Opensolaris > If merged with Ubuntu = The best *nix OS ever?

[andrebrait]

I was just thinking about it
It seems Opensolaris has a better UI, while Ubuntu is more popular and based in Debian. Although, OpenSolaris is good in some areas where Ubuntu is not, and vice-versa.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8769

[LaRoza]

I was just thinking about it
It seems Opensolaris has a better UI, while Ubuntu is more popular and based in Debian. Although, OpenSolaris is good in some areas where Ubuntu is not, and vice-versa.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8769

The UI is something that is relatively superficial. I am not familiar with Solaris (despite having the current version burned to disk, I haven't tried it yet). What is the UI like?

Perhaps there is a Linux distro that has a similiar one.

[SuperSon!c]

I was just thinking about it
It seems Opensolaris has a better UI, while Ubuntu is more popular and based in Debian. Although, OpenSolaris is good in some areas where Ubuntu is not, and vice-versa.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8769

http://content.zdnet.com/2346-10532_22-199935.html

looks pretty boring to me. and like the caption says, a bit like Ubuntu.

[andrebrait]

The UI is like Ubuntu, ut it's nicer in some way. :confused:

[qazwsx]

bash is default. Suprised me.
Uses lots of gnu programs like cat (made by Mr Stallman for example :))
Didn't have free and top installed (dissapointment).
Tiny amount of downloadable packages.
Memory hog.
Pretty standard GNOME look and feel.
And of course lack of some hardware support.

I didn't found anything fancy.

Dissapointment.

[madjr]

The UI is like Ubuntu, ut it's nicer in some way. :confused:

no one realizes that it's Gnome ??

the UI is basically the same thing.

Ubuntu solaris edition? sorry but never unless they change license

[toupeiro]

Nexenta = OpenSolaris merged with Debian package management (looks and feels like ubuntu) Give it a shot. (http://www.nexenta.org/os) ZFS without fuse and aptitude. Its really very nice. I've been running nexenta for a while. I rather like solaris and hope to see this develop further.

[cardinals_fan]

The UI is like Ubuntu, ut it's nicer in some way. :confused:
You don't know how it's nicer? Then how do you know that it is nicer?

OpenSolaris and Ubuntu are totally different under the hood. Merging them would be absurd. Anyway, they both use GNOME...

[intense.ego]

Like others said, looks a lot like ubuntu. here is another screenshot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Opensolaris-screenshot-2008-05.png

[Kingsley]

Like others said, looks a lot like ubuntu. here is another screenshot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Opensolaris-screenshot-2008-05.png

It looks a lot like any other Linux distribution that uses GNOME.

[DigitalDuality]

d

[vexorian]

It seems Opensolaris has a better UI
No, it doesn't.

It uses EXACTLY the same UI... gnome.

If openSolaris goes GPLv3, I might give it a try, until then, I think I am too happy with my current setup.

[swoll1980]

I think the op is referring to the Nimbus theme which imo is pretty sweet there's supposed to be a way to compile it for Ubuntu, but nothing I've tried has worked

[cardinals_fan]

I think the op is referring to the Nimbus theme which imo is pretty sweet there's supposed to be a way to compile it for Ubuntu, but nothing I've tried has worked
http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Nimbus+%28+Debian+and+Ubuntu+packages+%29?content= 70212

[Luke has no name]

What does OpenSolaris have that Linux/Ubuntu doesn't? Besides ZFS, which looks freakin' awesome.

[swoll1980]

http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Nimbus+%28+Debian+and+Ubuntu+packages+%29?content= 70212

if you run that .deb for Nimbus it says dependences can not be satisfied nimbus icons must be installed, but does not tell you where to install the icons I tried all the obvious locations with no luck. I also tried a script for it that some one made, and compiling from source the package from Sun no luck with these methods either

[cardinals_fan]

if you run that .deb for Nimbus it says dependences can not be satisfied nimbus icons must be installed, but does not tell you where to install the icons I tried all the obvious locations with no luck. I also tried a script for it that some one made, and compiling from source the package from Sun no luck with these methods either
Hm. Did you try the tips at http://www.vinodlive.com/2007/08/20/make-your-ubuntu-desktop-more-beautiful/ ?

[swoll1980]

Hm. Did you try the tips at http://www.vinodlive.com/2007/08/20/make-your-ubuntu-desktop-more-beautiful/ ?

Yes thats where I got the script I referred to from. I was beating my head off a wall for a good 5 hours or so trying to solve this mystery ](*,)

[forrestcupp]

I don't give a rat's behind about the license. I care more about the fact that Opensolaris's kernel isn't nearly as mature as Linux and it doesn't support nearly as much. That's really the main difference.

[laxmanb]

I don't give a rat's behind about the license. I care more about the fact that Opensolaris's kernel isn't nearly as mature as Linux and it doesn't support nearly as much. That's really the main difference.

Not as mature as linux - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

[SuperSon!c]

lol

[toupeiro]

I don't give a rat's behind about the license. I care more about the fact that Opensolaris's kernel isn't nearly as mature as Linux and it doesn't support nearly as much. That's really the main difference.

mmm, Might want to doublecheck some of your facts there ace.. ;-) They 'opened' the kernel, they didn't reinvent it. I understand there is some inherant truth to the fact that OpenSolaris has not been "open" as long as linux, thus has had less time to develop hardware support, and I think Wikipedia makes some sort of reference to that effect. However, I've yet to throw something at it that it couldn't handle, or have any more problems with than I did with Linux. So, I'd say that is a more generalized statement based on the projects time, and not so much direct reference of events.

[Luke has no name]

What does OpenSolaris have that Linux/Ubuntu doesn't? Besides ZFS, which looks freakin' awesome.

ahem

[the8thstar]

Clarification for newbies: since OpenSolaris and Ubuntu are written with different kernels, merging these (if that was ever possible) would result in a new OS altogether.

[toupeiro]

ahem

For Starters, how about This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTrace) and This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_Containers)?

Its also a derivative of UNIX System V, which IMHO is a much better derivative than BSD based on the toolsets and init models. I don't know of another Open version of System V other than OpenSolaris.

[toupeiro]

Clarification for newbies: since OpenSolaris and Ubuntu are written with different kernels, merging these (if that was ever possible) would result in a new OS altogether.


Nexenta is about as merged as you are going to get, and its not really "merging". Rather, its adapting Debians methodology and toolset to OpenSolaris. There are further opportunities to extend "merging" with solaris container space for debian/ubuntu,

[the8thstar]

I'm not interested in a war of semantics. GNU/Solaris will come to life through a lot of code sharing and/or merging between UNIX and Linux. That's the point I was trying to make.

[toupeiro]

I'm not interested in a war of semantics. GNU/Solaris will come to life through a lot of code sharing and/or merging between UNIX and Linux. That's the point I was trying to make.

Nobody here is waring. I was "agreeing" with you. :confused: I guess I'll spell that out next time.

[the8thstar]

And I apologize if I seemed harsh. :) I was just trying to clarify. I also slept less than 4 hours, so my vocabulary is a little bit on the restricted side right now!

I wonder how the technologies will be shared and to what extent. I am under the impression that Unixes are hard, stable, crystal-like structures that symbolize order. They don't break but they're not fun. On the other hand, Linuxes are flexible, malleable, chaotic systems that keep growing and sprouting in a big galactic mess. They're fun but unfinished in many aspects. How we can put these different philosophies into one principle will be interesting to watch.

Eventually, the future of open-source will be decided by users for a large part. As of today, there isn't a viable alternative to Windows for the masses. MacOS is too expensive. Linux is too difficult.

[tdrusk]

And I apologize if I seemed harsh. :) I was just trying to clarify. I also slept less than 4 hours, so my vocabulary is a little bit on the restricted side right now!

My first thought when I read this was...

I still haven't enabled the Ubuntu Restricted Repo yet.

[forrestcupp]

mmm, Might want to doublecheck some of your facts there ace.. ;-) They 'opened' the kernel, they didn't reinvent it. I understand there is some inherant truth to the fact that OpenSolaris has not been "open" as long as linux, thus has had less time to develop hardware support, and I think Wikipedia makes some sort of reference to that effect. However, I've yet to throw something at it that it couldn't handle, or have any more problems with than I did with Linux. So, I'd say that is a more generalized statement based on the projects time, and not so much direct reference of events.

I guess I should check my facts. I know Solaris has been around forever, but I didn't know how well they have adapted it to the x86 platform.

[toupeiro]

And I apologize if I seemed harsh. :) I was just trying to clarify. I also slept less than 4 hours, so my vocabulary is a little bit on the restricted side right now!

I wonder how the technologies will be shared and to what extent. I am under the impression that Unixes are hard, stable, crystal-like structures that symbolize order. They don't break but they're not fun. On the other hand, Linuxes are flexible, malleable, chaotic systems that keep growing and sprouting in a big galactic mess. They're fun but unfinished in many aspects. How we can put these different philosophies into one principle will be interesting to watch.

Eventually, the future of open-source will be decided by users for a large part. As of today, there isn't a viable alternative to Windows for the masses. MacOS is too expensive. Linux is too difficult.

You must have gotten more sleep. :) I couldn't have said it better myself. The one thing I think I would challenge is that Linux does have a few variants I would go as far as to call "finished", and that would be the slackware variants. Slackware is more UNIX-like by the nature of its development and releases, and tends to be relentlessly tried and true before its released as stable. They sacrifice their release framework for stability. Its important to have a distro available to do that. I'd go as far to say its as rigorous, if not more so, than the RHEL's and SLED's (SLED being fundamentally based on slackware) of the Enterprise Linux world.

[toupeiro]

I guess I should check my facts. I know Solaris has been around forever, but I didn't know how well they have adapted it to the x86 platform.

Its been surprisingly good. I've yet to throw OpenSolaris on a SPARC, because I haven't needed to (and because I dont have a SPARC at home.) I've debated throwing it on an old V440 at work. Bluetooth works great thus far, as does NVidia Drivers and even Compiz. No audio problems, All in one printer works flawlessly, Integrated NICs without a hitch. I haven't had to mess with wireless yet.

[swoll1980]

Its been surprisingly good. I've yet to throw OpenSolaris on a SPARC, because I haven't needed to (and because I dont have a SPARC at home.) I've debated throwing it on an old V440 at work. Bluetooth works great thus far, as does NVidia Drivers and even Compiz. No audio problems, All in one printer works flawlessly, Integrated NICs without a hitch. I haven't had to mess with wireless yet.

Any chance you got multimedia working?

[toupeiro]

Any chance you got multimedia working?

Been a while since I set this up, but try this link, it should still be good for the new version of OpenSolaris I would imagine.

http://blogs.sun.com/alvaro/entry/opensolaris_codec_pack_updated

[phrostbyte]

If by maturity in age, Linux is the red headed stepchild of Solaris. But Linux has a massive development team behind it, beating Solaris and rivaling Microsoft (perhaps even exceeding Microsoft). The Linux kernel is the largest decentralized and discrete software project in the world. So from a developmental standpoint I think Linux is ahead. This probably wasn't true 8 years ago though.

[swoll1980]

Been a while since I set this up, but try this link, it should still be good for the new version of OpenSolaris I would imagine.

http://blogs.sun.com/alvaro/entry/opensolaris_codec_pack_updated

That's the one I found. It produces an error when you start the mplayer that has something to do about a library being removed for legal reasons

[will1911a1]

I don't see how merging them would make the "best" *nix out there... I already like a couple OSes better than I like either Ubuntu or Solaris.

Nevermind that "best" is really a subjective thing...

[swoll1980]

If by maturity in age, Linux is the red headed stepchild of Solaris. But Linux has a massive development team behind it, beating Solaris and rivaling Microsoft (perhaps even exceeding Microsoft). The Linux kernel is the largest decentralized and discrete software project in the world. So from a developmental standpoint I think Linux is ahead. This probably wasn't true 8 years ago though.

From what I have heard the MS's dev team is minuscule in comparison to that of Linux's

[swoll1980]

I don't see how merging them would make the "best" *nix out there... I already like a couple OSes better than I like either Ubuntu or Solaris.

Nevermind that "best" is really a subjective thing...

Let me guess Arch is one of them

[toupeiro]

That's the one I found. It produces an error when you start the mplayer that has something to do about a library being removed for legal reasons

That sucks. I am in the process of pulling down this latest official distro. If I figure anything out, I'll post it to this thread.

And I also agree with will1911a1's comment. Its entirely subjective, and Phrostbyte is also correct in the overall worldwide support behind linux being much greater than Solaris.

I cut my teeth on UNIX back in 1994-95 while I was still a teenager, with a dialup shell account that happened to be Solaris. I'm not a solaris fanboy, but I am eager to see this OS transition into the desktop market. Solaris still carries a lot of clout in the enterprise world for being rock solid stable. I have a few Solaris 8 and 9 servers that are coming up to one year uptime with no reboots. I don't have Utopian expectations set on GNU/Solaris or the Sun Sponsored OpenSolaris project, but it is another project that I will be making some time for to help contribute, because there is a huge amount of potential to be had with it IMO. I think it has its place alongside ubuntu or any other distro.

[forrestcupp]

If by maturity in age, Linux is the red headed stepchild of Solaris. But Linux has a massive development team behind it, beating Solaris and rivaling Microsoft (perhaps even exceeding Microsoft). The Linux kernel is the largest decentralized and discrete software project in the world. So from a developmental standpoint I think Linux is ahead. This probably wasn't true 8 years ago though.

That's pretty much what my point was meant to be earlier in this thread. I'm pretty happy with Linux.

[hanzomon4]

It would be awesome to have more then one (well 2) kernel to choose from. PC-BSD is a great desktop system, An opensolaris based GNU OS would be a benefit to all and a hinderance to none.

[inportb]

It would be awesome to have more then one (well 2) kernel to choose from. PC-BSD is a great desktop system, An opensolaris based GNU OS would be a benefit to all and a hinderance to none.

As an extension... it would be awesome if it could be installed on the same system, and kernels could be swapped as easily as reboot/kexec. And no, I do not mean dual-booting.