W00t !! Solaris 10 on AMD 2400+

[rsbriggs]

I threw together some spare parts, and ended up building a little AMD 2400+ system. Just in the process of installing Solaris 10 on it. I'll let everyone know how it goes.....

[QIbHom]

Let us know how it goes, rsbriggs. We use Solaris 9 at work, so I've been seriously considering loading 10 at home on my test box.

[rsbriggs]

Ahh, but the important question will be, can it run DC stuff? Especially SOB? Linux clients, perhaps??

Anyway, my report may be somewhat delayed, I forgot to D/L the companion CD, so it will be another hour or so before my download finishes and I can complete the install.

[rsbriggs]

Grrrr. Can't get the network going... Think I messed up and did a non-network install. Guess I get to do it over again....

[Bok]

sysunconfig ......

or something like that. :p

Bok

[rsbriggs]

# uname -X
System = SunOS
Node = unknown
Release = 5.10
KernelID = Generic
Machine = i86pc
BusType = <unknown>
Serial = <unknown>
Users = <unknown>
OEM# = 0
Origin# = 1
NumCPU = 1

# lxrun ./sb ./sclient.conf
[Thu Mar 10 20:33:51 2005] client process [v2.3.0] invoked
[Thu Mar 10 20:33:51 2005] priority set to idle
[Thu Mar 10 20:33:51 2005] connecting to server
[Thu Mar 10 20:33:51 2005] couldn't get block from server [can't connect], retrying in 1200 secs


Grrr - about 1/2 the internet seems to be down, so of course I can't connect to get a block....

ARRRGH. I can't connect to GOOGLE. :bang: :help:

[QIbHom]

DNS fubared, maybe?

[Dyyryath]

I've got a copy of it sitting here that I've been meaning to load either in VMWare or on my test system, but I just haven't gotten around to it. I'm particularly interested in DTRACE.

I'd love to hear you impressions of it once you get it up and running...

[rsbriggs]

Didn't get the machine set up correctly. You need to have Linux installed on a partition, then set the path_map to where you mounted that partition. lxrun is essentially a chroot to that mount and execute the command in the linux environment.

Unfortunately, didn't get back to trying to get this running... Desperately trying to find a job, and it's keeping me very busy studying for interviews....

[QIbHom]

Interesting. That would lead to very good linux compatability, but seems a bit more baroque than is necessary.

Find a good, new job. That is more important.

[Dyyryath]

Well, I've had some time to play with it:


Obligatory Screenshot (http://www.zerothelement.com/image.php?name=solaris&v=scaled)

I think it makes a pretty sweet server OS, but still leaves something to be desired as a desktop OS.

[QIbHom]

Like what, Dyyryath? Takes some tweaking to everything working, nearly impossible to get and install desktop stuff, or has too much stuff running by default?

[Dyyryath]

Some of it comes down to "it's still not quite finished" type of problems. For example, they changed from Xsun as the window server to Xorg. Now, that's a good thing. The problem is, it gets installed without a config file and the tool used to configure the windowing system (kdmconfig) doesn't explain why it's not having any affect whatsoever. By default, I had a 640x480 desktop that couldn't be changed without my (a) discovering the problem, and (b) creating a new xorg.conf file from scratch. That's a pretty glaring problem.

Other things that annoyed me are more 'lagging behind' style things. This probably wouldn't be so noticeable if I wasn't used to running Linux. The Java Desktop is based on an older version of Gnome than I'm used to using (I'm on 2.10) so I feel like I've stepped backward somewhat. It's funny how you find yourself missing the small changes that you didn't even notice when you upgraded from the old to the new.

On a purely aesthetic level, the 'look' (i.e. themes and such) really aren't very polished or professional and aren't what I'd expect from a company like Sun (though CDE has always been butt-ugly, too). I wouldn't go so far as to say they're bad, just not nearly as clean and professional as something like Red Hat's blue curve.

I'm surprised by several smaller (and not so important) details as well. Bash is installed, but not used as the default. I realize that not everyone thinks bash is the greatest thing out there, but sh? Since it's installed, why not use it as the default and gain the features? Two of the most important (and annoying when they aren't there) would be command history and command completion. This is obviously an easy fix (and kudos for having it pre-installed), but I just can't understand why they left sh as the default.

It may not be a fair comparison, but as a desktop OS (even for an admin type), it really falls short of Novell & Red Hat's offerings. The lack of graphical administrative tools is particularly obvious in such a comparison.

If I was using it purely as a server OS (where I almost never install X), none of these things would really matter to me. It would probably be fantastic in that regard (though, to be honest I haven't seen anything that would push it past Linux for *my* needs), but I wouldn't want it on my desktop at home or at work.

[QIbHom]

Definitely sounds like a version of Solaris. I go nuts at work, having to use sh because my boss thinks installing gnu tools would void the warrenty/make us get hacked more often than we already do because the admin refuses to load patches/cause global warming/break random things.

I'm a Debian variant user, so old doesn't bother me. Still, Solaris is willfully old school in all the worst ways. Maybe they'll get their act together.

[Bok]

I'm really not that surprised by the use of sh instead of bash though. I installed AIX 5.2 recently on an RS6 and that was still defaulted to sh, though in that particular environment, the auditors took a lot of persuading for me as a vendor to use bash as my default because it 'wasn't in their lists' ......

Bok