Comparison of Linux to OpenSolaris.

[notageek]

I've recently installed OpenSolaris on my PC, which is an AMD Athlon64 2800+ with 1.2GB RAM and have been exploring the OS. I was just wondering, who would install OpenSolaris as a workstation.

In comparison to Linux, it seems to be cryptic and antiquated. I may be completely wrong in my opinion of OpenSolaris, I'd like to hear what people have to say about this OS. I'm not trying to start a flame war though.

I just honestly want to know what are the advantages or disadvantages of using OpenSolaris to Linux (any flavor of Linux).



PS: Why do I keep getting this ?
"This thread is a duplicate of a thread that you have posted in the last five minutes. You will be redirected to the thread listings."

[Thetargos]

I have actually found no reason to install and try OpenSolaris as a Workstation operating system. From what I gather, though, most people say that it is actually a very good system and while doesn't offer the plethora of utilities and programs Linux does, it is improving rather nicely, though some say it feels dated, and a bit clumsy at some tasks. I'm not very familiar with Solaris, other than playing a bit with it in a terminal performing some basic "Unix administration" (which needless to say is almost identical to that of Linux, and I did that after becoming a Linux user, so I wasn't impressed). It is nice they have switched to GNOME or the Java Desktop from that oldschool CDE (functional, but UGLY) desktop environment. I ignore how do several parts "work" (like devices, for instance, partitions, sound, graphics, etc) I think it uses Xorg for the graphics part, I know it uses some "proprietary" (in the sense that no one else uses it, not that is closed) sound system, though I believe it can use 4Front's Open Sound System as well. I've never seen it boot, nor being installed, so I don't know how do these areas differ, I think it uses System V type init, but I could be wrong.

I guess I don't have much of an incentive to try it out, generally speaking. BUT if you can provide some insights and screenshots, as well a summarize what is actually different (appart of being a proper Unix system, instead of GNU), that would be awsome!

[RupertPupkin]

Originally Posted by notageek

In comparison to Linux, it seems to be cryptic and antiquated.

What in particular seemed cryptic and antiquated to you?

[notageek]

Well it is certainly pretty (as pretty as any other *nix workstation can be), I've attached some screenshots which should give you an idea how it looks.

I'm not complaining about OpenSolaris, I think anyone who chooses to install *nix on their PCs should be prepared to get their hands dirty by learning about the "internals" of the *nix, what I'm not happy is that OpenSolaris doesn't seem to be an OS meant to be installed on a desktop.

The list of things that I find cryptic about this is achieving simple tasks like enabling DMA on a hard drive, service management (service commands of Fedora), configuring drivers and in general how configurable this system is.

Lets take for example the issue of configuring DMA on a hard drive. On most Linux systems, this is default, one doesn't even have to be bothered with it. In OpenSolaris one has to edit a certain file in the /platform look out for some parameter called 'ata-disk-enabled' and set the value to 1.

Service management in OpenSolaris is no longer managed by rc-scripts, its managed by a utility that reads a lite sql database (SQLight) for its dependency and startup parameters (pardon my ignorance on the subject, I'm no *nix expert). The downside of this is when you have an un-bootable system, and unfortunately if this repository is corrupt, there's no way to boot into a single user mode as you have in Linux. Although there exists a process, but I wasn't able to successfully restore the repository.

To enable or disable any drivers in the system (my Creative Sound Blaster Live) one has to reboot the system, which I find to be primitive.

I installed OpenSolaris on my PC hoping to get some performance gain, instead I can hear my hard drive paging really hard (so hard that I fear it may fry my hard drive), which makes me wonder if OpenSolaris is meant to be installed on a PC, it is quite possible that one would notice considerable performance benefits if they have better hardware, but that brings us back to the origins of Linux.

If I remember right, Linux was supposed to be a *nix that ran run reasonably well on a PC, over the years it has moved on to hardwares of various sizes, but that I believe was a secondary goal.

I'm not a qualified *nix guru and I'm not pretending to be one either. Its just that I have the opportunity to install and feel a "real Unix" (whatever that is), and OpenSolaris fell short of my expectations. I remember when I started learning Linux, I don't think it resisted me as much as OpenSolaris has resisted all efforts of learning this system.

There are various pluses of using OpenSolaris, but I don't see it as a workstation OS.

[Evil_Bert]

Just a thought - maybe it's aimed at being a centrally-managed corporate desktop, despite being 'open'?

[igknighted]

Originally Posted by Evil_Bert

Just a thought - maybe it's aimed at being a centrally-managed corporate desktop, despite being 'open'?

"OpenSolaris" doesn't truly have a goal yet, the project is so young. The Solaris kernel makes an incredible server, right up there with BSD. In fact, it seems that Sun's Solaris branch is very focused on integrating tightly with MySQL and becoming a killer database server.

There are several community-driven OpenSolaris distributions. Most common seems to be Nexenta, which was trying to port the Debian/Ubuntu repositories to the Solaris kernel. They have since bailed on this goal, and are re-focusing on creating a stable server release before trying to tackle the desktop again. Then there is Belenix (sp?), which offers both a Gnome and KDE version. This project is installable (as is Nexenta), but doesn't seem very usable. Finally, there is Shillix, but this made one release very shortly after the open sourcing of the kernel and hasn't really done anything since. The project to watch is Sun's Project Indiana, which is coming out with a new preview release soon.

Solaris is simply a solid kernel that lacks drivers. I think that once the license issues sort out, drivers will be ported to Solaris, and essentially all the apps we already use can be used on Solaris anyways, so it will become a matter of triviality. Eventually. Right not Solaris is way behind, but there seems to be momentum, and I think it will catch up.

[Thetargos]

I see OpenSolaris becoming more a "threat" to FreeBSD than Linux as such (basically due to the centralized and "stiff" structure), which is good, as Solaris "out in the wild" will only make it a better system, and in the end what many of us already knew will become more evident: it is about the apps, not the OS.