Bryan Allen wrote: > +------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > | On 2009-04-10 21:02:32, Drew Tomlinson wrote: > | > | I'm a FreeBSD guy but somewhat recently began work at a Solaris shop. > | We're running mostly Solaris 8 and 9 but even still have Solaris 6 & 7 > | on some servers. Machines are not patched as they should be. Thus I'd > | like to begin upgrading. > | > | I've fiddled with Solaris 10 a bit but find difficulty with the whole > | package system for software and patches. Coming from FreeBSD, I'm used > | to what its call a "ports" system which is basically a collection of > | shell scripts that downloads source and then compiles. Compile time > | options can be set so software is compiled with desired options. It > | also pulls in and builds any dependencies. From an admin perspective, > | all one has to do is type "portupgrade" with appropriate options and the > | system takes care of the rest. > > Use NetBSD's pkgsrc. For the vast majority of non-GUI apps, you won't have a > problem. > > I've been running a Solaris 10 shop for two years (migrating from Linux), and > haven't run into a package I couldn't get built with pkgsrc on it. > > Update 6 has zfsroot, which makes Live Upgrade (and thus patching) much less > of > a doom. > > You also probably want to use Martin Paul's pca for patching purposes. >
Thanks for your reply. I'll Google these to learn more. Do you have any suggestions for a good forum or mailing list where I can get Solaris 10 help? > | Thus I am interested in OpenSolaris and its IPS package system. It > | appears that it provides similar function to package managers from the > | Linux world such as rpm, yum, and apt-get. I am also encouraged by this > | OpenSolaris help list to guide me along the way. I have not found any > | such reliable list or forum for Solaris. > | > | So, is OpenSolaris a viable OS for a production shop? It would > | basically host common unix services such as Apache, PHP, MySQL, Samba, > | DNS, DHCP, LDAP, etc. Are SPARC and x86 processor support equally > | stable? Thoughts, opinions, nudges to appropriate links, etc. all > | appreciated. > > I would argue no. At the very least, not until the Automated Installer project > gets more mature. Ditto sparse zones. Some other stuff. It depends on your > expectations and requirements, but I'll be sticking with Solaris 10 for my > production systems. > I was afraid of this... :) > That said: The opensolaris.org infrastructure all runs on OpenSolaris (from > what I understand); one of their people is giving a talk at OSCON this year > about it. Could be interesting. > Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it! Drew -- Be a Great Magician! Visit The Alchemist's Warehouse http://www.alchemistswarehouse.com
