Hi Ed, The desktop environments used on OpenSolaris-based distros are only a few points behind the best commercial Linux/BSD desktop products (i.e. mainly due to number of device drivers supported and ported apps).
Otherwise, someone pointed out a particular not that server roles usually are defined by servicing >=2 users per OS instance. The core kernel is the same - just adjusted to meet a higher workload or response rate - if needed. All of the major tools you mentioned ARE available on Solaris (or ported shortly). The work falls mainly under the desktop-discuss group for desktop applications and environments. Compiz, Transmission (BitTorrent), and all the things you said are missing have been ported and implemented for years (or by other individuals - in progress). This may fall into the FUD/troll camp as most users know that the OpenSolaris project has some of the best implemented modern FOSS UNIX desktop environments and many of us maintain porting the FreeDesktop.org products. Also supports WiFi, OpenSSL/SSH, Kerberos V, and firewall management. as for calendars, we use SunBird with Thunderbird/Firefox. You can use MS Office and OutLook with Wine. No big deal there. Somebody did Mulberry and Ical awhile ago. > "Hardware compatibility for audio/video is a problem for sol/osol. Not very > good at 3D. Not compatible with lots of webcams and microphone devices and > cameras etc. And printers." Nvidia has one of the best 3D OpenGL implementations and their latest device drivers are available on Solaris 10/Opensolaris. All of the other things you mentioned are not true if you know much about Mac OS X and BSD/Linux in general. Theer are some good books and websites on that comment so I won't dig deep into it here. Just update the required libs and your problems will start to go away. By the way, one of Sun's engineers (i.e. Darren Kenny ) advocated this topic about 4-5 years ago in this wiki: http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Project+jds/desktop_gaps A lot of things were resolved since then.... but some things may be still valid. I'll let you speculate and read up on that note!! (smile) ~ Ken Mays -- This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
