On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, Kaiwai Gardiner wrote: >> 1) The new-boot architecture brought us into the modern age of booting. > > Which was great - but need I be negative, but what took so long? it took > *that* long for Sun to realise their x86 booting royally sucked?
This was one of the quicker project in Sun, I think it only was in development for about 6 months. It's not that it took them that long to realize the boot on x86 sucked, but it's been the first chance that it could be changed, given the state of some of the other Solaris integration. I tip my hat to the new boot team, this REALLY makes a difference on modern hardware. >> 2) Xorg replaced Xsun as the X server, and we have more support for video >> than we ever had. > > But the hickory Xsun still remains - pkgconfig not located in once place > which causes all manner of problems when compiling applications which > use pkgconfig for dependency checking. It needs to be moved completely > to Xorg and the SPARC driver writers to be given a shock with a cattle > prod. I can't speak for the sparc driver theropy you mention, but it sounds like a decent plan.;-) I'm not gonna comment on some of your stuff like RealPlayer, because complaining our player is not the same as windows is irrealevant, IMO, at least we have a player...for a long time we had to use a glue wrapper and run the SCO binary on Solaris. >> 5) NWAM - this will change the way folks use their laptops, the way they >> connect, and will elliminate much of the confusion in system configuration >> that prevents new folks from being able to use their systems more easily. > > There is nwam but doesn't even have the ability to come back and request > the user when the password is wrong; in my case I changed my password on > my router and ended up screwed because there was no way to flush the > existing setting from nwam to force redetection and requesting for the > password again. Again, first version, it's under development. The project was a fairly short one also, so the first cut is what it is. Give the developers some consideration, it's a tough problem to solve for the masses and keep all happy. > I like JDS, but the bugs *need* to be fixed; take 2.18.x, it was shipped > knowing full well the albumart plugin for rhythmbox crashed the > application - for instance. No argument. > One asks, if there is a relationship with Intel, why isn't there a 4965 > driver yet for Solaris I'm not familiar with the 4965, but the 3945 wifi is under development with specs provided as is some of the Intel video (945/955/965). Intel is being a genuine partner, AFAIK, I see no reason to wonder about that relationship, they have already come through and have provided specs. > which is no better than the 'screw you' relationship that AMD has with > Sun and their refusal to play ball when it comes to working on ATI > drivers. I don't have enough info to comment on that, but suffice to say that Sun is working to get the ATI specs for the video cards, and I believe they might have received some of the specs to date, but not certain. > The executives can speak - but I want them to go out, purchase a laptop, > without any help, and install Solaris without an assistance. Thats the > benchmark that needs to be used. People can talk - heck, i can get up in > front of customers and lie through my teeth, its not difficult. This has happened in Solaris engineering for a while, and it forced some of them to not just understand, but seek out help to get it installed and/or configured. I think they understand what needs to be done, and know the state things are in, but Rome wasn't built in a day. To that point, I do believe this things listed over the past couple years are significant improvements. > The question is, do management *really* know how much resources *need* > to be invested in Solaris - besides what the bean counters and a few x86 > hating bigots scream from the cheap seats? I think they know better than someone like you does. They have been managing and running the Solaris development for quite some time, and while every Tom, Dick, and Harry always feels they can run Sun better than Sun, managing a company of 35,000 employees is not that easy. > OpenSound for example - when is it being merged? Being worked as we type...Management has put resources into getting it putback. It will take more than a couple days to get it in though, and I think that's a good thing. We don't want to make it too easy for folks to put something back, otherwise we'll have every little un-needed piece of open source available. -- Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
