Comments on: A Short Review of OpenSolaris 2008.11 http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/ The blog of Petros Koutoupis. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:56:19 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Stephen http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-4744 Stephen Sun, 24 May 2009 08:24:08 +0000 http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-4744 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... 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…

]]> By: admin http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-2184 admin Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:25:34 +0000 http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-2184 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 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

]]> By: Graham Simpson http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-2180 Graham Simpson Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:09:47 +0000 http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-2180 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. 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.

]]> By: admin http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1824 admin Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:24:08 +0000 http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1824 >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. >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.

]]> By: Rob Jones http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1807 Rob Jones Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:43:52 +0000 http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1807 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!!! 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!!!

]]> By: admin http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1709 admin Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:41:19 +0000 http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1709 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. 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.

]]> By: Doug http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1708 Doug Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:35:20 +0000 http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1708 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. 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.

]]> By: admin http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1415 admin Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:07:27 +0000 http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1415 Mike, what eeepc did you install it on? Do we know if the network device drivers for the Eee PC 901 is supported? Mike, what eeepc did you install it on? Do we know if the network device drivers for the Eee PC 901 is supported?

]]> By: Mike http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1382 Mike Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:15:39 +0000 http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1382 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). 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).

]]> By: admin http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1372 admin Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:09:42 +0000 http://blog.hydrasystemsllc.com/2009/03/28/a-short-review-of-opensolaris-200811/#comment-1372 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. 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.

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