Hello People: I'm experienced sysadmin with *BSD and HP-UX background, but completely new to Solaris. I've perused various docs and "propaganda" past couple days and have a few q's related to install, best practices, hardware, etc. I can install Express Dev edition no problem so figured this was better choice of lists. Potential uses include both workstation and server boxes.
1) Stability: it seems the Express Dev edition is probably good balance between latest drivers, tweaks, etc. and stability for workstation use? Or will I have issues? To be conservative should I be using Solaris 10, or am safe with the Express Dev edition? Need both my workstations and servers to be rock solid (spoiled by FreeBSD, sans the 5.x fiasco). 2) Boot Disk: I see folks talking about ZFS Boot setups but wonder if it's advisable, I mean assuming the latest upcoming release? Or should use volume manager to mirror? With FBSD I can just software raid1 boot disk via gmirror, which works out pretty nice. I haven't had time to read Solaris volume manager docs in any detail but assume comparable functionality is present? With FreeBSD I've evolved my +/- standard workstation and server slice and partitioning schemes. But ZFS changes things. Any recommendations? 3) Graphics cards: I tend to prefer ATI cards and have RV370 based card in the workstation I'm using now. Haven't tried installing OpenSolaris on this box yet, but hopefully will work? I also have to replace a card in another box, however, and noticed OpenSolaris included nVidia tools. Are nVidia the cards better supported, and if so, any particular models? 4) Zones: Slick feature. Seem pretty analogous to FBSD jails? Any comments about how comparable in terms of security? 5) Docs are prolific. Any particular books and/or websites you could recommend that distill things down to essentials and/or a bit more interesting read? 6) 3rd party apps; Is Blastwave the "unofficial official" repository? Or some others I should become familiar with? and likely few others that escape me just now... Feel pretty ignorant asking newbie q's like this but from what I've seen thus far I'm favorably impressed enough to suffer through newbie learning curve. fwiw- I've been checking in on this project every now and again for the past year and a half or so. First time I tried Solaris for i386 years ago (Solaris 8, 1/01) it wouldn't even install. Now it's something like a 3 clicks, recognizes all my hardware, and gives me a desktop that pretty much jfw. Nice job, folks :) Best regards, Ken _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
