Debian GNU/Solaris

An anonymous reader writes "Today "Nexenta" announced an initial pilot program of GNU/Solaris. Initial trials are limited to "Ubuntu developers and the entire Debian community". From the announcement: "As you might know, Sun Microsystems just opened Solaris kernel under CDDL license, which allows one to build custom Operating Systems. Which we did...created a new Debian based GNU/Solaris distribution with (the latest bits of) Solaris kernel & core userland inside. We'll open Nexenta web developer portal completely for the general public by mid-November. Today we are launching a Pilot Program. Ubuntu developers and the entire Debian community - you are welcome to participate in the Pilot!"

Comments

GNU/Solaris?

[six809]

GNU/SunOS, surely?

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[jedZ]

From the article:

"This is to announce Nexenta: the first-ever distribution that combines GNU and OpenSolaris. As you might know, Sun Microsystems just opened Solaris kernel under CDDL license, which allows one to build custom Operating Systems. Which we did... created a new Debian based GNU/Solaris distribution with (the latest bits of) Solaris kernel & core userland inside."

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[QuantumG]

GNU/Pointless.

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe what the GP poster was refering to is that according to Sun the name of the base OS is SunOS (do a "uname -a" on a solaris box). Solaris supposedly inially refered to SunOS + OpenWindows 2.X + some other stuff... in other words it was the full distro. In fact, they retroactively renamed the complete SunOS 4.X distros as "Solaris 1.X" So if a project is dumping the GNU/Debian userland on top of the kernel/basic-OS from Solaris it would be more proper to call it "GNU/SunOS" rather than "GNU/Solaris"

Of course, almost noone refers to it as SunOS anymore so "GNU/Solaris" is probably less confusing.

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[Erik Hensema]

SunOS has been known as Solaris since version 2.6, which is Solaris 6 (maybe even since SunOS 2.5/Solaris 5... I'm not sure). SunOS doesn't really exist anymore these days.

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[Xaria]

This has been posted elsewhere, but to make it clear since you've been modded up - Solaris is the distribution, ala "Debian". SunOS is the core, ala GNU/Linux.

From Sun's Solaris 2 FAQ:

Solaris 2 is an "operating environment" that includes the SunOS 5.x operating system and the OpenWindows 3.x window environment.

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[Anonymous Coward]

"SunOS has been known as Solaris since version 2.6, which is Solaris 6 (maybe even since SunOS 2.5/Solaris 5... I'm not sure). SunOS doesn't really exist anymore these days."

Incorrect!

Solaris OE (Operating Environment) runs on top of the corresponding SunOS release. For example:

Solaris7 OE runs on top of SunOS 5.7 ...
Solaris11 ("Nevada" / OpenSolaris) runs on top of SunOS 5.11 (currently build 26).

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[photon317]

Actually, the naming story is more complicated than that.

The SunOS 4.x series was just "SunOS", and it was more BSD-based.

The SunOS 5.x series has always also been called Solaris. In the SunOS 5.x series, SunOS is the name of either just the kernel, or the kernel plus the very basics of the operating system, depending on who you listen to, whereas the Solaris brand name refers to the entire "Operating Environment", including SunOS 5.x and a lot of other add-ons like NIS+, LDAP services, CDE, etc, etc. I don't think they have ever sold a stripped down SunOS 5.x, only a Solaris Operating Environment 2.x which happens to contain SunOS 5.x.

And then with the release of Solaris 2.7 (SunOS 5.7) they began marketing it as "Solaris 7", presumably for some dumb marketing reason. Since then that's been the case, so for any given release from 2.7 onwards, the possible alternate namings are:

Solaris 2.X = SunOS 5.X = "Solaris X"

2.7 of course turned out to be an absymal failure of an operating environment, so it's quite fitting that it was the launching point of a marketing-driven renaming policy. Whereas 2.6 was a solid stable platform for many years, building on the successes of 2.4 and 2.5.1, the 2.7 release is where they introduced transitional 64-bit support, and poorly. It wasn't until 2.8 that things settled down again. Many customers unfortunately still have "Solaris 7" installed here and there in production, and it's a nightmare to support. What we can learn from this is never buy/install the first release of an OS right after a major overhaul of its guts to support a new architecture.

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[st1d]

Which, sadly, is the same thing that was said when Sun started to release Solaris free for individual use. As far as the Debian community is concerned, a fair number of them think the CDDL isn't "free enough" to back. (Granted, some of these freedom arguments get a little crazy in the community, but it is what it is.) Some will ask, "If Sun really wanted to contribute, why not simply adopt the GPL?"

So, in the long run, while I think a good number of developers will help out, I'm pretty sure Debian/Open Solaris will be primarily relegated to "just another debian project", and poses no real threat to Linux for the forseeable future. On the other hand, I think D/OS (heh, heh) will greatly benefit Solaris, as Sun will be able to see what the Debian community can do when not encumbered by sales/marketing luggage.

5+ years ago however, I would have probably agreed with you, but today Linux is driving innovation, no longer playing catchup as in those days. The areas Linux "lacks in" today are for the most part on purpose, either because of potential legal issues, or the desire to avoid future problems (i.e., dumping user programs into kernel space).

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[Anonymous Coward]

Solaris 6?

Clearly you're talking out of your arse.

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[st1d]

Agreed, 2.7/7 seemed to be more of a reaction to MS's release (popularity?) of Win98, more than Sun's traditional approach of making sure things worked well for a networking environment. They seemed to see MS's success, and shuffled everything else to the side to meet the challenge, choosing quick fame and greed over reality. As a result, today they are pushing an OS that is almost a footnote (if Solaris didn't have it's early 90's success, would anyone even take note?), not just behind MS-Windows, but Linux and MacOS as well, not only in numbers of users, but mindshare as well.

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[ScouseMouse]

[spodula@splodge spodula]$ telnet sun-01.xxx.com
Trying 10.xxx.xxx.15...
Connected to sun-01.xxx.com.
Escape character is '^]'.


SunOS 5.9

login:

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[Anonymous Coward]

"2.7 of course turned out to be an absymal failure of an operating environment, so it's quite fitting that it was the launching point of a marketing-driven renaming policy."

How the hell do you figure Solaris7 turned out to be a failure?

Solaris7 introduced some revolutionary features, like ACLs and various useful (albeit Solaris only) commands, and was the first Solaris to go 64-bit, almost a start of a new era for Solaris.

This must be some Linux/Slashdot funboy crap you're trying to feed us here.

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[Lucractius]

As a proponent of the Gentoo "Portaris" that has fallen stagnant im pretty much just pissed off that this has happened now.

Not the least cause it wasnt my favourite distro first.

Mostly because this explains why after the main talent behind the project provided explanations of how Debian reacted when they were called to comment about this earlier, ( the response was a poliite form of "fuck you and your CCDL licence you non GNU shitheads" ) they have dont a backflip and now they ARE doing it... well i still hate Debian... not only for being too GNU for their own good. but for being egotistical, and Now hypocritical backflippers.

Hopefuly this shames/motivates the portaris project back into life.

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[DeputySpade]

I think it would be even more appropriate to call it Linux with a SunOS kernel. :-)

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[thre5her]

No, GNU/SunOS is appropriate. Linux is a kernel, not ls/grep/etc. Without the Linux kernel, there is no "Linux" involved.

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

they keep solaris' internal name, reported by uname -a, as "sunOS" for the same reason DEC/compaq/HP keeps the internal name of TRU64 as "OSF1". compatibility with older, unmantained apps and scripts.

this information exists in several Tru64 documents. since many multi-plataform apps/scripts rely on the information from uname -a to identify the OS and adjust itself, changing the internal name would break compatibility with several important 3rd party stuff, which means users would have to spend lots of $$$ to upgrade apps that would otherwise work perfectly in the new OS had it kept the internal name unchanged.

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[Anonymous Coward]

(GP poster here)

I think that's not correct. Anything that relied on the output of "uname" probably broke horribly between SunOS 4 and SunOS 5/Solaris. Trust me, back around 1993 I was admining an early Solaris site (back when everyone in their right mind was still running SunOS 4... Solaris wasn't really ready for prime time until 2.3. 2.0, 2.1 (where I started), and 2.2 were all really bad.

Anyway, at the time almost nothing was expecting Solaris so I spent lots of time fudging random programs to make them work. Lots of things just expected that anything called "SunOS" would be BSD-based. It would have been MUCH BETTER for them to change uname to "Solaris" since it was really an entirely new OS. The reason they called it "SunOS 5" was to make it clear that this was the "new thing" and that SunOS 4 was a dead end (something that customers were NOT happy about at the time) and to try to extend the generally good reputation SunOS 4 had in the industry.

There was (and, I assume, still is) some SunOS 4 compatibility cruft in Solaris but trust me it really didn't work that well back then.

Your DEC example is NOT the same. In that case they were just changing the name of the OS ("OSF/1"->"Tru64"->"Digital UNIX"->whatever else) even though it remained basically the same. When DEC did their analagous BSD->SYSV conversion they actually DID change uname (from "Ultrix" to "OSF")

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[m0rph3us0]

Imagine how much that would piss off RMS. If only I had mod points.

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[six809]

That all looks about right.

Which is why the GNU system + the kernel of Solaris (SunOS) should, in the name of accurate representation, be named GNU/SunOS.

That really wasn't any sort of joke post, it was based on the fact that the Solaris kernel is, *actually*, called SunOS. Of course, I've not really been paying attention , so the official name for the Free release could have a totally different naming convention for all I know.

Re:GNU/Solaris?

[rubycodez]

don't forget the bit where SunOS 4.x was also retroactively renamed to Solaris 1.x, e.g. SunOS 4.1.1b == Solaris 1.1.1b (one of my personal favorites along with 4.1.3)

GNU/OpenSolaris

[Anonymous Coward]

Shoudn't it be named GNU/OpenSolaris?

--AC

Re:GNU/OpenSolaris

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh. Once they get apt working on their Solaris distro, it'll probably work on the official one as well. Debian basically is apt and the official apt repositories.

Indeed, when I last frequented the Debian powerpc list, there was talk of coming up with a Debian Darwin/OS X distro. They abandonded the effort because it would replicate work the Fink project has done.

Re:GNU/OpenSolaris

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's about GNU/Solaris vs GNU/OpenSolaris (not about prefixing it with Debian). It is based on the OpenSolaris-Kernel not the kernel of Solaris.

Re:GNU/OpenSolaris

[st1d]

Yeah, but it's more fun to irritate Sun cheerleaders by referring to it as D/OS. :)

Where are the differences?

[Vario]

I had some contact with AIX, Linux is running at home but other than some minimal stuff I have no idea what makes Solaris different from the other systems. GNU/Solaris sounds like only the kernel is not linux.
Can someone give me a hint why I should consider looking at it or switching my router/server/notebook to it?

Re:Where are the differences?

[The Nine]

GNU/Solaris sounds like only the kernel is not linux.

Uhh, linux is a kernel, and nothing more.

Re:Where are the differences?

[Mancat]

Besides the kernel it looks like it also uses the Solaris userland. That would include common commands (ps, ftp, m4, etc.) as well as Solaris-specific commands (psrinfo, prtconf, etc.). Also Solaris libc, as well as some other libraries. It will be interesting to see how much of the "original" Solaris userland will need to be replaced with, or supplemented with GNU tools. Some of Solaris' default tools are pretty bare in functionality.

Apt and Solaris should be pretty cool, though Solaris has had BlastWave for a while, which works pretty similar to apt.

Re:Where are the differences?

[oztiks]

i would like to see the driver support for a notebook!

Re:Where are the differences?

[Jessta]

GNU/Solaris sounds like only the kernel is not linux.
You appear to be a very confused individual.

- Jesse McNelis

Re:Where are the differences?

[ajs318]

Why? No good reason, really. Why would you want to climb a mountain? Why would you want to pee really high up a wall? Some people just like doing things other people don't pay much mind to. Merionesianism, I guess.

To the uninitiated, a GNU userland on top of an OpenSolaris kernel will feel just like a GNU userland on top of a Linux Kernel, or a FreeBSD kernel, or the HURD. Come to think of it, if it was possible to get a GNU userland running on top of the Windows kernel, you would be hard pushed to tell it from a GNU userland running on anything else.

In the end, it's really probably a good thing. The Open Source world is a genuine meritocracy: there is no way to survive except to be the fittest {nobody to bribe and nothing to bribe them with}, and so the competition is fierce. Yet there is no shame {and indeed, little impediment} in failure, either: up from the ashes of disaster, grow the roses of success. Open Source can only get better, according to an equation of the form

Q = 1 - e ** (-k * t)

where
Q = quality expressed on a scale 0 {no solution to problem} .. 1 {perfection}
k = some constant
t = time

Re:Where are the differences?

[RAMMS EIN]

What is popularly called Linux includes a userland mostly composed of GNU software. Therefore, it's not a strange question to ask exactly what parts of Debian GNU/Solaris are different from Debian GNU/Linux. IIRC, there are two versions of Debian NetBSD, one with a GNU userland and one with a NetBSD userland. Porting Debian to a non-GNU userland is probably a lot more difficult than porting Debian + GNU userland to a non-Linux kernel (because the GNU userland is already very portable).

Re:Where are the differences?

[Malor]

It's probably not the best choice for a notebook or a router. It might be a good choice for a server, depending on what you're doing with it.

I've done some Solaris administration, but I have never been even remotely expert. I did get an idea of just how much I don't know, however.

In many ways, Solaris makes Linux and the BSDs look like tinkertoys. There is a vast array of functionality inside. Solaris feels like it was designed 'down', by people who are used to working with mainframes; Linux and the BSDs are more designed 'up' by people inventing (and often re-inventing) things for the first time.

There's a fundamental expectation in Solaris that the server will stay up under virtually all circumstances. If the hardware you're running it on is expensive enough, it's apparently pretty easy to hotswap almost anything... even RAM and CPUs. I believe it supports multiple running instances of Solaris on the same hardware at the same time, even different versions. And I'm fairly sure that a recent feature will let you upgrade OSes 'on the fly', though I think there would have to be at least a brief interruption of service. Pay attention to replies, if any. My knowledge in this area is very sketchy.

It's highly optimized to scale to amazing degrees, given more CPUs to work with. But that means it's not very well optimized to work with only one, which was why it was called 'Slowlaris' in the early days of Linux. Running multiprocessor requires a lot of locking to make sure that different CPUs don't step on each others' toes. This locking takes time. So the first versions of Solaris/Intel were dogmeat slow in comparison to Linux. There was no chance of a conflict, because multi-CPU Intel boxes almost didn't exist, but Sun was and is more interested in having it run WELL than run FAST. Removing all that locking would have introduced bugs. So they left it slow. And most folks went with SPARC boxen or Linux instead, for better performance.

At the time, Linux screamed on the same hardware, because it didn't worry about any of that. Up through 2.2, Linux had just a Big Kernel Lock... only one CPU could be in kernel space at any given time, and the rest of the CPUs either ran user code or sat around idle. Most user code makes fairly frequent kernel calls, so the extra CPUs blocked a lot. Running on one CPU was very fast, but there wasn't much benefit to adding more. A second was a moderate plus, adding maybe 50% overall throughput. Adding further CPUs did very little for most workloads.

Solaris does exactly the opposite. It's slow on one CPU, though 'slow' is pretty relative on a multi-gigahertz processor, but as you add more, it scales almost linearly. 64-way Solaris boxes run very nicely. And they do it without crashing, too. That's an area where Linux, for instance, has had a huge amount of trouble... as they add in new locks and try to rearchitect to let more and more CPUs into kernel code at once, they introduce bugs, often at a furious rate. You don't see much of that in released versions of Solaris. A lot of what you're paying for with the expensive Sun equipment is their QA department, which must be just incredibly good. (if any of you are reading this, thanks!)

Basically, this is enterprise-grade software. It's designed to run things like banks and air traffic control and medical equipment...stuff that just can't ever break or go down. It's not actually USED for air traffic control, as far as I know, but I'm sure Sun would be happy to sell systems into that market. If your hardware is good, Solaris can take an unbelievable beating... you can have loads in the thousands and still be able to connect to the box with SSH (eventually) and rescue it. It'll be slow, but you'll get in. Linux, in contrast, will often still die from dumb stuff like fork bombs. Yes, ulimits can prevent that problem, but Solaris will survive without the extra help.

Basically, Solaris is the kind of OS that you can bet your job on, and remain employed. Linux remai

Re:Where are the differences?

[zxm]

I have installed Windows, Debian Linux, and Solaris 10 on my ThinkPad. Usually I use Solaris (Now I'm typing on it), I have installed 2 Zones on it, one for my personal web server, the other for My Desktop, in it I have installed many many applications from blastwave.org using pkg-get; The global zone is not used yet, because if there was something wrong with the 2 local zones, I could easily setup a new zone! I'd like to say Solaris is very, very stable and like very power efficient (comparing with Linux)
But there is lack of perfet media players on Solaris, i.g., I cannot play any rm/rmvb video files, so I have to switch to Linux to play them.
Comparing to Windows, Linux is not of course perfect. If I want to play PC games, then I would reboot to Windows.

Re:Where are the differences?

[Vario]

Sorry, I did not stick to the "no slashdot before coffee"-rule.

Anyway, thanks for the helpful answers. I just wanted to ask what the differences between the linux kernel and the solaris kernel are...

Re:Where are the differences?

[hobbit]

What is popularly called Linux includes a userland mostly composed of GNU software. Therefore, it's not a strange question to ask exactly what parts of Debian GNU/Solaris are different from Debian GNU/Linux.

I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that it's probably not the GNU bit ;)

I don't think there is a Debian NetBSD/NetBSD -- unless you would refer to Fink as Debian OS X/Darwin!

Re:Where are the differences?

[Tet]

What is popularly called Linux includes a userland mostly composed of GNU software.

That's a strange definition of "mostly" you have there. Admittedly, it's some important components, but "partly" would be far more accurate.

Re:Where are the differences?

[The Nine]

k = some positive constant, I should hope. ^_^

Re:Where are the differences?

[foorilious]

A few corrections / notes:

There is no provision for running multiple kernels on the same hardware, aside from 'domaining', which is more like IBM's LPARing (prior to P5 and 5.3, that is - splitting a single server into two or more hardware partitions). But, when you do this, each partition really is its own machine, with distinct and non-shared CPUs, memory, and IO buses. You can move hardware from one domain to another (even without shutting down applications), but a given kernel is only ever running on one machine at a time.

More recently, is the concept of 'Zones'. Here, you can install seperate copies of userland onto the same box, and when you are 'inside' of any one zone, you appear to have your very own box, complete with your own /etc and everything else (or you can opt to share parts of the install with the 'global' zone), however there is still a single kernel running all of the zones on a given server. Applying a kernel patch, for example, still requires a reboot of the whole enchilada to take effect.

Actually, I believe 'Slowaris' was coined in 93 or 94 or so, when admins started switching from SunOS 4.1.3/4.1.4 to Solaris on SMP boxes, and ran into bug where no matter how many CPUs, every thread was being scheduled on the same CPU. I forget what version this was - maybe 2.3? I remember logging onto my University's student shell machine (back then, SLIP and PPP were still not being used by home users - you'd dial up to terminal into a UNIX machine to check email, usenet, or IRC). Anyway, I remember logging in and seeing a load in the thousands, just after the upgrade.

You can "upgrade on the fly", in a way. The concept is you mirror your root disk, split the mirror, perform the upgrade against the inactive mirror, and finally reboot, this time off the upgraded side. It more or less works, but you do need to use your brain. Really what it gets you is the ability to immediately revert back to the pre-upgrade image with just a single reboot, and also shortens the outage window to one reboot. They've had this since Solaris 8, I believe, and you could use it to upgrade from say 2.6 to 8.

Over time, 'Slowaris' did come to refer to the performance disparity between Linux and Solaris on x86. Until Solaris 10, Linux pretty clearly outperformed Solaris on like-hardware (x86). I think in part, as you say, due to Sun's lack of effort in optimizing for x86 and small servers, but also because x86-based benchmarks tended to focus on things like web-serving, and Sun's networking stack was long overdue for an overhaul (the first phase of which was completed for Solaris 10, and returned enormous improvements).

Re:Where are the differences?

[swillden]

What is popularly called Linux includes a userland mostly composed of GNU software.

That's a strange definition of "mostly" you have there. Admittedly, it's some important components, but "partly" would be far more accurate.

I think an even more accurate way to say it would be: What is popularly called Linux includes a userland almost entirely composed of software that is from GNU or depends on software from GNU.

You might even be able to remove the "almost".

Re:Where are the differences?

[vegetasaiyajin]

Uhh, linux is a kernel, and nothing more.

According to W. Richard Stevens in Unix Network Programming: "The kernel is the operating system".

Re:Where are the differences?

[flithm]

Debian GNU/Linux vs Debian GNU/Solaris.

What could be different? Well it's not the underlying OS (Debian distribution) since it has that in common. It's not the GNU userland utils. Hmmm... :).

In all seriousness, this is actually a fair question. I mean, the switch to a different kernel must have some other implications on the distro side? Can everything else really remain the same? Init scripts, supported programs (such as ones that make use of Linux specific API's and/or syscalls).

Basically what advantages / disadvantages does the Solaris kernel have over Linux? Why should I try this out (or avoid it for that matter)? Why did they go to so much trouble to do this... they must have been motivated to do it for some reason!

I don't know enough about Solaris to know why this is a good thing, and I'm sure there's some people out there that can quickly give me some info.

Re:Where are the differences?

[petermgreen]

debian can be updated on the fly with minimal service interruptions (iirc zero interupttion to my source installed irc service and a few minuites down on web service though that could have almost certainly been reduced by manually telling it to upgrade apache first).

and i did the entire process over ssh (the packagers take great care to make sure that existing ssh sessions are not terminated by the upgrade process).

Re:Where are the differences?

[jedidiah]

You give Sun and Unix in general far, FAR too much credit. Unix in general is a "just good enough" OS that was "designed up". This notion that you have that associates Sun developers with mainframe developers is simply assinine. Sun is still trying to recreate what DEC was decades ago, nevermind mainframes. The Sun high end kit is more comparable to a Beowulf cluster with a little bit more polish added to it (than the Linux equivalent) and has similar limitations.

          You are attempting to attribute to Solaris attributes that are not in Solaris at all. Although they exist to some degree in AIX and of course in zOS.

Re:Where are the differences?

[Lucractius]

Id like to point out that the GNU userland is guilty of "embrace, extend, evicerate" maneuvers like MS is. all you GNU'ers out there anser without flaming why its so good that it should be co opted onto every system in order to make them more linux like, instead of the software for linux being built to function across kernels where possible.

Re:Where are the differences?

[pyrrhonist]

It's not actually USED for air traffic control, as far as I know

I don't know whether they still do, but Raytheon was using Solaris in their air traffic control systems in the '90s.

Re:Where are the differences?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun hardware running anything, particularly Solaris, is just not high performance. In universities, there is often a large, central Sun "mainframe" or "supercomputer". The IT staff are under the impression that this large system is high performance. It's not. It handles email, student records, accounting, etc. Stuff that cannot go down (it does, but there's always an excuse).

None of the scientific computing takes place on this machine. It will delivers a hundred Mflops or so at best compared to several hundred Mflops on naive code on conventional Linux workstations (up to several Gflops on heavily tuned SSE code). Even though equiped with hundreds of gigabytes of RAM, no one user can access more RAM than they could have (cheaply) on their own desktop. If they could access that RAM, they'd be processing at 5% of the speed of their desktop, and consume that RAM 20 times longer than on a high performance system.

A large part of the reason Suns have a reputation for running well is that they just don't run very much anymore. A couple of ancient custom software suites for the University/F500 that have dedicated staff to keep the application up, and that's it. Very important dedicated applications, but if you take the staff away they'll fall over and self destruct, even running on Suns.

Re:Where are the differences?

[raynet]

Sure thre is Debian GNU/NetBSD just go here.

Re:Where are the differences?

[rubycodez]

let's not feed urban legends: Solaris has its problems with various threading models than can also cause kernel panic, like LWP with some libraries. Depending on how kernel resources are set, one can run out of all kinds of needed stuff and the machine will sieze up tighter than, er, lead in a pencil

Re:Where are the differences?

[davedoom]

There is a fundamental problem with Blastwave and every one of the available efforts to adapt a new package management system to Solaris. Solaris has an existing package management system and all the dependencies in this system are ignored or overwritten by the new system. Alternatively the new package management system will take over and require that it be used exclusively. Let's look at a few examples:

1) rpm.rutgers.edu - this is a terrific resource that has some major advantages over blastwave. It will take your existing Solaris packages and migrate them to the rpm database, however this is a one shot deal and you are expected to manage your software with rpm from that point on. What do I do if I want to install a patch from sun or a new SUNW package?
2) Netbsd pkgsrc : Rocking good software collection and spectacular cross platform goodness, but it has no concept of the host package management system. Also I miss the ability to apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade . The source base changes every quarter. I had high hopes for http://solarpack.sourceforge.net/ but development has been dropped.
3) Sunfreeware. Solaris packages, but no dependency info is used at all.
4) Blastwave, ibiblio, and a few others. These systems use solaris packages, but don't integrate them with the Sun provided dependency database.
5) Sun's own Companion CD has Sun maintained packages (albeit not very many) that do seem to do the trick.
6) Many efforts to port apt to Solaris as detailed here:
http://solarpack.sourceforge.net/links.html#solari s

So the question is, what is the goal of all this? It looks to me like the purpose of a package management system is to minimize systems administrator labor. That means that I might be willing to manually create and maintain one or two packages, but if I am installing many packages I would like to have a dependable repository of secure, bug free packages that I can draw upon. Furthermore I need a method of doing a simple mass upgrade of packages.

The major reason for using Solaris is the get a stable platform. Solaris binaries from 10 years ago will still run unmodified on Solaris 10 from March of this year. Joel Sparsky has written at length on the subject of a stable API as being the underpinning of Microsoft's success. Industry is still willing to pay a premium for Sun hardware and software because they have a need to minimize change in the datacenter. If I want to install Gforge http://people.debian.org/~bayle/ on a stock Debian Sarge machine it will auto install more than 20 packages. On Solaris many of these packages are already provided by sun. Stripping your machine down to the kernel and a few other support packages and replacing the guts of the OS with Debian (or pkgsrc) doesn't seem to me to be the right way to go if you are looking for stability. Sun is the one making the commitment to support for 10 years not Debian. I would like to use as much Sun supported software as possible in setting up my machine.

Re:Where are the differences?

[Mancat]

This is true, and I hadn't considered this. What if someone wants to use a Solaris package with Debian/Solaris? How will the package detect that certain dependancies have already been installed via apt?

Re:Where are the differences?

[dohcvtec]

debian can be updated on the fly with minimal service interruptions

Sure, as long as you don't update the kernel. However, what we're talking about here is the "Live Upgrade" feature of Solaris. It's only available for Sun's higher-end hardware (it depends on features of said hardware) but it allows *entire OS upgrades* with no service interruptions, in fact *no reboot*. This is vastly different from the fact that Debian (or any other Linux distribution or *BSD) lets you upgrade userland server daemons without needing a reboot.

Re:Where are the differences?

[haggar]

I think Solaris 10 is much faster of x86 than 9 (and 8) have ever been.
And Solaris, versions 8, 9 and 10 (the ones I tested) run quite snappily on a single CPU, as long it's SPARC. But with Solaris 10, the difference in speed isn't there anymore.

Re:Where are the differences?

[hobbit]

No, read the post I replied to again. Debian GNU/NetBSD is not the same as Debian NetBSD/NetBSD.

Re:Where are the differences?

[jedidiah]

It's not flamebait. It's merely the truth.

Some of us have actually worked with the technology in question. It's interesting but certainly no mainframe. There are reasons that people are still buying mainframes as opposed to big Unix boxes.

eh?

[baldass_newbie]

Could someone translate this into English?
Much thanks.

Re:eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, sure. Here you go.

An anonymous reader writes "Today "Nexenta" announced an initial pilot program of GNU/Solaris. Initial trials are limited to "Ubuntu developers and the entire Debian community". From the announcement: "As you might know, Sun Microsystems just opened Solaris kernel under CDDL license, which allows one to build custom Operating Systems. Which we did...created a new Debian based GNU/Solaris distribution with (the latest bits of) Solaris kernel & core userland inside. We'll open Nexenta web developer portal completely for the general public by mid-November. Today we are launching a Pilot Program. Ubuntu developers and the entire Debian community - you are welcome to participate in the Pilot!"

Re:eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think "Solaris kernel, GNU utilities, Debian flavour".

Re:eh?

[Dolda2000]

Could someone translate this into English?
Much thanks.

Sure thing. Here you go: "Many thanks."

Re:eh?

[absinthminded64]

CPUs have toes, and dogmeat doesn't move very fast is what I got from one of the posts.

Re:And the point is?

[dzakuha]

It is not the Debian team who is starting this pilot. If I am not mistaken this new project just happens to be compatible with Debian and Ubuntu package management.

Why?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Don't get me wrong, but I don't think this is worthwhile. This is almost as stupid as the debian/freebsd thing. If you want to get the full power from freebsd, use freebsd. If you want to get the full power from solaris, use solaris. If you want to get the full power from linux, use....well....ubuntu? redhat? suse? :P

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh course this is worthwhile. Solaris kicks the shit out of other Unixen in so many ways. Debian kicks the shit out of the other distros in so many ways. A combo of the two is an amazing thing and I want it good and hard. Right here. Right now!

Anyone who disagrees is a retarded Linux fan-boy who has never even touched Solaris box - let alone have enough knowledge to comment on it.

Re:Why?

[GuerillaRadio]

Because choice is good!
Hypothetically, lets say SCO have an actual case (I know, but hypothetically!).
Isn't it better that if, for some reason the Linux kernel is no longer an option due to patents etc, there is another GNU system ready to switch to?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wooo, bright answer, valid points, relevant analysis...
One could almost wonder why you posted it under Anonymous Coward :)

Re:Why?

[drgonzo59]

I'm gonna go out on limb here and ask what if someone wants a Solaris kernel but all the Debian extra packages and utilities?

Re:Why?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Anyone who disagrees is a retarded Linux fan-boy who has never even touched Solaris box

Hmm. I could say the contrary and not be wrong either: Anyone who thinks that all linux users are fan boys and that Solaris is the "one true way" have never touched a box with a linux kernel.

Re:Why?

[diegocgteleline.es]

There's no need of debian for using GNU software. You can use pretty much any GNU utility (including gnome etc) in solaris right now, without wasting time in developing a new distro. Which is exactly my point. Why such waste of time?

Re:Why?

[MrHanky]

Duh. Because you don't have to search all over for packages, then compile everything from source, fix dependencies manually, follow dozens of security mailing lists, ... And of course, Debian's package management isn't only a gigantic repository with automatic dependency checking, it also lets you configure stuff, and in a much more pleasant way than Yast and other centralized tools. Basically, Debian is one of the best distributions of GNU.

Look at it the other way: You want Debian GNU, but may need Solaris' kernel. That's when Debian GNU/Solaris is a good idea.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

To have a packaging system that is pleasant to use, rather than the horrible Solaris package format? And to be able to get these packages without having to build them yourself, or rely on sources like sunfreeware.com & sunsite, which carry much fewer packages than are to be found in Debian.

Re:Why?

[diegocgteleline.es]

You know, solaris has packaging tools (solves dependencies, etc) and there're packages for lots of software. http://www.blastwave.org/

Re:Why?

[Spit]

Linux is only a kernal and in some situations leaves a lot to be desired, jack of all trades and all that. I'm not comfortable with a kernal that changes so much mid-release and I've seen some (documented) crashes that shouldn't be.

I've worked with most Unix systems and was always impressed with Solaris kernel's stability, and now it has excellent performance. My standard build on 2.6 and 7 was to install gnu userland, and v8 on included them on the install disks. But it was always a chore to strip a system for secure production.

I've been using Debian personally and in production for seven years and it's by far the easiest and most stable system I've used. A stripped Debian is easier to script.

I think it would be great to combine the clean Debian system with a stable and mature 64-bit platform like Solaris. especially now with Sun's excellent AMD systems.

If we put the heat on, Sun may go the whole hog and cut the strings, that would be a great day for free software.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apart from the fact that Solaris still isn't GPL but CDDL, yes.

Re:Why?

[chhupa_rustam]

You're missing the point: the Linux kernel is valuable, but on its own it's far from remarkable. There are plenty of other kernels around, some with sizeable communities. The two factors that make Linux the earth-shattering, ground-breaking force it is are:

- The universe of utilities and software that make life fun and easy. GNU-licensed software certainly plays a huge part here, providing building-blocks that we take for granted today -- 'ps', for example. Have you ever tried using 'ps' on a Solaris box? It's a massive pain -- I have to do 'ps -auxwww' rather than my default 'ps -ef' to get a decent printout of the processes. In addition, there are countless other products, some commercial.
- The die-hard community of Linux super-freaks.

This project is awesome because it will allow all our favourite GNU utilities, and hopefully other software, to be available by default on Solaris (you can build them from source right now if you're desperate). It also lowers the barrier-to-entry for the super-freaks, who will have all the familiar Linux goodness of Debian available, as well as the pieces that Sun's built into Solaris (virtualization/containers, DTrace...which really is quite amazing).

There's a common misconception that Linux now mirrors everything *BSD and Solaris provide -- nothing could be further from the truth. Each OS still boasts areas of excellence (or focus, anyway) that the others would do well to learn from. Or, as free software is supposed to work, include rather than replicate.

Re:Why?

[MarkKnopfler]

Well, the answer would be manifold.

1. Linux is just a kernel, nothing more. So for all practical purposes most of the fanboys out there using 'linux' and loving 'linux' are probably ending up loving the latest version of KDE, or gnome or the nifty new GNU tools and not linux. Full power of linux ? So if you consider all the gui stuff and nifty userland tools that you are using, you are hardly getting the 'full power of linux'

2. Getting a different base kernel over the rocking GNU tools and environments for me is always cool. It is choice that I am getting. I will certainly try it out on an x86 machine, and if the kernel source is included, I would love to look through the design of the thing. Everybody loves tearing opening that shrink wrap from the latest gizmo.

3. Sun has been pushing out some great publicity stuff wrt. Solaris 10 and how it 'screams'. I sure would like to check that out. I also would be very interested to see whether my bluetooth dongle or usb mass storage device will work with it or not. If it does not, it is less ready than linux for the desktop.

4. I always thought that the linux kernel was a bit convoluted and unreadable compared to the BSD kernel. ( I have worked in the NetBSD and FreeBSD and Linux kernels ) I would love to have an opportunity to look into a new kernel and see how well it has been written and whether I can consider it a viable OS to suggest to my PHB for my next project, if it fits in there.

So, if someone out there is pushing across the new kernel in a familiar looking distro, I am certainly all for it. To sum it up, I think everybody stands to gain. The developer (choice) the user (choice again) and Sun (publicity).
Hurrah for Open Source !

Re:Why?

[failure-man]

Hurd? :p

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how do they stack up to apt? I often find I want to do something but do not have the means to do it with my existing software, so I just use dselect or apt and search around, find what software suits my needs, compare different packages, then have them downloaded and installed automatically in total taking no more than a few minutes. For instance I recently wanted to do some electrical drafting, which I had never done before on linux, found a bunch of packages, chose a few and downloaded them all in about 5 minutes. I tried them out seperately for a few hours and decided I only wanted to keep two, which were actually accomodating packages, and removed the others and their now-useless dependecy packages with absolutely no effort whatsoever. I don't think package management gets better than that.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point of posting on Slashdot unless to parody the average chest-beating Slashdotter?

OpenSolaris is currently lacking a decent distro and I don't fancy the install Solaris Express/install OpenSolaris route. No matter now much a love Solaris, frankly I just can't be bothered. Having been using Debian for a few years now I'm very happy that this happened. Just the other day I was thinking "why doesn't someone combine OpenSolaris and Debian like they've tried with BSD?" I know the traditional Slashdot response to that is "why don't you do it? It's all open". Well, I'm not going to do it because I don't care enough! I'm a programmer, not an admin/distro maintainer and I've got better things to do in my spare time; such as listen to music, see friends, drink wine, cook, clean, relax and work on a different personal project.

That's why this project is a Good Thing, and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Re:Why?

[pyrrhonist]

Have you ever tried using 'ps' on a Solaris box? It's a massive pain -- I have to do 'ps -auxwww' rather than my default 'ps -ef' to get a decent printout of the processes.

Yes, I have, and ps supports -ef just fine.

Check your path. Solaris also has BSD tools for people who prefer a different version of ps.

Re:Why?

[Lucractius]

Honestly Unlikely to Realy Do anything yet?

Re:Why?

[nbvb]

May I introduce you to a product known as Veritas Volume Manager?

Now *that* is what volume management is all about. I agree, SVM is a piece of junk, but that's why we have VxVM ....

Now, I have to take issue with what you're saying about Sun hardware -- it's a lot EASIER to maintain than any generic x86 box I've ever seen.

You don't understand just how cool it is until you start dynamically replacing system boards -- and you can do that in any server from the 2900 on up ....

It's all about availability -- and none of the x86 vendors (Sun's x86 stuff included) can touch that ...

Re:Why?

[drgonzo59]

But can you use apt-get on Solaris?

Re:Why?

[Benley]

Blastwave is decent. They try their best, and it makes for a useful system. However, I _still_ want Debian packaging on Solaris.

Really, what I want is Debian userland, with Solaris's volume manager and kernel (and libc and so forth), running on the various Sun hardware that I've acquired over the years. That would be totally awesome.

Re:Why?

[rtaylor]

One major benefit to doing these kinds of strange things is tracking down bugs.

Long standing but seldomly seen bugs (hard to solve what you cannot repeat) can become repeatable and very visible in different combinations of software or hardware.

Different CPUs or architecture, different compilers and different kernels will all tickle and expose userland bugs.

Re:Why?

[dohcvtec]

But can you use apt-get on Solaris?

Not that I know of, but with Blastwave:

apt-get update --> pkg-get -U
apt-get upgrade --> pkg-get -u
apt-get install foo --> pkg-get -i foo

Re:Why?

[bolthole]

# pkg-get install all

$ PATH=/opt/csw/bin:/opt/csw/kde-gcc/bin:/opt/csw/sb in:$PATH

There. You now have "Debian userland, with Solaris's volume manager and kernel :-)

Re:Why?

[HiThere]

Last I heard, HURD was still not quite ready yet. OTOH, if Linux needed to be replaced, I'd prefer the Debian/BSD combo (which already exists). But that's just my choice, and if others want to keep an OpenSolaris kernel going, that's fine with me. There may be circumstances where that would be a good choice (though license considerations make me unsure of that).

Re:Why?

[misleb]

Spoken like someone who hasn't used Debian extensivly. Lots of packaging systems boast dependency resolution and tons of packages, but few integrate it into the operating environment like Debian does. Even platforms that have have "apt" available as an option just don't compare.

Of course, this comes at a price. I find that it is easy to become dependent on apt and binary packages. Things can get pretty tricky if you have an older Debian installation and want newer packages. That said, I run an 8 year old Debian system which has never once been reinstalled or upgraded from a CD. I use it continually as a workstation. It has been continually 'apt-get dist-upgrade'd over the years when a new stable (and sometimes unstable) version of Debian came out. And when the hardware got outdated, the OS got tar'd up and moved.

-matthew

Re:Why?

[aliquis]

Still compared to what Debian has it's kind of.. lame.

Re:Why?

[Federico2]

Is it so strange if someone wants to change his car's engine while keeping all the rest?

Re:And the point is?

[c0007031]

What is the point of having 3k text editors? What is the point of having 20 window managers? Why don't you stick with only one operating system then? I look forward to see a first version of this OS and experiment it as soon as possible. Choice is one of the most valuable things Open Source Software has.

non-free license

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC CDDL was considered non-free by debian-legal, so I guess Debian people won't be very interested in it..

Before you comment ...

[oztiks]

Before people comment on why Debian is doing this i suggest reading Debains core statement of what they are all about http://www.debian.org/intro/about

Esspecially this bit:

Debian systems currently use the Linux kernel. Linux is a piece of software started by Linus Torvalds and supported by thousands of programmers worldwide.

However, work is in progress to provide Debian for other kernels, primarily for the Hurd. The Hurd is a collection of servers that run on top of a microkernel (such as Mach) to implement different features. The Hurd is free software produced by the GNU project.

Re:Before you comment ...

[Vo0k]

Yep, just... where the f*** is Hurd?
It's been promised for at least twice the time as Duke Nukem Forever!

Re:Before you comment ...

[oztiks]

Convienently locked in a basement, with no lights or a staircase in a filing cabinet labled "beware of the lepard"

Or however the famous arthur dent saying goes :)... It is there it can be found from debs sitemap along with a few bsd builds

Re:Before you comment ...

[borggraefe]

Here: http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-cd

Re:Before you comment ...

[Bruce Perens]

It's interesting because it's another proof that Debian doesn't need the Linux kernel. Sun is making inroads into BSD's territory. Not Linux territory. Their kernel fills a role similar to the *BSDs in the Open Source world. Technically interesting, used in some projects, and a far second to Linux.

Linux has a huge independent development community and more huge companies than it is easy to count behind it, and nobody can keep up with the pace of development. The GPL is a very important factor. It's the only partnership that would keep it fair for the big guys and the little ones at the same time. What technical lead Solaris has is rapidly diminishing because they can not - and never will - keep up the development team that Linux and the GPL have spawned.

And then there's the deliberately-incompatible licensing, Sun's lack of success at building Open Source communities (OpenOffice should have a community 100 times the size of the one it's got - IMO it's second in importance to the Linux kernel), and Jonathan's tendency to turn any gains that Sun makes in the Open Source community into defeat with his own words. All of these things hold them back.

Solaris has a few features at which the Linux folks look hungrily, and you know what happens when those folks like features. Linux gets them. These are the folks who replaced Bitkeeper in a month.

It would be fun to have a system that booted the same binaries into Linux, BSD, Solaris, and HURD. If someone makes that, it'll be an awesome hack. But at the same time it would demonstrate the futility of having all of those kernels do the same thing technically, while one of them does the community part much better than the others.

Bruce

Re:Before you comment ...

[asuffield]

Read the article. This has got nothing to do with Debian, they're just trying to ride off our name. For one thing it's Ubuntu, and for another it's being done by some random person with no connection to Debian.

Re:Before you comment ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting because it's another proof that Debian doesn't need the Linux kernel. Sun is making inroads into BSD's territory. Not Linux territory. Their kernel fills a role similar to the *BSDs in the Open Source world. Technically interesting, used in some projects, and a far second to Linux.

Solaris is still very, very big in the commercial world. This is a sign things are probably going to change in the 'Open Source world' too.

Linux has a huge independent development community and more huge companies than it is easy to count behind it, and nobody can keep up with the pace of development. The GPL is a very important factor. It's the only partnership that would keep it fair for the big guys and the little ones at the same time. What technical lead Solaris has is rapidly diminishing because they can not - and never will - keep up the development team that Linux and the GPL have spawned.

You are confusing the kernel with the software that is available for it. Most of the development into 'Linux' isn't into the kernel, but the software that goes with it. The technical lead that Solaris has is harder for Linux to chase than the lead in x86 drivers that Linux has. It works both ways. A main advantage about the Solaris kernel is that it is very very stable with excellent backwards-compatibility. Looking at the poor quality of 2.6 due to the lack of a 2.7 testing kernel, Linux will not be catching up with this any time soon.

And then there's the deliberately-incompatible licensing, Sun's lack of success at building Open Source communities (OpenOffice should have a community 100 times the size of the one it's got - IMO it's second in importance to the Linux kernel), and Jonathan's tendency to turn any gains that Sun makes in the Open Source community into defeat with his own words. All of these things hold them back.

GPL code can't be integrated into BSD code either. What's your point? CDDL is a certified open-source licence. Quite frankly I don't think I would want the Linux and Solaris kernels to converge into one great big monolith.

Solaris has a few features at which the Linux folks look hungrily, and you know what happens when those folks like features. Linux gets them. These are the folks who replaced Bitkeeper in a month.

Not until they fix the developement model of the 2.6 kernel so that it becomes a lot more stable. The number of bugs in the 2.6 kernel is appalling. This isn't just about features, it's about rock-solid stability.

It would be fun to have a system that booted the same binaries into Linux, BSD, Solaris, and HURD. If someone makes that, it'll be an awesome hack. But at the same time it would demonstrate the futility of having all of those kernels do the same thing technically, while one of them does the community part much better than the others.

Some sort of unified binary format or flawless interoperability would be awesome.

Re:Before you comment ...

[oztiks]

Agreed, but the fact that it outlines that it is a debian based system, therefore it is set to follow debians intended purpose and mission statement ... this is most likey the reason why debian a base was chosen instead of say redhat.

Re:Before you comment ...

[mungtor]

Linux has a huge independent development community and more huge companies than it is easy to count behind it, and nobody can keep up with the pace of development. The GPL is a very important factor. It's the only partnership that would keep it fair for the big guys and the little ones at the same time. What technical lead Solaris has is rapidly diminishing because they can not - and never will - keep up the development team that Linux and the GPL have spawned.

Exactly. Nobody can keep up with the development, at all. Every new kernel patch is a mixed bag of fixed bugs, new bugs, and old bugs resurfacing in different ways. That's what happens when you have 1000's of attention deficit coders around the world working on a project. They'll half-ass a solution together without any documentation before they are distracted by the next shiny object.

Solaris, on the other hand, is a focused product with a definite vision. Unlike linux, that vision is to create a stable operating system first and foremost instead of packing in every whiz-bang feature that somebody can think of. How many configuration options are there to compile a 2.6 kernel at this point? "Support" for how many 100s of devices that you will never use?

Solaris has a few features at which the Linux folks look hungrily, and you know what happens when those folks like features. Linux gets them. These are the folks who replaced Bitkeeper in a month.

And I'm sure that linux people will get them eventually, but they will hit a wall when there is nobody left to get ideas from. They'll have to innovate on their own instead of the much eaiser "gee, I wish I had that" method and the hugely distributed development model will come to a screeching halt.

Oh yeah, they replaced BitKeeper in a month. With GIT. GIT sucks. It's almost a versioning file system (ClearCase MVFS anybody?), but infintely lamer and wasteful. Of course, Linus said that "disk is cheap" so there wasn't any real reason for him to try to build anything better. And that's linux in a nutshell. A half-assed implementation of somebody else's ideas.

Lastly, OpenOffice doesn't have the support that it needs simply because it was/is tied to Sun. And everybody in the Open Source (tm) community knows that Sun is evil because it isn't free and doesn't run well on crap hardware.

Re:Before you comment ...

[foorilious]

What is your criteria for calling the Solaris kernel a "far second" to Linux? OSS community involvement? x86 hardware support? ISV support on x86? I'll give you those three, but if you've got something else in mind, you'll probably get an argument from me and others who have used both kernels for a long time.

I also don't see Solaris' lead diminishing, let alone rapidly. If anything, it appears to me that Sun further widened the gap with Solaris 10. Sun is regularly releasing very advanced and important OS features, in fully-baked and rock-solid form, and the FOSS community is doing its best to keep up, but even though Solaris 10 shipped nearly a year ago, look at the current state of SystemTap, for example - a project spawned in direct response to Solaris 10 dtrace, that is still nowhere near ready to primetime. Where (for example) also is the modern full-fledged resource management? This is a critical feature for an 'enterprise' kernel, and it's still nowhere in sight, though everyone's known it's been necessary for Linux to achieve for several years.

It's one thing to reimplement BitKeeper in a month - advanced kernel features are something else entirely, and we have a decade to look back on and see Sun's record of innovating and Linux following. What happens when Linux has cannibalized the last true innovator, and there's no one left to follow? Lest you think I'm trolling, I have a serious question: what major kernel innovations in the last decade appeared in Linux *first*? I can think of one, maybe two, but put up against the parade of inventions and innovations that have come from Solaris in the last decade, I don't know.

Re:Before you comment ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. BSD's territory is whatever their developers feel like developing, which is mostly what they need at any given time. That's why you notice huge leaps and bounds as they are announced by different groups in seemingly erratic ways. BSD is used by people because it is well-documented, well-understood, and generally doesn't produce unexpected behavior. Those are the reasons why I used BSD systems, and why most admins that you will talk to use them.

For these people, BSD is a hobby or a comfortable means to an end. Unless you completely replace large chunks of Solaris with their BSD counterparts, change the bootup, change the configuration process, change the build structure, and move the entire community at once, not many people using BSD for any type of work will switch. These people are mostly accomplished and competent admins who are paid to be the support, so companies do not rely on outside sources like Red Hat, Novell, or Sun for help.

I know that I personally have a large investment in seeing BSD continue as I base my services off NetBSD and it would take me thousands of hours to port and rearchitect to Linux or Solaris.

Re:Before you comment ...

[Bryan-10021]

Bruce,

Explain why most of the RedHat and IBM enhancements to Linux have not made it into the Linux kernel? Taking unsupported code and throwing it up on a company's website in a hard to reach location is enough to comply with the GPL. Moreover, most companies just keep their additions to Linux in-house and proprietary. GPL does not help there either.

You hacked the open source BSD NYIT kernel in the 80's so you know it takes a lot more than source code to integrate these things into the kernel. That is the area where Sun's Solaris has a clear advantage. It has a paid staff of some of the best and brightest kernel developers whose job it is to work on the Solaris kernel. There is no need for unsupported code thrown over the wall to remain competitive!

A comparison of the quality of the code bases backs this up.

Re:Before you comment ...

[justins]

Linux has a huge independent development community and more huge companies than it is easy to count behind it, and nobody can keep up with the pace of development. The GPL is a very important factor. It's the only partnership that would keep it fair for the big guys and the little ones at the same time.

Oddly enough, Bruce, the BSD and Apache communities are full of "little guy" developers who do not feel they are being treated unfairly.

Re:Before you comment ...

[Bruce Perens]

You are confusing the kernel with the software that is available for it.

Not at all. I was the second Debian project leader and understand all too well the totality of a distribution and what is in and out of the kernel. I remain very impressed with the Linux kernel team. More innovative work goes on there than in any user-mode project I know of.

The technical lead that Solaris has is harder for Linux to chase than the lead in x86 drivers that Linux has.

The technical lead of the entirely portable portion of Linux is very hard to chase. I don't believe that device drivers are a big consideration, although I believe that GPL-only device drivers lead to better stability. Proprietary drivers are where most crashes happen and the Linux community has been swift to deprecate them.

It works both ways. A main advantage about the Solaris kernel is that it is very very stable.

2.4 is very stable, if you want that. Most people don't, it seems. Backwards compatibility is not nearly so much of a problem as on Windows due to the fact that there's a mature standard for the API.

GPL code can't be integrated into BSD code either.

Actually, it can. The result has a GPL license. A number of kernel drivers have been shared between Linux and BSD.

Quite frankly I don't think I would want the Linux and Solaris kernels to converge into one great big monolith.

No, nobody needs that. That's actually the problem for Solaris. It won't get merged in, and it's not tremendously viable on its own over the long term.

Solaris has a few features at which the Linux folks look hungrily, and you know what happens when those folks like features. Linux gets them. These are the folks who replaced Bitkeeper in a month.

Not until they fix the developement model of the 2.6 kernel so that it becomes a lot more stable.

This is a non-sequitur. They will get the features regardless of the bug count.

The number of bugs in the 2.6 kernel is appalling. This isn't just about features, it's about rock-solid stability.

It's great to leave a machine booted for two years. I know that Solaris folks do that. I have had my main Linux server, running Debian stable, on the net up for months without reboots, and it's not ever had a kernel-related problem. Reboots happen because of user-mode changes that I make, mostly because I want to be sure that the machine will come up by itself after I change what daemons I'm running. I don't have physical access to the machine. No service tickets in over a year. I could really have kept the kernel up for a year or more if I'd cared to.

Linux will get the features, and the 2.6 development model will continue to have bugs as new kernels come out, and users will run a few versions behind the current kernel - as a lot of people seem to be running 2.6.11 and so on at the moment. The progression is toward a stable kernel with the features you need, and the number of people who must be on the bleeding edge gets progressively smaller. But you know what, some of us like to be there anyway.

Bruce

Re:Before you comment ...

[Bruce Perens]

What is your criteria for calling the Solaris kernel a "far second" to Linux?

Simply the pace of development. And I acknowledge that there isn't a complete competitor to dtrace yet, but I am also looking at the "features of the month" on LWN's kernel reporting. They go by pretty fast.

I run Linux on my main servers, my desktop, my laptop, and my cell phone. Same code base. Solaris would not do as good a job on either the laptop or desktop, and it's not going to be in the cell phone. More features, for more people, go into Linux, at a more rapid pace.

Bruce

Re:Before you comment ...

[Bruce Perens]

Oddly enough, Bruce, the BSD and Apache communities are full of "little guy" developers who do not feel they are being treated unfairly.

Yes, and I am happy that they are comfortable that way. But for the most part I won't be put a "gift" license on the code I pay for - that goes under a "share and share alike" license. If someone else pays me to do the code, I will be happy to place it under a "gift" license. I have recently done some Rails security work under BSD licensing, sponsored by Sourcelabs.

Bruce

Re:Before you comment ...

[Bruce Perens]

Explain why most of the RedHat and IBM enhancements to Linux have not made it into the Linux kernel?

The kernel team has extremely high standards. Code-for-pay to meet immediate goals generally does not meet them. Look into their interactions with any number of projects and you will see that what eventually gets into the kernel is extremely modular and easy for other people than its original developers to support. But it is not easy for most people to write that sort of code. However, every bit of that stuff written at Sun would get into Solaris.

Moreover, most companies just keep their additions to Linux in-house and proprietary.

These too would not meet the standards of the kernel team.

You hacked the open source BSD NYIT kernel in the 80's so you know it takes a lot more than source code to integrate these things into the kernel.

Well, BSD was much better at the time than Unix 32V, but it did not meet the standards that FreeBSD sets now. Nor Linux. I also hacked System V, SGI/MIPS and Sun kernels at Pixar. The quality did not meet that which Linux manifests today.

Bruce

Re:Before you comment ...

[foorilious]

You'll get zero argument from me, as far as the laptop/desktop/embedded stuff. Solaris has never been well-suited (or even an option) for those tasks, and I don't see it catching up to Linux in the near future, either. Solaris isn't even "second" to Linux in that space, as far I'm concerned. It's way, way back, behind Windows, MacOS, Linux, BSD, and who knows what all else.

As to servers though, I completely disagree. If Linux's development is so far outpacing Solaris's, why has it been consistently behind in 'enterprise' features for over a decade? Don't get me wrong, please - I'm a huge Linux fan and have been a heavy Linux user for years longer than I've been a heavy Solaris user (Slackware 1 vs. Solaris 2.6, as far as when I got majorly involved with each), but I do not see Linux significantly closing the gap on Solaris in server features. 2.6 was a huge step, but then, predictably, Solaris 10 shipped, and it was at least equally as huge, to my mind.

Re:Before you comment ...

[Bruce Perens]

I think you should look at the BSD user community and their reasons for running the system. Not the developers. Sun might win those folks over.

Bruce

Re:Before you comment ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The technical lead of the entirely portable portion of Linux is very hard to chase.

The only architecture that Solaris could need to be ported to would be POWER. Other architectures such as ARM wouldn't really be necessary.

2.4 is very stable, if you want that. Most people don't, it seems. Backwards compatibility is not nearly so much of a problem as on Windows due to the fact that there's a mature standard for the API.

2.4 is an older kernel which misses out on the more advanced features and drivers found in 2.6, and is no competition at all for the Solaris kernel. Windows backwards-compatibility is actually quite good, so I don't know where that came from. Why did you bring Windows into this anyway?

t's great to leave a machine booted for two years. I know that Solaris folks do that. I have had my main Linux server, running Debian stable, on the net up for months without reboots, and it's not ever had a kernel-related problem.

There have been multiple security holes in 2.6. If you haven't rebooted then they have remained unpatched.

Linux will get the features, and the 2.6 development model will continue to have bugs as new kernels come out, and users will run a few versions behind the current kernel - as a lot of people seem to be running 2.6.11 and so on at the moment. The progression is toward a stable kernel with the features you need, and the number of people who must be on the bleeding edge gets progressively smaller. But you know what, some of us like to be there anyway.

These kernels are labelled as 'stable', yet still have problems. And a due to the nature of Linux, you either have to get the latest kernel to get the latest drivers for your hardware, or use a patch. The fact that a C compiler is usually involved in all of this is quite inexcusable in what is supposed to be a kernel that can compete with industrial-strength UNIX. It's a mess.

Re:Before you comment ...

[Bruce Perens]

You'll get zero argument from me, as far as the laptop/desktop/embedded stuff. Solaris has never been well-suited (or even an option) for those tasks, and I don't see it catching up to Linux in the near future, either.

Why not? Nobody thought it could be done. But it brings Linux a unique advantage. Systems programmers know that ports generally improve quality because they point out cases and uses the code didn't handle correctly. This is even more true when you try to develop a kernel that can handle a supercomputer and is efficient enough to run in a phone. The code that does that goes through pretty severe scrutiny - with the folks who don't want or need your feature demanding that it be modular, clean, and that it take nothing from the effectiveness of Linux on their platform. This is a kind of discipline that no kernel team has attempted until now.

"Serever" features will go in, but not in the form you are used to them. We recently got yet another kernel-to-userspace copy path submitted for security logging. The other kernel developers said enough!, and the people who want that interface are going over all of the dozen ways that we copy data from the kernel to user space and will end up merging them into one clean fast interface. That is how Linux development goes. Big machine features are being put in by cleaning up such features as bus hotplugging, and in a way that helps power management for PDAs. It takes a wider view than many systems programmers - or their managers - bring to the job.

Bruce

Re:Before you comment ...

[Bruce Perens]

The only architecture that Solaris could need to be ported to would be POWER. Other architectures such as ARM wouldn't really be necessary.

You should get out of the machine room sometime. It's a big world out there :-)

Windows backwards-compatibility is actually quite good, so I don't know where that came from. Why did you bring Windows into this anyway?

Because Windows does not have POSIX. If you need backward-compatibility in kernels, you shouldn't be calling stuff outside of POSIX.

There have been multiple security holes in 2.6. If you haven't rebooted then they have remained unpatched.

Debian's 2.6 kernel is enough revs back that only a few updates have been necessary.

These kernels are labelled as 'stable', yet still have problems.

This is because we let the users decide how stable they want to be. They have more or less stable choices, and they or the distribution they run finds one that works for them.

And a due to the nature of Linux, you either have to get the latest kernel to get the latest drivers for your hardware, or use a patch.

Hm. Maybe if I spent a lot of time at the computer store I'd have more driver issues. I'm not seeing them. Even for the HDTV reciever cards. You're only going to hit them if you have some brand-new device.

The fact that a C compiler is usually involved in all of this is quite inexcusable in what is supposed to be a kernel that can compete with industrial-strength UNIX.

This is poorly stated, as Solaris would of course use a C compiler. I used Sun's compilers at Pixar. There was lots of code Sun's C compiler could not handle efficiently or correctly, and no doubt Solaris was coded around the C compiler's deficiencies. But you are complaining that there have been changes in the compiler. We like having development in the compiler, and we know what compiler versions are rock-solid and what ones are on the bleeding edge. I don't see this as a problem.

Bruce

Re:Before you comment ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only architecture that Solaris could need to be ported to would be POWER. Other architectures such as ARM wouldn't really be necessary.

You should get out of the machine room sometime. It's a big world out there :-)


You're probably right. However I was assuming that Solaris will remain primarily as a server OS, in which case there isn't a lot of demand for anything other than x86, x86_64, SPARC and POWER.

These kernels are labelled as 'stable', yet still have problems.

This is because we let the users decide how stable they want to be. They have more or less stable choices, and they or the distribution they run finds one that works for them.


That doesn't exactly make a lot of sense. The point I was making was that kernels marked as 'stable' actually aren't. There's some warning in one of them about PCI possibly screwing up, with an email address to send bug reports to. Hardly fills you with confidence.

And a due to the nature of Linux, you either have to get the latest kernel to get the latest drivers for your hardware, or use a patch.

Hm. Maybe if I spent a lot of time at the computer store I'd have more driver issues. I'm not seeing them. Even for the HDTV reciever cards. You're only going to hit them if you have some brand-new device.

Unfortunately though, many people do. Driver support is not only a weakness of Solaris, but a weakness of Linux too. When something new (like wireless) comes out, you need the latest kernel version in order to get something usable. Thus, using the latest drivers means that the user/distro has to use the latest kernel which may have stability issues.

The fact that a C compiler is usually involved in all of this is quite inexcusable in what is supposed to be a kernel that can compete with industrial-strength UNIX.

This is poorly stated, as Solaris would of course use a C compiler. I used Sun's compilers at Pixar. There was lots of code Sun's C compiler could not handle efficiently or correctly, and no doubt Solaris was coded around the C compiler's deficiencies. But you are complaining that there have been changes in the compiler. We like having development in the compiler, and we know what compiler versions are rock-solid and what ones are on the bleeding edge. I don't see this as a problem.

Maybe I didn't explain that properly. The biggest weakness with Linux is that in order to install 3rd-party drivers, or to install patches from newer kernels in order to use new drivers, a C compiler is required.

Re:Before you comment ...

[Bruce Perens]

I was assuming that Solaris will remain primarily as a server OS

One of the things we are learning from Linux is that "Server OS" may not be a valid concept. As I explained in another post, ports increase reliability because they hit bugs that aren't being exercised frequently enough on the platforms you already support. Running the same OS in a phone and a supercomputer does that job even better.

There's some warning in one of them about PCI possibly screwing up, with an email address to send bug reports to. Hardly fills you with confidence.

Solaris will see more of that on x86 if they are going to support all of the hoary old hardware out there. You can't have it all in one test lab. But I think we are also seeing a different definition of "stable" because of the rolling-release state of Linux 2.6. If that note is a month old, it means one thing. If it's half a year old and there have been point releases on that kernel version, it is closer to the definition of "stable" you are used to. You pick how risky you want to be.

When something new (like wireless) comes out, you need the latest kernel version in order to get something usable

Or, you need to get the driver from your distribution. The kernel team is not the only option and perhaps not the best if it's stability you crave. You can also get the driver from your vendor for an existing kernel, but I don't believe this is a good long-term practice.

Maybe I didn't explain that properly. The biggest weakness with Linux is that in order to install 3rd-party drivers, or to install patches from newer kernels in order to use new drivers, a C compiler is required.

Oh, that makes much more sense. Again, this is something your distribution might help with. Whether or not you use a C compiler might be a matter of how long you want to wait. But given that binary drivers create a long-term support nightmare, I don't think that making them easier would improve Linux. I was around when we first put Linux on an Itanium motherboard. There were very few video cards we could get to work. But anything that had driver source came right up.

There is lots of Windows hardware that will never get another driver update, because the vendor has perished or gone on to other things. Having the driver source means I won't have to deal with that hassle again.

Bruce

Re:Before you comment ...

[foorilious]

"Supercomputer" is an odd term to use these days. I assume you're referring to large clusters as opposed to large single-image machines? The former isn't nearly as difficult a job, kernel-wise. Linux on large (i.e. >8 CPU) single-image machines still seems pretty fringe to me. I understand many of the relevant patches weren't rolled in until as recently as 2.6.9, and while I've of course, not done any testing yet myself, an HP presentation I just read on "BigTux" was mysteriously vague on speedup results for some of their benchmarks, and offered no comparisons to HP/UX running the same benchmarks on the same hardware. To be fair, it wouldn't be scientific to blame all vertical scalability problems on Linux alone, since we're also talking about IA64, in this example.

The other problem outside of raw performance is the other 'enterprise' features (usually) become absolute nececessities on large single-image boxes. Namely, I'm talking about a modern resource management facility, very good and very safe visibility tools, and the ability to fully leverage all of the dynamic hardware reconfiguration features the machine's vendor provides.

I think a relevant question to ask is how advantageous it is to each specific market to have that wide focus you mention. You gave one example, of exposing bugs - I won't argue with that, but I do wonder at the exact quantity of its utility, compared to possible disadvantages of the same wide focus. It seems to me that compromise is inevitable, and no doubt there are decisions made (either of inclusion or omission) that benefit one market at the expense of another. There is an argument to made for specialization, and Solaris has (with brief, embarassing exceptions) never purpoted itself as anything but laser-focused on being the best server OS. Alright, it's also been billed as an engineer/workstation OS, but by the time I became heavily involved with Solaris, it was already a better bet in most cases to use Linux on x86 workstations for that. [In a research lab I worked at in the late 90s, my boss got 'that look on his face' when I showed him how the Pentium III we used for burning CDs was outperforming the Ultra 60 he'd just bought (for a pretty penny, of course) to run MATLAB.]

'BigTux' also gets me thinking about a phenomenon I've noticed. Here we see an example of HP throwing a lot of resources and money at helping Linux get better. However, no one is really kidding themselves (I hope) that this is an altruistic move on their part. They have an obvious incentive to help Linux perform well on Superdome, in that they are abandoning HP/UX, and will be left without a Unix-like OS for their big boxes, unless Linux can improved enough to do the job. All of the x86 hardware vendors are flexing considerable money and marketing muscle to either improving Linux technologically, or pushing adoption. However, all of this is happening in just one market - the server, and they are all doing it for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who wants to stop and think about the business strategies of each of these companies. Dell being the best example of this, consider their position. They are pushing Linux adoption extremely hard, using their excellent marketing and FUD machines to their fullest extent, but they are only pushing Linux in one role - replacement of UNIX servers. Turning one installed Solaris machine into four Dell machines is obviously a good idea for them. Turning four Dell servers running Windows into four Dell servers running Linux - well, what does Dell get out of that, aside from Microsoft's wrath? Turning a Dell desktop running Windows into a Dell desktop running Linux, what does that get them? Nothing but MS wrath. So, my beef here is that we already had an embarrassment of riches in the server space - several very good, very well accepted, very understood, and very open-standard friendly server OSs. Not to mention a few that were already open source and free. This, to my mind, is where Linux was

Re:Before you comment ...

[foorilious]

While we're talking about drivers, you touched on something. Yes, Linux is way out ahead of Solaris x86 in terms of hardware support, however one major pain with Linux is binary driver dependence on minor kernel versions. This is a serious problem for the 'enterprise' server crowd, where to patch my kernel, I must wait on the slowest ISV who happens to have a binary-only module in my kernel. Even if I have source, as the AC pointed out, whipping out a compiler because you want your HBA driver to continue to work after applying a kernel update is pretty LOL for an 'enterprise' OS.

I think we're all agreed that using kernel modules from third parties is something to avoid where possible on any platform, but it's a reality that many in the corporate world have to live with. Compare to Solaris, where it is unheard of for a particular build of a particular driver that works with any minor revision of a given kernel to not work with any other minor revision of that same major. Put another way, if driver xyz works with any Solaris 9 kernel, I can bet my job that it's going to work with any other Solaris 9 kernel, and heck, it'll probably even work with any Solaris 7, 8, or 10 kernel, too. Even outside of drivers and kernel modules, Solaris' binary compatibility is something you seriously start to appreciate, believe me.

Re:Before you comment ...

[Concertina]

Agreed, but the fact that it outlines that it is a debian based system, therefore it is set to follow debians intended purpose and mission statement ...

Sorry, I'm not quite getting how one follows from the other ... simply being based off of debian doesn't imply adopting the community's philosophy, regardless of what their press release claims, especially since they seem to be outside the community altogether. Their perspective will ultimately dictate what they become, and only time will tell what that perspective is (though we can certainly make some wild speculative assumptions at this point).

Re:Before you comment ...

[oztiks]

Sorry, I'm not quite getting how one follows from the other ... simply being based off of debian doesn't imply adopting the community's philosophy, regardless of what their press release claims, especially since they seem to be outside the community altogether.

Ofcourse it doesnt imply anything but doesnt mean that its not the case, and yeah the fact they arnet directly associated with debain does make it less possible.

Their perspective will ultimately dictate what they become, and only time will tell what that perspective is (though we can certainly make some wild speculative assumptions at this point).

True True, i cant agree anymore..

But come one lets face it they have debain/hurd, debian/linux, debian/fbsd and debian/netbsd now they are going on about utilising debian for solaris. This is a fact not specualtion here and the fact that its not a part of debian dev team and is seperate group is just the essance of the GPL working in the way that it is intended, take something that already exisits and build on to it.

Sun Ray Client

[Vampo]

Does anyone know if I'll be able to use sun ray clients with this? This could be the best news ever.

Re:Sun Ray Client

[iccaros]

good Point.. SRSS 3.1 does not work (out of the box) with the Linux 2.6 kernel (2.4 it works fine I have it running on RH AS 3) but I think you would have to mess with the install script so it installed he Solaris X86 kernel modules and then installed the Linux RPMS. (alien) There are a few sites showing how to run SRSS on debian already.. http://wwwcip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/~simigern /sunray-debian/3.1fcs.html

Re:Sun Ray Client

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt it has been tested yet, but most well-written stuff 'just works' on Sun Ray. If it doesn't make assumptions about the Xserver (e.g. libxklavier's assumption that the Xserver is always XFree86), if it honors $AUDIODEV, if it doesn't use non-unique tmp files in /tmp and if it isn't a total pig regarding resources it should just work.

Re:Sun Ray Client

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun Ray Server 3.1 works on Solaris x86, so it should work in Debian Solaris too. You can download 90 day eval from
http://www.sun.com/software/sunray/get.xml

This is useful!

[eldacan]

This is an interesting project: developers will have the power of opensolaris tools, like DTrace (a very powerful tool to study the behaviour of programs - and optimize them) available for all debian packages...

Re:This is useful!

[DaPoulpe]

I'm pleased to see diversity but can't we get these usefull tools with a Linux kernel too ?
Like FreeBSD is doing with DTrace.

Re:And the point is?

[LarsWestergren]

a hint that they may just be playing games and chasing publicity as usual rather than showing a serious commitment to f/oss.

Yes, giving us Open Office and paying many full time developers to work on it, and porting DTrace to BSD is obviously not a commitment. They ought to be ashamed of themselves!

Re:Free as what? cool as what?

[KiloByte]

Open? Free? No way.

Hell, even their developer portal requires login to even look at. Doesn't smell like something open to the public to me...

Re:And the point is?

[FishandChips]

It can be helpful to look at the bigger picture and think for yourself from time to time. Choice is not an absolute virtue and computer users have already shown in 1001 different ways that they prefer one app that just works to half a dozen that don't regardless of where they come from. And if these guys want to do GNU/Solaris, then kudos and every success to them. But as an ordinary end-user I'll stick with Debian Sid. Don't fancy investing hundreds or thousands of hours in a project that turns out to be a cul de sac with parking space for as many as 15 users. There's already been enough of that on Linux, at least, to last a lifetime. The best folks to take an open version of Solaris forward are Sun and if they can't be shagged then keep clear imho.

If I may be so bold...

[LeftWing]

I should point out that Sun themselves aren't porting DTrace to FreeBSD. But they are offering a huge amount of assistance to the folk who are. You can meet various Sun staff and the FreeBSD DTrace porter in #opensolaris on FreeNode. Before making assumptions that Sun are merely "chasing publicity" you could drop in and have a chat about the project. #opensolaris is reasonably active most of the time.

Re:If I may be so bold...

[LarsWestergren]

Before making assumptions that Sun are merely "chasing publicity" you could drop in and have a chat about the project. #opensolaris is reasonably active most of the time.

Yes, I was being sarcastic, perhaps I wasn't being clear enough... My point was that Sun actually contributes a lot to open source, GNOME and Mozilla projects for instance.

Re:If I may be so bold...

[LeftWing]

Sorry Lars, it was me who was unclear -- I had detected your sarcasm, and I was quoting what you had quoted in your post.

I'll break it up a little more in future.

Re:LOL HY

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear morfiend,

You seem to have a lot of drive and enthusiasm, which is obviously not finding a productive outlet, have you thought about getting some part-time work in IT? Perhaps try doing some volunteer work!

Maybe you've not yet graduated and are going through that 'difficult' stage. Girls don't seem to like you, the sporty kids bully you. We've all been there, it'll pass. The simple fact that is girls mature faster than boys.

In a few years, you'll look back on these days and laugh! :)

Anyway, take care.

AC.

Sweet!

[dafunn]

It's just what I've always wanted... the kludginess of Solaris combined with the user-friendliness of Debian.

Debian GNU/Minix

[Anonymous Coward]

So when do we see Debian GNU/Minix?

Re:Debian GNU/Minix

[psykocrime]

I dunno about that, but I'm waiting for the open-source OS/2 clone to become
available so we can have Debian GNU/OS/2 available.

About Time

[Anonymous Coward]

About damn time!
While I'm mostly happy with Solaris 10 running on my Sparc system, I must confess that the Solaris userland could certainly use a little TLC before its my "primary" desktop (which Id like it to be).

With any luck, the combo of a solaris kernel/core and a debian/ubuntu userland will provide some much needed juice to the solaris userland. Even if this does nothing more than get some more userland/"desktop" developers working on solaris, I cant see how this is anything but great news.

Re:And the point is?

[zootm]

Indeed. As many Python developers will tell you, "there's more than one way to do it" can often lead to confusion and inconsistency. Freedom and choice are great, but the fact is that many people often just want the choice made for them in as sensible a way as possible.

Re:And the point is?

[c0007031]

Just like you said it, the investment of hundreds of thousands of hours should be valued... How many hours took Sun to build the Open Solaris OS? Now that they are giving it away I think they are not getting the feedback that they deserve. I am pretty sure that there are lots of improvements that Solaris gan give to all the other flavours of Unix... and the best way to get them is by studying very well. How does this thing fit on my distro? Why is this slow, and that faster? I not trying to tell you to create a new comunitty to support the use of this new OS solely, but to offer it as a choice to anyone who wants to further learn about it.

Re:Free as what? cool as what?

[tfb]

So, did you check this, or are you just bullshitting? Oh, look, you're just bullshitting aren't you? For instance, let's see. www.opensolaris.org, there's a download link, with some blurb and ... links to various things, including http://www.genunix.org/mirror/index.html which has tar files. Or of course you could have a (free, yes, really) login on opensolaris.org and got it from there or the SDLC.

But, hey, it's Sun and it's fashionable to slag them off in your little cult isn't it?

Re:Free as what? cool as what?

[hjsb]

Dunno about this specifically, but Solaris has been freely available for developers since I was a student, at least 5 years. Hell, they even posted me the CDs. Still is, by the looks of things.

well it's not the first non linux debian ....

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.debian.org/ports/index#nonlinux

Re:Just one question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not?

A step backwards?

[Anonymous Coward]

For some reason this does not sound like a good idea. The words "bloated" and "unfocused" come to my mind. I think this kind of blending is somehow illustrative for the Linux community; it does not have to be a bad thing, but I think I'll stick with freeBSD. Then I know what I have.

Re:And the point is?

[c0007031]

I don't want anyone choosing for me. I think Debian is not the kind of comunity to choose for anyone (maybe that's why they have so many packages and developers). You can always install Ubuntu on your machine and get an Operating System with the default configurations, but will you stick with gedit (the text editor that comes default with ubuntu)? By the way, I think you're talking more about Perl than Python don't you? http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/oreillyshirts/5bc 2/back/

Does this mean that GNU is Unix?

[kerskine]

Is this the end of recursive humor?

Re:Does this mean that GNU is Unix?

[Anonymous Coward]

The day that recursive humor gets old is the day that nerds lose interest in computers.

Interesting for kernel performance comparisons.

[Yaztromo]

If they can keep virtually everything outside the kernel consistent with Debian, and replace only the kernel and drivers with Solaris versions, this would prove to be an interesting system for benchmarking and contrasting the two kernels.

As it is right now, you can benchmark entire systems, but it is difficult to do any meaningful kernel benchmarks.

If there is a significant difference in any particular area in either direction, I can forsee future server administrators choosing their kernel based on how well it performs in certain tasks. Perhaps the Linux kernels memory management is better, but the Solaris kernel's SMP scales better. Now you don't have to worry about changing your user or administrative environment, package management tools, or applications -- you can run the same on both, and just change the kernel architecture underneath in order to gain a benefit in an area important to you.

Heck, I can forsee a day when what kernel you want to use is queried as part of the install process, and where you might have a mix of machines that all appear to be running Debian, but which may be using different kernels based on the needs of the system.

We have competing web browsers that (generally) conform to the same interface standards (in terms of HTML rendering) -- why not have a choice in kernels, without having to sacrifice your user and administrative environment (or Open Source ideals)?

Yaz.

Re:Interesting for kernel performance comparisons.

[bigbrownepaul]

Amen the most sensible comment I have seen on /. for a while!!!

Re:Interesting for kernel performance comparisons.

[SpinyNorman]

Presumably any benchmarks (meaningful ones at least) are going to interface with the kernel via core POSIX libraries such as libc and pthreads, which may also differ between the two. On Solaris one could also benchmark Sun libc vs GNU libc, but on the linux kernel that's not an option, nor is there a serious Linux/Solaris kernel-portable implementation of pthreads that I'm aware of.

Re:Interesting for kernel performance comparisons.

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine...

apt-get install kernel-sunos-3.0

Re:And the point is?

[zootm]

Nah, "more than one way to do it" is considered a feature of Perl, whereas Python tries to only allow there to be one (sensible) way to do things. The friction between the two groups mean that some Python developers get a little vocal about what they consider the "right" approach!

Debian isn't the sort of community that really wants to decide for anyone, no. But the problem here is that if you want to have a widely-accepted and consistent system (which many people don't, and which Ubuntu is basically trying to do) with a community-developed project, then at some point a community will need to make these decisions for people who don't want to have to make them.

Why GNU/Solaris?

[rjw57]

> Which we did...created a new Debian based GNU/Solaris distribution with (the latest bits of) Solaris kernel & core userland inside.

So if it is a Solaris kernel replacing the Linux kernel and a Solaris userland replacing the GNU userland what is the justification for calling it GNU/Solaris again?

Re:Why GNU/Solaris?

[mrroach]

I would imagine that when they say core they are referring to really core things such as the module utilities, kernel configuration tools etc. not shells and file management commands.

-Mark

Re:Why GNU/Solaris?

[vga_init]

So if it is a Solaris kernel replacing the Linux kernel and a Solaris userland replacing the GNU userland what is the justification for calling it GNU/Solaris again?

I think because it says "core userland" that only the necessary or most reasonable components will be kept at that level. The rest of the entire operating system would be GNU, which would merit calling it GNU/Solaris. Even though it makes sense just to call it GNU, for some reason the kernel matters a lot to people, so I guess we might as well include it in the name.

What makes naming this difficult, however, is that Solaris is not just the name of a kernel; it's an entire unix system. Linux is just a kernel, but what do you call Solaris when you're just referring to its kernel?

Actually

[MrHanky]

The reason why I love Debian is exactly for its user-friendlyness. It does demand some knowledge, but as soon as you know how to use the package tools' full functionality, you can do everything. The old satirical troll was actually quite insightful in many of his comment.

Debian OpenBSD

[RAMMS EIN]

I've been daydreaming about as OpenBSD system (kernel and userland) with Debian package management. Imagine the security of OpenBSD merged with the package collection, quality, and ease of use of Debian!

One of the things that plagues me about OpenBSD is that the base system is one large package, making it difficult to, say, only upgrade the kernel or sendmail if a security flaw is fixed in one of them. Another thing that has bugged me is that upgrading to a new release is difficult and error-prone, to the point that it's easier to just do a clean install of the new release and reinstall all packages. Plus the package manager isn't nearly as nice as apt-get.

On the other hand, Debian doesn't incorporate all the great pro-active security measures that OpenBSD has, and I believe these are very important in the modern world. The OpenBSD userland also feels a lot lighter and cleaner than the GNU userland Debian uses.

This situation leaves me in a split situation, where I run OpenBSD on the server where security is paramount, and Debian (actually, Ubuntu these days) on my laptop where easy installation, deinstallation, and upgrading are more important. When working on the server, I sometimes wish it were Debian, but when working with Debian I wish it were OpenBSD so I could worry less about buffer overflows and other vulnerabilities I _know_ are in the software I use.

Re:Debian OpenBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want the security and stability of freeBSD with the ease of use (package installation and upgrading etc) you should really try PCBSD - it is exactly that!

Re:And the point is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom and choice are great, but the fact is that many people often just want the choice made for them in as sensible a way as possible.

Well, then those people should ask someone who will make the choice for them.

Here or here

The new name is...

[Srdjant]

GNU's Now UNIX

Freedom of Choice will hunt you forever...

[c0007031]

So you can choose to stick with majority of users by using Ubuntu with only the default applications (wich I am doing personally but not sticking with the defaults...) or you can choose to try new applications, kernels and window managers and define your personal way of interacting with a computer. There you go, again you have to choose... freedom of choice will really hunt you as soon as you use OSS.

Re:Freedom of Choice will hunt you forever...

[zootm]

I use OSS already. The fact is though, most people don't care what program they use so long as it works and it's easy to find. Look at all the people using IE.

'Tis interesting, anyway. The problem is that OSS is currently beginning to appeal to a whole new group of people, and these people don't know what the hell all these different packages are, let alone have any particular opinions over which are better or worse.

A lot of systems are good for this, and getting better, though. To be clear, removing the freedom of the user to choose is a bad thing, but making choices that they don't want to make for them is generally a very good thing. "Sane defaults" and all that. :)

virtualisation

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read yesterdays piece about Redhat wanting Xen in the kernel?

Maybe you'll actually run several kernels, managing different tasks - virtualisation can do this. Are we going to see an explosion of different kernels (similar to distributions now), as it becomes easier to try different ones out?

Why is this under the linux category?

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, the main difference between this and Debian's linux distribution is that this one doesn't include Linus's kernel.

We're speaking about kernels...

[DrYak]

but today Linux is driving innovation

In facts : Linux distributions. Which are nothing more than a small Linux Kernel, plus a bunch of GNU userland (gcc, bash...), some BSD (some part of the network apps, don't remember exactly) userland, some other useful userland apps (Gnome, KDE, OpenOffice.org).

Basically GNU/Solaris, is just the same, with only the tiny kernel part replaced with another kernel (OpenSolaris instead of Linux).

poses no real threat to Linux for the forseeable future

No way. Because what the 99% these projects share is the user apps, which is what users benefits most of.
I mean, look... OpenOffice.org, GIMP, FireFox, all these are even developped on Windows. And it *definitly* doesn't hurt Linux. On the contrary, it brings good apps for Linux.

Re:And the point is?

[Antique Geekmeister]

Sun's old dance with AT&T's SysV UNIX, back when Solaris was first released, has been in many ways a disaster. Basically, many open source tools have been carefully retrofitted to work on top of Solaris to provide access to BSD style tools and their more robust contemporary versions. Those open source tools also form the core of the Linux *operating system distributions*, not the Linux kernel itself.

So it's no surprise at all that Debian can be built on top of a Solaris kernel: few of the core OS packages care that much about the kernel. As long as you have the set of core header files describing the necessary hooks into the kernel, everything else basically falls into place. And those packages have worked with the Solaris since the beginning of Solaris.

But Sun still has a user community to work with. Their hardware is much more robust than PC hardware of similar vintage and cost, and their kernels deal very well with being really hammered by huge loads in a way that Linux kernels never have. Those people may appreciate a Debian variant for their uses, to ease their cross-platform support costs but provide the robust solutions that Suns have built for years.

Ob.

[DrYak]

Yep, just... where the f*** is Hurd?
It's been promised for at least twice the time as Duke Nukem Forever!

They're still having some problems before releasing it to the public, like the Phantom port.

What libc does it use?

[jdavidb]

I once fancied I tried to set up a completely Free userland on Solaris, starting with glibc, but discovered that glibc wouldn't build on Solaris and efforts to make it build anywhere but Linux and HURD had pretty much stopped.

If this means they have built a complete Debian userland including glibc on Open Solaris then it is a spectacular accomplishment! If they had to continue to use pieces of Solaris userland like the Solaris libc it is still an impressive accomplishment but not quite the same as just building the exact same Debian packages on Solaris.

Debian: The Universal Operating System

[samj]

Why shouldn't Debian run on various kernels - Linux, Hurd, Solaris, Interix... the list goes on. I'd personally like to see Debian running on Microsoft's Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (Interix), which will be included with Windows 2003 Server R2 and apparently also future operating systems like Vista. Here's my post to debian-win32 from last week:

To: debian-win32@lists.debian.org
Subject: Debian GNU/Interix (Windows 2003 Server R2)?
From: Sam Johnston
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 14:55:31 +0000

Afternoon all,

Windows 2003 Server R2 is to ship shortly with a POSIX subsystem
(Interix 5.2 of Services for Unix fame) which "includes more than 300
UNIX utilities and tools that behave as they would on UNIX systems,
plus a software development kit (SDK) that supports more than 1,900
UNIX APIs and migration tools, including make, rcs, yacc, lex, cc,
c89, nm, strip, gbd, as well as the gcc, g++, and g77 compilers.".
Apparently future versions of Windows (eg Vista) will follow suit.

With a tweak of config.guess I have had no problems compiling
bash-3.0, wget, etc. on Windows 2003 and am now interested in tacking
some more interesting packages, like dpkg and apt, with a view to
getting a full port of Debian running on it. The problem is that I
have limited time and porting experience, and the fact that this was
previously attempted under Cygwin is disconcerting; the debian-win32
mailing list has been around for years and yet there there has only
been one non-spam post in the last 18 months according to the
archives.

According to http://www.interix.com/ many interesting packages have
already been ported over and are currently available for download for
$30 as 'Interop Toolworks 2.2'
(http://www.interix.com/InteropToolworks.htm). Presumably source is
provided/available - I have posted the question in their Unix Tools
forum as I figure this would be a good starting point.

While there's no X server included, the X libraries are and the new
release opens up the Win32 API which should pave the way for someone
to build one. In the mean time Starnet Software do ship a free 'LX'
version which will accept localhost connections only
(http://www.starnet.com/xwin32LX/get_xwin32LX.htm) .

At this stage I'm looking for feedback about the viability of such a
project, information about why the last one appears to have failed and
any suggestions about what the procedure would be (eg build dpkg, then
debootstrap etc.), how best to ensure its success, and so on. I would
like to think it will be possible to bootstrap a base Debian
installation (Debian GNU/Interix?) from an installer executable, or
possibly even deliver it via ActiveX, eventually getting to the point
where one can log into Windows and get a full Debian desktop complete
with your favourite window manager.

For the time being I'll be happy with bash, OpenSSH, etc. but it's
interesting to consider what is possible... SFU/SUA was meant as a
migration path *to* Windows, but there's nothing stopping it from
being a two way street.

Sam

Re:Debian: The Universal Operating System

[purplebear]

You should really reinvestigate Cygwin. It is vastly superior to MSFU. It does have x.org as an option; fully ported, not just libs. I believe apt and dpkg work quite well also. Of course, Cygwin setup.exe does a good job of managing packages too.
I bet you could even work it out so X and whatever window manager you choose could be the default shell. I know KDE is mostly ported, a good portion of Gnome, XFCE, openbox, window maker, etc..

Re:Debian: The Universal Operating System

[Lucractius]

no he was talking mainly about the next implementation of USFW that is FULLY Posix compliant in the way that USFW never was realy and that made Cygwin the far better choice. This next one is a big leap and its one of the things im eager to investigate abotu Vista. combined with their new "modular focus" and total rebuild... this could be very interesting to play with.

Re:Debian: The Universal Operating System

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Debian,

I want this done, why don't you do it?

Love,
Lazy Lamer.

Re:Debian: The Universal Operating System

[samj]

That's exactly right - cygwin is great for a hacker's needs but I don't think it's going to be a clever way to introduce free software to the unwashed masses - if it was it has had plenty of opportunity to do so already. I'm talking about installing the few meg of POSIX subsystem and then dropping a full debian system on it - probably bootstrapped with an MSI. Imagine installing vista, running debian.msi and then using all your favourite apps. Or Samba on Longhorn. The list goes on...

Re:Debian: The Universal Operating System

[samj]

"At this stage I'm looking for feedback about the viability of such a
project, information about why the last one appears to have failed and
any suggestions about what the procedure would be (eg build dpkg, then
debootstrap etc.), how best to ensure its success, and so on."

That doesn't sound like an instruction to me. I do understand that other debian developers have limited (at best) interest in porting 'the universal operating system' to Windows for their own needs but I'm surprised that there hasn't been more interest from an advocacy point of view.

Re:Debian: The Universal Operating System

[Lucractius]

Trust me on this point. the current non Vista POSIX is still crippled. I havent been arsed to check the beta out since i only get 10 gig a month *gives the finger to his ISP* but if someone that has could confirm it has/hasnt yet had the full functionality they claim to be delivering for 2k3 server R2 et. all. that would be appreciated.

Untill that implementation comes through its going to be very tough to get a drop and go stle thing going at all. the closest is CoLinux and thats got an utterly arcane networking step.

bad idea the project that over-promises

[Anonymous Coward]

God love 'em the Deb folks have always over-promised and under-delivered w.r.t. schedule. Granted when they did deliver it was good solid work so long as you didn't need any unpstream changes made in the prior 18 months. Maybe that's not as important now as it was when I last used debian (1999?). But in the late 90's core application functionality was actively changing -- whereas many of those app's are now evolving more slowly.

Back to the point: Debian has always been short on volunteers, how will adding a whole Sun-ish fork help that?
It can go two ways: 1) Sun puts in quite a bit of pro-bono work on the project and the linux section of deb gradually withers over the years or 2) the Sun kernel fork will be still-born.

Who is Nexenta Systems, Inc.?

[samj]

Who is Nexenta Systems, Inc. (gleaned from the HTML title attribute of http://www.nexenta.com/ anyway, and why do they feel the need to hide their identity (http://whois.sc/nexenta.com)? They're referring to this Debian port as 'Nexenta OS', but then using the domain gnusolaris.org (where they have also hidden their details behind a Domains by Proxy registration). They have this to say on 'the future': "We do hope that at some point, sooner rather than later, our changes (so far for the most part just cleanups to build the DEBs in the new Solaris-like environment) will be integrated with the upstream. At the end of the day - this would be the right thing to do." - presumably they mean that they intend for this to become an official Debian port (eg Debian GNU/Solaris)?

Registrant:
      Domains by Proxy, Inc.
      DomainsByProxy.com
      15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
      Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
      United States

      Registered through: GoDaddy.com
      Domain Name: NEXENTA.COM
            Created on: 15-Jul-05
            Expires on: 15-Jul-08
            Last Updated on: 11-Oct-05

Secure Debian

[Doc Ruby]

How about GNU/TrustedSolaris?

Re:Secure Debian

[discogravy]

as I understand it, Trusted Solaris will/has become an extention to the Solaris 10 OE, so the issue would probably be porting the solaris kernel and userland changes to OpenSolaris so that it can then be ported over to this OS.

Debian GNU/MINIX?

[GreatBunzinni]

And when will Debian start a Debian GNU/MINIX project? There is already a Debian GNU/Hurd project and MINIX is alive, well and ready for production. Now that would be cool.

Re:Debian GNU/MINIX?

[dondelelcaro]

And when will Debian start a Debian GNU/MINIX project?

When you or someone like you decides that it's actually worth doing, and sits down and does it. The fact that it hasn't been done yet indicates that no one has decided that it's worth doing and done it.

The tools are all there; jump in and start.

Re:Debian GNU/MINIX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so fast there, partner. MINIX3 was released a couple of weeks ago. Let's not jump the gun on this one.

Yes, a Debian GNU/MINIX project is worth doing. It is just a matter of time. After all, if Debian has a Hurd project and Hurd is... erm... not complete, then it is only logical that the same efford could be applied to MINIX.

Re:And the point is?

[dasunt]

I only drive one vehicle daily. Most people in the US probably drive one vehicle daily.

So why do we have all sorts of vehicles on the road? Everything from semis to motorcycles?

Quite simple: Even though we all prefer to drive one vehicle, we choose different vehicles to drive because of features/price/reliability/capacity/etc.

Bruce Perens confims it ... Solaris is DYING

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again it appears "Bruce Perens" has a DSFG-approved license to get away with blatent trolling.

Re:Bruce Perens confims it ... Solaris is DYING

[Bruce Perens]

Once again it appears "Bruce Perens" has a DSFG-approved license to get away with blatent trolling.

A license to kill too, AC!

Who's that at your door? AAAAAArgh!

Re:Bruce Perens confims it ... Solaris is DYING

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that might be the greatest troll smackdown I've ever read, and I've been here since before /. was called /. :)

No commitment to F/OSS?

[qbasicnewbie]

No commitment to floss? Oh dear...that's not good, that's not good at all. Those poor poor people.

Re:And the point is?

[zootm]

Yes, but chances are your car came with wheels, an engine, windows, a steering wheel, and seats by default. You can choose to change them with alternate models, but someone made the default choice for you.

Re:And the point is?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sun's old dance with AT&T's SysV UNIX, back when Solaris was first released, has been in many ways a disaster. Basically, many open source tools have been carefully retrofitted to work on top of Solaris to provide access to BSD style tools and their more robust contemporary versions. Those open source tools also form the core of the Linux *operating system distributions*, not the Linux kernel itself."

Wow! WOOOW!!!!! *shaking head in disgust*
Dude, you're SERIOUSLY TRIPPIN'!
The biggest, best thing in Solaris is exactly that it's System V Release 4!

Makes Linux look like total and complete crap in comparison, because the GNU stuff on top of the Linux kernel lacks any semblance of consistency.

BTW, if you had *ANY CLUE* about Solaris, you'd know that one of the things that makes it so great is that everything is structured. Because of this, SunOS 4.x / BSD stuff lives in /usr/ucb, while the SVR4 stuff is in /usr, like it should be. And BTW again, the only reason why there is /usr/ucb is for backward compatibilty, which is something Linux will never have (or forward compatibility for that matter). Didn't you know? Linux kernel developers *guarantee* you a lack of forward backward compatibility because "you have the source code". Thanks! Now just give me a few secs to recompile ALL of my Oracle servers... amateurs!

On a final note, do yourself a favor and stop being an ignorant Slashdot/Linux fanboy. You're on a sinking ship.

Re:And the point is?

[dasunt]

And my OS came with a kernel, a libc, some drivers, and a UI by default.

Re:And the point is?

[zootm]

A GUI, or did you have to choose your specific dashboard? :)

The point is that although the opportunity of choice is good, in many contexts the necessity of choice is bad. Most people are fine with choosing a car because they understand the differences. With OSs, this is much less clear, and isn't something many people need to understand.

Re:Where are the differences? - not blastwave

[bolthole]

Solaris has an existing package management system and all the dependencies in this system are ignored or overwritten by the new system. Alternatively the new package management system will take over and require that it be used exclusively.

Blastwave uses the exact same package management and dependancy system as standard solaris: pkgadd/pkgrm. it just uses a different delivery system: pkg-get.

Furthermore I need a method of doing a simple mass upgrade of packages.

"pkg-get upgrade".

(which covers all non-OS packages, ie: blastwave packages)

For when Debian/ReactOS?

[theguyfromsaturn]

Just a question

debian/openDarwin

[Anonymous Coward]

why not any open source kernel? how hard is it for the community to port it over to a new kernel?

OpenSolaris Live CD

[discogravy]

the Belenix Live CD of OpenSolaris here is not bad; needs work from a user's perspective, but as a "this is what solaris looks like, without having to install it" perspective, it's great. Needs polish (more apps installed, a smoother boot if possible, a configured .bash_profile :), maybe webmin pre-installed so that you can tinker with the OS itself easier etc) IMO, but it's great that they were able to do it at all.

Reminds me of the Samuel Johnson qoute: "...like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

Hence, GNU/Linux

[CarpetShark]

GNU/Solaris sounds like only the kernel is not linux.

Uhh, linux is a kernel, and nothing more.

Precisely. Which is why people wanted to refer to "Linux" distributions as GNU/Linux. Debian now has GNU/Linux, GNU/kFreeBSD, and GNU/Solaris at least. Which means, *gasp* they were right :)

OS Upgrades in Debian vs. "Legacy" SunOS

[CarpetShark]

You can "upgrade on the fly", in a way. The concept is you mirror your root disk, split the mirror, perform the upgrade against the inactive mirror, and finally reboot, this time off the upgraded side.

While that sounds like a very stable way to upgrade, it's worth pointing out that Debian is capable of upgrading continuously without rebooting, or upgrading to new releases without rebooting. The OS of course, not the kernel. But still, it's a very valuable feature, and when upgrading between stable Debian releases, quite reliable.

I would be surprised if SunOS can't do this too, but if it has a dumb package manager -- not hard to imagine, thinking of things like BSD ports compared to Debian's APT -- it's quite possible that Debian provides significant advantages there.

Anyway, I for one am looking forward to trying Debian on another SOLID kernel. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD and is a wonderful thing too, and GNU/Hurd-L4 is definitely on my wishlist :)

No, the Debian community is not doing this port

[mikefe]

It is someone outside of the Debian community doing this port. They are inviting the Ubuntu (because they seem to have lower standards on "freedom") and the Debian community (I have no idea why since because of licensing, it won't be integrated into the main project).

Gentoo/OpenSolaris

[Anonymous Coward]

Since January Gentoo has started the Gentoo/OpenSolaris, began porting its portage package tree on Solaris, calling it Portaris. Something similar was done with FreeBSD creating the Gentoo/FreeBSD project in August 2004.