OpenSolaris 2009.06 Released

Besides the new PHP and MySQL DTrace probes that we mentioned in the introduction, catering to the fancy of developers in OpenSolaris 2009.06 are a few features for them too. There is a CPU Performance Counter DTrace, the JavaFX SDK is available for easy setup through the OpenSolaris Extras repository, there is libc compatibility with Linux and FreeBSD, and the Git revision control system is now available on OpenSolaris. Clutter is also now available through the OpenSolaris Image Packaging System.

Sadly, this desktop operating system by Sun Microsystems still ships without a word processor. A word processor can be installed from their package management system, but besides gedit there is no GUI-based text/word editor. They opted to not include OpenOffice.org in any of the releases thus far to conserve space, but they have chosen not to include AbiWord or any lighter-weight office applications.

As is briefly pointed out in the OpenSolaris 2009.06 release notes, Sun is already planning for their next OpenSolaris release. We anticipate this next release will be OpenSolaris 2010.02 and among the features that are reportedly being worked on include offline Image Packaging System support, a new version of GNOME, ZFS enhancements, cloud integration, and an interactive installation method for SPARC systems. We have been testing out OpenSolaris 2009.06 this morning and so far, it looks like a nice update from Sun Microsystems. There are a few areas that can be improved upon, but overall it is looking quite nice and with each release Sun seems to lower the usability barrier on OpenSolaris. This week we will have benchmarks comparing OpenSolaris 2008.11 and OpenSolaris 2009.06 using the Phoronix Test Suite. Grab your copy of this new operating system release at OpenSolaris.com.