Thanks for the reply. Don't worry about the verbosity. Appreciate the inputs. (And I'm sure there are some Sun engineers who appreciate your compliment.)
Sounds like you wear several hats, as I suspect is true of most OpenSolaris users. To fill out my audience profile, maybe I should add "application porter," which I think is a key sub-group of "application developer" as outlined below. BTW: Have been discussing doc support for migrating/porting apps. When you say "Linux Migration Guide," sounds like you're really interested in diffs in the environment, right? -alan -- Alan McClellan OpenSolaris Documentation Community Manager #32171 +1 719-352-0993 http://blogs.sun.com/docexchange/ C. Bergstr?m wrote: > alan mcclellan wrote: > >> One of the things I've been thinking about since I came on board is >> exactly how to partition the OpenSolaris user base. This is important to >> documentation as it helps us segregate info by user type and [hopefully] >> make things like site navigation straightforward and understandable. To >> that end, I've come up with the following list. I'd appreciate any >> comments, clarifications, additions to this list. (Note that I realize >> one person may serve more than one of these roles. For example, an >> application developer by day may be an OSOL package developer by night.) >> Anyway, here's a cut at roles of an OpenSolaris user: >> >> * Laptop administrator (single-system administrator) >> Responsible for basic setup of operating environment, including things >> like connecting to the network (LAN or wifi), connecting to printer(s), >> configuring mail, configuring music/media players, etc. In reality, this >> person may not think of herself/himself as an administrator at all, but >> will do these tasks to get the system configured to their liking. >> >> * Network administrator >> Responsible for maintaining multiple OpenSolaris servers used by >> multiple people. Responsibilities are more "enterprise" like, including >> auto-installations and updates, user management, security, storage, >> network communication, etc. >> >> * OpenSolaris package developer >> Responsible for working with the OSOL package repository and >> contributing code to various consolidations that are integrated into >> OpenSolaris. Areas of special interest include building packages, using >> package manager (GUI and command line) to keep system up-to-date, >> accessing repositories. >> >> * Systems programmer >> Responsible for interactions between the operating system software and >> underlying hardware. >> >> * OpenSolaris redistributor >> Responsible for building OpenSolaris with local customizations for the >> purpose of redistributing. >> >> * Application developer >> Responsible for using OpenSolaris and related dev tools to build >> applications that run in Solaris environment. Uses OpenSolaris as a >> development platform, but does not participate in the OpenSolaris >> community or contribute to the OpenSolaris code base (at least while >> wearing his/her application developer hat). >> >> > I'm not sure where I fall in all this, but I can say that I've with > relatively little pain switched from a developer centric linux > distribution to OpenSolaris on the desktop. Over the next week I'll be > porting one our customers stack, which is a mix of C, python and java, > to build/run on OpenSolaris. > > I apologize for the verbosity of this email, but I think it also helps > answer the question of who the OpenSoloris user is and gives feedback on > how things have been during the first month. > > Today, I finally formatted my external hfsplus partitioned hd and put > zfs on there.. the 2nd laptop as I write this is getting OpenSolaris > installed.. Which I must say this install process for a first time user > is exactly as it should be. (dead simple) Livecd based + click install > sitting on the desktop. While being able to choose which software is > installed from the start or having a ncurses based installer.. I think > for a desktop the current default choice is pretty sane. With that.. > possibly complicating it slightly by adding a radio choice of desktop > users, developer and server would be nice. > > From casual observation in interacting with various people who have > helped me along the way.. I'd say there's primarily two larger groups > which people are falling into > > 1) Existing Solaris admins/developers > 2) Linux users/admins > > A small example of how I looked at things originally and have now > changed my mind somewhat.. GNU userland tools.. df and other things are > broken. With this as the case I think it's sane to either a) not > include it in the path *before* the Sun tools or to remove the tools > which are not up to QA/totally broken. It may be obvious to others, but > coming from Linux I wouldn't have assumed that OpenSolaris would have > some duplicate tools installed by default. Then also comes the question > of should OpenSolaris stay SUS/Unix compliant... While Linux has been > the fast growing choice and GNU hasn't always followed standards.. In > many cases it does make some things easier, but for the things which it > doesn't.. a simple alias or script usually suffices. > > Making a Linux migration guide could go a long way.. > For the average full time desktop user making a getting started with > OpenSolaris as your media center guide.. (I don't see this in the too > near future simply because of licensing/patent issues revolving around > things like dvd/mp3 support being included out of box) > > Another difference between group 1 and group 2 is that it's been > affectionately pointed out that many Linux users are license snobs.. > Solaris users/admins have more or less happily accepted whatever > license, but linux admins will possibly take it into account when > choosing software. Some Linux distributions really make this a core > point. Personally, I think it goes hand in hand with having a > sustainable open source distribution. While exception is sometimes the > rule (Nvidia/Flash/mp3/dvd.. etc..) focusing in the areas which could > bring gain to the community is important. For example.. what if someone > started to port the nouveau code over to Solaris... > > On the surface many people ogle over zfs, dtrace..etc.. these are just > the things which get most attention.. I must really say Sun has done a > *damn* fine job of engineering in a lot of areas. > > Profound gratitude, > > Christopher Bergstr?m > > NetSyncro.com Inc. > _______________________________________________ > indiana-discuss mailing list > indiana-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/indiana-discuss >
