Carl Lowenstein wrote:
One way to get an OS that does not have Linux kernel hang problems
with hp/Compaq hardware and 64-bit AMD processors is to use
OpenSolaris, which obviously does not have a Linux kernel.
Unfortunately my Solaris knowledge expired at about Solaris 7 for
Sparc, and I want to use Solaris 10 for Intel/AMD.
So far what I have learned is that the newly released CD for
OpenSolaris 2008.05 installs a 64-bit kernel. And a pretty good Gnome
desktop. And very little else in the way of application software.
That is partially intentional and partially being fixed.
Partially intentional--they just ripped out a *huge* chunk of stuff that
couldn't be changed to an open-source license (motif, for example,
which, of course, removes CDE which removes ...). They're still putting
in the replacements. That obviously gets priority. They also wanted to
get it down to a single LiveCD to do the install.
Being fixed--Ian Murdock (of Debian fame) is an official employee at Sun
and is working on package-manager. There's a lot of stuff that needs to
go in, and packages interact with zones and ZFS (which adds an extra
layer of complexity that Linux doesn't have). They are working on it,
though.
Overall, OpenSolaris 2008.05 really looks like what people now expect
from a "distribution". It's probably a bit behind in overall package
diversity, but I'm a *big* ZFS fan. It was worth the crappiness to get
ZFS, and now, even the crappiness is being fixed.
It is not easy to tell from Google searches or browsing the Sun on-line
documentation what the situation is with regard to 64-bit vs 32-bit
software. There is lots of i386 software available for download, and
presumably it will run on x86_64.
I haven't seen any particular distinction on Solaris. Stuff seems to
pretty much "just work". I think the linkers on Solaris record the
distinction and the OS handles it.
A few words of enlightenment would be appreciated. I will bring the
laptop with OpenSolaris to the InstallFest on Saturday, if anyone
wants to poke around.
package-manager is your friend. When I'm messing with zones I look up
the name in package-manager and then use "pkg install" to pull it in.
I like ZFS. A *lot*. It Just Works(tm). Zones are pretty nice. They
mostly work with some quirks. It's nice having them in ZFS because you
don't wind up with read-only systems directories in order to share disk
files. I haven't beaten Xen on a ZFS filesystem into submission yet.
What else do you want to know?
-a
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
