OpenSolaris LiveCDs

[bryansmith]

Hey all

Has anyone tried any of the various OpenSolaris based LiveCDs? What do you guys and gals think? I have tried Nexenta (didn't work), SchilliX and am in the process of slowwwwly downloading BeleniX.

They aren't Linux but they are *nix and open source so I figured it would be good to give them a try.

Bryan

[oz]

Yeah, I tried Belenix a few weeks back and found myself totally unimpressed. It took ages to fully boot it, and otherwise was uninspiring.

Hope that helps...

[techieMoe]

They aren't Linux but they are *nix and open source so I figured it would be good to give them a try.

Bryan

[rant]
Well... technically they're "open-source", but they're not open-source enough for me. The CDDL license under which Solaris is released keeps it from benefiting from already-existing OSS projects under the GPL, and vice versa, so I see this as akin to Microsoft's "shared source" initiative. Basically it's "you can see the source, but it doesn't play well with others."
[/rant]

Back to your original question, no, I haven't tried the LiveCDs. The last version of Solaris I installed (Express 16) wasn't very impressive to me.

[bigtomrodney]

I ran Schillix but found it very lacking, but then again it is fledgling. It was v0.1 or something. I downloaded Solaris a while back but I didn't install it on anything. I tried to get it going on a Latitude D510 but it continuously crapped out. I would expect a little more from such a big OS on such standard hardware, regardless of the Sparc/x86 history with it.

I look forward to trying more, it's nice to see other Unix systems. I wonder though, because something is based on Unix code, surely that doesn't make it Unix? I mean we all know the drill with getting it recognised by the OpenGroup etc etc. Think it costs a few hundred thousand for that bit too.

[bryansmith]

I just downloaded the recently released alpha of Nexenta. Looks promising (GNOME 2.12 and apt). Hopefully this will be better than the last version I tried.

Bryan

[techieMoe]

I just downloaded the recently released alpha of Nexenta. Looks promising (GNOME 2.12 and apt). Hopefully this will be better than the last version I tried.

Bryan

The immediate problem with Nexenta is that it's illegal. The CDDL License (under which the Solaris kernel was released) is completely incompatible with the GPL (under which the GNU tools are released). I don't see this project going anywhere.

[bigtomrodney]

But Gnu tools are available under windows too - Surely it would only be illegal if licensed to users under a term which contradicted terms of the other license?

Isn't it the distribution that is limited, not the usage? Solaris already has Gnome packages - and JDS is a repackaged Gnome anyway.

[techieMoe]

But Gnu tools are available under windows too - Surely it would only be illegal if licensed to users under a term which contradicted terms of the other license?

However the GNU tools compiled for MS Windows are not distributed along with MS Windows. They're simply offered by themselves for folks to download at their own accord. The problem is that Nexenta is trying to distribute the Solaris CDDL kernel with GNU GPL software, which is strictly prohibited in both the CDDL and the GPL.

In short, this was a bad idea to begin with, but it does at least illustrate the half-measures Sun took to "open-source" their flagship OS by attempting to profit from OSS developers while keeping all the code to themselves.

http://lwn.net/Articles/159248/

[Vergil83]

In short, this was a bad idea to begin with, but it does at least illustrate the half-measures Sun took to "open-source" their flagship OS by attempting to profit from OSS developers while keeping all the code to themselves.

That is everything I wanted to say, put much more eloquently than I woud have.

[bryansmith]

I just downloaded the recently released alpha of Nexenta. Looks promising (GNOME 2.12 and apt). Hopefully this will be better than the last version I tried.

Bryan

The immediate problem with Nexenta is that it's illegal. The CDDL License (under which the Solaris kernel was released) is completely incompatible with the GPL (under which the GNU tools are released). I don't see this project going anywhere.

I remember hearing that somewhere (I have given up on OpenSolaris LiveCDs btw because they are crap). My question is why would a group of developers blatently violate license agreements and continue to do so? Well, it seems to be more complicated than we think. With that said, should they be doing something wrong, they need to take appropriate steps to clean up what is wrong.

I wish for the best possible outcome and welcome the attempt by a group of people to try and make Solaris available for the average person (as long as it is done properly ).

Bryan