UNIX admin wrote:
Did you ever consider that one possible reason is
that Solaris X86
simply doesn't have all the drivers - I have a
laptop, and it's less
than 2 years old, which Solaris will install on, but
there simply are no
network drivers for it. So it would take much more of
my time to get to
a usability level on Solaris X86 with that machine
that it would with
JDS/Linux, hence I'm sicking with the latter for the
moment, it doesn't
rule out Solaris X86 - I still have it installed and
if I manage to
locate drivers for it, I'll move, but it's the time
investment needed
that I simply don't have right now.
In my 20 years of experience working with computers, if there is one thing that
I've learned, then it's
[I]get hardware that supports your software, not software that supports your
hardware[/I]. Now what does that mean? It simply means, if for example Solaris
has built in drivers for a RTL8139 ChipSet, I'll make sure I get HW that has
that ChipSet. If the SW supports printing to a PostScript printer, I'll make
sure that the printer I buy understands PostScript.
This is a lesson I learned very well during my Commodore Amiga days, and it
stuck ever since. As a result, I've been relatively [I]unscathed[/I] in regard
to all this stuff.
That's all great in theory - but it's not always like that - while there
may be support for one version of a device, if that device gets up-reved
the whole chipset can change (just look at how wireless drivers are
these days). For Small to Medium enterprises it's not always possible to
purchase the best devices, or even Sun hardware, and then when they go
to purchase something they can afford - all to often it using the latest
versions of h/w which quite frequently is not supported by Solaris X86 -
so what do they do - buy someone else's scrap because it happens to have
the supported devices they want?
What you suggest is entirely unrealistic for everyone - and most likely
why there is considerable interest in getting a device driver community
under way - and the more that Open Solaris is being used should also
encourage h/w developers to be more encouraged in providing the drivers
themselves - with our help.
Be that as it may, when was the last time you installed Solaris on the x86
platform? Solaris10 has very good HW support for most common HW, and the OEMs
are starting to release [I]Solaris native packages[/I] of their drivers right
on the 'install CD' along with Windows drivers!
I've installed the latest Solaris Express on my laptop a number of times
to try get the latest drivers - still doesn't work ... I also know (and
work with) plenty of people who have tried to also install on desktop
machines and other laptops that have wasted their time doing the same.
I can only hope that the number of people producing Solaris drivers
increases - we in Sun are certainly trying to encourage it, and as I
said, Open Solaris will help here.
For example, I just about fell on my behind when I found Solaris native
packages of drivers from a [I]vanilla Taiwan manufacturer[/I] of the machine I
bought.
I think I would have too... :)
Further more, the laptop I'm writing about is a Compaq AMD Athlon "run of the
mill" thing. It has a Savage 3D graphics adapter, RTL8139C, and some sort of AC '97
audio. All these things are supported by Solaris10 out-of-the-box, Savage 3D included.
And if my audio won't work, I'll just get the audio drivers from
http://tools.de/solaris/audio/
And I'm done. Easy as pie. I could probably even get Solaris9 to work on that
thing. Where's the problem?
The problem is that you had to do this at all - it should be possible to
get these as part of Solaris, especially the common stuff (which I'm
assuming it is if someone went to enough trouble to write it).
Solaris10 on x86 has really come a long way, and its support for x86 is rapidly
increasing -- in fact, I've never seen any platform's support start to build
momentum so rapidly.
I totally agree on this - but you have to be realistic and accept that
sometimes it simply does not work out of the box, and things should
easier than they are at present.
As stated in other threads - it's crazy the amount of
extra libs that
get downloaded if you pkg-get something like this -
and in this case it
was intended to be a learning experience w.r.t. what
is involved in
building such applications as well.
As I stated before, Blastwave currently suffers from lack of engineering and
quality control. But they have come a long way, and I'm confident that
Blastwave will only get even better as the time passes.
What "Nekoware" is to SGI IRIX (http://www.nekochan.net/downloads.php)
"Blastwave" is to Solaris. Blastwave is already the #1 Freeware provider for
the Solaris platform. It can only get better from this point on.
As an interesting side note, the Nekoware guys said they "liked the comparison"
when I pointed out Blastwave to them. These two projects are very, very much alike, only
for different platforms (SGI and Sun).
pkg-get is a great idea, but I think unless it's part
of the core, and
includes the core packages - in other words a person
can update their
entire Open Solars based distro via pkg-get - then we
will always end up
with problems of duplication of packages, etc.
Ah, but the question is, [I]what is considered to be the core, and by whom[/I]?
The distro maintainers (and Solaris is going to be a distro of
OpenSolaris) are the ones that decide it.
Plus, this is very much [I]conceptually wrong[/I]. Why? Because "updating" in
the sense you're writing about could end up [I]removing and replacing entire software
subsystems[/I], and that [B]rules it out for production right on the spot[/B].
There will be times that you would want this (complete machine upgrade)
- but in the more general sense the distro would decide this and simply
not do it if (as in Solaris) it is likely to cause major customer
problems. Most of this is focused on the server, but for the desktop
user - quite often they don't care as long as they have a very
functional (does not just mean eye-candy) desktop.
This is the exact same approach that Linux takes. The only way to patch a software
subsystem through the OS interfaces is to do `rpm -u` which goes and [I]replaces the
entire software subsystem[/I] in order to "update" it.
This is very much busted. For example, SuSE is most notorious for breaking
production systems in this way, especially when they do kernel updates with
YaST.
Again, I think this depends the uses of the OE - server or desktop -
Open Solaris is aimed at getting recognition - not just making money -
the more people that see Open Solaris the better - and this also goes
for the notion of a Debian distro - you have a choice - if you want
stability take Solaris (as I say it's a distro based on OpenSolaris), if
you want the latest of everything - take another distro (eg. SchilliX,
Debian or whatever other distros might come along).
What Alo was suggesting was having a Debian distro
using an Open Solaris
kernel - why is this such a bad thing? I can only be
Because that would mean you'd have a Solaris kernel surrounded with GNU tools.
It would effectively behave like a Linux distro, only instead of the Linux
kernel you'd have a different kernel.
The people that make these kind of suggestions don't understand Solaris, more
importantly, they don't understand UNIX! They are proposing to start fitting a
square peg into a round hole, because the only experience that they have is
working with a round hole!
That's just plain wrong. They should learn about the "square peg", instead of trying to
make it a "round peg". That's just BUSTED. I can't even begin to explain how wrong it is.
But you are totally blinded by the "production" environment - Solaris is
aimed at that market, yes, but something like Debian is not - and as I
say it's about choices...
A Debian distro based on Open Solaris is a perfectly valid idea, and for
some people would be perfect for them - this is exactly why people like
RedHat and Novell/SuSE have the concept of an enterprise distro and a
Fedora Core or Novell Linux Desktop - for people that want stability and
control (as in a production environment) use the enterprise version (of
OpenSolaris this would be Solaris) but for the people who like to be on
the bleeding edge - take the distro that suits them.
Personally I am one of those people that likes to be on the Bleeding
Edge - for my desktops - so I would be only too delighted to see a less
stable distro that provided this but even better be based on Open
Solaris - not Linux.
good for Solaris /
Open Solaris users since it will encourage the
thousands of opensource
software packages to be easily compiled on Open
Solaris because
developers who prefer the Debian way of doing things
can still do so
while also being able to benefit from a world class
base like Open Solaris.
We really don't want Linux "developers" on board; those guys are hackers that are going
to bust stuff by "improving" it. What we want are professional developers picking
(Open)Solaris as a free, better alternative to everything else out there.
That's a totally unjust statement - most developers are hackers at
heart, even professional ones - and there are many professional
developers that give their time to Linux (are you suggesting that Linus
Torvalds is not a professional developer??). OK, there are probably some
inexperienced developers out there on Linux but that's why they are
there to learn - if we introduce Open Solaris to them, then we can
encourage them to learn even more - if the interest is there encourage
it (most parents will already know this).
I think it's this "business as usual" that isn't
actually so usable by
end-users - based on you're e-mail title, I'm
assuming you're a
sys-admin - so maybe this is fine for you, but as an
end-user this
really isn't good enough - and I think this is were
Debian (and the
off-shoot Ubuntu) have done really well.
What exactly do you find "not so usable"?
Is it the fact that:
a) you have to do `su -`
or
b) type in `pkgadd -d /path/to/package [all|package name]` or pick a choice
from a MENU presented upon executing the command
or c) something else (lack of eye candy GUI, for example)?
Yes exactly - why should the average desktop user have to do this?
That's exactly what is broken on Solaris. Everyday tasks should not
require you to drop to the command-line.
I think you are being blinded by your (assuming bad)
experiences with
VERY BAD experiences (as compared to Solaris, IRIX and HP-UX, even AIX). And I
did Linux professionally, for a living!
Open Solaris is not aimed at just system admins -
it's being targeted at
the desktop user, more so now than ever - so live
with it, you are going
to have to accept that some people simply don't like
the way things are
right now on Solaris and would like to have a desktop
machine that
doesn't constantly require you to bring up a terminal
to make even the
slightest change to the systems configuration.
How will you use your eye candy GUI to make "slightest change" to the system
when the system HAS NO GRAPHICS ADAPTER but only a TERMINAL or is connected to a REMOTE
SERIAL CONSOLE MANAGER, and/or there is NO X-window run time environment on a system? You
will be in trouble. A lot of trouble, in fact, because you'll only know how to do things
from a GUI and you'll have no clue how to do it on the command line.
Again I think you're missing the point - if you are a DESKTOP user, you
WILL have a graphics adapter. Out of the box you SHOULD have X running
(if you don't that's a problem in it self that should be solved by the
distro not the user).
MANY _DESKTOP_ users, even power desktop users, have trouble with the
command-line - why should a user have to run a command-line tool to
change their wireless network settings? or to create a printer queue for
a USB printer? These are everyday tasks for a user (especially a mobile
user). You seen to forget that the majority of people that use desktops
are not even trained in IT - they are just given a machine, with a word
processor to type up documents, etc.
See, this is exactly what I mean when I write that the new influx of Linux
converts doesn't really understand the core UNIX concepts.
You obviously don't understand the market in which IT operates - it's
not entirely server based! Most of the employees in Sun use desktops,
usually running Solaris, for their everyday work - they can manage it
fine most of the time but that shouldn't preclude them from being able
to have better functionality like hotpluggable devices that just work.
How many Linux machines did you ever see managed in the "lights out management"
mode, i.e. with an ALOM or an RSM or a CMS?
Again - DESKTOP users!
You are the one who has to understand that not everything revolves around the
desktop: it's a 50-50 proposition.
It is also rediculous the come in and say "I'm here; I'm a convert; now cater to
me!"
So what??? If you don't like it, you can always go down to GRUB/LILO and select
the Linux or Windows distro you have installed on that PC at home.
Totally wrong - MOST people use desktops (certainly not 50-50), not
servers in everyday life - why do you think Windows has just a large
volume - certainly not just servers Are you telling me that enterprises
have more servers than desktops!. Are you telling me that you would
consider your laptop to be a server??? Maybe you have it configured that
way - but in reality it's a desktop machine.
I cannot believe how closed minded you are - I'm certainly not just a
convert - I've worked on Solaris (and SunOS4) in excess of 12 years - so
I'm not coming to this totally fresh - I've had to use Linux and Windows
in conjunction with my work and can certainly see that Solaris has to do
some catching up on the desktop. I at least am open enough to know when
Solaris has problems and interested enough to actually want to fix them.
But as somebody pointed out, all the goodies are here, in Solaris, not >>over
there<< in Linux, so either you learn about Solaris, or you go back. Why was it OK to
spend the time and effort learning Linux, but it's suddenly not OK that you actually have
to LEARN REAL UNIX?
Again with the insults - is that how you manage to work? Are you one of
those BOFH that people speak of?
Precisely why the Linux community can also benefit
from Open Solaris -
which can be achieved via the Debian proposal.
Why should the Linux community benefit? What have they given to Solaris except "it
works on my Linux system, if it doesn't work for you, use Linux! Everybody should just
use Linux!"
Linux has opened up unix to the masses - and shown people that the
really is a possible alternative to Windows on your desktop. Linux has
provided a couple of decent desktops (GNOME/KDE) for people, it has
helped expose Microsofts lock-in mechanisms by being there in the
desktop space.
Linux has had many problems in it's day - so has
Solaris for that matter
- but one of the reasons for putting out Open Solaris
is also to enable
sharing of technologies - Debian based upon Open
No, that was NOT the reason why Solaris has been released to the public!
Solaris was not released so that the Linux crowd could bastardize it into
another Linux distro, but to evolve further as Solaris!
What does it matter to you if some people decide to have yet another
distro based on Open Solaris - you obviously aren't interested in one so
if you don't like it then don't use it, simple as that.
Open Solaris has been released to encourage developers to get involved -
Linux has got to where it is now because developers were encouraged to
be involved, it increases innovation, and another platform will also
encourage people to look at the bigger picture. Without developers there
are no new applications, with out the applications people want, there
are no more users.
better, so it would probably stay in place. Why do
you think it's bad
that anyone could get the best of both worlds? Isn't
this what the
opensource community is really about?
Because Linux as a whole does not have anything good to offer, except that "it's
free". So is Solaris, so that's no argument. It has a big following, but the
*majority* of people involved are just plain incompetent from a professional point of
view. They are no engineers, and it shows. Solutions are not well thought out or thought
through, mainly because of lack of experience and understanding.
So let's teach them - Linux is growing up too, are you telling me that
you came out of the womb knowing all? No, you had to learn from
experience - Linux has learned a lot, it's made mistakes too, but so
does everyone. Many of these engineers are really interested in learning
- so let's teach them how to do things properly, and I'm sure in the
process we can also learn a lot from them.
Darren.
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