An anonymous reader writes "With Sun busy being swallowed up by Oracle, should Linux geeks pay any interest to OpenSolaris? TuxRadar put together a guide to OpenSolaris's most interesting features from a Linux user's perspective, covering how to get started with ZFS and virtualisation alongside more consumer-friendly topics such as hardware and Flash support."
At home I love to use Ubuntu, I've long given up on Windows.
I've tried out OpenSolaris a few times, mainly to get use to the subtle differences between Linux and Solaris. As part of my job heavily involves using Solaris its nice to use the OpenSolaris system to learn what I can in my spare time. I know there are many differences between Solaris and OpenSolaris, but the gap isn't as large as from Linux.
That said, personally I think the icon theme in Gnome for OpenSolaris is pretty nice looking. Gnome has a very polished look in OpenSolaris. It would be a shame to see Oracle kill this project, I think OpenSolaris has a lot of potential. If anything, they should invest more in OpenSolaris. If I had a home server, I would definitely consider using it.
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday September 14, @06:53PM (#29420743)
* Solaris only includes Unix versions of system tools. * OpenSolaris includes a mishmash of crappy Unix tools and crappy GNU tools. * Linux only includes GNU tools. In other words, if you thought the Linux ecosystem was a mess, Solaris will not surprise you - pleasantly, that is. The only selling point for OpenSolaris is SUN's ZFS that seems to give some geeks a hard-on. If you are looking for a consistent system any BSD will beat OpenSolaris and FreeBSD has also better performance. Hardware support is also a lot better for BSDs.
Heh. They may be simple and crude, but at least they work the unix way, and the command line switches aren't shit like "--fuck-me-this-is-a-lot-of-typing"
Anyone who likes Linux and wants to try OpenSolaris should give Nexenta [nexenta.org] a look. It's basically Ubuntu using the OpenSolaris kernel instead of Linux (so GNU/Solaris?). All the fun of Solaris, all the ease of apt. I can't find builds for anything except x86 though.
First an alternative OS like Open Solaris and now a garage OS? What next, an Indie OS? The developers go around on tour and sell the CDs at the OS Concert?
I love the idea of Nexenta but I have never gotten it to successfully install and boot on any machine I've tried. OpenSolaris, on the other hand, has never failed me. As of right now, I completely suck at administrating it, but it does install, boot, and I can get around it well enough for my day to day tasks.
What I liked about this article is that it has nice clean tables showing the Solaris verison of the Linux commands I already know. Nexenta seems to want to hide me from all the Solaris stuff under
OpenSolaris looks polished in many areas, but I see Linux as ahead of it as a Desktop OS. I hope that Desktop Linux distributions (and Linux kernel hackers) take note of what OpenSolaris does right (easy snapshot support - sure Linux doesn't have ZFS, but it has LVM which appears to be able to do snapshots) and play a bit of catch-up. And who knows, maybe OpenSolaris will do the same and try to catch up to Linux.
That is why they are developing btrfs file system, which in theory should be superior to ZFS or at least do more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Btrfs [wikipedia.org]
If you really want ZFS in linux right now, it can be done through fuse in linux as I understand.
I do not consider OpenSolaris future safe until we get a few forks. Now there is The OpenSolaris and it's future depends on just one (evil) corporation. If one GNU/Linux distribution dies a horrible death then it is of no importance since there are dozens of other BNU/Binux (with a B) distributions. If Bubuntu dies then that does not stop Bedora or Bentoo from carrying forward. I'll take a look at OpenSolaris when there's at minimum 3 variants of it being developed.
OSOL's own site lists several different distributions. There's also auroraux, which aims to have its own kernel source repository and freedom from any remaining binary bits: http://www.auroraux.org/index.php/Main_Page [auroraux.org]
I grew up on Slackware. If Patrick switched to the dark side and forked OpenSolaris, I would probably drop Linux from my home server and switch just on principle.
Having had a few EXT3 filesystems go tits up because they've been quietly borking themselves on a 24/7/365 server being able to do a weekly "zpool scrub" in a 4TB array without the downtime is a beautiful thing. Kernel CIFS with proper ACLs and integration with ZFS snapshots is pretty great as well. When btrfs is released and gets a few miles on it I may switch back. But for now my file server stays OpenSolaris.
There's a lot of little things you'll notice over the years about Solaris / OpenSolaris that are unique, cool, neat, or useful -- too many to list in an article like this, of course. One example I was reminded of by the "differences" table -- the authors note that the Solaris equivalent of Linux's "/tmp" is "/var/tmp" -- but they failed to point out that Solaris also has a/tmp, and that, by default/tmp is actually partially backed by RAM, which is extremely convenient and useful from time to time, when you want a little piece of lightning-fast filesystem space, or want to eliminate disk as a variable in some sort of timing test. Of course, linux also has ramdisks, but this is generally far more convenient.
$ time dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/tmp/foo bs=1024k count=128 128+0 records in 128+0 records out dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/tmp/foo bs=1024k count=128 0.00s user 0.71s system 24% cpu 2.910 total
$ time dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/foo bs=1024k count=128 128+0 records in 128+0 records out dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/foo bs=1024k count=128 0.00s user 0.43s system 98% cpu 0.438 total
-- but they failed to point out that Solaris also has a/tmp, and that, by default/tmp is actually partially backed by RAM, which is extremely convenient and useful from time to time, when you want a little piece of lightning-fast filesystem space, or want to eliminate disk as a variable in some sort of timing test.
In any new Linux distribution,/dev/shm is also backed by ram, so you can do:
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/tmp/foo bs=1024k count=512 512+0 records in 512+0 records out 536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 1.12253 s, 478 MB/s
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/shm/foo bs=1024k count=512 512+0 records in 512+0 records out 536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 0.754747 s, 711 MB/s
Obviously, I had to copy four times the data to reach the slowness of Solaris:-)
One example I was reminded of by the "differences" table -- the authors note that the Solaris equivalent of Linux's "/tmp" is "/var/tmp" -- but they failed to point out that Solaris also has a/tmp, and that, by default/tmp is actually partially backed by RAM, which is extremely convenient and useful from time to time, when you want a little piece of lightning-fast filesystem space, or want to eliminate disk as a variable in some sort of timing test. Of course, linux also has ramdisks, but this is generally far more convenient.
Is the way Solaris handles/tmp really all that different from the Linux tmpfs implementation?
solaris-box:$ mount /tmp on swap read/write/setuid/xattr/dev=2
linux-box:$ mount
none on/tmp type tmpfs (rw,nodev,noatime,size=256m,uid=0,gid=0,mode=1777)
Other than picking the maximum size at mount time, tmpfs seems to be the same thing. If you pick a size equal to swap space, I think it is the same thing:
Both use RAM if available but are backed by swap (just like any other memory allocation).
Both use essentially no RAM or swap until you write files to the mount point.
Both can set various permissions and features on the mount point.
I was recently tasked with doing an inventory and repurposing of a stack of older Sun machines (Sunfire, Netra, etc).
What I discovered is that OpenSolaris won't even install on some of the models. Install from CD? Nope. Install remotely via a network install? Nope, and let me go on record as saying that the network install process is *absurdly* complex.
On the other hand, I popped a Debian CD in, and it installed beautifully once I booted into expert mode and loaded fdisk (parted blows when dealing with Sun tables).
That's right, Linux was easier to work with on these Sun servers than OpenSolaris. OSOL has some really cool features (ZFS and DTrace, for example), and I've mucked around in it on my x86 boxes before, but overall Linux is still easier to work with in my experience, even on Sun servers.
I always keep an OSOL VM in VirtualBox, but it doesn't see much use. I'd rather use Linux or BSD.
OSOL has some really cool features (ZFS and DTrace, for example), and I've mucked around in it on my x86 boxes before, but overall Linux is still easier to work with in my experience, even on Sun servers.
If you want the best of the Solaris and Linux world, install FreeBSD. Stable ZFS support, DTrace, etc. Plus ports and packages, and Linux binary compatibility if you need it.
It still heavily favors the BSD side of things, rather than SysV style... in fact, much more than any Linux distro I've seen... but it still definitely has far more of the nice features of the old commercial Unix systems than Linux.
You could say the same about Linux. Doesn't mean it's a bad idea to try it.
In fact, I quite like the fact that there are enterprise-grade features lying around my system, just in case I ever happen to need them. As long as they don't get in the way of day-to-day tasks, what's the harm?
(A good current example of this is ZFS. Although casual users won't have a use for this, I find ZFS's awesome filesystem-creation and pooling features to be a godsend for managing my central backup repository and media store. If I need more space, I add another drive, type a short line into the console, and the space is available instantly to use with my existing filesystems with full-redundancy built in. Removing an old/small/broken drive from the pool is just as easy.)
You could say the same about Linux. Doesn't mean it's a bad idea to try it.
Well not exactly, Linux wasen't written with servers in mind, Solaris was, but anyway thats by-the-by now.
Im not against Solaris, I think its great also, infact ive even been toying with the idea of putting it on my home server for the exact same reason you just stated regarding ZFS. I just think that at the moment, the only Open Source OS thats even nearly practical for typical day-to-day desktop use is Linux. OSS is pretty thin
the only Open Source OS thats even nearly practical for typical day-to-day desktop use is Linux
This is not true. Most applications that run on Linux compile just as well on a variety of platforms. Gnome and KDE4 both have packages for FreeBSD for example. If you really want something simple and portable run Fluxbox or Openbox.
A lot of things are written in Java as well, which means you even have binary compatibility. Things written in Python and other scripting languages are also portable.
A) Use YouTube and a multitude of other video sites
B) Play Flash games
C) Use parts of Google Maps
D) View some sites with webmasters who sought fit to put the navigation in 100% Flash
Just setting up a decent/etc/hosts file can eliminate 95% of ads, and Adblock plus or noscript can eliminate all the others.
Gnash can handle most Flash navigation, as well as YouTube. And you're aware that Flash wasn't available for 64 bit Linux users until recently right? Even now I think only an alpha release is available.
Just setting up a decent/etc/hosts file can eliminate 95% of ads
Horror. You actually iterate through a list of hundreds of blocked domains every time you do a domain lookup?
I've used that HOSTS file on Windows as well as Linux, to speed up browsing. Reading the HOSTS file might take me a couple minutes, but the computer does it in an instant or two. Why should I download all the trash the ad servers offer, when the content I want makes up only a fraction of the entire page? With limited bandwidth, HOSTS can make browsing a lot more enjoyable, as well as making a browser hijack somewhat less likely. Ever been Rick Rolled? Are you always aware of cross site scripting as you
If you're depending on a static blacklist of bad sites to protect yourself from bad scripts then you're doing it wrong.
Just don't run scripts without your explicit approval, require a click to enable flash/java objects, and use a secure browser (chromium, konqueror, probably kazehakase over firefox if you're in GTK+).
Why don't they just run flash in a virtualized Linux box if they want to run it in *BSD? Sure, it's a bit of a hack, but any OS that can't show a kitten playing guitar is not, in my opinion, feature complete.
OpenSolaris is perfectly practical for the desktop, just maybe not EVERY desktop.
This really depends on what you want to do with your computer. If it's a gaming rig, neither OpenSolaris nor Linux will be perfect for that. If you're looking for maximum software compatibility within the Unix-y realm, Linux is your answer.
If your desktop is a part time file or mail server, OpenSolaris has some features you might like. ZFS and fault management are big ones in that. DTrace also goes way beyond what is available
I'll throw in that Open Solaris has the best accessibility software for the blind, in Sun's Orca project. It works in Linux, but not as well as where it's developed... in Solaris. This is a key indicator of just how ready an OS is for the desktop, IMO.
Anyway, the whole Windows vs Linux flame war is pointless. Linux is the best OS ever developed for hackers, period. I couldn't be happier with it (unless it ran cool software like Orca stably). Windows is for Joe Sixpack who needs games and porn. Joe will always outnumber the hackers. It's ok. Just learn to live with it.
No. What gave you the idea? Linux always was a "everything" OS. From the smallest portable and embedded devices capable of 32 bit, to the biggest supercomputers on the world.
But I agree on the enterprise-grade features. We're professionals. Professional craftsmen wouldn't use tools from the local DIY store. They use tools like this: http://www.us.hilti.com/holus/modules/prcat/prca_main.jsp [hilti.com]
Besides: I use ZFS on my small Linux server via FUSE, which unfortunately makes it a crazy resources hog, with using up
I wonder how much resources it takes under OpenSolaris, and if a OpenSolaris virtual server, just for the ZFS, would make sense...
ZFS will always try to take up as much RAM as it can for the ARC [wikipedia.org] (Adaptive Replacement Cache).
While ZFS on FUSE probably works fine, it will always make me a bit scared. But kudos if it works for you!
P.S. I like your Hilti analogy. The average do-it-yourselfer does not (and has no need to) know who Hilti is or what kind of products they make. Those who need to know, do.
Who said anything about using it for a desktop?? I use OpenSolaris at home to run my NAS for one reason: ZFS. I strongly considered using BSD, but figured OpenSolaris was a better choice for my needs. So far I have had zero issues with it. It just sits in a room and quietly does what it was supposed to do. I am sure I would never try to use it for a desktop OS, but then again I'd never use Linux, BSD or Windows either.
For that matter, why try and hack Linux on to a desktop??
OpenSolaris 2009.06 has some excellent new desktop features,
TimeSlider which is similar to Apples Time Capsule Image - GUI Package Mangement AutoMagic - Network Configuration Wizards including wifi Multimedia Codecs and Support Improved OpenSolaris CIFS for interoprability with Windows networking.
I've been using it at home for a month or so and I'm enjoying it. I've also just gone to Windows 7 which I'm loving so its becoming a bit of a hard choice what I want to run on my notebook.
TimeSlider which is similar to Apples Time Capsule
I think you mean Time Machine (Time Capsule is Apple's NAS product). Saying TimeSlider is similar to Time Machine is doing TimeSlider a gross injustice. Time Slider works how Time Machine should. It uses the ZFS O(1) snapshot feature, making it very cheap to use and very robust. Time Machine creates a tree of hard links, which are not created atomically. The fact that it works at all is impressive, but it's very fragile. From an end-user perspective they are similar, but TimeSlider is a much cleaner implementation.
I'm not sure if it made it into the main OpenSolaris tree, but Nexenta also uses ZFS snapshots for package management with a wrapper around apt. When you do an update, it snapshots the system first, so if something went wrong (e.g. one package didn't update cleanly, or had regressions) you can revert trivially. Once you're happy, you can discard the snapshot. This is really great for testing experimental code; you can install the development version and revert it trivially if it broke anything.
its scheduler doesn't suck, its stable and usable under extreme load
It's sort of true... Solaris isn't that snappy to begin with, but it doesn't get bogged down easily either. It says at a pretty consistent speed from my experience.
and it has a stable ABI.
Amusingly, this hasn't really helped the hardware support much for Solaris, when you compare all the hardware Linux supports with it's unstable ABIs.
(eg, dtrace vs kerneltrap)
Which, is great if you're doing kernel development - it really is. But if you're
One thing I thing the Linux community could take from OpenSolaris is its concentration on the approval and standardization of applications, so long as you stay on the OpenSolaris repositories. There is pretty much one tool for each job. That's it -- generally speaking of course.
As a quick example off the top of my head, I'll take GNU's tar, cron (Solaris' doesn't even have */5 or @reboot), grep over Solaris' default equivalents. From my own experience, I don't find this "standardization" allowing much room for any kind of innovation.
It may not have all the bells/whistles of Ubuntu
The utilities don't even have the past decade of enhancements we've seen on BSDs and Linux, never mind Ubuntu.
Why do you think anybody complaining about GPL compatibility must be a FSF drone?
There's lots of good software out there under the GPL, including the Linux kernel. Much of it is designed to be hacked and put together with other things. In its various incarnations, it's probably the most popular of the Free Software/Open Source licenses (second being the BSD-style licenses - and anything compatible with the GPL is compatible with those).
This means that a GPL-compatible program is more versatile than a
I really like OpenSolaris (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I really like OpenSolaris (Score:4, Interesting)
* Solaris only includes Unix versions of system tools.
* OpenSolaris includes a mishmash of crappy Unix tools and crappy GNU tools.
* Linux only includes GNU tools.
In other words, if you thought the Linux ecosystem was a mess, Solaris will not surprise you - pleasantly, that is.
The only selling point for OpenSolaris is SUN's ZFS that seems to give some geeks a hard-on.
If you are looking for a consistent system any BSD will beat OpenSolaris and FreeBSD has also better performance.
Hardware support is also a lot better for BSDs.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm not particularly devoted to the GNU tools, but... sadist.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a short list of keywords or programs you'll need to know abotu. Google for anything that interests you.
Role based access control
prstat instead of top
prtconf
vmstat
iostat
svcs, svcadmn
dtrace
Nexenta (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What I liked about this article is that it has nice clean tables showing the Solaris verison of the Linux commands I already know. Nexenta seems to want to hide me from all the Solaris stuff under
My Hope for OpenSolaris (Score:5, Insightful)
OpenSolaris looks polished in many areas, but I see Linux as ahead of it as a Desktop OS. I hope that Desktop Linux distributions (and Linux kernel hackers) take note of what OpenSolaris does right (easy snapshot support - sure Linux doesn't have ZFS, but it has LVM which appears to be able to do snapshots) and play a bit of catch-up. And who knows, maybe OpenSolaris will do the same and try to catch up to Linux.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That is why they are developing btrfs file system, which in theory should be superior to ZFS or at least do more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Btrfs [wikipedia.org]
If you really want ZFS in linux right now, it can be done through fuse in linux as I understand.
Where are the forks? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Where are the forks? (Score:5, Informative)
OSOL's own site lists several different distributions. There's also auroraux, which aims to have its own kernel source repository and freedom from any remaining binary bits: http://www.auroraux.org/index.php/Main_Page [auroraux.org]
Parent
Re:Where are the forks? (Score:4, Informative)
I'll take a look at OpenSolaris when there's at minimum 3 variants of it being developed.
Here is a list of 13 OpenSolaris distros [opensolaris.org] as of March 2009:
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I am waiting for Blackware, but don't want Batrick Bolkerding to over-extend himself.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I grew up on Slackware. If Patrick switched to the dark side and forked OpenSolaris, I would probably drop Linux from my home server and switch just on principle.
ZFS (Score:5, Interesting)
Having had a few EXT3 filesystems go tits up because they've been quietly borking themselves on a 24/7/365 server being able to do a weekly "zpool scrub" in a 4TB array without the downtime is a beautiful thing. Kernel CIFS with proper ACLs and integration with ZFS snapshots is pretty great as well. When btrfs is released and gets a few miles on it I may switch back. But for now my file server stays OpenSolaris.
/tmp and /var/tmp (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
-- but they failed to point out that Solaris also has a /tmp, and that, by default /tmp is actually partially backed by RAM, which is extremely convenient and useful from time to time, when you want a little piece of lightning-fast filesystem space, or want to eliminate disk as a variable in some sort of timing test.
In any new Linux distribution, /dev/shm is also backed by ram, so you can do:
Obviously, I had to copy four times the data to reach the slowness of Solaris :-)
Re:/tmp and /var/tmp (Score:5, Interesting)
One example I was reminded of by the "differences" table -- the authors note that the Solaris equivalent of Linux's "/tmp" is "/var/tmp" -- but they failed to point out that Solaris also has a /tmp, and that, by default /tmp is actually partially backed by RAM, which is extremely convenient and useful from time to time, when you want a little piece of lightning-fast filesystem space, or want to eliminate disk as a variable in some sort of timing test. Of course, linux also has ramdisks, but this is generally far more convenient.
Is the way Solaris handles /tmp really all that different from the Linux tmpfs implementation?
Other than picking the maximum size at mount time, tmpfs seems to be the same thing. If you pick a size equal to swap space, I think it is the same thing:
Parent
Linux Wins (Score:4, Informative)
I was recently tasked with doing an inventory and repurposing of a stack of older Sun machines (Sunfire, Netra, etc).
What I discovered is that OpenSolaris won't even install on some of the models. Install from CD? Nope. Install remotely via a network install? Nope, and let me go on record as saying that the network install process is *absurdly* complex.
On the other hand, I popped a Debian CD in, and it installed beautifully once I booted into expert mode and loaded fdisk (parted blows when dealing with Sun tables).
That's right, Linux was easier to work with on these Sun servers than OpenSolaris. OSOL has some really cool features (ZFS and DTrace, for example), and I've mucked around in it on my x86 boxes before, but overall Linux is still easier to work with in my experience, even on Sun servers.
I always keep an OSOL VM in VirtualBox, but it doesn't see much use. I'd rather use Linux or BSD.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Linux Wins (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want the best of the Solaris and Linux world, install FreeBSD. Stable ZFS support, DTrace, etc. Plus ports and packages, and Linux binary compatibility if you need it.
It still heavily favors the BSD side of things, rather than SysV style... in fact, much more than any Linux distro I've seen... but it still definitely has far more of the nice features of the old commercial Unix systems than Linux.
Parent
Re:OpenSolaris (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Using JFS:
$ time cp data test2
real 0m0.062s
user 0m0.000s
sys 0m0.040s
Re:OpenSolaris (Score:4, Funny)
how long did it take you to copy a 17 meg file from one folder to another?
this is one of my all time favorites, the fact that people below responded with timing makes it ever sweeter. I am in your debt.
Parent
Re:Its a Server OS... (Score:5, Interesting)
You could say the same about Linux. Doesn't mean it's a bad idea to try it.
In fact, I quite like the fact that there are enterprise-grade features lying around my system, just in case I ever happen to need them. As long as they don't get in the way of day-to-day tasks, what's the harm?
(A good current example of this is ZFS. Although casual users won't have a use for this, I find ZFS's awesome filesystem-creation and pooling features to be a godsend for managing my central backup repository and media store. If I need more space, I add another drive, type a short line into the console, and the space is available instantly to use with my existing filesystems with full-redundancy built in. Removing an old/small/broken drive from the pool is just as easy.)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Well not exactly, Linux wasen't written with servers in mind, Solaris was, but anyway thats by-the-by now. Im not against Solaris, I think its great also, infact ive even been toying with the idea of putting it on my home server for the exact same reason you just stated regarding ZFS. I just think that at the moment, the only Open Source OS thats even nearly practical for typical day-to-day desktop use is Linux. OSS is pretty thin
Re:Its a Server OS... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not true. Most applications that run on Linux compile just as well on a variety of platforms. Gnome and KDE4 both have packages for FreeBSD for example. If you really want something simple and portable run Fluxbox or Openbox.
A lot of things are written in Java as well, which means you even have binary compatibility. Things written in Python and other scripting languages are also portable.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Then Linux fails too, by your own definition it can only run *most* windows programs (via hardware emulation or Wine).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A) Use YouTube and a multitude of other video sites
B) Play Flash games
C) Use parts of Google Maps
D) View some sites with webmasters who sought fit to put the navigation in 100% Flash
Just setting up a decent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Gnash can handle most Flash navigation, as well as YouTube. And you're aware that Flash wasn't available for 64 bit Linux users until recently right? Even now I think only an alpha release is available.
Horror. You actually iterate through a list of hundreds of blocked domains every time you do a domain lookup?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've used that HOSTS file on Windows as well as Linux, to speed up browsing. Reading the HOSTS file might take me a couple minutes, but the computer does it in an instant or two. Why should I download all the trash the ad servers offer, when the content I want makes up only a fraction of the entire page? With limited bandwidth, HOSTS can make browsing a lot more enjoyable, as well as making a browser hijack somewhat less likely. Ever been Rick Rolled? Are you always aware of cross site scripting as you
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're depending on a static blacklist of bad sites to protect yourself from bad scripts then you're doing it wrong.
Just don't run scripts without your explicit approval, require a click to enable flash/java objects, and use a secure browser (chromium, konqueror, probably kazehakase over firefox if you're in GTK+).
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Why don't they just run flash in a virtualized Linux box if they want to run it in *BSD? Sure, it's a bit of a hack, but any OS that can't show a kitten playing guitar is not, in my opinion, feature complete.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
OpenSolaris is perfectly practical for the desktop, just maybe not EVERY desktop.
This really depends on what you want to do with your computer. If it's a gaming rig, neither OpenSolaris nor Linux will be perfect for that. If you're looking for maximum software compatibility within the Unix-y realm, Linux is your answer.
If your desktop is a part time file or mail server, OpenSolaris has some features you might like. ZFS and fault management are big ones in that. DTrace also goes way beyond what is available
Re:Its a Server OS... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll throw in that Open Solaris has the best accessibility software for the blind, in Sun's Orca project. It works in Linux, but not as well as where it's developed... in Solaris. This is a key indicator of just how ready an OS is for the desktop, IMO.
Anyway, the whole Windows vs Linux flame war is pointless. Linux is the best OS ever developed for hackers, period. I couldn't be happier with it (unless it ran cool software like Orca stably). Windows is for Joe Sixpack who needs games and porn. Joe will always outnumber the hackers. It's ok. Just learn to live with it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Dunno, I've found plenty of Linux-compatible porn.
Just maybe...
you're doing it wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well not exactly, Linux wasen't written with servers in mind.
Yes it was [xkcd.com].
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No. What gave you the idea? Linux always was a "everything" OS. From the smallest portable and embedded devices capable of 32 bit, to the biggest supercomputers on the world.
But I agree on the enterprise-grade features. We're professionals. Professional craftsmen wouldn't use tools from the local DIY store. They use tools like this: http://www.us.hilti.com/holus/modules/prcat/prca_main.jsp [hilti.com]
Besides: I use ZFS on my small Linux server via FUSE, which unfortunately makes it a crazy resources hog, with using up
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how much resources it takes under OpenSolaris, and if a OpenSolaris virtual server, just for the ZFS, would make sense...
ZFS will always try to take up as much RAM as it can for the ARC [wikipedia.org] (Adaptive Replacement Cache).
While ZFS on FUSE probably works fine, it will always make me a bit scared. But kudos if it works for you!
P.S. I like your Hilti analogy. The average do-it-yourselfer does not (and has no need to) know who Hilti is or what kind of products they make. Those who need to know, do.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why try to hack it on to a desktop?
Who said anything about using it for a desktop?? I use OpenSolaris at home to run my NAS for one reason: ZFS. I strongly considered using BSD, but figured OpenSolaris was a better choice for my needs. So far I have had zero issues with it. It just sits in a room and quietly does what it was supposed to do. I am sure I would never try to use it for a desktop OS, but then again I'd never use Linux, BSD or Windows either. For that matter, why try and hack Linux on to a desktop??
Re:Its not just a server OS anymore (Score:3, Informative)
OpenSolaris 2009.06 has some excellent new desktop features,
TimeSlider which is similar to Apples Time Capsule
Image - GUI Package Mangement
AutoMagic - Network Configuration Wizards including wifi
Multimedia Codecs and Support
Improved OpenSolaris CIFS for interoprability with Windows networking.
I've been using it at home for a month or so and I'm enjoying it. I've also just gone to Windows 7 which I'm loving so its becoming a bit of a hard choice what I want to run on my notebook.
Re:Its not just a server OS anymore (Score:4, Insightful)
TimeSlider which is similar to Apples Time Capsule
I think you mean Time Machine (Time Capsule is Apple's NAS product). Saying TimeSlider is similar to Time Machine is doing TimeSlider a gross injustice. Time Slider works how Time Machine should. It uses the ZFS O(1) snapshot feature, making it very cheap to use and very robust. Time Machine creates a tree of hard links, which are not created atomically. The fact that it works at all is impressive, but it's very fragile. From an end-user perspective they are similar, but TimeSlider is a much cleaner implementation.
I'm not sure if it made it into the main OpenSolaris tree, but Nexenta also uses ZFS snapshots for package management with a wrapper around apt. When you do an update, it snapshots the system first, so if something went wrong (e.g. one package didn't update cleanly, or had regressions) you can revert trivially. Once you're happy, you can discard the snapshot. This is really great for testing experimental code; you can install the development version and revert it trivially if it broke anything.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's sort of true... Solaris isn't that snappy to begin with, but it doesn't get bogged down easily either. It says at a pretty consistent speed from my experience.
Amusingly, this hasn't really helped the hardware support much for Solaris, when you compare all the hardware Linux supports with it's unstable ABIs.
Which, is great if you're doing kernel development - it really is. But if you're
Re:I'll weigh in... (Score:4, Insightful)
As a quick example off the top of my head, I'll take GNU's tar, cron (Solaris' doesn't even have */5 or @reboot), grep over Solaris' default equivalents. From my own experience, I don't find this "standardization" allowing much room for any kind of innovation.
The utilities don't even have the past decade of enhancements we've seen on BSDs and Linux, never mind Ubuntu.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do you think anybody complaining about GPL compatibility must be a FSF drone?
There's lots of good software out there under the GPL, including the Linux kernel. Much of it is designed to be hacked and put together with other things. In its various incarnations, it's probably the most popular of the Free Software/Open Source licenses (second being the BSD-style licenses - and anything compatible with the GPL is compatible with those).
This means that a GPL-compatible program is more versatile than a