Sun is battling hard to break into the open source operating system world with OpenSolaris. Juliet Kemp takes it for a test-drive, sampling its unique features and seeing how it fares against Linux...
OpenSolaris is an open-source project based on (some of) the Solaris operating system code, and sponsored by Sun, but being developed independently. The main aim of the project is to create a downloadable codebase. Currently, though, there's a Live CD/install image available which gives you a full OpenSolaris distro - a project which arose after Ian Murdoch (founder of Debian) was hired by Sun in 2007 to head "Project Indiana". OpenSolaris 2008.05 was released in May 2008. It is, as advertised, a full-featured distro, which includes the GNOME desktop and the ZFS filesystem (which does snapshots and some other interesting things - more on that below).
It's released under the CDDL (an open source copyleft license based on the Mozilla Public License), and can be downloaded from the OpenSolaris website. The majority of the source code is fully accessible, but some components are only available in binary form (under the OpenSolaris Binary License).
The OpenSolaris desktop (click for full size)
Installation
Installing OpenSolaris is pretty straightforward - it's a LiveCD (as is increasingly common in Linux distros these days), with standard click-to-install. You answer a couple of questions about your location, keyboard map, and time/date, and you're also asked about disk partitioning. Solaris uses ZFS rather than ext3, which is important in that Linux support for ZFS is still in the fairly early stages.
The rest of the install is handled for you, and worked fine for me. It picks up the network fine (at least, it does if you plug the cable in...). I didn't test it with wireless, but wireless support is supposed to be available.
In use
The first thing to note is that it's not lightweight. My test box is fairly old and slow, but I found OpenSolaris significantly slower than Ubuntu or OpenSUSE on the same box. So it's not really useful for putting that ageing hardware to work.
It comes with a Gnome 2.20.1 desktop by default, and consequently looks pretty similar to more or less any Linux Gnome desktop. The usual array of applications are in place to start off, including Firefox 2.0.0.14, Thunderbird, Rhythmbox, and so on. OpenOffice isn't installed, but version 2.4.0 is available via the package manager, which uses the Image Packaging System (IFS) software.
Is there really a need to have 'SUNW' before everything?
There is documentation available showing how this package manager compares with apt-get - there's also a graphical option if you prefer that to the command line. Both deal with dependencies for you, as with Debian's apt-get and aptitude. There are fewer packages available than for a mainstream Linux distro, although they do have over a thousand (and certainly enough for a fully-functioning system). The package naming is slightly odd; package names begin with a handful of capital letters (eg SUNW or FSW).
Networking works differently to Linux - ipconfig exists but has a different syntax, and eth0 isn't the standard interface. There's a graphical networking manager, but it gives an error message if started when the network management tool nwamd is configured, which is true by default. This seems wrong: either the graphical tool should play nicely with nwamd, or it shouldn't show up on the default config menu.
Services and the starting/stopping of them works differently from Linux, as well. Instead of/etc/init.d or similar, OpenSolaris uses smf, the Service Management Facility. Services are referred to as svc:/servicetype/servicename (where service types include network, system, and application, among others) and can be started/stopped via the svcadm command. The man page is helpful, as are the online docs, but it's something that you need to get used to, and as ever there's a learning curve before you'll be comfortable with it.
If the shareholders were smart, they would have jumped ship long ago when the whole Napster "sharing is caring" stuff started taking hold. Did anybody ever think it would have gone away? Napster > Kazaa > Suprnova > Edonkey > TPB. And there's always been Usenet, IRC, sneakernet, lan parties, and whatnot.
The record businesses are not willing to change, and these predatory lawsuits prove it. Let all the shareholders who stay on suffer more.
---The shareholders are very rarely culpable for criminal offenses. If the decision-makers are stockholders, they will represent a single-digit percentage of stock ownership in aggregate; and even then, it's a rare case that every one of them would be involved in a criminal offense. (A crime could be committed in a corporate context by a non-shareholder, by the way.) Seizing or destroying the value of non-criminals' assets in response to a crime doesn't sound like a very good governing policy to me.
Simply put: They finance bad behavior. Some of that behavior is illegal. Therefore the stockholders and others should all be punished for financing that illegal behavior.
---I guess the question is, if (as I assume) you wouldn't back the idae of "guild by association because he lives in such-and-such city", or "guilt by association because he belongs to such-and-such church", why would you back this idea of "guilt by association because he holds stock in such-and-such company"?
Thats because a city isnt a person. Nor are most churches. And a for-profit corporate charter demands that companies seek to maximize their profits above all else.
---Charge two entities for the same instance of the same offense?
If one person 1 holds victim down, while person 2 stabs victim to death, they charge 1 and 2 for murder, even though 2 used the knife.
When I was in elementary school oh so long ago, one teacher found a way to stop the bullies from doing disruptive behavior.
They punished the whole class and let the bully go free. It was done in class, and very publicly, so that EVERYBODY was suffering from the act of one person. Peer pressure from everybody works wonders.
Apply this idea to a company: Your assets are froze for 10 days, stocks cannot be traded in their name, and the workers MUST be paid. The ones responsible for this would be outed rather quickly.
You'll change your tone when you're at the end of a 2 barrel lawsuit.
I recently sat on a jury that deemed a man not guilty in a dui cause the state couldnt prove he was even driving. After the end of the trial, we find out the guy was defended by a public defender.
Now tell me this: is that lawyer who successfully defended a man against a frivolous, yet severe, state action a unjust satanic pig of a lawyer?
There's always bad eggs. Hopefully the Bar sets them straight, or chews them up.
I KNOW how to install the tarball, or install a kernel driver and whatnot.
When I went to Youtube when I first installed Ubuntu, it opened a "Checking for plugin" screen. After 20 or so seconds, it Popped up a Adobe EULA and a click button to agree and install. 20 more seconds, and firefox restarted with all my tabs in place.
After that, Youtube worked. No console magic needed. Just simple Click continue a few times and It Just Works.
And about that non-working wlan adapter... You're up shits creek if it doesnt work with Vista either. Or did you get that memo about a crapload of hardware being abandoned in the onset of Vista?
Who cares how the files are set up in the system side. As long as the system knows where the libs are and the configs are, who cares? Complaining about location of system specific stuff is trifling.
I'm on ubuntu right now. Installing new things are as simple as going Applications>Add/remove... and looking down the categories of what I want or search the names. How much simpler do YOU want it? We're installing already vetted, 100% working fully functional apps on a click and a password request. And if you need the full list, you go into administration settings and use Synaptic.
What really is nice would be a self-roaming profile similar to which Sun uses in house. You literally carry your home dir with you with configs to mount a NFS drive for the biggie files.
---was impossible to remotely administer (for instance, adding a bookmark to the company's intranet, something which is trivial in IE, was and possibly still is impossible in Firefox.)
Speaking of this, IE easily allows remote administration... from attacking websites. The randomizing directory scheme was to prevent cases where a malformed url like file:///*** could be read by a javascript and attack the client computer with the servers help.
But that's exactly it!/home is where YOU reside. Wouldnt it be nice to be able to copy/home/$user and migrate it to any computer and have it automagically work?
In Linux, you can. Settings are stored in/home for user-unique choices on configs. Bookmarks, window positions, you name it. The user shouldnt have to know what exact file stores certain configs, but know that his home directory stores everything about them.
How, pray-tell do you migrate users on windows to other computers? You cant, as far as I can tell, because applications marry themselves to the computer, and most overwrite settings and configs on install. And, you have that nice chunk of crap in the registry. Yep, migrating that is easy for the user. NOT!
What's wrong with./configure make sudo make install ???
I mean, it shows direct intent that one decompresses, configures and compiles a program rather than clicking the 'whatever' button in IE. And,the last I knew, tarballs worked everywhere. Deb's, RPM's and others only work on that specific platform with that specific set of libraries.
No matter what you do (aside from closing up shop), your material will be accessible online and provided in an easily cracked form.
There are 2 types to watch out for: Crackers and Seekers.
Crackers: They take "protected" content and break it. You made a game which is protected by X scheme. They view X scheme as the game. Then the community gives them kudos for doing the work. They break everything from simple protections to satellite cards, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, consoles... You name it. Nothing is safe from crackers unless you dont publish it.
Sekers: I am a seeker. I can find anything and everything. Serials are abundant on the net. Cracks are easy to find due to the crackers publishing. If some full version is on usenet, I can get it. If some idiot on IRC has a copy, I can trade. I know the search parameters for the top 10 search engines, including worldwide, regional, local. I have access to many databases via hacks and legitimate access. I have a connection to Internet2, which you undoubtedly do not. All it takes is 1 person to leak something and it WILL be found.
The knowledge to do as I can do at will is right underneath your noses: www.searchlores.org . As Fravia+ said, the web is an Ocean of knowledge... about two centimeters deep. It's all there if you're willing to wade through the crap.
There's something to be said that the companies hire psychologists to determine maximum addictivity to a game.
I'll just continue playing NWN on one of the known PRC servers. 100+ classes, ungodly amounts of spells and abilities, hundreds of feats, true epic spell system and bunch more. And NWN costs 20$ at Mal-Wart.
There are known genetic lines that are much more predisposed to athletic activities. Why should we allow people with native attributes to pass those without those attributes?
Answer that, and you have Indy-car style of Olympics. Everybody's vehicle will be the same, with only the operator (intellect) be the driving force. BORING.
Slashdot Mirror
Try THIS link.
It has nothing to do with banning FLASH.
It does have all to do with many 56k dialup users around. Including us.
Thank your phone company for the 5 billion $ they took from us for "broadband".
Sun is battling hard to break into the open source operating system world with OpenSolaris. Juliet Kemp takes it for a test-drive, sampling its unique features and seeing how it fares against Linux...
OpenSolaris is an open-source project based on (some of) the Solaris operating system code, and sponsored by Sun, but being developed independently. The main aim of the project is to create a downloadable codebase. Currently, though, there's a Live CD/install image available which gives you a full OpenSolaris distro - a project which arose after Ian Murdoch (founder of Debian) was hired by Sun in 2007 to head "Project Indiana". OpenSolaris 2008.05 was released in May 2008. It is, as advertised, a full-featured distro, which includes the GNOME desktop and the ZFS filesystem (which does snapshots and some other interesting things - more on that below).
It's released under the CDDL (an open source copyleft license based on the Mozilla Public License), and can be downloaded from the OpenSolaris website. The majority of the source code is fully accessible, but some components are only available in binary form (under the OpenSolaris Binary License).
The OpenSolaris desktop (click for full size)
Installation
Installing OpenSolaris is pretty straightforward - it's a LiveCD (as is increasingly common in Linux distros these days), with standard click-to-install. You answer a couple of questions about your location, keyboard map, and time/date, and you're also asked about disk partitioning. Solaris uses ZFS rather than ext3, which is important in that Linux support for ZFS is still in the fairly early stages.
The rest of the install is handled for you, and worked fine for me. It picks up the network fine (at least, it does if you plug the cable in...). I didn't test it with wireless, but wireless support is supposed to be available.
In use
The first thing to note is that it's not lightweight. My test box is fairly old and slow, but I found OpenSolaris significantly slower than Ubuntu or OpenSUSE on the same box. So it's not really useful for putting that ageing hardware to work.
It comes with a Gnome 2.20.1 desktop by default, and consequently looks pretty similar to more or less any Linux Gnome desktop. The usual array of applications are in place to start off, including Firefox 2.0.0.14, Thunderbird, Rhythmbox, and so on. OpenOffice isn't installed, but version 2.4.0 is available via the package manager, which uses the Image Packaging System (IFS) software.
Is there really a need to have 'SUNW' before everything?
There is documentation available showing how this package manager compares with apt-get - there's also a graphical option if you prefer that to the command line. Both deal with dependencies for you, as with Debian's apt-get and aptitude. There are fewer packages available than for a mainstream Linux distro, although they do have over a thousand (and certainly enough for a fully-functioning system). The package naming is slightly odd; package names begin with a handful of capital letters (eg SUNW or FSW).
Networking works differently to Linux - ipconfig exists but has a different syntax, and eth0 isn't the standard interface. There's a graphical networking manager, but it gives an error message if started when the network management tool nwamd is configured, which is true by default. This seems wrong: either the graphical tool should play nicely with nwamd, or it shouldn't show up on the default config menu.
Services and the starting/stopping of them works differently from Linux, as well. Instead of /etc/init.d or similar, OpenSolaris uses smf, the Service Management Facility. Services are referred to as svc:/servicetype/servicename (where service types include network, system, and application, among others) and can be started/stopped via the svcadm command. The man page is helpful, as are the online docs, but it's something that you need to get used to, and as ever there's a learning curve before you'll be comfortable with it.
I thought the ZFS on the "free" version was crippled down to 1 TB.
And that means a Fluke with full fiber gear.
Universe. Assuming that the universe has existed for 15 billion years, the universe is a light-sphere emanating away from the origin at C/second.
It would indicate that the whole universe would be a sphere 15 billion ly in radius.
If the shareholders were smart, they would have jumped ship long ago when the whole Napster "sharing is caring" stuff started taking hold. Did anybody ever think it would have gone away? Napster > Kazaa > Suprnova > Edonkey > TPB. And there's always been Usenet, IRC, sneakernet, lan parties, and whatnot.
The record businesses are not willing to change, and these predatory lawsuits prove it. Let all the shareholders who stay on suffer more.
---The shareholders are very rarely culpable for criminal offenses. If the decision-makers are stockholders, they will represent a single-digit percentage of stock ownership in aggregate; and even then, it's a rare case that every one of them would be involved in a criminal offense. (A crime could be committed in a corporate context by a non-shareholder, by the way.) Seizing or destroying the value of non-criminals' assets in response to a crime doesn't sound like a very good governing policy to me.
Simply put: They finance bad behavior. Some of that behavior is illegal. Therefore the stockholders and others should all be punished for financing that illegal behavior.
---I guess the question is, if (as I assume) you wouldn't back the idae of "guild by association because he lives in such-and-such city", or "guilt by association because he belongs to such-and-such church", why would you back this idea of "guilt by association because he holds stock in such-and-such company"?
Thats because a city isnt a person. Nor are most churches. And a for-profit corporate charter demands that companies seek to maximize their profits above all else.
---Charge two entities for the same instance of the same offense?
If one person 1 holds victim down, while person 2 stabs victim to death, they charge 1 and 2 for murder, even though 2 used the knife.
We can instead punish everybody responsible by seizing/freezing assets and holding all stocks on the trader markets.
IF we can find wrongdoing specifically from 1 or 2 people, charge them TOO.
When I was in elementary school oh so long ago, one teacher found a way to stop the bullies from doing disruptive behavior.
They punished the whole class and let the bully go free. It was done in class, and very publicly, so that EVERYBODY was suffering from the act of one person. Peer pressure from everybody works wonders.
Apply this idea to a company: Your assets are froze for 10 days, stocks cannot be traded in their name, and the workers MUST be paid. The ones responsible for this would be outed rather quickly.
You'll change your tone when you're at the end of a 2 barrel lawsuit.
I recently sat on a jury that deemed a man not guilty in a dui cause the state couldnt prove he was even driving. After the end of the trial, we find out the guy was defended by a public defender.
Now tell me this: is that lawyer who successfully defended a man against a frivolous, yet severe, state action a unjust satanic pig of a lawyer?
There's always bad eggs. Hopefully the Bar sets them straight, or chews them up.
I KNOW how to install the tarball, or install a kernel driver and whatnot.
When I went to Youtube when I first installed Ubuntu, it opened a "Checking for plugin" screen. After 20 or so seconds, it Popped up a Adobe EULA and a click button to agree and install. 20 more seconds, and firefox restarted with all my tabs in place.
After that, Youtube worked. No console magic needed. Just simple Click continue a few times and It Just Works.
And about that non-working wlan adapter... You're up shits creek if it doesnt work with Vista either. Or did you get that memo about a crapload of hardware being abandoned in the onset of Vista?
Ok. What package would "Johnny User" need to hand compile in order to view youtube or facebook using Ubuntu?
Oh wait. Nothing. It just works.
How does that make OSX's better?
Who cares how the files are set up in the system side. As long as the system knows where the libs are and the configs are, who cares? Complaining about location of system specific stuff is trifling.
I'm on ubuntu right now. Installing new things are as simple as going Applications>Add/remove... and looking down the categories of what I want or search the names. How much simpler do YOU want it? We're installing already vetted, 100% working fully functional apps on a click and a password request. And if you need the full list, you go into administration settings and use Synaptic.
What really is nice would be a self-roaming profile similar to which Sun uses in house. You literally carry your home dir with you with configs to mount a NFS drive for the biggie files.
---was impossible to remotely administer (for instance, adding a bookmark to the company's intranet, something which is trivial in IE, was and possibly still is impossible in Firefox.)
Speaking of this, IE easily allows remote administration... from attacking websites. The randomizing directory scheme was to prevent cases where a malformed url like file:///*** could be read by a javascript and attack the client computer with the servers help.
But that's exactly it! /home is where YOU reside. Wouldnt it be nice to be able to copy /home/$user and migrate it to any computer and have it automagically work?
In Linux, you can. Settings are stored in /home for user-unique choices on configs. Bookmarks, window positions, you name it. The user shouldnt have to know what exact file stores certain configs, but know that his home directory stores everything about them.
How, pray-tell do you migrate users on windows to other computers? You cant, as far as I can tell, because applications marry themselves to the computer, and most overwrite settings and configs on install. And, you have that nice chunk of crap in the registry. Yep, migrating that is easy for the user. NOT!
What's wrong with ./configure
make
sudo make install
???
I mean, it shows direct intent that one decompresses, configures and compiles a program rather than clicking the 'whatever' button in IE. And,the last I knew, tarballs worked everywhere. Deb's, RPM's and others only work on that specific platform with that specific set of libraries.
Its easy. DONT GO TO COURT.
Hide in a corner doing whatever they do is their best option, and when the legal hounds come a'knockin they be a runnin.
The proper answer is to shut yer doors and quit buying gas to get ripped off.
HOWEVER, if you wish to have a foothold in a market, you need to deal with the undesirables. That's called the cost of doing business.
I have a message for you.
No matter what you do (aside from closing up shop), your material will be accessible online and provided in an easily cracked form.
There are 2 types to watch out for: Crackers and Seekers.
Crackers: They take "protected" content and break it. You made a game which is protected by X scheme. They view X scheme as the game. Then the community gives them kudos for doing the work. They break everything from simple protections to satellite cards, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, consoles... You name it. Nothing is safe from crackers unless you dont publish it.
Sekers: I am a seeker. I can find anything and everything. Serials are abundant on the net. Cracks are easy to find due to the crackers publishing. If some full version is on usenet, I can get it. If some idiot on IRC has a copy, I can trade. I know the search parameters for the top 10 search engines, including worldwide, regional, local. I have access to many databases via hacks and legitimate access. I have a connection to Internet2, which you undoubtedly do not. All it takes is 1 person to leak something and it WILL be found.
The knowledge to do as I can do at will is right underneath your noses: www.searchlores.org . As Fravia+ said, the web is an Ocean of knowledge... about two centimeters deep. It's all there if you're willing to wade through the crap.
Nope. I dont like those MMO's either.
There's something to be said that the companies hire psychologists to determine maximum addictivity to a game.
I'll just continue playing NWN on one of the known PRC servers. 100+ classes, ungodly amounts of spells and abilities, hundreds of feats, true epic spell system and bunch more. And NWN costs 20$ at Mal-Wart.
We dont need the crap, especially if burdened by the cruft you describe?
Especially for NASCAR, you dont think that a drug that would increase your reaction time by 2 wouldnt be wanted?
Oh look, I observe time as 2 times as fast, so I can do more maneuvers at high speed.
There are known genetic lines that are much more predisposed to athletic activities. Why should we allow people with native attributes to pass those without those attributes?
Answer that, and you have Indy-car style of Olympics. Everybody's vehicle will be the same, with only the operator (intellect) be the driving force. BORING.
You can joke, but we live 1 hr south of Indianapolis, IN and we're on super-fast dialup.
4 KB/s.