well, im a linux fanboy and windows hater since win95. so since many years i have been using almost exclusively linux and winxp only for games that dont work on wine/natively. but since some time ago solaris is calling my attention ( from a sun events a couple of years ago).
so i put in my office pc the 2 oses
kubuntu 9.10 64 latest updates + some ppa like xorg edgers
opensolaris 2009.06 and belenix 0.8 alpha.
so after testing all of them these are my points that from my point of view make solaris not a linux competitor rigth now. but i think i wanna make something clear here, im not actually a linux fanboy im a linux distro fanboy wich is entirely different aka linux, bsd, solaris are kernel with their goods or bad but you cant work just with a kernel and for most non-geek there should be transparent actually in almost everything, by linux like distro i mean all the good software include beside the kernel in a installalble way cd.
so to the point
scale 1 to 10
kubuntu 9.10
speed 9.5 : boot pretty fast, with my intel igp the desktop is super responsive and clean (no render errors so far)
i/o 10: my very heavy files copy through nfs to my server at 35mb wich i feel pretty good for only sata disk
software availability 9.8: well the godly debian apt system do his thing here, is not 10 cuz i cant find qt 4.6 ppa packages
stability 7: the software per se is 10 stable so far except koffice beta2 but that is a beta. my issues here is actually linux (see at the end for more details)
hardware availability 9: lately is hard to find something not working at least basically in linux these days
opensolaris 2009.6
speed 8: decent boot time, not too ugly boot process, gnome feels very slow to me at least not as responsive as kde4.3.2 in kubuntu and clean with intel igp.
i/o 9 : i get 28mb here doing the same thing wich is still very good + zfs
software availability 4: is a complete real pain in the ass, the installer remember me the old redhat 5 rpm days, most the time you need sources and patches to get oss software working
hardware availability 7: well i got surprised here, very nice improvement since last checked, jajaj wifi and sata works most of the time now
*my problem here is well, sun have created some really nasty technologies like zfs, zones, snapshots, dtrace, svc,etc. but the way the think the distro concept is very very wrong. first in the name of god make something with the hardware path names (/dev/s0d0c0/XXXXXXXX is not pretty to get especially for desktop users), on the other hand ok wifi and ethernet works cool but really put wlan0 and eth0 as device name is that hard?? use a more linux like ifconfig system will kill ya?? i know these are small issues but lol i have a hardtime remembering what plmb up was for but in this small details linux even unstable like hell and with regression every 2 days make users a bit more comfortable my point here is not make opensolaris a linux, im just pointing out that linux make this stuff more user friendly and opensolaris can use this small changes to be more friendly, lol even my dad wich is a normal winduser understand that eth0 is his ehternet card and /dev/sda is his hardrive
*the other point is while rethink the wheel again and again, really why?? apt kick the opensolaris packaging system ass all the way around again and again, so why for god sake dont you use apt instead of that nigthmare of packaging system. really apt is proven,OSS,fast, easy to use, lol i even heard apt have several gui frontends believe it or not!! so even if i loved all these exceptional technologies provided with opensolaris (wich actually make me wanna switch to opensolaris btw) i cant cuz im gonna kill myself before get all my software in kubuntu running in opensolaris stable and nexenta well is the rigth path but the software repo is very old for me, nexenta would be close to replace ubuntu if they can keep up with lastest kubuntu packages.
* i dont think is smart to marry one desktop enviroment in opensolaris. i mean ok gnome is a big desktop enviroment but for me kde is vital to work (im a C++ qt/kde dev for comercial goverment apps), so i tried kde4 in solaris and dammit i never think would be so unstable, ofc i know kde team is working in migration but later i founded out that vanilla lateast gnome dont work too good either, so i assume opensolaris have their own custom patched gnome system to access the cool solaris stuff and stability but well thats not smart. lol plz make a set of userspace tool library for all this functions in clean C++ and let the desktop team to implement the functions in their respective enviroment so we all can enjoy the goodies.
*the other issues in opensolaris seems to be the uncommon api for accessing features aka ok solaris detected my soundcard just fine but no oss software can access the hardware interface correctly so if it sound is very crappy. i dont say use alsa cuz i know is linux specific but can you use an standard so the community dont have to rewrite every audio software. maybe an alsa api compatible interface (i mean userland api). mmm maybe port alsa kernel part to solaris cuz i think alsa support more devices correctly these days (dunno for sure)
*well about X in solaris is an entire story, basically well is very inferior to the one in kubuntu. i mean kde4 feels soooo slow rendering even when all seems to load fine even 3d, fonts antialiasing is non existant too (well forcing kde to antialiasing helped but is very far away from kubuntu even without antialiasing), adopt latest x.org/mesa/gallim/drm/dri doesnt look like a bad idea here, you know. beside this well 3d composite in kde4+kubuntu is feeling great lately but when i try in solaris is very different like slow and sluggish
my only problem with kubuntu rigth now is the linux kernel, dont get me wrong i love to play with the linux kernel and i love how it works, from an user standpoint is very polished in the details. but linux kernel never stabilize and i hate the drivers to be that much dependant on kernel internal api wich change so sickly often (aka from 2.6.30 to 2.6.30.1 anything can happen with the drivers) wich often force user to recompile drivers (assuming that some change didint break the code somewhere and make driver unusable) and isv to recode the driver every time a kernel is relased. and i especially love when a kernel api change break acpi or sysv scripts. so in this particular an important task solaris is enterprise made so i can avoid all that mess independently if i update the kernel or not.
so opensolaris at kernel lvl can surpass or equal linux kernel ? yes after fixing some rough edges like i said before, disk path, hardware /dev names more standars and use /home instead of /export and better support for hardware interfaces with community standards like alsa, etc
opensolaris distros can surpass linux like distros? no, no for a desktop user, no for a kde user, no for someone who actually need to install any software in the distro. except nexenta but still need a loot of work
to me the perfect fit here is a community standard focused polished opensolaris kernel in ubuntu/debian not otherwise
so i put in my office pc the 2 oses
kubuntu 9.10 64 latest updates + some ppa like xorg edgers
opensolaris 2009.06 and belenix 0.8 alpha.
so after testing all of them these are my points that from my point of view make solaris not a linux competitor rigth now. but i think i wanna make something clear here, im not actually a linux fanboy im a linux distro fanboy wich is entirely different aka linux, bsd, solaris are kernel with their goods or bad but you cant work just with a kernel and for most non-geek there should be transparent actually in almost everything, by linux like distro i mean all the good software include beside the kernel in a installalble way cd.
so to the point
scale 1 to 10
kubuntu 9.10
speed 9.5 : boot pretty fast, with my intel igp the desktop is super responsive and clean (no render errors so far)
i/o 10: my very heavy files copy through nfs to my server at 35mb wich i feel pretty good for only sata disk
software availability 9.8: well the godly debian apt system do his thing here, is not 10 cuz i cant find qt 4.6 ppa packages
stability 7: the software per se is 10 stable so far except koffice beta2 but that is a beta. my issues here is actually linux (see at the end for more details)
hardware availability 9: lately is hard to find something not working at least basically in linux these days
opensolaris 2009.6
speed 8: decent boot time, not too ugly boot process, gnome feels very slow to me at least not as responsive as kde4.3.2 in kubuntu and clean with intel igp.
i/o 9 : i get 28mb here doing the same thing wich is still very good + zfs
software availability 4: is a complete real pain in the ass, the installer remember me the old redhat 5 rpm days, most the time you need sources and patches to get oss software working
hardware availability 7: well i got surprised here, very nice improvement since last checked, jajaj wifi and sata works most of the time now
*my problem here is well, sun have created some really nasty technologies like zfs, zones, snapshots, dtrace, svc,etc. but the way the think the distro concept is very very wrong. first in the name of god make something with the hardware path names (/dev/s0d0c0/XXXXXXXX is not pretty to get especially for desktop users), on the other hand ok wifi and ethernet works cool but really put wlan0 and eth0 as device name is that hard?? use a more linux like ifconfig system will kill ya?? i know these are small issues but lol i have a hardtime remembering what plmb up was for but in this small details linux even unstable like hell and with regression every 2 days make users a bit more comfortable my point here is not make opensolaris a linux, im just pointing out that linux make this stuff more user friendly and opensolaris can use this small changes to be more friendly, lol even my dad wich is a normal winduser understand that eth0 is his ehternet card and /dev/sda is his hardrive
*the other point is while rethink the wheel again and again, really why?? apt kick the opensolaris packaging system ass all the way around again and again, so why for god sake dont you use apt instead of that nigthmare of packaging system. really apt is proven,OSS,fast, easy to use, lol i even heard apt have several gui frontends believe it or not!! so even if i loved all these exceptional technologies provided with opensolaris (wich actually make me wanna switch to opensolaris btw) i cant cuz im gonna kill myself before get all my software in kubuntu running in opensolaris stable and nexenta well is the rigth path but the software repo is very old for me, nexenta would be close to replace ubuntu if they can keep up with lastest kubuntu packages.
* i dont think is smart to marry one desktop enviroment in opensolaris. i mean ok gnome is a big desktop enviroment but for me kde is vital to work (im a C++ qt/kde dev for comercial goverment apps), so i tried kde4 in solaris and dammit i never think would be so unstable, ofc i know kde team is working in migration but later i founded out that vanilla lateast gnome dont work too good either, so i assume opensolaris have their own custom patched gnome system to access the cool solaris stuff and stability but well thats not smart. lol plz make a set of userspace tool library for all this functions in clean C++ and let the desktop team to implement the functions in their respective enviroment so we all can enjoy the goodies.
*the other issues in opensolaris seems to be the uncommon api for accessing features aka ok solaris detected my soundcard just fine but no oss software can access the hardware interface correctly so if it sound is very crappy. i dont say use alsa cuz i know is linux specific but can you use an standard so the community dont have to rewrite every audio software. maybe an alsa api compatible interface (i mean userland api). mmm maybe port alsa kernel part to solaris cuz i think alsa support more devices correctly these days (dunno for sure)
*well about X in solaris is an entire story, basically well is very inferior to the one in kubuntu. i mean kde4 feels soooo slow rendering even when all seems to load fine even 3d, fonts antialiasing is non existant too (well forcing kde to antialiasing helped but is very far away from kubuntu even without antialiasing), adopt latest x.org/mesa/gallim/drm/dri doesnt look like a bad idea here, you know. beside this well 3d composite in kde4+kubuntu is feeling great lately but when i try in solaris is very different like slow and sluggish
my only problem with kubuntu rigth now is the linux kernel, dont get me wrong i love to play with the linux kernel and i love how it works, from an user standpoint is very polished in the details. but linux kernel never stabilize and i hate the drivers to be that much dependant on kernel internal api wich change so sickly often (aka from 2.6.30 to 2.6.30.1 anything can happen with the drivers) wich often force user to recompile drivers (assuming that some change didint break the code somewhere and make driver unusable) and isv to recode the driver every time a kernel is relased. and i especially love when a kernel api change break acpi or sysv scripts. so in this particular an important task solaris is enterprise made so i can avoid all that mess independently if i update the kernel or not.
so opensolaris at kernel lvl can surpass or equal linux kernel ? yes after fixing some rough edges like i said before, disk path, hardware /dev names more standars and use /home instead of /export and better support for hardware interfaces with community standards like alsa, etc
opensolaris distros can surpass linux like distros? no, no for a desktop user, no for a kde user, no for someone who actually need to install any software in the distro. except nexenta but still need a loot of work
to me the perfect fit here is a community standard focused polished opensolaris kernel in ubuntu/debian not otherwise
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