> The unthinkable has happened: SunOS backwards compatibility has been broken.
First of all, you're talking about a prototype and nothing more. Such
an artifact is similar to the BFU archives available from many projects
on opensolaris.org and the ISO represents the (initial) output of a
project. It can and undoubtedly will change before if and when it
integrates into OpenSolaris.
Second - backwards compatibility is something we take seriously but it
isn't an absolute. Not even in the Solaris world.
> Broken:
>
> `uname -a` returns some funky "opensolaris bla bla bla" string instead of the
> standard
> SunOS hostname 5.11 snv_## i86pc i386 i86pc.
That's really strange because on my laptop which is running the Indiana
prototype released on October 31st, I see exactly
SunOS myhostname 5.11 snv_75a i86pc i386 i86pc
We didn't change any of these fields for the prototype although one
could argue we should have changed the build number (aka "uname -v")
since the resulting distribution isn't a pure Nevada one.
> Broken:
> root's home directory is in /root; this is a SEVERE ERROR. We're not on
> Linux, and this isn't Linux land!
We're not in Linux land but we're also not in Kansas or Murray Hill
either. This particular change was actually PSARC approved back in
2003 as
PSARC 2003/039 Alternate home directory for root user
Unfortunately that case has been opened but I'll put in a request for
that to be done. The case documents a number of reasons for making
this change but I would argue that being consistent with the larger
number of other systems including Linux and the various BSD
distributions makes a great deal of sense.
> Broken:
> all my System V compliant packages are no longer installable, instead
> `pkgadd` exits with exit code 1 (fatal error), because
> /var/sadm/install/contents is empty.
As Shawn mentioned, this was unfortunately true with the prototype as
released by it is easily solved by upgrading the packages in question:
# pkg install SUNWipkg
# pkg install SUNWpkgcmdsr SUNWpkgcmdsu
> Broken:
> after the installation, the system was rendered unbootable. I had to go into
> the BIOS and play Russian roulette (I have four identical drives) to find the
> drive "Indiana" was on, and edit GRUB lines with the correct "root (hd3,0,a)"
> to be able to boot. No trace of detecting Windows XP professional on my first
> drive (this is a documented issue though, but the first one isn't).
Yes, the Windows issue is already filed under
http://defect.opensolaris.org/bz/show_bug.cgi?id=40
but it would be appreciate if you could file a separate bug for the
case of dealing with multiple drives.
> Broken:
> even after editing /boot/grub/menu.lst, GRUB still "wouldn't take"; changes
> weren't visible in the GRUB boot menu.
We should release note this - the file you need to edit is actually
/zpl_slim/boot/grub/menu.lst as that's the version of the file at the
top of the root pool. This issue is filed under
http://defect.opensolaris.org/bz/show_bug.cgi?id=71
> Broken:
> default shell given to root and to myself is /bin/bash; this is a SEVERE
> ERROR (the worst of all). Not only do I not want to have to go and modify the
> system to remove that bash GARBAGE of a shell, it's unacceptable to have to
> do that for every engineering cycle of a new build.
I believe /etc/passwd is set up in the new package system as a
preserved file so upgrades to new builds should not result in the entry
for "root" being changed back.
> As an added "bonus", we'll have BASH garbage scripts, incompatible with
> Bourne-family shells, be encouraged and propagate -- on Solaris. The future
> looks just LOVELY in that respect.
Well, it's certainly possible that a default *interactive* shell of
"bash" may result in more bash scripts, but I think most folks
recognize the differences between interactive and scripting uses of the
shell.
dsc
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