Open Solaris any users/geeks there

[praka123]

after using GNU/Linux for years(7 yrs) i want to try Open Solaris x86 in my 915GV PC.any body downloaded solaris express or Nexenta and used it?please post your reviews and advice here.@Yamaraj i know that YOu are using Solaris

[Yamaraj]

I use Solaris Express on my desktop. SX is released once every month, since it's a preview (beta) release of Solaris 11, which will come out next year. These builds have better driver support and new versions of software compared to Solaris 10. And SX is rock solid, not like Windows/Linux beta releases.

A few things to remember: since Solaris is primarily a server OS, don't expect the same features, driver support, software or repositories as any Linux distribution or Windows. There are two software repositories for Solaris x86 - Blastwave and Sunfreeware. Solaris Express has GNOME 2.14 (JDS) and traditional CDE as desktop environments, and Xorg 6.9. Work on GNOME 2.16 and Xorg 7.x is in progress. WiFi and bluetooth are not supported yet, though a few WiFi drivers (like Intel 2200BG) are available for download separately. DRI has been merged in snv_52, but it's still not available for download. OpenGL is only supported in case of nVIDIA cards, for which the gfx company provides the drivers itself.

In all, Solaris is great for servers and/or learning UNIX. It's the only fully POSIX and SUSv3 compliant system - the real UNIX. I think, IBM's AIX also has the same certification though. Solaris has excellent backwards compatibility - you can still run binaries from early 90s. It has an excellend driver model, and the code quality is vastly suprerior to any other open UNIX(-like) system. Should you ever need a C/C++/Fortran95 compiler, Sun Studio has been made available free for all purposes - including commercial. Solaris also has extensive Java support.

Feel free to ask questions.

[praka123]

Thanks for info.But is there any scope in running forked distros for x86 like Belenix,Nexenta etc to get a feel//

Originally Posted by yamraj

In all, Solaris is great for servers and/or learning UNIX. It's the only fully POSIX and SUSv3 compliant system - the real UNIX.

BTW "UNIX like" experiance is already available with all *BSD's and Linux

[Yamaraj]

1. Belenix is primarily a LiveCD distribution of OpenSolaris. Nexenta is better as it is based on Debian userland + OpenSolaris kernel. I personally prefer Solaris Express of all.

2. Agreed! But BSD, Linux and Solaris kernels and userland are all different from each other.

[partha06]

Yes, Solaris EXpress or any other Open Distro is good. I used all. But GNU Solaris is almost Ubuntu Linux.. & Solaris Express is almost like Solaris 10. Infor general exp..its very good..

Thanks

[azaad_shri75]

@yamraj, are you same yamraj of pcq forums

las year when solaris 10 released and made open for all, i downloaded the four images and burned them to cd and installed, after installation when it starts , some synchronous error, if I am remmebering exactly on the monitor and nothing happens ahead, I tried both on 810 and 915 boards, I was not successful, offcourse I have no idea of solaris, so I wanted to try out,

now I was thinking of purchasing the media kit of solaris 10 which compises 9 dvds set boxed and priced at 30$ release 6/06, is it worth purchasing or would be just wastage of money

as including shipping it is 65$ and was thinking to ask some friend in US to purchase and post it to me.
whats your idea.