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OpenSolaris Code Released

njcoder writes "C|net's news.com.com has reported that Sun Microsystems is releasing parts of the OpenSolaris code today licensed under the OSI-approved CDDL . The release consistes of over 5 million lines of code for the base system OS/Net (kernel and networking). OpenSolaris is based on Solaris 10, the current version of Sun's Unix Operating System. Back in January, Sun released the code for DTrace, a dynamic tracing tool for analyzing and debugging kernel and userland events. DTrace is one of the big features in Solaris 10. Some other highlights include the GRUB bootloader, SMF (Service Management Facility) which replaces init.d scripts, it starts up processes in parallel for faster boots (7 second boot on a dual opteron workstation I think that was the setup) as well as providing features for automatically restarting. OpenSolaris provides support for x86/x86-64 processors as well as Sparc. The Blastware guys are working on Polaris which is an OpenSolaris port to PowerPC. Sun has been working on opening Solaris for over a year now. The OpenSolaris project started with a pilot group of Sun and non-Sun users. During the pilot program a lot of info including screenshots could be found on various OpenSolaris member blogs. (My favorite is Ben Rockwood's blog). Teamware is the source code management system Sun uses for Solaris and OpenSolaris. Which was designed by Larry McVoy (now of BitKeeper) while he was at sun. No word yet on if Teamware will be available for OpenSolaris developers or not. Sun also uses CollabNet for it's Open Source project websites so that might be a possibility as well."

16 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Rock on! by njcoder · · Score: 2, Informative

    Also check out Jim Grisanzio's blog. It explains a bit about what's been going on with the pilot program.

  2. Re:Vaporware no more! by mogrify · · Score: 3, Informative

    heh... bet that gets taken out right quick. http://cvs.opensolaris.org/source/xref/usr/src/cmd /volmgt/vold/dev_rmscsi.c thanks for the tip.

    --
    perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
  3. For those of us who don't like torrents by m50d · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/get.jsp. Requires registration though.

    --
    I am trolling
  4. Q: does it run on Xen? A: Not yet but it will by Lemming+Mark · · Score: 4, Informative

    Some Sun guys are doing a port to Xen. This'll give you near-native performance for Solaris apps, along with the comprehensive device support provided by a Linux (or NetBSD) "domain 0" (host virtual machine).

    See http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/tpm/20050510#the_ xen_summit (it seems to be down right now).

  5. Apps Here! Get Your Apps Here! by Zemplar · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ckeck out Blastwave.org http://www.blastwave.org/ for some torrents, apps, guides, and other goodies.

    Additionally, SunFreeware http://www.sunfreeware.com/ is another great site for getting applications.

  6. Re:Zfs? by pedantic+bore · · Score: 4, Informative
    According to the feature list (http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/documenta tion/opensolaris_guide/) ZFS is not part of the current release.

    Justing reading the stuff that is released, however, is a joy.

    --
    Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
  7. Re:Vaporware no more! by Rakshasa+Taisab · · Score: 2, Informative

    Though it won't satisfy those of us who have been shouting "Vapourlicense!"

    --
    - These characters were randomly selected.
  8. Re:Finally! by CapnGrunge · · Score: 2, Informative

    Slackware has no init.d either, you get rc.S for single user, rc.M for multiuser and rc.4 for graphical login.

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    I see 57005 people
  9. Re:I'm unfamiliar by ahl_at_sun · · Score: 5, Informative

    That answer depends on who you are. If you're a system administrator Predictive Self-Healing is going to raise the reliability of your systems and make management scads easier; SMF makes configuring the system a snap and lets you identify problems quickly and easily; Zones lets you partition the system without the management overhead of a bazillion OS instances; DTrace lets you understand everything that's happening on your system -- and who's responsible for the latest crap-up; Solaris Process Rights improve security and administrative overhead by splitting up the traditional binary notion of the super user. If you're a developer, you'll love DTrace -- I can't imagine developing with out it; the p-tools, truss(1) and mdb(1) are also great. If you're an end-user, well, Solaris's gnome sucks as much as anyone's gnome -- go use Mac OS.

  10. Re:I'm unfamiliar by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Informative

    For Linux and FreeBSD and common packages/ports on opteron and ultrasparc there's still 64 bit cleanliness issues, and there's BSD issues running on Ultrasparc III and above chips (as in, can't do it). FreeBSD is still trying to implement fine grained SMP spinlocks which don't sieze up under heavy load & to get fine grained locks into tcp stack. Solaris builds backward compatibiity into libraries that Linux dosen't have, which is why when installing proprietary app binaries there's all kinds of neat patching and relinking that needs to be done (for example, installing Oracle on Sun is a breeze, but on Linux takes some care as to java and various library versions, and for another example enterprise SAN software such as veritas or Hitachi drivers only works with certain kernels). Solaris has the definitave and latest/greatest versions many services such as RPC and NFS (linux has some issues there)

  11. Re:let the driver flood gates open! by Nerant · · Score: 3, Informative

    Believe it or not, there are numerous legal issues that Sun has to work through in order to ensure code that is open sourced doesn't get anyone in trouble.

    Be patient. They're working on it. Or would you rather they open source some code they don't have the right to, and get people who see that code into trouble?

    There is still alot of work to be done, but it is a huge first step.

    For more, take a look at the roadmap at

    http://opensolaris.org/os/about/roadmap/

    --
    Be kind. There are too many mean people out there already.
  12. Re:Zfs? by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hell, I'm running Solaris 10 on an old 433 MHz Pentium 2 and it does just great, Rock-solid and surprisingly fast, given the hardware.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  13. Re:It is MS and Sun vs. Linux by njcoder · · Score: 2, Informative
    "But this has potential to do what MS could not. Solaris is at least respected by the development world. This is simply another trap being laid by Sun and MS against Linux."

    Try reading the CDDL FAQ before you start trolling.

    Can code licensed under the CDDL be combined with code licensed under other open source licenses?

    CDDL is file-based; that means that files licensed under the CDDL can be combined with files licensed under other licenses, whether open source or proprietary. However, other licenses may have different restrictions which may prevent such combination; be sure to read and recognize those.

    So how can they "trap" people when the code is released under and OSI approved license?

    "What is funny is how little ppl seem to remember from just 7 years ago. Sun actually ported to X86 once before AND "opened" their source code. Then when they thought that things were going well, they dropped it. If Sun ever feels like things are going in their favor, it is almost certain that they will do it again."

    Sun has had an x86 port for a long long time. They dropped it around the time they bought Cobalt. Probably because Cobalt and Solaris x86 competed for some of the same market. The Solaris x86 community rallied together and got Sun to bring it back. I'm sure that the appliance market wasn't panning out helped too. But now Sun is really pushing forward with Opterons. Some details were leaked on the new Galaxy line of Opterons coming out. Should be good stuff. And as for dropping it, well it's open source now. It's going to be out there for ever.

  14. Re:I'm unfamiliar by bdgregg · · Score: 4, Informative
    Probably the most clear and undenyable feature that is unique to OpenSolaris/Solaris is DTrace.

    DTrace lets us examine just about anything, with minimal impact on the system. It's way cool, and other OSes have nothing that is close (for details covering the Linux Trace Toolkit (LTT), DProbes, K42 and Kerninst see the USENIX paper.

    DTrace solves disk I/O by PID, network activity by PID, elapsed and on-cpu times for syscalls, libcalls and user funcs, and much more.

    DTrace is great if you are a programmer with a little kernel knowledge, but if not you may find the DTraceToolkit helpful - it is a collection of ready-to-roll scripts.

    For a list of many OpenSolaris features with screenshots, see the OpenSolaris Guide.

  15. Re:Rock on! by grahamlee · · Score: 2, Informative
    Unfortuntely, all builds require a system to bootstrap the build. At the moment, the only option is Solaris Community Edition, a non-Torrented download. (Boo!) That being said, I don't think we'll have to wait too long for the OSS community to fix that little issue.

    Sadly, that might not necessarily be the case - OpenDarwin has been around for five years and you still need a Darwin system [including some non-free tools] to bootstrap the build. But as Solaris Express is free as in non-costworthy, I don't see any problem with downloading SE to bootstrap an OpenSlowlaris kernel build. Me, I'm still using Solaris 2,7, and 8 ;-)

  16. Re:Rock on! by 11223 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not true. OpenDarwin images build from source under an OpenDarwin image, with only free tools.