# Open Solaris thread:-



## praka123 (May 21, 2008)

Any One tried OpenSolaris CD? I am thinking of installing it on hdd.livecd takes ages to complete Gnome  .I heard it is supposedly going to be userfriendly and got Debian's apt ported for software management (project Indiana?) 




> *What is OpenSolaris?
> **OpenSolaris is an operating system (OS), a source base, and a community. The project's goals are innovation, collaboration, and the extension of OpenSolaris technology. Below are key OpenSolaris-related technologies:*
> *OpenSolaris Source Code: This is the source base for open development. It consists of several components called consolidations. See the downloads page for the technologies released and the roadmap for future releases. At present, the OpenSolaris source base is not enough to bootstrap an entire system, so developers start by downloading an OpenSolaris distribution and installing the OpenSolaris bits on top.*​ *Solaris Express Community Edition: This is Sun's unsupported binary release of OpenSolaris plus additional technology not released as source. Developers can build the OpenSolaris source by using this release as the base system. The release is also known as Nevada, it's, updated every two weeks, and it's available as a free download.*​ *Solaris Express Developer Edition: This is Sun's official binary release of OpenSolaris plus additional technology not released as source. Sun offers limited support for this release, and it's intended for developers and customers to try the latest technology that will eventually be productized by Sun. Developer Edition is updated on an approximate quarterly basis, it undergoes more testing than Community Edition, and it's available as a free download.*​ *OpenSolaris Developer Preview: This is a community-developed binary distribution of an operating system based on the OpenSolaris source code, and it's the first milestone from Project Indiana. It runs on Intel and AMD processors on the server and desktop. It is free to use, modify, and redistribute. See Project Indiana*​ *Solaris OS: This is Sun's fully supported and tested enterprise operating system, and future versions of Solaris will be based on technology from the OpenSolaris project. Solaris is available as a free binary download, and Sun offers service packages and regular updates.*​


*opensolaris.org/os/about/faq/general_faq
Here is the link to download:
*dlc.sun.com/osol/opensolaris/2008/05/os200805.iso

see this page for OpenSolaris based distros 
*opensolaris.org/os/downloads/

Do share your experience


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## aditya.shevade (May 21, 2008)

My friend uses Belenix. He says it is good off his USB drive.


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## praka123 (May 21, 2008)

well,opensolaris resource thing which is scary to me!I got only 384MB ram and a 256MB GFX card  one good thing is,this distro carried nvidia/ati drivers unlike Linux distros like Ubuntu.


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## FilledVoid (May 21, 2008)

> My friend uses Belenix. He says it is good off his USB drive.



Wouldnt get installed on my system.


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## praka123 (May 21, 2008)

^do u want opensolaris CD?just PM me


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## NucleusKore (May 21, 2008)

Yes, I tried BeleniX too, nothing remarkable I found in it for my use. I read that Solaris is good for soft raid?


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## praka123 (May 21, 2008)

well,belenix ,I had tried latest version sometimes back,it worked fine(but kde :eeks: )

I find opensolaris livecd much better and stylish,you can install kde too  
one nagging thing these BSD and derivatives is that they dont get installed in logical partitions  !I know Solaris ppl are working on it.still...it is hard for me,I have to use gparted to limit extended partition to get some free space to make another primary partition(total 5 as u know).


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## Pathik (May 21, 2008)

Yamaraj uses OpenSolaris I think.


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## praka123 (May 21, 2008)

^yeah.but he is not online for months


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## FilledVoid (May 21, 2008)

> ^do u want opensolaris CD?just PM me



Heh Well I think OpenSolaris might be way complicated for me  . But I will let you know if I need .


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## infra_red_dude (May 21, 2008)

I've played with OpenSolaris for a while now. But it just isn't ready for Desktop use. Hardware drivers are a major issue! Linux based OS are much better in this dept. Overall if your hardware is supported and if you know a bit of Linux you can easily get started in opensolaris. IMHO it has got great potential but lacks the initial kickstart.


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## shady_inc (May 21, 2008)

I had ordered an opensolaris CD from get.opensolaris.org, but the godforsaken thing never reached me...


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## subratabera (May 21, 2008)

I am trying it out. I am a great fan of Solaris. One of my friend is working as Solaris admin and we often meet to discuss various details on Solaris. Solaris is way too complicated for general user (as per my view) and OpenSolaris is making it easy to try this wonderful OS. Looking forward to this thread.


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## blueshift (May 21, 2008)

^ I ordered too. It will take atleast 3-4 weeks. Have patience.


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## praka123 (May 22, 2008)

384MB RAM is the problem...  but I like opensolaris.esp after reading about solaris not EXACTLY BSD,but again forked away loong back from BSD. got ZFS fs,got apt like implementation...


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## mehulved (May 22, 2008)

Resizing my partition to install opensolaris. Only problem right now is that 3 drivers are missing, of that 2 are for my network cards and 1 for my winmodem  that's a bit of problem, but I have found drivers for one of my network card, the one connected to the net so that's good enough.


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## SunnyChahal (May 22, 2008)

Any chance of this 'wonderful' OS working with my 8800 GTS 512 SLI setup?
I heard that it has good hardware support


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## Yamaraj (May 22, 2008)

Pathik said:


> Yamaraj uses OpenSolaris I think.


No! I use Solaris Express, which is the 'real' Solaris out there (beta of Solaris 11). OpenSolaris is an attempt to provide a GNU userland with a working Solaris kernel, along with the fancy stuff like DTrace, ZFS and IPS.



praka123 said:


> ^yeah.but he is not online for months


I am usually online only to read posts. If I haven't posted anything in a long time, it's only because of the lack of interesting threads ...and not my absence.


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## praka123 (May 22, 2008)

^Do you think with 384MB of RAM,opensolaris will work on my system(hdd install)?ofcourse,I got a 256MB 7300GT


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## Yamaraj (May 22, 2008)

> OpenSolaris 2008.05 requires 10 GB minimum disk space. It is known to work with a minimum memory requirement of 512 MB, though this may vary on some machines.


 - from OpenSolaris FAQ

It'll probably not even install if your system doesn't meet the minimum hardware requirements. It's better if you upgrade your system memory to 1GB, for even Solaris Express DE requires 768MB for installation.

nVIDIA cards are supported, of course!


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## aditya.shevade (May 22, 2008)

FilledVoid said:


> Wouldnt get installed on my system.



Yeah.. Belenix has a problem with HDD installation. That is why I wrote that he says it is blazing on his USB. It is a HDD or Pendrive, I don't know cause he has both.

And I think he likes it cause he is in that training program for SUN solaris in his college and I think it was compulsion rather than interest that made him use solaris.


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## mehulved (May 23, 2008)

Didn't have a good time so far. Opensolaris complains of not enough space though I am allocating 20GB to it, whereas the minimum required is 10GB. Solaris express tries to take over full hard disk. Maybe someone can help in the latter part then I could go ahead.
And also, how to mount linux partition on solaris, that would be needed to install my network drivers.


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## subratabera (May 23, 2008)

praka123 said:


> ^Do you think with 384MB of RAM,opensolaris will work on my system(hdd install)?ofcourse,I got a 256MB 7300GT



Actually I've installed Solaris 10 in vmware with only 384 MB RAM and it worked flawlessly. I am still running it inside vmware. Here is a screenshot...

*img525.imageshack.us/img525/8489/solaris1re9.th.png



			
				mehulved said:
			
		

> And also, how to mount linux partition on solaris, that would be needed to install my network drivers.



You can use NFS or try this link.


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## praka123 (May 23, 2008)

hey thanks!subrata!I am gonna try soon!(now trying fc9 livecd  )

hey!  But I intend to run on Gnome session on Solaris


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## subratabera (May 23, 2008)

AFAIK CDE is preferred over Gnome on almost all Solaris enterprise level servers. Try to use CDE and you will get used to it very soon. And its very light too.


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## mehulved (May 24, 2008)

subratabera said:


> You can use NFS or try this link.



I know about NFS, I have run it at FOSS Lab. But, my problem is that both are on the same machine. 
Downloading extra packages is out of question cos drivers for both my ethernet card aren't found in solaris and for this precise reason I need to access my linux partition. I have downloaded drivers for my via rhine card and need to access them.
So, it seems both are out of question. Even UFS is read-only on linux so can't transfer contents to my FreeBSD partition and try. It's like a total deadlock situation.
Only thing that seems possible now is, to burn the drivers on a CD.
But, anyways need to be able to install solaris first.


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## Yamaraj (May 24, 2008)

subratabera said:


> Actually I've installed Solaris 10 in vmware with only 384 MB RAM and it worked flawlessly. I am still running it inside vmware. Here is a screenshot...


You know that Solaris 10 is NOT OpenSolaris, don't you?


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## subratabera (May 24, 2008)

Yamaraj said:


> You know that Solaris 10 is NOT OpenSolaris, don't you?



Ya, I just want to tell him that he can try Solaris 10 with only 384 MB of RAM. I think OpenSolaris needs more RAM due to Gnome DE and tonnes of running services.



mehulved said:


> Even UFS is read-only on linux so can't transfer contents to my FreeBSD partition and try.


This might work.


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## shady_inc (May 24, 2008)

blueshift said:


> ^ I ordered too. It will take atleast 3-4 weeks. Have patience.


Guess what.? Recieved my starter kit today.!  Now time to check out Opensolaris.!!


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## mehulved (May 24, 2008)

subratabera said:


> This might work.


I am quite aware of that but am afraid of data integrity cos write support to ufs isn't fully stable and generally not recommended on linux. It feels so frustrating that proprietory FS's like NTFS have read write support but support for UFS and ZFS are so far behind. One of the reasons I like FreeBSD more.


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## rohandhruva (May 25, 2008)

I have written a review of OpenSolaris 2008.05, with some tips and tricks.
Here it is - *rohandhruva.blogspot.com/2008/05/opensolaris-200805-review.html

Please comment on how you people find it


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## praka123 (May 25, 2008)

thats so good rohan!
but how much memory do your system got? 
I am waiting to try the damn thing on my 384MB system


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## praka123 (May 27, 2008)

Hey guys,
read this review:
*OpenSolaris: nice try, pity about the licence *
*www.itwire.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18441&Itemid=1154


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## subratabera (May 28, 2008)

rohandhruva said:


> I have written a review of OpenSolaris 2008.05, with some tips and tricks.
> Here it is - *rohandhruva.blogspot.com/2008/05/opensolaris-200805-review.html
> 
> Please comment on how you people find it


Nice review and useful too.


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## phreak0ut (May 28, 2008)

OpenSolaris REFUSES to boot on my system. Direct boot from the DVD or on VMWare. My hardware refuses to see the DVD :s The hardware compatibility check tool surprisingly passes my system configuration!!


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## sganesh (May 29, 2008)

Great Open solaris,i ve tried ,But Compiz doesnt work,!!!same case with all other linux distributions,Bcz i am using Asus motherboard with VIA display,


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## blueshift (May 29, 2008)

shady_inc said:


> I had ordered an opensolaris CD from get.opensolaris.org, but the godforsaken thing never reached me...


I received my CD today.


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## SunnyChahal (May 29, 2008)

^^
Do write a review


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## infra_red_dude (May 29, 2008)

sganesh said:


> Great Open solaris,i ve tried ,But Compiz doesnt work,!!!same case with all other linux distributions,Bcz i am using Asus motherboard with VIA display,


Prolly never will. VIA has been sluggish with driver releases.



Sunny1211993 said:


> ^^
> Do write a review


Nothing great about it from a desktop/casual user's PoV. As of now for an average joe opensolaris doesn't offer anything "extra" over a Linux Distro.


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## adi007 (May 29, 2008)

I have tried both solaris and open solaris but i am not impressed..
Everything is nearly same as linux(i am not an expert) ..
What's so special in it for home users...?
and yes both require 512+ MB RAM

Currently using Ubuntu Ultimate edition,Knoppix 5.3,Slackware..


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## praka123 (May 29, 2008)

@adi:are you sure it will run smooth on 512MB RAM?


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## infra_red_dude (May 29, 2008)

^^^ It should run fine.

For a home user ZFS etc. aren't of much use.


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## Faun (May 29, 2008)

solyaris 
Though not much cookies for me


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## adi007 (May 29, 2008)

praka123 said:


> @adi:are you sure it will run smooth on 512MB RAM?


Yup..
I have 256+512 MB RAM
Earlier i had just 256 MB and i failed to get both of them work...but recently i upgraded 
Installation took a hell lot of time 
I hate these kind of Live CD/DVD + install Distro's
they should have one feature...Ubuntu is too not an exception


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## mehulved (May 29, 2008)

adi007 said:


> I have tried both solaris and open solaris but i am not impressed..
> Everything is nearly same as linux(i am not an expert) ..
> What's so special in it for home users...?


Nothing if you don't want to peek under the hood. Solaris has been a server OS, though Sun is trying to change that but it still hasn't been able to gather enough momentum to do so successfully.


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## Smoke (May 30, 2008)

ne1 can highlite the identities and differences btw sun solaris & open solaris?


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