that, but this isn't a system that is hard to run X on. Every once in awhile I need to make an adjustment for proper resolution, but in this case I've got nothing.

If as they say, "OpenSolaris is what Ubuntu wants to be when it grows up," I think we've got to look at conditions on the ground. My conditions are that Ubuntu works, OpenSolaris doesn't.

I don't pretend to know enough about whether ZDNet's Jason Perlow is right about Linux missing the boat when it comes to massive scaling, and how OpenSolaris has the upper hand in the world of big iron.

He goes into a lengthy discussion of the ramifications of OpenSolaris coming under the GPLv3 license and what that would mean for Linux. He says that he can see the Free Software Foundation and Richard M. Stallman embracing OpenSolaris, as well as Debian moving away from GNU/Linux to something that could only be called GNU/OpenSolaris.

He wrote the "Unixfication II" item in response to another OpenSolaris/Ubuntu entry called "What Ubuntu Wants to Be When it Groups Up"

Pretty heady stuff, all around. Again, I have no idea if there's anything to this. All I know is that the OpenSolaris 2008.05 CD runs like crap in 512 MB of RAM. But the MilaX spin on OpenSolaris -- a "Damn Small" take on the Sun OS -- runs great.

Here's a few excerpts from Jason's "Unixfication" piece:

But what about mainframes? Those got big amounts of memory and I/O, right? The IBM zSeries mainframe implements Linux on a hypervisor (zVM) and is also partitioned, so essentially it runs lots of little virtualized systems at once. This again is not true monolithic scalability, this is using virtualization technology to perform resource allocation. It's wicked cool, it will be a great solution for a lot of customers, but it's not where Linux kernel development should end. We will still need bare metal monolithic scalability for some time to come - the hypervisor hasn't eliminated the traditional computing model yet, because many kinds of apps should not be virtualized - such as anything requiring heavy I/O -- and I suspect it will be a while until it becomes the conventional way of doing things.

...

Linux and UNIX will eventually merge into the same operating system. Who's kernel and what the kernel ends up looking like and who's pieces it incorporates is irrelevant. The question is, how difficult are we going to make it for ourselves to get there?

...

If OpenSolaris is released under GPL version 3, then we now have the inevitable situation where there are two GPL-licensed Oses in the wild. This has never been an issue before, because Linux was the only game in town. From the perspective of the Free Software Foundation, GPL3 is going to be the preferred license under which many, if not all - with the possible exception of the Linux kernel itself - will fall under. That means with OpenSolaris, we would have a complete GPL3 OS stack. Unless Linus decides to change his mind and move Linux to GPLv3, our favorite kernel is likely be left behind. You got that right people - Free Software Civil War.

The FSF has always referred to Linux as GNU/Linux. This isn't just Richard Stallman being bitter - this is the official name of which the Debian distribution, which forms the basis for Ubuntu, is referred to. It might be a little bit of a stretch, but what if the OpenSolaris kernel and many of its other components were to fall under the auspices of the Free Software Foundation? Surely, Sun would have to give up some control, but if you follow the natural course of things, GNU/Solaris is not out of the question. With the "Kosher Certification" of the FSF and Richard Stallman, migrating Debian to a Solaris kernel would simply be an academic exercise. Or to put it this way -- "GNU -is- UNIX" would become their new motto.

We can avoid all the petty squabbling and unpleasantness as a result of a GPL versioning divide between the two players if Linux is changed to GPL3. Sun can then cooperate and license its OS into GPL3 as well, and we can get on with more productive work of engineering the Free Software OS of the future.

Again, read the whole damn thing here. And the first article here.

From my humble corner, I'm not sure whether or not there needs to be one monolithic kernel to handle everything from the biggest of big iron all the way down to plain-vanilla servers, personal desktops and embedded devices.

I'm not even sure this is what Jason Perlow is getting at, but I have a feeling if there's a demand for a Linux kernel aimed at massively huge-scale computing, that will happen. Certainly the open-sourcing of Solaris will provide more competition for Linux, but there's room enough out there for everybody, I figure. And whether or not the "open" part of OpenSolaris will extend much beyond the i386 architecture is, in my mind, more of a question than a certainty.

And if the OpenSolaris CD didn't run like a two-legged dog on my 512 MB box, I'd think the future quite a bit brighter for OpenSolaris. Hell, if I wanted an OS that only ran with 1 GB, I'd use Vista.

I don't follow Sun or OpenSolaris all that closely, although I have tried Project Indiana, been intrigued by a "Damn Small" take on OpenSolaris, and generally think that Sun is doing all the right things to survive and thrive in the post-proprietary world.

I still want an old Sun SPARCstation, but I can't seem to get that hooked up ... but be that as it may, OpenSolaris -- the open-source, community-fueled version of Sun's Unix-like Solaris operating system -- has been officially launched, as I read in Desktop Linux.

Officially launched? Who knew they hadn't already done that. The OpenSolaris project gets a lot of credibility due to Debian founder Ian Murdock's shepherding of the project in his current capacity at Sun, but it has lost a bit of that credibility over recent months due to a power struggle of sorts -- and I really don't know much about it, so don't rely on me for any understanding whatsoever of said struggle -- between Sun and members of the OpenSolaris community.

My experience was also much worse than that of the reviewer at Phoronix.