Hi everyone,
Ages and moons ago, I asked for your help in figuring out what to
include in a starter kit for students....to help them get up and running
and start contributing to the OpenSolaris community. A few months ago,
Maria Lopez shared a requirements document and she received tons of
great feedback that got incorporated into the plan. Since then, we
haven't been very open about what we've been up to, but we figured it
was time to remedy that, so here's a status report of sorts.
* We broke the project up into phases in order to get something out
sooner (at least that's the idea!):
- Phase 1: Provide a LiveCD with some additional resources
- Phase 2: Focus on Installation
- Phase 3: Focus on exploring OpenSolaris
- Phase 4: Focus on building OpenSolaris and making changes
- Phase 5: Focus on contributing your changes back to OpenSolaris
* We're tackling Phases 1 & 2 at the same time. The intention is to get
new folks up and running on an OpenSolaris distribution.
* We've changed the focus a bit from just students to anyone installing
on an x86 or x64 type computer.
* The kit currently includes a DVD and a CD: the first with
distributions, source and tools, the second with training materials. [1]
* Current plan is to include the following training materials:
- Why OpenSolaris?
- Major benefits of OpenSolaris
- Comparison to other operating systems
- Features distinctive to Solaris (using the 10 Moves Ahead
training)
- Getting Started with OpenSolaris
- Flash demo for partitioning a drive
- Flash demo of Solaris Express Community Release installation
- Installation documents for all the distributions
- Documents to assist in configuration
- A reasonably comprehensive listing of additional online resources
* Current plan is to include the following distributions and such:
- Solaris Express Community Release
- OpenSolaris source code
- Nexenta LiveCD
- Belenix LiveCD
- Schillix LiveCD
- Studio 10
This list keeps changing, and we're not even sure if we have space to
include everything. We'll update you with the final list soon.
We'll send the graphics for the case around soon so you can get an idea
of the look and feel. In the meantime, feel free to let us know if
we've missed the mark. Not sure if we can take corrective action for
Phase 1/2, but we should be able to for future phases.
We'd love to have the Starter Kit available for distribution at OSCON at
the end of July. That's pushing it a wee bit, but a good goal in any
case. Once we have this stuff ready, we'll put the ISO images up on
opensolaris.org so anyone can grab them.
Thanks so much,
The OpenSolaris Starter Kit Core Team
Maria Lopez
Patrick Finch
Michelle Olson
Teresa Giacomini
[1] We could use your help here. The kit is targeted at folks in low
bandwidth areas who can't download what they need from opensolaris.org
directly. We've heard that DVD drives in those same areas might be few
and far between. Is that correct? How important is it for us to have
just CD's in this kit, versus a combination?
