Wednesday, May 14, 2008
OpenSolaris 2008.5: I'm a Believer
Ever since the release last week I have spent plenty of time with the new OpenSolaris 2008.5. I have to admit I am was a little apprehensive about this release. First of all I was a little turned off by the whole naming fiasco but I am over that by not. Second, even though I converted from Linux to Solaris I was afraid that Indiana was just an attempt to copy popular Linux distros and everything I like about Solaris would be ruined. My fears were unfounded, I really like the new OpenSolaris release.
In my previous job I spent plenty of time with all of the popular Linux distros. I had a wide range of opinions of distros from ones I detested, others that I could live with to Slackware, my favorite distro. Probably the main reason I like OpenSolaris is because it does some things that seem normal on Linux but often seem old fashioned on Solaris. For example, every time I su in Solaris the first thing I type is bash so I can use backspace. But after I have used it for awhile I have realized that OpenSolaris is not a Linux distro clone with the Solaris kernel. It's more like the next evolution of Solaris that picks up on some ideas from the Linux community that are just better ideas, at least in my opinion. OpenSolaris is not the easiest to use version of Solaris but it also ranks up there with the best Linux distros.
The one piece of technology that really sets OpenSolaris apart from all the OS's on the planet is ZFS. By using ZFS as the boot partition it allows for some pretty amazing things that you just don't find on a desktop. As an example, the package management system is integrated into ZFS. Not only does that make it easy to rollback packages but it also allows for things like live upgrade. Live upgrade is a great to upgrade things like the kernel (in Linux speak) and be able to rollback easily if things go bad.
In my previous job I spent plenty of time with all of the popular Linux distros. I had a wide range of opinions of distros from ones I detested, others that I could live with to Slackware, my favorite distro. Probably the main reason I like OpenSolaris is because it does some things that seem normal on Linux but often seem old fashioned on Solaris. For example, every time I su in Solaris the first thing I type is bash so I can use backspace. But after I have used it for awhile I have realized that OpenSolaris is not a Linux distro clone with the Solaris kernel. It's more like the next evolution of Solaris that picks up on some ideas from the Linux community that are just better ideas, at least in my opinion. OpenSolaris is not the easiest to use version of Solaris but it also ranks up there with the best Linux distros.
The one piece of technology that really sets OpenSolaris apart from all the OS's on the planet is ZFS. By using ZFS as the boot partition it allows for some pretty amazing things that you just don't find on a desktop. As an example, the package management system is integrated into ZFS. Not only does that make it easy to rollback packages but it also allows for things like live upgrade. Live upgrade is a great to upgrade things like the kernel (in Linux speak) and be able to rollback easily if things go bad.
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I hated Sun when they droped their JDS Linux distro, in favor of Solaris.
I can only hope that now that Oracle controls Sun's destiny they can repair stupid turf wars like these between the Solaris and Linux camps.
Sun JDS was the Linux Larry Ellison could only dream of. And there's nothing wrong with pursuing a two-pronged assault on Microsoft with Linux on the low-end and Solaris on the servers and high end.
Best,
FC
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I can only hope that now that Oracle controls Sun's destiny they can repair stupid turf wars like these between the Solaris and Linux camps.
Sun JDS was the Linux Larry Ellison could only dream of. And there's nothing wrong with pursuing a two-pronged assault on Microsoft with Linux on the low-end and Solaris on the servers and high end.
Best,
FC
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