A couple questions about running OpenSolaris


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I've got Kubuntu installed just fine on my laptop (and added Gnome because I hate where KDE is headed), but I'm curious about using OpenSolaris too.

Has anyone here installed it on a laptop, and how difficult is it to get up and running well (like installing ATI drivers and installing packages)? Other than some of the command syntax, it doesn't look too different, but it doesn't look like a Linux distro either.

Any advantage of ZFS over ext3?

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I've got Kubuntu installed just fine on my laptop (and added Gnome because I hate where KDE is headed), but I'm curious about using OpenSolaris too.

Has anyone here installed it on a laptop, and how difficult is it to get up and running well (like installing ATI drivers and installing packages)? Other than some of the command syntax, it doesn't look too different, but it doesn't look like a Linux distro either.

Any advantage of ZFS over ext3?

Open Solaris is basically the Open Source version of the Solaris kernel and OS (more Unix like that Linux). If you want a good user experience for everyday usage look at linux distro that has been around a bit. We use Solaris 10 for our server OS's and it great there, just not too "polished".. ie.. you may have issues finding some software for it. yaddie yaddie yaddie.. I wont get in to the technical reasons why OpenSolaris is good nor bad over Linux.. blah blah blah.. They're both *nix and are both good.. It'd be fun to play with no doubt.. but to install and forget, you may want to look at something else.

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I agree. I put OpenSolaris on my laptop and it had a few glitches (not many). But enough glitches to annoy me enough to return to Linux. I'm not as adventurous as I should be, I suppose.

What I wonder is this: if Linux is open source, then why doesn't OpenSolaris take all the benefits of Linux (its driver support especially) and integrate them into OpenSolaris, which is also open source? I don't see why this is not a legal option. It would mean that OpenSolaris would work fine on my laptop, etc. I guess it would be rather a lot of work.

Anyway, there is a fellow here who is hardcore OpenSolaris, so you'll probably get his views shortly. I'd be interested in reading them too, to be honest.

Sun Microsystems are hardcore supporters of free software these days (they are the main people behind OpenOffice and are working hard to get Java totally open source and the whole free software thing is their motto now). I don't know the extent to which they are supporting OpenSolaris but probably that hardcore bloke will know.

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What I wonder is this: if Linux is open source, then why doesn't OpenSolaris take all the benefits of Linux (its driver support especially) and integrate them into OpenSolaris, which is also open source? I don't see why this is not a legal option. It would mean that OpenSolaris would work fine on my laptop, etc. I guess it would be rather a lot of work.

I believe the licences are incompatible. This is (at least one of the) reason why you won't see ZFS on Linux in a hurry.

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I believe the licences are incompatible. This is (at least one of the) reason why you won't see ZFS on Linux in a hurry.

Thanks, I do admit I felt a bit shaky there. I'll have a read of the licences. :)

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Open Solaris is basically the Open Source version of the Solaris kernel and OS (more Unix like that Linux). If you want a good user experience for everyday usage look at linux distro that has been around a bit. We use Solaris 10 for our server OS's and it great there, just not too "polished".. ie.. you may have issues finding some software for it. yaddie yaddie yaddie.. I wont get in to the technical reasons why OpenSolaris is good nor bad over Linux.. blah blah blah.. They're both *nix and are both good.. It'd be fun to play with no doubt.. but to install and forget, you may want to look at something else.

I decided to test in VirtualBox on my Mac, and it runs pretty well for the most part, but I'm having problems installing the VBox Solaris addons. I try su root pkgadd -d thevboxaddons.pkg, and then I get a cannot execute binary error. I know their is something simple I'm missing but other than the commands being different between Solaris and Debian-based Linux, I figured it wouldn't be difficult.

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Running OpenSolaris native on your laptop may cause your hard drive to wear out, if it has aggressive power management. Under Linux, you can keep it in check with hdparm, under Solaris there's no such option yet. I've managed to get a bug triaged and accepted, however am still waiting for it to be fixed. It should be a rather trivial thing, since there's already support for acoustic management, whose implementation didn't seem to be hard in terms of lines of code and complexity.

Why that guest additions package doesn't work, I don't know. If you're using OpenSolaris, try pfexec pkgadd -d vboxaddons.pkg instead.

Solaris is playing catch up a lot the last few years. You have to remember that they're going from a quasi Apple situation (Solaris on Sun hardware only) to a generic platform one. Lots of support for various things is added and they're doing it at a tremendous rate judging the ARC logs.

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