I continually say that solaris & opensolaris are designed to be servers, not desktops. I'd like to go into the reasons why, and see what other opinions people have about this.
The characteristics that I think make up servers: Servers are always on. Servers don't need power management; they never sleep. Servers are used remotely for the most part. The characteristics that I think make up desktops: Desktops have features which enhance process management and task switching. Desktops can easily run and be compatible with random web apps, like dropbox, skype, flash, silverlight, etc. Desktops are expected to wake and sleep on a regular basis. Desktops do your audio/video Desktops need to connect with printers regularly. Desktops have external peripherals connected regularly - usb drives, cameras, webcmas, headphones/headset, etc. Desktops will run your web browsers, office apps, pdf viewers, etc. Mail clients, etc. Desktops will roam from network to network. You need to do wifi well. You need to do network security/firewall well. So now, the reasons why I think solaris/opensolaris are well suited to be servers and not so much as desktops: gnome etc, the gui of opensolaris is no better at task switching and application management than windows XP was. This is obsolete compared to aero, aqua, or compiz. (win7, osx, and ubuntu) These other OSes offer gui's which are much more powerful and flexible in terms of application management and task switching. The application availability on sol/osol is not as good as win/mac/linux. For example: Dropbox and skype are both available win/mac/linux. No solaris. Flash is available win/mac/linux/solaris. Silverlight is available win/mac. No linux or solaris. Bittorrent: win/mac/linux. There are no desktop apps available in sol/osol, which aren't also available in the other platforms. But there are lots of apps available in the other platforms, which aren't available in sol/osol. I have never put sol/osol to sleep. So I cannot say anything about this. Does it work? Is it highly configurable and reliable? Hardware compatibility for audio/video is a problem for sol/osol. Not very good at 3D. Not compatible with lots of webcams and microphone devices and cameras etc. And printers. For both sol/osol and linux, there is no good calendar application. You need either Outlook, Entourage, or iCal for this. Reliable reminders available online/offline, with addressbook and email integration. By default during installation, even if you indicate you aren't going to use it remotely, sshd is enabled. By default, there is no firewall. I haven't used sol/osol for wifi. Does it have a good wifi utility for joining networks?
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