Slashdot Mirror
Taking a Look at Nexenta's Blend of Solaris and Ubuntu
Ahmed Kamal writes "What happens when you take a solid system such as Ubuntu Hardy, unplug its Linux kernel, and plug in a replacement OpenSolaris kernel? Then you marry Debian's apt-get to Solaris' zfs file-system? What you get is Nexenta Core Platform OS. Let's take Nexenta for a quick spin, installing and configuring this young but promising system."
debian debian debian!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
These are the types of stories I miss on /. No, politics, no civil procedure/court news, no DRM wars. Just plain old news for nerds (even if it doesn't matter all that much).
You should be able to run red hat linux within a branded zone.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It's not possible to compile Opensolaris without downloading and using a whole bunch of binary components which are distributed under a proprietary license. (see here for details.
This is in stark contrast to OpenBSD (and to a lesser degree NetBSD and/or FreeBSD -both of which include proprietary binary-only blobs). Their license is OSI approved, but you can't compile a working system using only the parts that are open source.
And this is after three and a half years, guys.
We need to prevent another monoculture in the information sector, even in open source. If everyone uses the same kernel, they will all have the same vulnerabilities. Safety in numbers means having more than one popular kernel.
Looks fun but I am still waiting for 3ware Solaris drivers. And I am not holding my breath either.
You must have missed the memo. Sun has been open sourcing projects left and right: OpenSolaris, Java and VirtualBox to name a few high profile examples. Sure OpenSolaris isn't GPL'd, but Java and VirtualBox are.
You must have missed the reality.. They open source as a marketing strategy and not something which is community based. Even if you do end up contributing they won't protect your copyrights and may end up just pulling a Blackdown like they did years ago. Their stock is crashing and with all the uncertainties I'm curious how things will all unfold over the next 6 months/year
So come help rewrite them.
Thus is the power of open source. If you don't like something, change it
Perhaps you are just jaded.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
I have been working with Solaris for many years. When OpenSolaris was announced, I jumped for joy at what could be accomplished. When it was just a re-release of Solaris major, I said, ok, well, it is a certified Unix(tm) and now open source. But when they started working on Indiana, their replacement for the old Solaris system, I again jumped for joy, a chance to remove the cruft, while keeping ZFS and other Solaris goodies. When Ian jumped on the project, I thought, HOLY cow, we can get Debian GNU/Solaris. Well...... Guess what, they had to re-implement dpkg, why, well, I don't rightly know. Sure, you can install the old packages on the system and you now get a network repository, but darn it, why not just go with the darned proven system. Their current ipkg will break a system if the upgrade doesn't go well. I know dpkg can theoretically do this, but why re-code something that has had YEARS of testing and is used by almost half of the Linux community? I don't get it. Why the heck did they decide to re-implement something that could work so well? Just because it is GPL doesn't taint the core OS, it sits in userland. This must be so that they can sell proprietary Indiana builds to those who don't want to play out in the open. That is the only reason I can see. I really hoped for a good package system, but instead, we get a "me-too" system. It just doesn't make sense. And yes, I have been following OpenSolaris since it was barely usable, about nv 40 or something like that. I really wanted an old school Unix to survive, but at this point, I can't see it happening. They are now, not "Unix" they are "Not Linux" and I don't think they can handle the new market. Their Open Source strategy doesn't make sense. Their new storage line, I cannot see where this has a market. Sure, you get support, but once it is up and running well, there isn't much need for that support. There are much cheaper solutions for the SMB to MB segment, with much better support plans. I hope they survive for MySQL, VirtualBox, Java and NetBeans' sake, but I am not quite sure about it. I cannot find a revenue stream that they are first in class for anymore. Their workstations are a joke. I put together a home made Ultra 24 with the same specs for half of what they are asking. This was when they used the slower Q6600 quad cores. I see they upgraded. For outfitting a small to medium development group, I can't see going with the support premium. I know, support, etc... but hey, I can buy a service plan separately for OpenSolaris and when the H/W fails, just buy a new quad core workstation, which will be faster than the one it is replacing. I can't see the price premium. Apple is another story. Their system is integrated and will only work on their hardware. Sun is trying to compete in the commodity OS market. I just don't see it happening. Comments are welcome.
One Token Ring to Rule them All, One Search Engine to Find Them, One WAN to bring them in, and TCP/IP Bind them...
Well, the problem with Red Hat is it isn't as popular. Most people who know Linux know or at least have heard of Ubuntu, and know that it is easy to use, on the other hand Red Hat isn't as popular and so while there might be a small number of people who would only use it if it was based off of Red Hat, more people use Ubuntu than Red Hat and so it only is logical to base it off of Ubuntu.
That's one of my problems with Linux. Ubuntu has been out for what--less than 4 years, and popular for less than that? Before Ubuntu was the big thing, it was Gentoo. Etc etc, and before that, Redhat. (ignoring, Fedora, Suse, etc and of course the parent distro of Ubuntu--debian--has been around forever as well)...before that, slackware. And so on.
So far Ubuntu seems to have decent staying power (and most importantly--*one* man with money behind it). It just seems crazy to me that Red Hat which virtually WAS linux for the first decade of Linux has been relegated to near irrelevance?
I claim that it is you who has drunk the kool-aid. GPL is not the be-all-end-all of free software.
>really compelling reasons I should go through the Debian/Ubuntu learning curve.
A 7 year old child can?
Neither Linus nor Richard are happy.
And nothing of value was lost.
Anybody want my mod points?
I guarantee RH is the most popular in the enterprise, which is how they want it. RH gave up fighting for the Linux desktop, which they see as irrelevant and unprofitable.
So, to answer you question (mark, really), RH has only been "relegated to near irrelevance" on the desktop, and that happened only because they didn't want it.
Put identity in the browser.
You are missing the point. The FSF is not also distributing the libc in question. You can distribute the CDDL libc, and you can distribute the GPL'd app, but if you distribute them together then the combination has to be under the GPL (slight simplification, the exact requirements are slightly different, but that's effectively what it means) and this is not possible with a GPL-incompatible license.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Sun isn't responsible for the content of OS.o, nor are they in a position to stop community members from doing anything.
Wait, you mean that they saw the desktop was a market full of people who didn't want to pay for an OS, and didn't need to pay for support contracts, and realized that if nobody was paying them it was a useless market to chase?
Holy shit, it's almost like Red Hat aren't completely inept. Who knew that a company based in the same city as MIT and Harvard might be able to find a few people who are good technologists AND some who are good at business (not to mention I've heard their legal department isn't too shabby either...)
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
That's one of my problems with Linux. Ubuntu has been out for what--less than 4 years, and popular for less than that? Before Ubuntu was the big thing, it was Gentoo. Etc etc, and before that, Redhat. (ignoring, Fedora, Suse, etc and of course the parent distro of Ubuntu--debian--has been around forever as well)...before that, slackware. And so on.Z
While Gentoo might have been the distro with the most buzz before Ubuntu, the audience for Gentoo was never the same as the audience for Ubuntu. Each has had its share of buzz, but for totally different reasons.
So far Ubuntu seems to have decent staying power (and most importantly--*one* man with money behind it). It just seems crazy to me that Red Hat which virtually WAS linux for the first decade of Linux has been relegated to near irrelevance?
Irrelevance? By what standard? Red Hat has a market capitalization of $1.64 billion. You think they got it from their rich uncle?
The reasons you don't hear a lot of buzz about Red Hat on Slashdot are A.) Red Hat is well-established, produces a stable, reliable, quality product -- and that kind of thing doesn't make the news; and B.) most of the people reading Slashdot are not Red Hat customers. You can't fiddle around with Fedora and decide "Red Hat is irrelevant." Talk to me when you actually pay for a Red Hat Enterprise support contract, then tell me you're going to give it up and go back to Gentoo. I believe if you investigate you'll find that Red Hat enjoys a quite healthy popularity -- in the markets it cares about.
Breakfast served all day!
*BSD distros include their own libc and GPL software that links against it. OS X includes their own libc and GPL software that links against it
All of these have a BSDL'd libc, which does not have this problem because it's not a GPL-incompatible license. It's been a great many years since I used BeOS so I can't speak for their case, but possibly they were in violation. As I understand it, GPL'd software in SFU links against the libc which is part of Windows (and not distributed with SFU) and so falls under the 'system libraries' exemption in the GPL.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"Solaris" is a reference to the Sun (and by extension, to Sun Microsystems) in Latin. "Ubuntu" is Zulu for humanity.
An elegant blend would be "Ilanga" (Zulu for Sun) or "Humanitas" (Latin for Ubuntu).
Don't mind me. I just hate portmanteaux.
Irrelevance? By what standard? Red Hat has a market capitalization of $1.64 billion.
Right now, if I go to download any enterprise-level Linux product or any proprietary Linux product, I'll definitely be able to find RPMs for RHEL. No doubt. I'll probably also be able to find packages for SuSE, and maybe some other distros, but probably not Debian or Ubuntu.
Until that changes, I don't think anyone can claim that Red Hat is irrelevant.
Big corporations use either Red Hat or SuSe, there is no other game in corporate Linux.
Your kind of irrelevance is a very funny one....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.