Flexible is right. I knew Unix / Linux traditionally make it possible to do a lot from the command line, but having never used them I'd just assumed they were basically very similar to windows, but with a whole load of extra overhead because of all the commands you had to learn.
But after just one day with Solaris I've realised Unix is very, very different to windows, and "flexible" means an awful lot more in Unix than it does in Windows. Just seeing picker's script is mind boggling for a windows admin. I'd wondered why ZFS didn't have any compression options for zfs send, now I know why: There's just no need in a Unix system. In windows, if ZFS didn't support compression that would be it, in Unix, streams mean there's no need for every program to re-invent features like that, and I can use whatever compression program I think is best. And the ability to use SSH (or X-windows when I feel up to it) to remotely access a box is a godsend. Windows might have RDP these days, but now I know what X-Server can do, I can see it's a poor imitation. I'd originally bought a USB KVM switch to go with my new home server, but now I'm finding it's essentially redundant. I can manage everything on the Solaris box via Putty without ever leaving Windows. It's so far taken about a day to work out ZFS, Samba (and SWAT), vi, bash and SSH. They're all far easier than I expected (man is stunning, windows has nothing like this level of documentation). I thought it would take me most of christmas to find out if this would work, but in one evening I'm done. I've now got a home media server up and running and iTunes has been migrated over to it. Many thanks for the help to everyone who replied, it's very much appreciated. This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
