TechieMoe.com

Introduction:

I first dipped my toes into the Sun Solaris waters back when I had a spare Xeon server to play with and Sun offered me a free "developer's license" for their X86 port.

It was an old version (8 or 9 if I remember correctly) and needless to say I was not impressed. Recently while playing with someone else's very fast internet connection I heard that the OpenSolaris community had opened up and that Sun had a new X86 release of its flagship operating system up for grabs. Being that I'm a bit of a "let's try a new OS this week" nerd, I decided to give it a shot.

Install:

At first boot you're greeted with a GRUB boot prompt which brings you to a very minimal X Windows enviroment (think TWM) that takes you through the install dialogs for the base system.

Since I have several dozen Linux installs under my belt, I didn't find the install process terribly difficult, but I seriously doubt the average user could decipher it on their own.

I don't think Sun's target audience with this OS is anyone other than developers, however, so this is mostly a moot point. 

After the base system install you're forced to reboot (I really don't see the need for this) and then you spend the bulk of your time.

Depending on what all software you chose to install on your previous boot, you'll be asked to insert the corresponding discs, which will then result in about 5 minutes of nothing happening at all, with no indication that the installer is reading the disc or that your system hasn't completely frozen.

Once your system does finally recognize the discs you can expect about 20 minutes of install time per disc for a full install (roughly 3GB all together). You're not given any chance to add users during the install so on first boot you're greeted with an X Login screen to which you must login as root.

On top of that, my usual commands to create users didn't allow me to create a /home/ directory either, even as root, so I was forced to run everything as root.

The 32-bit and 64-bit installs are apparently both included on the same set of 4 discs, since upon reboot I was greeted with "SunOS 5.11 64-bit".  I didn't have a 32-bit system upon which to test this theory though.

Package Selection:

Anyone familiar to Linux software selections will already know what comes with the GNOME desktop suite, so there's nothing notable there.  Some things that are notable however is that Sun has branded the GNOME desktop with a special theme and taskbar (more like KDE) and decided to call it the Sun Java Desktop System.

Don't be fooled by the name; it's plain vanilla GNOME with a sprinkling of Sun logos and has very little to do with Java.  Also included is StarOffice 7, which works reasonably well but isn't as pretty as OpenOffice in its current state.

Everything else included with this OS is pretty standard GNU fare.  Noticeably absent (unless I missed it in the menus entirely) is the Sun Netbeans Java IDE, which is Sun's answer to the open-source Eclipse IDE from IBM. I would think for an OS specifically targetted at early adopters and developers, this would be standard.

Most Annoying Feature:

Solaris in the past has been given many unflattering nicknames (for instance "Slowlaris") and been called boring by UNIX and Linux enthusiasts.

This version does nothing to help those stereotypes.  The Java Desktop System is sluggish an unresponsive on an AMD64 3200+ with 1GB of RAM running in native 64-bit mode.

The OS itself doesn't boot very speedy either.  Aside from all that, you really do just get a sense of "yeah...umm.. so now what?" from the operating system. 

Despite the hype Sun threw out about how wonderful their Solaris OS was supposed to be, it really ends up just being another proprietary UNIX that's just not any fun at all.  Think of those assemblies you had in primary school where the school principal tried to make jokes.  It's just not right.

Who's it best for?

Once again I must revert to my usual addage: this one's good for no one.  There's no compelling reason for any UNIX/Linux/BSD enthusiast to consider Solaris 11 over the many completely free (non-proprietary AND no cost) operating systems that operate just as well, run faster, and are just much more exciting to use.

Not to mention the swamp of licenses you have to agree to just to get a download of this OS make it sound too much like a "free" trial by Microsoft than a genuine attempt to open-source the operating system.  My final word: don't bother.