OpenSolaris 2008.11 Starts Coming Together

Not updated in this release is on the X.Org side of things. OpenSolaris is still using X Server 1.3.0. It would be nice to see OpenSolaris move to X Server 1.4.1 or the newest X Server 1.5 series as part of X.Org 7.4, but so far, they haven't. When it comes to the binary NVIDIA display driver that ships with OpenSolaris, they are still using the 173.14.09 release. That driver was released back in June and it would be ideal to see them migrate to the 177.80 NVIDIA driver for the latest hardware support and other improvements.

Some of the other package versions in the SXCE Build 99 version of OpenSolaris are GIMP 2.4.6, Firefox 3.0.1, and Pidgin 2.5.1. No pre-release of Firefox 3 had made it into the earlier 2008.05 release, so it's good to see Firefox 3.0 now adopted by OpenSolaris. Likewise, the updated version of Pidgin is also great and it holds a number of improvements for this instant messaging client.

OpenSolaris is marketed as being a desktop operating system, but it continues to lack one of the essentials: a word processor. No word processor is yet included on the OpenSolaris CD. Various office applications can be installed using the Image Packaging System, but there is none included by default. OpenOffice.org would be too large to fit on the CD spin, but even including AbiWord would be a nice fit. The only office application shipping with OpenSolaris 2008.11 is the Evince Document Viewer. The visual improvements to OpenSolaris 2008.11 are nice along with the updated package set. Unfortunately, not all packages have been updated, such as the X Server, and there are a few bugs -- we ran into a date/time issue initially, the Caiman installer crashing once, etc. OpenSolaris 2008.11 is looking to be a nice evolution though of OpenSolaris 2008.05. The final release of OpenSolaris 2008.11 is expected in November.