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Gentoo Announces OpenSolaris Port 209

Posted by Hemos from the what-will-happen-here dept.
A reader writes:"According to this week's Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, Gentoo is planning a port to Sun's partially-announced OpenSolaris. Something interesting to look out for, or just more hype from a developer often criticized even by Gentoo people for not looking before he leaps?"
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Gentoo Announces OpenSolaris Port More

Gentoo Announces OpenSolaris Port

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  • I use Gentoo. I have even donated money toward Gentoo? Why should I be interested in Sun/Solaris? Is Sun's execs still slamming Linux in their blogs? Is today "We sell Linux." or is today "Linux is no good, Solaris is better."

    • Re:Why back Sun? Why back Solaris? (Score:4, Informative)

      by koi88 ( 640490 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @08:44AM (#11467333)

      GNU's not UNIX. Solaris is.
      • But... "GNU's not Unix" was a JOKE. They called it "not Unix" because calling it Unix would have been illegal. Aside from the trademark issue, GNU is unix.
    • Gentoo's not the kind of thing you run on production servers, Solaris is. They're not really in the same "space", as the marketdroids would say.

      If you're asking, "Why would I switch from Gentoo to Solaris?" then you probably wouldn't benefit.

      (and for the record, I don't see portage as being a large benefit to Solaris over pkgadd for the typical server, either)

      • Re:Why back Sun? Why back Solaris? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by I confirm I'm not a ( 720413 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @08:54AM (#11467419) Journal

        (and for the record, I don't see portage as being a large benefit to Solaris over pkgadd for the typical server, either)

        I prefer pkg-get, which seemed to be quite like Gentoo's "emerge". I last deployed a Solaris box before I first installed Gentoo, so I can't recall how similar they are. Does pkg-get resolve dependencies? Reason I ask is, I'm gradually falling in love with "emerge" - it's a superb tool.

        Then again, I had no end of trouble convincing the owners of the last Solaris box I touched that I should be allowed to install various GNU tools, so I don't know how much of an advantage Portaris will really bring - unless it becomes accepted as "part" of Solaris.

        • No, it doesn't resolve dependicies. I'll refuse to use any OS at home that doesn't have a ports system of some sorts as it just makes life so much easier.

          And yes, you can compile them manually under Solaris no problem. Sun also supply them on a bonus CD. The problem is, they don't update them. Vuln in libpng? Update it yourself. :(

          Portage is a superb tool. I'd really like to have a good ports system on normal Solaris, let alone OpenSolaris!
          • No, it doesn't resolve dependicies.

            pkg-get does resolve dependencies.
            I installed KDE on solaris using the command:
            pkg-get install kde

            Of course, pkg-get is not the package manager that comes bundled with solaris, but it builds on it. I downloaded it from blastwave.org.

            I was playing with Solaris 10 X86 (version Oct 04) a few days ago, but I went back to slackware for serious work because it couldn't access the USB ports (it supossedly has USB support, but it didn't work on my PC).

            I found solaris
          • depends on which pkg-get you use and what you're trying to install. pkg-get from sunfreeware.com doesn't (as far as i can remember,) resolve dependencies, but I believe the one from blastwave.org does -- also note that some packages that have large dependencies (KDE's QT dependency for e.g.,) may have to have those deps installed seperately.
      • before i start, id just like to point out that im completely ignorant to any OS that isn't windows or linux, anyway...

        wouldn't the useflags in gentoo make it possible to buld a more secure system, for example, if kde were compiled with no pdf support, it wouldn't have suffered from any of the few venrabilities announced this last week.

        Before anybody starts, i know kde isn't likely to be found on a server, i was using it as an example. What im saying is, does solaris's package tools have something similar

      • Re:Why back Sun? Why back Solaris? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by tomstdenis ( 446163 ) <tomstdenis&gmail,com> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @08:58AM (#11467459) Homepage
        " Gentoo's not the kind of thing you run on production servers, Solaris is."

        Why not? Or is this yet another empty "marketting-statement?"

        Tom

        • Re:Why back Sun? Why back Solaris? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by JFitzsimmons ( 764599 ) <justin@fitzsimmons.ca> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:11AM (#11467573)

          Okay, for a second, pretend you are a PHB (I know, it is hard). Do you want Gentoo (Huh? What's that? It is free you say? What?), or do you want Solaris (The incredibly stable, highly secure, Unix made by our good friends and reputable Internet Citizens Sun Microsystems, the genius creators of Java, the best programming langauge ever).

          It is hard to step into the PHB shoes isn't it? But anyway that's your answer. If you don't have a PHB then maybe gentoo could be a viable server platform, but IMO that would still be pushing it. I use gentoo for a desktop and server at home, but I know that I wouldn't entertain the idea of such at work. Compiling from source is something I have the luxury to wait for at home, but work is a different story. I suppose there are those nifty new binary package servers, but I haven't investigated how they fit in with the rest of portage (mainly because I am satisfied with compiling from source at this point).

          • ....gentoo...supports...
            binary...package...insta lls.... ...

            As for your PHB reference... well it's a matter of motivation. If your stock holders knew you spent millions on SUN when free would do... your PHB may think otherwise.

            Tom

          • Okay, for a second, pretend you are a PHB (I know, it is hard).

            No, I won't. I'm not one, you're not one, we're discussing this on Slashdot.

            If you base your decisions on what a perfectly stupid "PHB" would think according to you, then you have turned into a PHB.

            So, please explain in technical terms why you wouldn't use Gentoo.

            • Here we go:
              1. Just tell your PHB this:
                OpenSolaris Port? Another open port? Damn security vulnerabilities! You know how we shouldn't be running our servers with more ports open than necessary!
              2. Then save the email he posts to everyone about how Solaris is a security risk because it's "all open ports" or whatever bafflegab he comes up with.
              3. Profit! (or at least a good laugh)
          • " Gentoo's not the kind of thing you run on production servers, Solaris is."

            Mmm, quick someone tell google and amazon to get rid of linux and install solaris instead.
          • "Compiling from source is something I have the luxury to wait for at home, but work is a different story. "

            Why so? I mean, its not like you get a Sun box in, hook it to the network, install all OS and other applications and turn it on in 1 or 2 days...at least not around here. Just figure in compile time in the install schedule....and I don't find we have a 1 day window ever to install or upgrade new software...so, compile time here isn't much of an addition. In fact...if you've got a decent machine..comp

        • Basically, if something goes wrong it would take too long to get the server back up as you emerge a new world.

          Basically, suppose a security vulnerability is discovered in apache, and you don't want to be comprimised, it would take alot longer to emerge, and compile the new apache version, when you can just install the application.

          At least this is why my Linux friends don't use gentoo servers.
          • Your "linux friends" are retarded.

            First...

            you only do "long complicated builds" on test environments. Not live.

            Second ...

            If the test fails... YOU DONT ROLL IT INTO ACTION!!!

            That's why you have test environments [and backups].

            As for home personal servers... you can just unmerge the offending application and re-emerge the older copy. Even things like Apache or MySQL only take a couple minutes to build. So it's not the end of the world.

            Of course that rarely happens [I can think of maybe once or twice
        • You would not want to run Gentoo on a production box simply because Gentoo keeps you up to date with the latest released versions of software. This normally sounds like a good thing, but really isn't for servers because new versions of software often don't work with old config files. On a desktop it is fine, because the world doesn't end when your last "emerge -u world" updated your rsync server to a version which chokes on the old config file version. But in production, a faulty service is a serious issue.
        • "Why not? Or is this yet another empty "marketting-statement?""

          The Gentoo developers do not make any guarantees that the Portage tree will be in a consistent state at any given time.

          Anyone that's used Gentoo for any period of time has had breakage. Usually, it's a matter of a quick update or at worst a stop by the forums. However, sometimes the breakage exists for longer or is harder to fix. Businesses cannot afford to take this risk.

          I no longer use Gentoo because breakage almost caused me to miss deadli

      • Re:Why back Sun? Why back Solaris? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by noblesse oblige ( 840634 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:06AM (#11467525)
        Gentoo's not the kind of thing you run on production servers, Solaris is.

        You knew such a statement would be countered with real life people. Allow me to be the first (if I post this fast enough).

        Our company runs Gentoo on our domain controllers, which handle everything from Directory Services to Email. For a while our file servers ran Gentoo kernels, until Marcello added XFS and a few other items to the main 2.4 kernel.

        In that example you have a very crafted and complex server, running some of the latest features Open Source has materialized. I go to a promotional lunch at a Sun vendor occasionaly, and the fellow moochers are constantly amazed at not only what services we provide, but the volume we provide them at.

        If that is not enough big iron experience with Solaris, I happen to know that Sony's online game division does not run Solaris -- they run RedHat. Even compared to deep-pocket heavy hardware, they get better Oracle performance on Linux with Dell servers.

        While there are many things I like about Solaris, (I still administer our legacy Solaris *workstations*) I have to say that the "Solaris is for production" mantra is not something this decade will say very much at all. Though I admit pkg-add is good, it is only as good as a binary package manager can be.

        • In that example you have a very crafted and complex server, running some of the latest features Open Source has materialized.

          Good job you said that, for a minute there, I thought you were *promoting* Gentoo.
        • how do you deal with the slowdown from emerge compilation? Do you compile binary packages off production servers? Is this at all a hassle? I'm curious.
          • how do you deal with the slowdown from emerge compilation? Do you compile binary packages off production servers? Is this at all a hassle? I'm curious.

            I know that there are several options to reduce the overhead on the production platform. Here are two of them that I can think of off the top of my head:
            • Using distc to utilize multiple computers during the compiling process
            • Setting up a stage platform that is identical to the production platform and then compiling the sources as packages for later de
            • Setting up a stage platform that is identical to the production platform and then compiling the sources as packages for later deployment

              This isn't just an option, it's a necessity. You should never install new software, or a new version of currently installed software, without first testing it on a machine that mirrors the production setup. Only after testing has shown it's stable and doesn't adversly affect other software should it be rolled out on the production machine.

              In the case of a source based d

        • I am not in IT and have not been in several years but I am shocked to read this.

          Gentoo 1.2 for me would break all the time. Sometimes I could not get KDE installed at for a week until someone fixes the broken port. Sometimes after I update everything kmail would crash or perl would no longer run.

          Its about as stable as Windows98 in that it feels untested with no QA is done for a production environment. Maybe Gentoo has improved since I used it back in 2002. I dont know.

          But there is a reason corporate user

      • > Gentoo's not the kind of thing you run on
        > production servers, Solaris is.

        Hmm.. That must be the reason why Sun is runnign OpenSolaris.org on Linux (not sure about the distro, though). Check from Netcraft if you don't believe me. BTW, not long time ago there was a story on Netcraft mentioning that Gentoo is quickly gainingn popularity as a web server platform. Or do you mean that if it doesn't run Oracle, it's not a production server?

        ----

        http://www.opensolaris.org was running Apache on Linu

      • I worked for some dickhead that said "Gentoo is not a production ready operating system and never will be." This moron also insisted on standardizing on Red Hat. We ended up having more trouble with the Red Hat boxes than the small farm of Gentoo servers that I managed. (web/mail, 500,000 emails per day average)

        I wouldn't blame the OS. It's just how to manage it, that's all.

    • Re:Why back Sun? Why back Solaris? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by I confirm I'm not a ( 720413 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @08:49AM (#11467372) Journal

      I sympathise, but I can think of a couple of reasons:

      • legacy machines (say running Solaris 2.6, 7) can be updated using "Portaris" and standard GNU tools more easily than, say, "pkg-get"
      • cheap Sparcs on eBay!

      Another good thing to come from Portaris and Gentoo on Sparc is that Jonathon Schwarz will evenetually have to acknowledge the contribution Linux has made to Solaris... ;)


    • You can benefit from Solaris' threading and scheduler implementations, its API stability, its relative maturity and battle-hardened nature.

      Of course, you could always bask in the glory that is CDE!

  • No problem with a little competition. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by barryman_5000 ( 805270 ) <barryman5000@gmail.com> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @08:39AM (#11467295)
    Isn't it all about being free and open anyhow? Solaris will be a great addition and we can try out yet another *nix. Some people cry that solaris is nothing good at all but I'd say its a step up from freebsd on the server side of things. It was the "best" commericial unix anyhow. Idea swapping will be the best thing about the 2 platforms. If only we did the same with bsd's.
  • Well, if you are into uber-customized binaries for solaris, yay! However, I have a question...

    Does portage support dependency checking when removing packages yet? That's the reason I stopped using gentoo...

    • [OT] Re:Portage in Solaris? (Score:5, Informative)

      by RangerRick98 ( 817838 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @08:45AM (#11467339) Journal
      You can always run `emerge depclean` to remove packages that aren't in your world file and aren't required by any packages that are. And there's `revdep-rebuild` in the gentoolkit which will rebuild any packages that might end up broken after a depclean. With those two commands, I've never had any problems keeping only the packages I want and need on the system with no extra cruft.
    • >> Does portage support dependency checking when removing packages yet?

      I think it still does not support that.

      (But then, I may be completely and stupid-ly wrong, as linux is completely new to me [or vice-versa], and I can not even configure why gentoo fails to mount /dev/ROOT after doing it successfully for 3 days!)
      • Uhh, cause /dev/ROOT is an example, but the real name of your disk drive (hda, hdb, etc) there, followed by the partition that is root (1,2,3, etc).
        Your end result should be something like: /dev/hda2

      • You should change /dev/ROOT to you root partition, in my case that's /dev/hda3

        Read the documentation: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/index.xml

      • I can not even configure why gentoo fails to mount /dev/ROOT after doing it successfully for 3 days!)

        Never mine why is doesn't work now (see above in the thread for answers) - I'm curious as to how you got it to work at all! Sir, I bow before your superior luck^Wskill! ;)

      • I can not even configure why gentoo fails to mount /dev/ROOT after doing it successfully for 3 days!

        My guess is that /etc/fstab wasn't setup with /dev/ROOT in it while it was working, but you did an etc-update and just let it update all files. Some package (baselayout, methinks) wants to replace your fstab with its default example file. This is why you should review files that you know you have made changes to before telling etc-update to replace everything.

      • A reading from the Book of Linux (Score:5, Funny)

        by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:45AM (#11467933) Homepage Journal
        But then, I may be completely and stupid-ly wrong, as linux is completely new to me [or vice-versa]
        10. And the LORD spake unto the newbies. And he spake thus:
        11. First shalt thou try the Knoppix, for verily, it is a piece of cake to install, yea, even that thou intalleth it not.
        12. Then shall thou try the RedHat, for it is eay to install, and it is said "In the site of the Amazon, in the city of Linux, are there books without end, and they mostly covereth the Redhat."
        13. Or the SuSe, though it is the Devil's very own bugger to get the isos, but that thou payest.
        14. Or Mandrake, if thou art French.
        16: And the LORD spoke more saying: what happened to 15? Oh, never mind.
        17. And when thou hast three score days uptime upone thine Redhat
        18. Or SuSE.
        19. Or Mandrake, if thou art French
        20. Then canst thou try the Gentoo.
        21. Or Debian.

        Here endeth the lesson.

    • Re:Portage in Solaris? (Score:4, Informative)

      by halivar ( 535827 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `reglefb'> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @08:51AM (#11467389)
      revdep-rebuild -pv is what you want. Run it before you go uninstalling packages.

  • Overambitious Developer? (Score:5, Informative)

    by EvilGrin666 ( 457869 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @08:46AM (#11467343) Homepage
    Something interesting to look out for, or just more hype from a developer often criticized even by Gentoo people for not looking before he leaps?

    No, I don't think so. There's been a installer for Solaris [gentoo.org] avalible from this self same developer for some time. As this is just an incremental update rather than inventing a whole new wheel I don't think anyone can be seriously worried about him pulling this off.

  • Not vaporware (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sysadmn ( 29788 ) <sysadmn&gmail,com> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @08:58AM (#11467455) Homepage
    Well, if it's been running for months on Sol 9 and 10, it's more than vaporware. Whether anyone uses it remains to be seen. If it replaces/augments the pre-built packages at Sunfreeware, it'll be a great addition to the OpenSolaris community.

  • Gentoo people (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Are "gentoo people" ones that resequence their DNA every night to get 1% performance gains?
  • Can't access http://www.opensolaris.org Connection times out....

  • Emerge? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Zemplar ( 764598 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:08AM (#11467550) Journal
    Can Sun run 'emerge from debt'?

    Perhaps even cron 'profitability'??
    • sh-2.05b$ emerge -pv no-debt
      These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

      Calculating dependencies ...done!
      [ebuild R ] bus-strategy/no-debt-11-r4 -microsoft* +opensource -fud*

      Total size of downloads: 5,042 kB
      sh-2.05b$

      (notice that the microsoft and fud flags are new)
    • I guess this might have been funny if they werent making (a tiny granted) profit and have never been in much debt.
    • They have billions in the bank. It's not debt that is the problem - it is declining market share and competition from FOSS alternatives. Still it looks like they're making the right moves.

  • Irrelevant links? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Laurentiu ( 830504 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:11AM (#11467574)
    Something interesting to look out for, or just more hype from a [developer] often [criticized] even by Gentoo people for not looking before he leaps?"

    Both the above links are irrelevant. The "developer" link is currently redirected to the Gentoo distribution, while the "criticized" to a web interface to the gentoo-dev mailing list. I've scanned said mailing list and it looks like a normal discussion to me, the so-called "criticism" is just a difference of viewpoints. I am unwilling to read the whole gentoo-dev and/or learn about the finer points of gentoo's portage just to validate the poster's point of view.

    IMHO, only the first sentence looks like news; second is just fingerpointing.

  • It seems to me that opening up Solaris might allow the good ideas from Solaris to seep into other open source trees, mainly Linux, but possibly also the BSDs as well.

    Likewise, the odd device drivers and binary compatibility with Linux that would be valuable for Solaris/x86 could seep into the Solaris codebase.

    In essence, this could reverse the 1980's schism in UNIX where every RISC hardware vendor created their own slightly different flavor of UNIX (SunOS, AIX, HP/UX, Irix, DG/UX, OSF/1, UNICOS, etc.)

    But

  • Bashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7@c[ ]ell.edu ['orn' in gap]> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:38AM (#11469425) Homepage
    I've been willing to forgive a lot of editorial inconsistencies on the part of the /. editors (dupes, etc)... Overall they've done a good job, it's hard to manage such a large site with so much traffic.

    But please, stop posting all this unsubstantiated slander and bashing in the stories. First there was the bashing of Six Apart when they were purchasing LiveJournal, without ANY evidence WHY Six Apart was bad or even why the author didn't like them. (Which directly conflicts with everything I've heard from personal friends on LJ's staff, who were all extremely happy about the buyout - Many of them who were contractors with LJ were promoted to full time when SA purchased LJ.)

    Now there is a story directly bashing a person, not just a company, with no real evidence as to why that person would deserve such bashing. The mailing list looks to ME like the developer in question politely handling complaints from a rather whiny user.

    Really, it's getting out of hand...
  • pvd is not only known for the MacOS-X mess (when he brough in a bunch of unexperienced and mostly incompetent developers), but also for the basc problems (which is a statistics client for some website... but was full of security problems and is a never ending source of policy breakage)...

    At least, OpenSolaris is Open Source software unlike MacOS-X (There is also a Gentoo/Darwin project... but no one is taking it seriously).
  • According to this week's Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, Gentoo is planning a port to Sun's partially-announced OpenSolaris.
    A port of what? I wasted a couple of minutes trying to understand how you can port an OS to an OS. Turns out that they're porting a Gentoo application (Portage). What's an editor for, if they can't clear up ambiguities like this?

  • Overambitious developer? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pvdabeel ( 302559 ) <pvdabeel@gentoo.org> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @12:40PM (#11470311) Homepage
    I wrote a response to this article in my blog [metadistribution.org]
  • That was my idea initially.

    Portaris [gentoo.org]
  • Has anyone been able to get to the site? It is /.ed for me. I have been wondering just how "open" OpenSolaris is. Could I take the whole code to Solaris and release Bozo-OpenSolaris tomorrow? I have my doubts about that.

    Linux and GNU software truly are open. I can go and create foobar-Linux tomorrow if I wanted to. Linus has granted pretty much open access to his trademark on Linux.

    I honestly would really like to know just how open OpenSolaris really is. If is is as "open" as Java, well, than tha

  • Check out www.pkgsrc.org and http://www.feyrer.de/Texts/Own/21c3-pkgsrc-paper.p df

    pkgsrc is a portable packages collection similar to portage, which works on Solaris, Linux, *BSD and some others today, with several thousand applications readily available.

    - Hubert

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