Trapped between Linux and Solaris? I am. My *NIX journey began onll less than 2 years ago. I started with Solaris 10 when I saw "Java Desktop System" mentioned, I thought it was a hybrid of the solid and efficient Solaris engine with the beauty of Java. I am a huge fan of Java, and I thought if Sun do OS's as good as they do software design, I'll stick with them. How naive I was, not really a lot to do with Java was it, and it was running on top of an antiquated windowing engine, mono sound.. yuck. I battled on through a steep learning curve and lots of problems with devices and drivers. Whilst happy with my server, rich with quality features I could not make it a desktop (workstation).
Enter Linux. I still use Ubuntu day to day, and switch back to opensolaris to see how it is progressing. I'm waiting eagerly for the day when I am as happy with solaris as I am with linux. Here's my feedback so far: Performance is awesome! For some reason the first OpenSolaris release is noticeably quicker than any other Solaris build I have tried to date. It's the first time I have noticed it to be quicker and smoother than linux on my machine. I've from other users that solaris is quicker but not experienced it myself until now. Aside from a few exceptions (like IPS reloading and package searching) It's really quick in the GUI world not just with kernel and shells. Even firefox seems to take less time to start-up and get going than on ubuntu. I'm guessing that this is due to better hardware support and refining of the still relatively newly adopted X and Gnome. Very impressed with the general put-together-ness. I really like the gnome adoption and Nimbus is easily the best all-round theme I seen on any OS. IPS; perhaps the biggest reason I'm holding out for solaris and not fully embracing the linux world, looks really good so far, I really hope it attracts the open source community to do the wonders they've done with linux. Network controllers; much better support, got both my wired and wireless NIC out-the-box and NWAM is great for dynamic IP. Static IP mixed with dynamic is awkward and I've had to switch back to network/physical:default using network administration tool to manage my different locations. Sound: have to install OSS driver and even on full volume it's not very loud at all, sometimes only one speaker works. In addition to driver support, we really need a proper and pwerful unified sound server, I suggest adopting pulse audio as the default sound server. Graphics (X): At a 2D level I'm very happy, screen is crisp, more fonts available, it's pretty quick and surprisingly clean (no spurious flashing and colours when switching between X and command line UI or when adjusting screen res). However my ATI still doesn't support desktop effects. No 3D ;-( Really glad to see compiz in the system menu! Gives me faith that Sun realize what attracts users, at all levels. Can't use it yet cox I has got integrated ATI card (grrr). Printing: We need CUPS, either by default or a really easy switch. It works so well for linux desktops, and one thing that I feel is superior to Windows. Printer hardware support still better in linux. Multimedia: This is one area I was really hoping Indiana would work on, those application menu entries are just teasers, like dangling candy in front of kid. Disappointed with lack of progress here. Command shell; Being quite new to *nix, I probably shouldn't comment in this area. I really like the adoption of bash as default shell, and single quotes when drag and dropping from nautilus. What about colour coding of output from ls though? Conclussion; Very impressed with progress since I tried solaris 10 only 6 months ago. Whilst setting the example in certain areas, Solaris still needs to learn from linux as to what the masses wants. This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
