----- Original Message ----- From: Stephen Harpster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Friday, June 16, 2006 11:30 am Subject: [osol-discuss] Re: revisiting software issues
> <p>Are your complaints that the open source software we have is > old, or is your complaint about how an administrator goes about > keeping software up to date?</p> Both. Also, managing what software you have installed/where, is a mess. > <p> > In build 41 you'll see we've brought Gnome up to 2.14. A lot of > the apps have been > updated as well. Steve Christensen has also been working hard at > http://sunfreeware.blogspot.com/";>bringing a lot of the other open > source software up to date. Is there something specific that you > need updated?</p> So, I can click a button/type a command, and have Solaris install mysql 5.0.22, the latest/least buggy/most secure version of postgresql, latest/most stable/etc apache, php 5, all the php5 modules I want, etc. If I can't, then Solaris is already behind just about every linux distro out there, and the *bsds in terms of usability. Exampe, Ubuntu (as noted in my comment): apt-get install apache2 apt-get install php5 apt-get install php5-moduleiwant apt-get install mysql apt-get install postgresql etc.. these might not be the real package names, but it really is that easy. freebsd: portinstall apache2 portinstall php5 portinstall mysql5 portinstall postgresql8 etc.. management is easy too: pkg_version -v pkg_delete apache2-2.404840whatever etc... Solaris has nothing like this, it's quite plain and obvious. You've got to hunt the packages down (most of the time they don't exist) then do all the pkg commands to get them installed, and you're stuck with whatever modules they included. Blastwave fills this void pretty well, but it's not Sun supported. I'd like to see more functionality in Blastwave too, but that's probably more related to solaris package capabilities. Sun needs something like this, go read half the negative comments about Solaris, it's always about how much a PITA it is to get software up and running. Look at Nexenta, the only reason it exists as far as I can tell is dissatisfaction with the packaging system in Solaris, the old software, and the silly stuff like the default PATH, messed up hosts, etc. > <p> > If your complaint is more towards managing the software updates, > have you seen > http://www.sun.com/service/sunupdate/";>Update Manager?</p> Yes, I've seen it, and it's kinda nice. I still have problems with patching software, but more JES related (supposedly it'll be better with JES5). It doesn't help me with keeping mysql/apache/whatever up to date though, and that is what I'm talking about. If you guys/gals would address this (I've already been told before by multiple Sun employees it's a known issue) then you'd see Solaris soar. The longer you delay "fixing" this, the more users are going to get irritated at how hard it is, and drop Solaris in favor of linux. Right now the only reasons Solaris isn't far more deployed than linux is #1 - the software issues i discussed, and #2 - the hardware support (this is VERY CLEARLY improving!! a HUGE thank you..). Hardware support is moving along at break-neck speed. No need to do anything different there, it's wonderful! These software issues haven't been touched as far as I can tell. I've heard "it's being addressed" too many times, and seen absolutely no change. Updating gnome a bit (to a still-outdated version) doesn't count as having a modern software management system with an up-to-date repository. I don't mean bleeding edge/unstable, I mean current. Not stale like a 5 year old bag of chips. Thanks, David _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
