A Short Review of OpenSolaris 2008.11
I decided to finally check out OpenSolaris 2008.11. While this release came out back in November of 2008 (hence the 2008.11 naming convention), it has taken me this long to finally give it a chance. Maybe it is because I am still somewhat skeptical with the whole OpenSolaris Project and still do not know what to make of it…yet. And because I am virtualizing it through Sun’s VirtualBox, I am not going to get into massive details about hardware compatibility. Although I have read reviews that there is still a lot of catching up that needs to be done for this project. I must also admit that even through Sun’s very own VirtualBox, the performance with OpenSolaris was horrible. With any other OS I installed, everything ran smooth. OpenSolaris was the only one to run this bad and slow. Initially I thought it may have had something to do with running from the Live CD but even after installation, the performance was just as bad.
Installation
From the very begin I had confused feelings about the operating system. Booting from the CD image you are loaded into a Live CD environment. There is no option to go directly to the installation. When the Live CD loads into memory, you have to click on the desktop icon to download the operating system. I can understand giving the user a chance to play around with the operating system prior to installing it locally but what if I do not want to mess with this? What if I just want to go directly to the installation? This requires a couple extra steps and if I am deploying this OS across multiple nodes, it may get a bit annoying.
I can understand the project’s attempt to introduce a bit of simplicity but this too gave me a mixed opinion of the approach taken. For example, just before the Live CD loads, you are set in an almost command like shell where you are asked a couple of questions. For those of us familiar with a Solaris installation, this is nothing out of the ordinary. In traditional Solaris installations, you worked in a terminal window set inside a pseudo CDE shell of a desktop environment. Now after the Live CD loads and I move towards installing the operating system locally, I select the disk device to install OS to, maybe modify my partitions if necessary and input the root and a user name/password. That is it! There is no opportunity for me to select the packages I want to install, for the possibility of working with a light weight and customized installation and not have so much clutter to worry about wasting space on my local disk drive.
These are just minor details that can be resolved after installation. Sure it can take up a little extra of your time to install Sun’s Open Office, which is not installed by default. Or even Sun’s packaged version of GCC if you wish to do C development for the platform. I must admit that their package manager is somewhat simple to navigate and use. Just like Synaptic on top of aptitude or anything else on top of yum, all dependencies are resolved when selecting a package and it seems to look and act just as clean.
Working with OpenSolaris
On the surface this operating system looks and feels like any other UNIX/Linux operating system running with a GNOME desktop environment. So to the average user, very little difference may be seen. That is why I am not about to waste time on installing and using some of the same applications that can be found on just about any other UNIX/Linux operating system.
Outside of the obvious kernel, the most interesting difference was using the ZFS file system. And with that, I enjoyed playing with ZFS’s snapshot capabilities alongside the Time Slider feature implemented into GNOME. By default ZFS is installed as your primary volume manager and file system. Unless you specifically specify partitions during installation, all zpools will be allocated appropriately for your default installation.
I have worked with ZFS before so it was not all that new to me. As mentioned above, what was new to me was the Time Slider feature built into the GNOME desktop environment and working from the built-in ZFS snapshot features. You can schedule incremental snapshots for specific paths where you can always (in real time) revert back to an older snapshot. So if I modified a set of files or deleted them, I can always revert back to a previous snapshot of that enabled directory. You can configure Time Slider from the System->Administration menu located at the top of the screen. When you open up a Time Slider enabled directory, you simply click on the Time Slider icon and you can view the number of snapshots taken. From this you can go back in time. Below is an image of the directory in the present:
Here is a past snapshot of the same directory path:
I thought this was an extremely cool feature to implement. I just hope we may see something similar in a future and stable release of Btrfs for GNU/Linux.
One last thing worth mentioning is the fact that I enjoyed how you can view and manage your devices and device drivers from a GUI interface as opposed to the command line. This is sort of like your Microsoft Windows Device Manager. This is also where I feel GNU/Linux falls short from. I know that a few distributions such as Canonical’s Ubuntu have their own implementation of it and the last time I played around with it was on my wife’s computer running Ubuntu 8.04. I still felt that is was a very weak implementation and with regards to device management I was still more efficient on the command line. I personally use Fedora/Red Hat and would like to see something at least somewhat similar for it. In OpenSolaris, you can access the device driver management window from the Applications->System Tools menu at the top.
Not only does it list your devices but it also lists its associated driver (if it exists and is supported). If no, you can always Submit your hardware profile to the project which will hopefully bring support to that device in a near to future release. In Linux, I cannot tell you how many times I have been stuck trying to figure out which kernel module(s) a specific device is utilizing. This management utility just makes it all the more simple.
Overall Impression
My overall impression and opinion of the OpenSolaris 2008.11 release operating system was that it still needed a lot more time to be where it needs to be if it wishes to stand alongside the other open source giants such as Linux and BSD. These open source operating systems had time to mature and while a lot of the work has been taken care of to help speed up OpenSolaris development (i.e. GNU environment and applications, Mozilla applications, etc.), the project still needs more time to add more software (and according to the review, hardware) support while still polishing up the installation process.
It is worth noting that during the installation process, you are provided with a few Sun advertisements focusing on features such as ZFS to even DTrace. While I understand the advantages to using such tools, I personally feel that Sun tends to focus too much on these features rather than focusing on something new. For example, Linux has caught up with DTrace by developing System Tap. The Linux community is still currently working on Btrfs to compete with ZFS. Maybe it is time for Sun to start focusing on their next generation feature to help it stay on the cutting edge of computing.
Did you ever get a chance to run it on actual hardware? Potential Virtualbox just has an issue with openSolaris. I would like to hear about it’s real world performance.
Comment by Performance on actual... — 28. March 2009 @ 23:27
I think maybe I will try over the next few days. And when I do I will be sure to comment on it.
Petros
Comment by admin — 29. March 2009 @ 06:04
Sorry but Linux has NO WAY caught up with dtrace by developing systemtap. systemtap is nowhere near dtrace. While dtrace executes scripts on a virtual machine to prevent failure that could crash the whole system systemtap compiles a new probe as a kernel modul. the \”scripting language\” allows you to spin in the kernel for infinite time or crash the system. systemtap is broken by design and no administrator with a sane mind would use that on a production system and with a design like that i don\’t believe that it will ever be usable. dtrace is designed to solve problems, systemtap is \”designed\” to try to compete with dtrace and obviously the developers failed to get the whole point of it. considering filesystems. btrfs is not even finished yet while zfs gets extended and improved all the time. zfs development won\’t stand still and it\’s already been ported to freebsd and mac os. \”I personally feel that Sun tends to focus too much on these features rather than focusing on something new.\” Now this is where it\’s getting totally biased. zfs, dtrace, smf, crossbow and a lot of other features ARE new. while sun introduced them in the last few years linux still tries to copy them. crossbow for example is totally new and was introduced early 2009, and as i mentioned before zfs gets new features every now and then. (zfs-crypto for example is on the way). I\’ve been a die hard linux user for almost 12 years and i have to admit that i didn\’t take opensolaris serious when i first heard of it but since i develop a lot of stuff i wanted to try dtrace etc. opensolaris totally won me over since then. it comes with great development tools and documentation i don\’t want to miss anymore. Regards, Björn
Comment by Björn — 29. March 2009 @ 08:07
I tried opensolaris on bare hardware with a laptop and two desktops. There were only two issues. Lack of wireless drivers and power management. The system that had 384MB of ram took some extra effort and could clearly use more ram. All the drivers for the systems worked well and the systems were responsive otherwise. There is a way to install directly. I cannot remember the method, but needed to use it for the 384MB system (liveCD requires at least double that).
Comment by David Gurvich — 29. March 2009 @ 08:13
I did install OpenSolaris 2008.11 on a real hardware. It was a Pentium 4 2.0Ghz processor, 1.0Gb RAM. Compared to Live-Ubuntu 8.04, OpenSolaris is a bit slow, and it doesn\’t recognize my LAN card, it says that it needs a third party driver before it can use it. We know how hard it is to install devices in Unix, I think it is a pain. So I did not use it.
From: Björn “while sun introduced them in the last few years linux still tries to copy them. crossbow for example is totally new and was introduced early 2009, and as i mentioned before zfs gets new features every now and then.”
ZFS/Dtrace is really cool. But if your hardware won\’t work, that feature lay down flat. I believe Linux people doesn\’t try to copy OpenSolaris technology, it is indeed needs to copy because it is a necessity for the next generation of Operating System. As much as OpenSolaris was trying to copy the strength of Ubuntu\’s community. It is a give and take, not the \”crap\” AND crap copying mindset. We are all indeed want Linux in our servers, not because we HATE MS, but because the technology that is \”inside\” Linux is a must and a necessity. Or if we try to avoid copying from other sources, what\’s the use of Open Source Licenses? I did not use OpenSolaris because it falls down flat on my hardware. What use of your Dtrace? If indeed, OpenSolaris will catch up with Linux\’s market share, is it not too late for them to compete when the btrfs will reach stable status? It may or still trying to catch-up with OpenSolaris, but OpenSolaris itself was years behind when it comes to hardware support.
I am planning to use OpenSolaris 2008.11/newer version as my main primary desktop, I will try it, since I need only these tools from the time-being: netbeans/PHP, MySql and Apache. But from time to time, I need more software, so it is kinda not a possible option, but I will try.
Comment by allan registos — 29. March 2009 @ 17:52
Thanks for this frank review of OpenSolaris.
Perhaps its worth noting that Sun is aiming this OS squarely at workstation use only not really as a competitor or rival to Linux.
I’d hardly say Linux and BSD are giants. OpenSolaris is a direct descendant of Unix itself the other 2 are really only Unix-a-likes. That’s not to say the time invested in developing BSD and Linux to make it work with current hardware is wasted or in vain, it just means that Sun are VERY late to the open source party yet expect to be treated as something mainstream when they really don’t deserve it.
A LOT more work needs to be done to make it compatible with even the most fundamental features of modern computer systems. Its truly scandalous that Wireless cards aren’t widely supported by it amongst other things.
There really are boot time problems in terms of speed with OpenSolaris…particularly when virtualised. These need to be addressed promptly if it is ever going to get the wide acceptance Linux has and BSD has gained over the years.
There one good thing about Sun coming to the OpenSource party in terms of its OS and that the more people that step into the *Nix software/OS world the less they are actually using Microsoft operating systems. And that has to be a good thing for the WHOLE *Nix OS and software community.
Comment by Mark Hyde — 29. March 2009 @ 20:30
Following up on an earlier comment I made, I ended up trying to install OpenSolaris 2008.11 on a Dell dummy node I have sitting in my home office for test purposes and I unfortunately cannot seem to get past the “Probing Hardware” portion of loading from the CD image. The PC just hangs there. This node has no problems with installing and running GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows. My next step is to try a spare HP Proliant DL360 blade server I have sitting around.
Also all, thank you for your input on ZFS and DTrace. The point I was trying to make with my comments is that I believe more time should focus on stabilizing the OS and adding more application and hardware support.
>I’d hardly say Linux and BSD are giants.
The reason why giants is that they are giants in open source operating system development. OpenSolaris is still new and while SunOS/Solaris has been out for much longer than at least GNU/Linux, it was not and is still not open source.
Comment by admin — 30. March 2009 @ 09:09
I recommend to have at least 1.5-2GB of Memory installed, which is anyway cheap today. ZFS works smoother with that amount of memory. I guess, under Virtualbox you should give Opensolaris a little bit more memory as well…
I have an eeepc with 2GB running OpenSolaris as its main OS. It runs smoothly, and all the hardware is supported now (wireless LAN as well).
Comment by Mike — 30. March 2009 @ 15:15
Mike, what eeepc did you install it on? Do we know if the network device drivers for the Eee PC 901 is supported?
Comment by admin — 31. March 2009 @ 09:07
OpenSolaris runs on the Acer Aspire One, MSI Wind and Asus eee pc. Just go to blogs.sun.com and search for acer, asus or MSI. We run ZFS on our servers and it makes admin so much easier when needing to allocate more space and dynamically create fie systems. Look at www.solarisinternals.com and click on ZFS for further reading. All servers run in Zones as well connected to central disk via iScsi or fiber. We are looking into using local ssd drives (intel slc and mlc) for the ZFS Intent Log(ZIL) which accelerates writes. All in all we have many options to maximize performance and minimize hardware using ZFS and Zones. The last thing I’d like to mention is that if you want to do multiple installs you can setup a Jumpstart environment to automatically install the operating system. It is a rare occasion a cd actually has to be used in modern hardware if your environment is set up properly.
Comment by Doug — 5. April 2009 @ 11:35
Doug,
Thanks for the information. Also I did not know that OpenSolaris development had gotten to the point of utilizing Jumpstart for installations. I used to use this all the time for Solaris 8, 9 & 10 automated installs. It did make things easier (as does the Kickstart on GNU/Linux).
I will try to play around with OpenSolaris on my ASUS Eee 901 and see what I can do with it in the near future. For the time being I have grown attached to Easy Peasy.
Comment by admin — 5. April 2009 @ 11:41
Think this review was slightly bias don’t you? However Linux users do like Opensolaris a lot, its different has a great communitee,is targeted at the professional in the home and enterprise space.It does a good job and is developing at lighting speeds… Like Ross Brun says there is more to come yet!!!
Comment by Rob Jones — 6. April 2009 @ 15:43
>Think this review was slightly bias don’t you?
And why shouldn’t I be? I have been using SunOS and Solaris for many years now and I know the quality that comes out of Sun. Solaris for the SPARC architectures was stable. It never did me any wrong. I enjoy using it. Outside of a couple project (i.e. Open Office from Star Office, etc.), it was not until a few years ago that Sun realized that it would be advantageous (especially to the survival of their company’s future) to begin open source development and acquiring existing projects. With regard to OpenSolaris, it still has a lot of work ahead of it. The problem is, Sun waited a little too long to enter in this arena. You are correct, the community around it has grown rather large and quite fast.
While Sun developed Solaris for Intel platforms, I primarily used them on SPARC systems and they ran great! Very stable and great performance but that because it was geared towards Sun equipment. While they always provided it, more emphasis has been placed on Intel architecture for the past few years and this is where I feel the OpenSolaris project will truly help; primarily because the community will most likely own the more affordable and cheaper Intel based equipment.
Going back to my review being a bit biased. I have just grown accustomed to things working great out-of-the-box with very little additional effort. That is where GNU/Linux has truly excelled for me, but it has also had a lot more significant time to mature with the open source community.
Comment by admin — 6. April 2009 @ 19:24
I’ve been using OpenSolaris on my main desktop for a week or so now. I have one problem: none of the three sound devices I have tried: have worked. I’m hoping that can be solved soon. I’m currently erasing my TabletPC’s Vista and Ubuntu partitions in order to install OpenSolaris. I have an UltraSPARC III in the rack that may get OpenSolaris in a year or so, once Sun start moving from Solaris 10 to Solaris 11 (OpenSolaris based.)
The DL360 isn’t a blade server, it’s a 1U server. Blade servers are the small thin vertical devices in an enclosure, 10 or so in a line across the rack. Trust me, I have 4 DL360’s in my rack. Which generation are you using? I have both G1’s (Unsupported) and 3 G2’s (Supposedly compatible, but I couldn’t make them work - hence the Sun Fire 280R.)
Personally, I’m looking forward to the PowerPC port.
Comment by Graham Simpson — 10. April 2009 @ 09:09
Graham,
I currently have 2 G3’s. I used to have some of the early generation G4’s and a couple G4p’s at my disposal but not anymore. I have not had the opportunity to try OpenSolaris on them yet. With regards to the blade server comment, you may notice this from time to time. When I get too excited in my responses, I have a tendency of slapping words together. Thank you for the correction.
Petros
Comment by admin — 10. April 2009 @ 09:25
I have tried Opensolaris 8.11 on my 2Gb Sony Vaio VGN-FS515E Laptop and I was quite impressed. The wireless networking worked straight off the LiveCD. The only problem I had was on shutdown where the laptop did not switch off automatically. It does seem to be more memory hungry than Linux, but with 2Gb onboard that’s not a problem. Everything else worked okay. And yet Windows 7 RC can’t play sounds through the same laptop…
Comment by Stephen — 24. May 2009 @ 02:24