So it has been a couple of weeks now that I’ve been playing around with the OpenSolaris operating system on my Dell Latitude D620 laptop. And I really like it. I’ve installed it three times — once on a spare hard disk, once in a Sun Virtual Box running inside Windows XP, and this final time as a multi-boot partition on my regular hard drive. Each time I’ve gotten a little better and faster at getting the install done. So what’s so good about this that I’ve spent so much time messing around with it?
First I’ve been interestied in getting better acquainted with working in a unix environment. It has been a bit of a steep learning curve, but with a fair amount of Googling I’ve managed to work through all issues so far. For open source unix/linus distrubutions everyone is going to have their favorites, and probably argue for why the one they like is best. Ubuntu, for instance, has been getting some pretty good press lately. My decision to give OpenSolaris a try wasn’t based on any careful analysis — I got the install disk at the Sun booth at the Nercomp conference, and have always been attracted to Sun and its software. Second, the open source ideal is attractive, and it is kind of cool to have a computer running all open source that works better than its commercial cousins. The pleasant surprise is how much I love the Netbeans Integrated Development Environment, for PHP and WordPress development work. Combined with the Sun AMP development stack, which give you Apache, MySQL, and everything else you need, developing and testing things has never been easier. The code completion and other features in NetBeans work great, and really speed up development time. My past work has been done in a hodgepodge of Dreamweaver, text editors, in WordPress’ admin panel edit screens, and Ulead — they all worked, but none of them were really perfect.
To use NetBeans you don’t need to make the jump to OpenSolaris — there are versions for Windows, Mac and other OS’s. But in those cases you’ll need to set up your own local web server. NetBeans is not just for PHP — in fact that is a relatively late addition. It also works with JavaScript, Ruby, Python, C++ and of course Java.
There are other benefits to OpenSolaris — like the cool graphical features (wobbly windows) and timeslider. There is also a very international feel to the user community, which is also kind of nice. The attached presentation gives a good overview of the top points. Just work your way through the first few slides (in Chek?).
OpenSolaris 2008.11 Training in Brno – The Observatory
The most recent training was focused on 2008.11 and it was also an install fest. Here are the slides from the event:
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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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