Sun is sort of like the much geekier cousin of Apple. Founder Scott McNealy has always had a very network-centric focus. In the early days of the internet it was true that most of the server architecture ran on Sun equipment. Java is a Sun program, and they recently acquired MySQL. The company has had its ups and downs in recent years, trying to move to more of a software/services basis. Part of this move has brought a more open source focus, and there is now an open source version of the Solaris operating system, OpenSolaris. I got a copy recently from a rep at the Nercomp Annual Conference, and decided to give it a try.
Now if the thought of fooling around with operating systems sounds like fun you’ll need no justification for jumping in. But “why bother” is a fair question. I always find it interesting to dig into different approaches to common problems. There is a certain coolness to working through the puzzle of getting this all to work. You end up with a unique, totally open source computer environment. The desktop utilized the open source Gnome client, and has some really fun features, such as wobbly windows. Now that I have it all working, it is a really nice operating system, with some particular features orientated towards software development.
The installation/configuration process is not exactly what I’d call easy. I have had a smattering of unix, but not much past the basic file commands. I am running it on a Dell latitude 620 laptop, and so far hardware-wise all is working well. It is running as the sole operating system — I didn’t dump my Windows XP yet, just swapped in a space hard drive. You can set it up in a virtual machine to run within your existing operating system. My only regret so far is that I need to swap the drive back when going back to work on Monday. This OpenSolaris thing is really cool. Below are a group of links that I found invaluable to getting it all up and running. The training course was a quick overview — took me 30 minutes to get through it — but was really helpful. And the Youtube unix 101 update video was really, really helpful. If you are interesting I suggest you start with an OpenSolaris search on Youtube — you can see things in action. The other way to try it out is through Sun’s solaris in the cloud. This lets you give it a spin without the install/configuration worries. Either way have fun! At least fun in a really geeky way!
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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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