06Aug2009 (UTC +8) Government Computer News interviews Sun engineer Harry Foxwell:
"Why Linux administrators should consider OpenSolaris" http://gcn.com/Articles/2009/07/27/GCN-Interview-Foxwell-OpenSolaris.aspx?p=1 Some interesting stuff: GCN: Why would Linux administrators want to take a look at OpenSolaris? Henry Foxwell: Three reasons. First, it is designed to look like the environment that a Linux developer and administrator is familiar with. It has the Gnome [desktop environment] and all the GNU and Gnome tools. So the learning effort is not great, because the environment looks very much the same. Another reason is that it includes all of the open-source AMP [Apache-MySql-PHP/Perl/Python] stack software that administrators and developers are familiar with. So again, the tools you use to build the infrastructure, the Web-based application services, will be familiar to you here. The point that I made in the beginning of the book is that some people call themselves Linux developers but they really are open-source developers who happen to run their applications on a Linux OS. They could, in theory, use some other OS to support the tools they use. And OpenSolaris, in fact, does. And third and most important reason is that we believe OpenSolaris has interesting technologies that are not in Linux. For example, it has built-in virtualization in the form of Zones. It includes the very popular ZFS [128-bit] file system, and the DTrace [debugger tool]. It includes a new way of managing services called the Service Management Facility. [...] GCN: What are the steps for moving a server from Linux to OpenSolaris? Foxwell: What you have would determine how much effort it would take to go from one to the other. If you have a Web-based infrastructure — a Linux application server, database server and Web server -- moving from Linux to OpenSolaris would be fairly straightforward. The tools are pretty much the same, so essentially [all you'd need to do is] transfer your scripts, configuration files and data. For custom C or C++ code, we do have the tools for recompiling. We have support for the GCC compiler or, of course, you could use the Sun compiler. And all the tools, the libraries and documentation are there to do that compilation. GCN: Solaris has had the reputation for not having enough drivers for non-Sun hardware. Has support improved for OpenSolaris? Foxwell: It certainly was a deserved reputation the past. With earlier versions of Solaris, especially for the Intel platform, it was difficult to find the drivers. Today, because of the great contribution of the OpenSolaris community, we have literally thousands of components that are supported. The place to go for these drivers is the Sun Web site's Hardware Compatibility List [www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/]. It is a listing of all the devices and components that work under Solaris. Certainly we are missing a few, but the most of the common ones are there. Just as an example, I installed OpenSolaris on a random laptop the other day. And the only thing missing was the driver for the modem, which no one uses anyway. [...] Drexx Laggui -- CISA, CISSP, CFE Associate, ISO27001 LA, CCSI, CSA http://www.laggui.com ( Singapore / Manila / California ) Computer forensics; Penetration testing; QMS & ISMS developers; K-Transfer PGP fingerprint = 6E62 A089 E3EA 1B93 BFB4 8363 FFEC 3976 FF31 8A4E _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List http://lists.linux.org.ph/mailman/listinfo/plug Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
