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 Bergström
NetSyncro.com Inc.
_______________________________________________
indiana-discuss mailing list
[email protected]
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/indiana-discuss
