News - Category 'Unix'
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Brad R Monday 16 August 2010 - 12:15:56 0
Just last fall, at the Ontario Linux Fest, I picked up what looks like a very nice OpenSolaris distribution, which I've been meaning to try out on one of my refurb'd PCs. Well, I guess I don't need to bother with that now. According to EWeek Europe: Oracle has effectively shelved OpenSolaris, the five-year-old open source version of the Solaris Unix operating system, according to an internal email sent to Solaris engineers and published on the blog of an OpenSolaris developer.
In the email, published on Friday, Oracle said going forward it will distribute open source versions of Solaris only after the release of the full, finished operating system.
...Oracle said it will continue to use the open source CDDL licence statement in “nearly all” Solaris source code files. It sounds like Oracle recognizes that the code which as been released as open source can't be locked up again, but they're not going to let go of anything new they develop. So it's possible that someone could "fork" OpenSolaris, starting with the currently open code, and continue its development separately from Oracle/Sun: Open-source Solaris development isn't entirely over, however. One new project that some programmers hope will carry the OpenSolaris torch is Illumos, sponsored by a company called Nexenta that packages some OpenSolaris and Linux elements into a storage-specific software product. Illumos has drawn partnerships from a variety of OpenSolaris-related projects, including BeleniX and Schillix. But at this point I wouldn't count on it. If you need a Unix instead of Linux, I'd suggest you use one of the different versions of BSD Unix.
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Brad R Friday 02 April 2010 - 15:38:29 0
I've mentioned Solaris in the past, so this probably deserves comment: Solaris 10, the official stable version of Sun's UNIX operating system, is no longer available to users at no cost. Oracle has adjusted the terms of the license, which now requires users to purchase a service contract in order to use the software.
...It's important to understand that this change will not affect OpenSolaris, which is still freely available under the terms of Sun's open source Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL). Users who don't want to pay for service contracts will be able to use OpenSolaris instead. That might not be particularly comforting to some users, however, because there are is some uncertainty about the future of OpenSolaris.
Although Oracle has committed to continuing OpenSolaris development, the company says that OpenSolaris might not get all of the new features that are being developed for the Solaris platform. Oracle says that it is reevaluating some aspects of the development process and isn't entirely sure how it will proceed. Bottom line: this probably won't affect readers of Goodbye, Microsoft. Solaris isn't really a desktop system; its market is servers, and high-end servers at that. It's not clear if OpenSolaris will serve to attract customers that can be "upsold" to paid Solaris, or if it will be seen as taking customers away. If you are looking for a server operating system, you might now want to give more attention to BSD Unix, or even some Linux distributions. Or, as Ben Rockwood observed, "This might be a good time to catch up on non-Sun/Oracle distros such as Nexenta, Schillix, and Belenix." [hyperlinks added]
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Brad R Friday 05 March 2010 - 14:04:48 0
I am indebted to the Lightweight Linux blog for calling my attention to BSD Magazine, which "is now becoming a free monthly online publication." Actually, it looks like back issues have been free for a while. You can get BSD Magazine -- "for novice and advanced users" -- delivered by email, or you can download it from their web site. Note: it isn't obvious from the web site, but you have to register (it's free) before you can download issues. The latest (March 2010) issue looks particularly relevant for "Goodbye, Microsoft" readers; its theme is "BSD as a Desktop". Be warned, it's a 5 MB PDF file.
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Brad R Wednesday 03 February 2010 - 19:42:48 0
I wish I had more to post about the "other" alternative to Microsoft: FreeBSD Unix. Fortunately TechRepublic's Jack Wallen Vincent Danen has just written a "FreeBSD 8.0 installation walk-through" to guide you through installing the latest version. Unfortunately, FreeBSD is a great operating system with an unholy awful installer — compared to other operating system installers currently available. Some people are comfortable with text-mode installers, some aren’t. I guess I'm in the "comfortable" camp. Debian uses a text-mode installer, and I always use the text-mode installer when I'm putting Ubuntu on a computer. Really, text-mode installs are no different from graphical installs: the questions are the same, you just use the keyboard instead of a mouse to make your selections. Update: I misread the by-line on the Tech Republic piece. My apologies to Vincent Danen, the actual author.
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Brad R Friday 01 May 2009 - 13:39:10 0
The OpenBSD project has announced the release of version 4.5 of OpenBSD. The OpenBSD project produces a FREE, multi-platform 4.4BSD-based UNIX-like operating system. Our efforts emphasize portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography. OpenBSD supports binary emulation of most programs from SVR4 (Solaris), FreeBSD, Linux, BSD/OS, SunOS and HP-UX. I blush to admit that even though I purchased a copy of OpenBSD last fall, I still haven't tried it. Although originally offered as an extremely secure server operating system, many (including Steven Rosenburg, whose blog I enjoy) find that OpenBSD makes an excellent desktop system.
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Brad R Saturday 07 March 2009 - 07:16:02 0
My thanks to Brian for tipping me off to BSDAnywhere: BSDanywhere is a bootable Live-CD image based on OpenBSD. It consists of the entire OpenBSD base system (without compiler) plus graphical desktop, an unrepresentative collection of software, automatic hardware detection and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices as well as other peripherals. I'm going to download this. I keep meaning to install OpenBSD for a tryout -- and I keep procrastinating. This might be a quicker introduction. And it would be great to have as a diagnostic and rescue disk.
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Brad R Sunday 12 October 2008 - 09:12:48 0
Okay, I'm a few weeks late with this one. PC-BSD version 7, the "Fibonacci Edition," has been released. Here are two reviews: "Review: PC-BSD 7": If you're going to install PC-BSD as one OS in a multiboot system, pay particular attention to the warnings here about partitioning and the boot loader. (If PC-BSD is the only OS on the computer, no worries.) Other than that, a great desktop system. "PC-BSD 7 is a mixed bag": The applications are abundant, and it offers a user friendly desktop...but it doesn't play well with virtual machines, and locked up at least once. Good news is that, being KDE-based, many of the excellent "K" applications are supported (K3B, Kmail, etc.); and codecs are supplied for most multimedia formats. In case you're wondering, the leap in version numbers from 1.5 to 7.0 is because, starting in September, PC-BSD releases have been numbered to match the corresponding FreeBSD release. (PC-BSD is based on FreeBSD.) PC-BSD 7 minimum requirements are Pentium II or higher, 256MB RAM, 6GB HD, network card, and sound card; although Gary Sims reports being unable to install on this configuration. A Pentium 4, 512 MB RAM, and 12 GB HD is recommended, as well as a 3D accelerated video card (the latter, I imagine, because PC-BSD uses KDE 4). This puts PC-BSD right in the running with "major" Linux releases, and easily able to run on that recent PC hardware that won't handle Vista.
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Brad R Sunday 21 September 2008 - 11:22:49 0
It's been a while since I've posted anything about Unix, so I was happy to see Capn Kirby link to this review of OpenSolaris 2008.05. It sounds like the OpenSolaris team has made a lot of progress, with a live CD and an installation that's as easy as most Linux distros. Bottom line: As I was using OpenSolaris, I asked myself, why would I want to use this rather than Linux? On the desktop, I don't think their is much of a convincing answer. OpenSolaris uses GNOME, as does Linux (if you want it), so the user experience isn't going to be much different. The available applications are similar, with all the popular open source applications available on both. OpenSolaris does try to support a large range of hardware and includes support for Nvidia graphics cards. It also provides a Device Driver Utility to try resolve driver problems.
In the server space, the argument is slightly different because of ZFS and DTrace. Without them, the verdict would be similar to that of the desktop, since all the major network services are available on both Linux and OpenSolaris, including newer technologies such as iSCSI and Xen. But ZFS isn't really available for Linux (unless you want the FUSE implementation), and ZFS in other operating systems, such as FreeBSD, is still considered experimental. ZFS support makes OpenSolaris an interesting proposition.
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Brad R Wednesday 02 July 2008 - 03:32:25 0
A slap of the forehead and a loud "duh"! When I was thinking of software for old '286 and '386 computers, I forgot about MINIX. MINIX 1 was a Unix-like operating system written by Andrew Tanenbaum for educational purposes. It ran on old PCs (including '286) and other computers (I had a copy for my Atari ST). As an educational system, the source code was published (though not free), and there was no particular attempt to make it usable as a desktop or server environment. Times change, and MINIX has now evolved into MINIX 3, which is designed for "real-world" use. It's a long way from the level of support you'd find with Linux or BSD Unix, but it will run on a '386 with 16 MB of RAM. (There's even an 8 MB version available.) This includes networking, full development tools (compilers and such), and the X window system. It's designed to be small...and I must say the "microkernel" approach appeals to me. It's worth considering if you have an ancient PC needing software...and you are willing to learn command-line Unix.
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Brad R Saturday 10 May 2008 - 06:56:20 0
The latest "open" version of Solaris (a Unix derivative) has been released: OpenSolaris 2008.05 is a Live CD, allowing users to experience OpenSolaris immediately, without the need to install it to their systems. When ready, installation is a single click away with a new improved easy-to-use installer. This release also introduces IPS, a new network based package management system, allowing users to install additional software from the network. ZFS is also the default root file-system, allowing unique snapshot and rollback features, especially useful during system upgrade. OpenSolaris 2008.05 has a significantly improved user environment, in particular for those familiar with other Linux distributions. There's also a new web site, opensolaris.com. And you might find this review at ZDNet interesting. It sounds like OpenSolaris is not yet ready for a first-time user, but a moderately-experienced Unix or Linux user should be able to get this going.
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