OpenSolaris-based OSes a Threat to Linux? 92
sunBoy asks: "A number of OpenSolaris-based Operating Systems are popping up on the map. BeleniX (screenshots), SchilliX and Nexenta (screenshots) are a few OSes which have hit the headlines in the past couple of weeks. Some say OpenSolaris has a leg up on Linux - 'For Linux, we're trying to push many distributions through to compress them into a standard. With OpenSolaris, we are already at the small end of standardization. What will follow is more OpenSolaris distributions spreading out from that core.' Is OpenSolaris really a threat to Linux?" Less of a threat and more of an alternative. Would more Unix-based alternatives on the market really be a bad thing?
Competion is good for you (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies can do the competing over money.
--dave (who works for a conpany and definitely likes money (:-)) c-b
Re:Competion is good for you (Score:3, Interesting)
And no, OpenSolaris will never de-throne Linux -- at least not without a lot of money and time....
Linux has several things on its side:
More users in general
More fanatical users, that do things "for the love of the code"
More software (OK, most things are ported/portable, but much more software is "first tier" on Linux)
More momentum
More installations
More documentation
Re:Competion is good for you (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Competion is good for you (Score:1)
heh (Score:3, Funny)
You must be new here. Sun is evil, don'tcha know.
BTW, for any CLUELESS MODS yes, I know who Cliff is.
Unix variants (Score:1)
Surely, you jest. Whatevah. (Score:3, Insightful)
Totally appropriate that the fortune cookie that came up on the bottom of that story's page is:
"I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it."
Re:Surely, you jest. Whatevah. (Score:2)
Re:Surely, you jest. Whatevah. (Score:1)
Re: you're right, localization is a big deal (Score:2)
OT - OS Dir screenshits (Score:5, Insightful)
They could just make up the names of the themes and distros used and no one would notice the frigging difference...
Re:OT - OS Dir screenshits (Score:2)
Re:OT - OS Dir screenshits (Score:2)
Re:OT - OS Dir screenshits (Score:3, Insightful)
All we need are a few screenies of the install system, couple pointing out the features of any sort of package management, some more pointing out administrative features of note, and perhaps half a dozen detailing the main interface (which is likely to be an X desktop of some kind).
20 in total would be more than enough, with a navigation system that works.
evolution has already spoken (Score:3, Interesting)
and a mixed KDE/Gnome desktop. It's just a question of how long it will take for the market
to find this global optimum, via stochastic walk.
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:1)
Tell that to the dinosaurs.
Phrase it however you want, but any game with losers has winners.
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:2)
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:2)
That's because the winner in that game is the casino.
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:2)
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:1, Troll)
The ones who get to be ancestors are the winners, as are the ancestors themselves.
Life does not end with death. Life ends with the inability to create new life. The winners get to spread their genes, the losers' die off.
Therefore, Slashdot really is full of losers. QED.
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:1)
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:3, Interesting)
The one still standing is the winner.
Do I see Tru64, System V, Ultrix, Xenix, IRIX around?
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm tired.
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:2)
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:2)
If there is so much as a bacteria with him then it's business as usual in the evolution machine.
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:2)
You also compete with your own species, so that person has won while everyone that doesnt exist, have lost out now havent they?
Say youre hungry, in a war zone, and your girl/wife is being kidnapped by some soldiers. What do you do and why?
You look for food.
You try to get back your girl/wife
You try to get out of a war zone.
Notice youre trying to survive/reproduce. All organisms work very hard to do that. Why? To (1) survive (2) beat the
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:2)
Now they compete with each other.
ergo : neither has won
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:2)
Now the human and the bacteria's conflicts have started, but the conflict between that human and everything else has ended. He has won those.
Say the bacteria wins and theres no human. Just one bacteria in the world.
Still has to compete against the elements. But this is a new conflict.
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:2)
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:1, Funny)
Re:evolution has already spoken (Score:2)
The fitness race has already picked a winner, IMHO: Solaris kernel with Debian user-space
Debian user-space wins the fitness race?!? You obvisouly haven't taken a look at the code for the bloated pig called glibc.
Not really. (Score:1)
Re:Not really. (Score:1)
Re:Not really. (Score:1)
No, we dropped the Solaris boxes for Linux awhile ago (and haven't looked back).
Re:Not really. (Score:3, Insightful)
As for Darwin well I am sure Apple and OS X users may disagree there
Re:Not really. (Score:1)
Well, yeah... (Score:3, Interesting)
I know every distribution wants to be unique and innovative, but why do we need so many different package managers, for example. I don't want 20 different text editors in my accessories menu; I want one that does the job really well. The same thing goes for distributions. I want one that does everything well. It would make users' lives easier and much less confusing. Hell, there isn't even a standard windows manager in use today. Come on people, if we ever hope to make Linux popular, it has to be standard, in every way possible. It needs a standard look and feel. It needs standard applications and protocols for installing programs. The way things look now, it won't be standard anytime soon. I know this article is about UNIX, but I think the same idea applies.
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:2)
Now, this doesn't necessarily dispute your claim. What Linux needs may be substantially different to what Windows needs. But still.
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:1)
Windows Installer. Some third-parties use other systems, sure, but it's still the standard. I suppose you also think the SI units aren't standard, because the US public insists on using pounds and inches?
a standard way to uninstall programs (though progress has been made on this front),
Um, Add/Remove Programs is the standard way to uninstall programs and has been since Windows 98 or so. Again, the fact that a few badly-behaved programs don't
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:2)
The uninstall procedures are indeed more standardised, any counterarguments would simply be the occasional program that refuses to
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:2)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:2)
In the end, I find a central repository incredibly convenient when I am an end-user. When I am a developer (that is, developing my own software), the central repository is a pain in the behind.
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:2)
So... Emacs or VIm?
Which is it gonna be?
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:2)
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:1)
However at some lower level system aspects, I think more standardisation would definitely improve the appeal of the open source operating systems. The two aspects that instantly spring to mind are file system layout and installation packagin
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:2)
Think of Solaris in this regard. One window system with one window manager (2 recently).
You make an app, you know it'll work on all the workstations and servers out there. The paths are the same, the tools are the same, API, interfaces you name it. The kernel is the same one everywhere and nothing needs recompiling because of the uniformity.
Now think of Linux. "Linux" has lost its meaning apart from the kernel because the distros are so disparate. Will it run on slackware? Will it show in a wind
Re:Well, yeah... (Score:2)
Solaris has a consistant stable abi and api's for drivers. Things like Linux which is why unix ISV's prefer solaris. Oracle infact has a script that refuses to run itself if RHEA3 is modified in anyway. Its a serious problem but Sun cares about software being reliable and consistant for closed source vendors. Something Linus and RMS do not care about as they view Linux as ideology only.
Lets wait... (Score:5, Interesting)
What you say? Sun won't even offer commercial support for OpenSolaris?
So, you can't get support for any OpenSolaris distro from a major vendor...yea, I can see how it may have the upper hand here...
Till I can find at least 2 major distributors that offer commercial support for OpenSolaris, I wouldn't count on it being anymore than an interesting project.
You can bet that Sun is gonna make sure that any commecrial support from other companies comes through Solaris and not OpenSolaris...
You know what? (Score:2)
Re:You know what? (Score:2)
Yea, Solaris might be cheaper on paper, but there's gonna be more problems running it on just any hardware...not so with RedHat...And you can bet that if you are running Solaris on a competitors machine, the fingers are gonna point to hardware whenever there's a problem...
Besides, Sun support sucks...about half the time when I call
More like BSD (Score:3, Insightful)
Competition is a good thing. If OpenSolaris takes marketshare from Linux, the end result will be a better Solaris and a better Linux.
Re:More like BSD (Score:2)
There is one crucial difference: the restrictive Solaris license that is designed to keep Sun entirely in control. With a *BSD you can fork, and that has happened on occasion.
Re:More like BSD (Score:1)
(Of course, and like the *BSDs, if you choose to fork, you need to build your own core team that shares the principles that caused the fork...)
Less puffing, more development please (Score:5, Interesting)
The immediate problem is a sad lack of drivers for very common hardware that Sun has never shipped, like wireless networking (an Atheros driver just went into their tree a few weeks back; I believe that's the only one so far), ACPI power management, etc... Solaris has always been an OS for servers and managed workstations, so there are big holes in the coverage for "consumer" devices and laptop hardware.
Note that Sun itself has no "OpenSolaris" distribution you can download, only a source tree. The void has been filled heretofore by hand-cooked distros like SchilliX and BeleniX, which are roughly analagous to early linux distros like SLS and Slackware -- no (or minimal) package management, no exhaustive software selection, etc... Just a bare machine with a userspace into which you can compile your own stuff.
Nexenta looks promising, being an attempt to port the Debian (i.e. GNU, not Solaris) userspace onto the OpenSolaris kernel. I haven't tried it so I'll withhold judgement. But honestly, it's got a long way to go. Note that the existing linux desktops tend to rely on the hotplug/udev/hal/dbus architecture for much of their hardware interface, and none of this exists on Solaris to my knowlege. Someone will have to port it.
Honestly, at the moment OpenSolaris advocates would be better advised to spend time writing drivers and packaging a distro than submitting flame wars to slashdot. The world has lots of space for another free unix, but it needs to catch up before puffing about itself as "Linux killer".
Hey clubie, RTFA (Score:1, Troll)
There's the BeleniX LiveCD [sarovar.org] which includes a Gnome desktop. Drop it into a typical desktop machine and get a working, Internet-connected workstation.
It Pays To Read The Article! Yay!
Re:Hey clubie, RTFA (Score:1)
Yes, but alas: apparently it doesn't pay as well as responding to the second sentence of a post out of context and ignoring all the expository text that followed it. Yes, very lucrative. Yay.
Flame on, I guess. Rah rah. Slowlaris is teh sux0rs. Thbbt.
Re:Hey clubie, RTFA (Score:2)
I might try it if I could download it. Their HTTP link gives me 1.2KB/s, and the torrents are fscked (they tell me 'my client is spoofing' - which it's not.)
Re:no (or minimal) package management (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Less puffing, more development please (Score:2)
Solaris just works. The drivers just work. Things have models and solaris is well tested. Linux used to be stable but its ideology about having to be opensource is hurting it and preventing many stable third party drivers.
Solarisx86 works and you can install and compile packages off the net and they will magically work too! In linux they are all incompatible with each other and you need to use apt_get
Re:Less puffing, more development please (Score:1)
Really at the end of the day, what's the point? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't have the packages that are developed for Linux, there isn't any major "killer app" out there to make me want to switch. Really at the end of the day, what's the REALLY big bonus to running OpenSolaris now?
This is the question that I pose to you all here, this is the same question that a lot of IT Managers ask about Linux when comparing it to Microsoft Windows, but we have a few answers to that question.
Admittedly if you are a 100% Solaris shop (Solaris SysAdmin for example who wants to run Solaris on his 3Ghz P4 that sits under his desk) then you might consider it. There isn't a community around this to support it yet either.
One thing that could turn up would be application support from vendors that currently don't support Linux. If that turns up, then things could heat up.
I know it's early days, and choices are great, but Linux I think has filled that void. There are how many Linux distributions out there now? Do we really need 400 Solaris kerneled distributions out there?
I know this sounds like a FUD session, but I don't want it to be. Just trying to encourage some comments.
Anyway enough ranting, what do you guys think?
Re:Really at the end of the day, what's the point? (Score:2)
The killer app is the kernel itself and its supported utilities. Solaris is very mature and robust, and being able to learn more about its internals and contribute back to the code for future releases by Sun is a good thing. Look at Linux, and to a lesser degree, BSD. Linux is more interesting IMHO because of its development process and the fact that big commercial players have j
Re:Really at the end of the day, what's the point? (Score:2)
Solaris / Old School Unix (Lets face it, Solaris is still pretty true to it's system V roots) hasn't been ported, admittedly it's not the "hobbiest" OS that Linux is, and therefore hasn't been ported (I was tempted to put in a YET there). But at the same time, I think Linux has filled this void very very well, the hobbiest style people are now getting supplemented by the large c
Fine with me (Score:1)
Solaris bloat (Score:2)
Re:Solaris bloat (Score:1)
http://cvs.opensolaris.org/source/xref/on/usr/src
This is a Good Thing (Score:2)
Is OpenSolaris ready for the desktop? (Score:2)
Not with that license, it ain't (Score:2)
Competition is great and I welcome them to the game, but I'd be quite surprised to see this get much momentum.
Solaris does have a leg up on Linux (Score:2)
Solaris was built for the enterprise. Most Oracle installations are run on Solaris. It is also the most popular UNIX as such (so we can now run a free UNIX rather than unix-clone (not that it matters)).
It has been well designed and has features that are years ahead, while it lacks some of Linux's features.
I cant wait for dtrace
Re:Solaris does have a leg up on Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Most Oracle installations aren't run on Solaris..
a) Granted larger Oracle installations (8Processors or more) are on SPARC/Solaris.
b) Many small to medium sized installations are run on x86/Linux. Has been this way for a few years now, ever since Oracle started supporting Linux really aggressively.
Solaris's major advantage is standardized kernel, kernel APIs and system libraries.
It allows application develo
Re:Solaris does have a leg up on Linux (Score:2)
you run sun's "patchmanager". autograbs "the latest" patches and installs if thats what you want.
verify this patch cluster doesn't break any of your Sun applications
As opposed to "verifying the latest linux kernel patch doesnt break app [foo]". no win for linux there either.
Re:Solaris does have a leg up on Linux (Score:2)
Please note I meant, Redhat patches don't break Redhat Applications vs Sun patches breaking SunOne Messaging server.
Thanks for pointing out sun's patchmanager.
bah with screenshots (Score:2)
I hope OpenSolaris gains some ground, I want to play with it. I think I should, since I use solaris on many companies servers all around. It seems to have had some real innovative thought at all kinda of dark and dank levels.
w00t
OpenSolaris (Score:3, Insightful)
It has System V intellectual property in it, meaning it's legitimately at risk from SCO.
Its license isn't GPL-compatible.
There's no commercial support available for it.
I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and assume the bugginess has improved drastically since Solaris 2.6 days. Still, it doesn't seem compelling to me.
Re:OpenSolaris (Score:2)
Re:OpenSolaris (Score:1)
Re:OpenSolaris (Score:1)
It is not at any risk from SCO, Sun bought out their UNIX license from Unix Software Labs AKA Novell before SCO were in the picture.
No one really cares about the CDDL vs GPL issue except people who like the idea of flaming Sun. The reality is that there is very limitted scope for cutting and pasting Solaris kernel code into Linux and the other way arround and because of that CDDL vs GPL incompatibility is close to irrelevant. You can of course mix the user space stuff.