Why are we wasting our time speculating about questions where nobody knows what the actual answer to the question is while there is so much real work that still needs to be done and so many essential features that need to be added to Indiana so that it can be a production ready open source server operating system that competes alongside the likes of RHEL, FreeBSD and Ubuntu Server.
Here's an example: Most companies that sell dedicated servers to people are interested in having a feature in the operating system installation process where you can enter in a static IP address, a subnet mask and a default gateway during the install and then have the server come online after the reboot with that specific static IP address, subnet mask, and default router. Simple, right? Well, not in Indiana 2008.05 and 2008.11 it isn't. Hundreds of thousands of people who run servers as a means of generating income love things like ZFS, zones, dtrace, SMF, etc. etc. and want to run Indiana as their main server OS and want to buy the $300 a year support subscription from Sun, but Indiana seems to be rejecting these reliable, money-paying server customers in a possible misguided attempt to win over desktop users. Desktop users usually aren't as willing to buy expensive Sun server hardware and pay the $300 for support from Sun as server users are, so I don't get why we're going after this segment of the marketplace. Also- Indiana will never be able to defeat the likes of Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows on the desktop because it lacks capabilities that leisure desktop users want such as iTunes, America Online, (yeah it's stupid but no matter how much I preach about the merits of ZFS, I can't install Solaris on my mom's, grandma's or girlfriend's computers because they refuse to go on the internet without AOL and that's just the way it is), World of Warcraft, VLC Media player, Adobe photoshop, etc. etc..... and whatever other retarded things non-UNIX people are using as desktop apps (I run Indiana 2008.11 as my main desktop, so I'm obviously a little out of touch with that segment of the population). However, Indiana could become the dominant server operating system in most data centers AND generate lots of revenue for Sun in terms of support subscriptions and Sun hardware purchases if we just had a simple text based installer that allowed you to add a static IP address during the install and not have to spend four hours after the install trying to disable and uninstall the gnome desktop, fiddle around disabling NWAM, use vi to edit the /etc/hostname.interface, /etc/inet/netmasks, /etc/defaultrouter, /etc/hosts, /etc/nsswitch.conf, and /etc/resolv.conf files etc. Ubuntu Server and CentOS Server don't make it this difficult to get a server with a static IP address going, so why does Indiana Server feel that it's necessary to torture the end user like this? It's almost unfathomable that Indiana is such an amazing operating system with so many advantages over Linux and Windows that can do so many amazing things, yet the one thing it can't do well is the most basic kindergarten level task of assigning a static IP address during the install (something that even Windows Server 2003 gets right). At the risk of repeating myself yet again (just to hammer the point home) I want to emphasize that IMO Indiana will never become a big generator of revenue for Sun until someone with zero prior Solaris experience can enter in a static IP, subnetmask and default router during the installation process, reboot, and have their server come online on the internet on a static IP address with X windows turned off and SSH running.... this seems like something that should be so easy to do, yet, Indiana has been around for a year now and this still hasn't happened. .....disappointing..... So the question is. Will the Cayman installer in 2009.06 allow users to assign static IP addresses during the installation process? -- This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
