Re: Is Sun sincere about encouraging new Solaris users?
- From: "shanen" <Shannon.Jacobs.nospam@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 31 Jan 2007 21:11:53 -0800
The entire thread has covered quite a number of issues, as does your
post. However, I want to provide a cohesive response, so I'm going to
drop most of your specific issues except to note that I don't fully
agree with you (and some others) about the critiques of the advocacy
groups... The enthusiasm of the "advocates" can sometimes offset the
vileness of the trolls. (I think we'd probably be better off if
moderated was the newsgroup default. Validating a new identity to post
should be tedious... But that's rather too far afield.)
First, let me reiterate that my Subject explicitly mentioned "Sun".
There has been mention of a live CD version of Solaris and some
unofficial distribution channels, but basically I regard it as a
'closely held' OS, and I think that the question of Sun's sincerity is
crucial here, and I have reservations about alternative sources. I
don't particularly dislike registration, though it was a rather
tedious process that in itself constitutes another barrier to some
potential users.
It might help to review my recent experiences with Ubuntu (starting
about a year ago). Ubuntu offers single-CD images for both a live
version and an installer. I was able to test the live version on
several machines, and it seemed to be pretty good, so I burned an
installer CD and did the actual installation. Not too painful a
process, and it handles most of my purposes well enough. I've even
taken it through a couple of major upgrades and developed some
confidence in its robustness.
Sun does not seem to offer any comparable path into Solaris. I
actually have technical concerns about a live CD version, but I still
want a single-CD installer that would pull the bulk of the OS over the
network as required. (I especially concur with the comments that
Microsoft's slowness with Vista was an opportunity for alternative
OSes--but Sun has let that window close. (No pun intended. Just the
sad reality.))
On Feb 1, 12:48 am, Chris Cox <notc...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Shannon Jacobs wrote:
At this point, I think not. Or is Solaris really such a piece of
bloatware that Sun is unable to condense it to a single installation
CD?
...snipped the "context"...
Minor observation: Why should the installation be broken into a bunch
of fragmentary CDs? If Sun insists on a multiple-CD installation, then
at least they should be full CDs. Is that another limitation of their
competence? Or just that Sun doesn't care about wasting my resources
as long as I'm paying for the blank CDs?
Perhaps valid. There is certainly some history behind the
content of the CDs. Anything is possible, the installation
could change in the future. There was a time when many Linux
distros had a less-than-full CD (e.g. Red Hat).
Solaris is not horribly bloated, but since Gnome is now an option,
and OpenOffice/StarOffice is there, certainly, this is NOT
your typical Solaris <= 9 style install.
However, the installer could use some work.
Major observation: There is no reason for me to burn a set of CDs for... snip...
an installation. Most of the files will soon become obsolete anyway
(assuming that Sun is actually doing any updates).
the rest from the network. If they're seriously concerned about saving
bandwidth, then perhaps they could investigate BitTorrent or some
other esoteric and obscure technology to conserve resources.
Sun does offer updates. And lo and behold, in Solaris 10, the updater
actually sorta works (for the first time). To those stuck with
anything less, pca.pl is your friend.
With regards to only have iso images, it wasn't terribly long ago when
this was true for just about anything out there. I think again, we're
seeing historical leftovers. I can see this changing in the future at
Sun.
My past experiences with Sun were not impressive. Actually, they were
sometimes rather annoying or even painful, but I'm hoping that maybe
Sun has improved things since then. Ubuntu is actually doing most of
what I want with only moderate adaptation pains. However, Ubuntu has
enough limitations that I'm still sort of receptive to alternatives--
and I'm increasingly desperate to evade the deadly grasp of Vista.
Past experiences being?? If was anything less than Solaris 10, then
I agree. Is Solaris 10 as feature full as Ubuntu, etc?? No, but it
is lightyears beyond Solaris 8/9. Solaris 10 showed that Sun is
serious again about their Unix and wanting to compete. I'm looking
forward to seeing what the next versions will bring.
What are the Ubuntu limitations? Just curious.
I actually thought the best place to seek 'strong' advice would have
been on a Solaris advocacy newsgroup, but it appears that no one is
interested enough in Solaris to have bothered to create such... If
there are some Solaris 'partisans' around here, I'm interested in your
reactions or constructive suggestions.
Advocacy groups, sad to say, have mostly been taken over by
trollers, spammers, etc. They are a poor choice for getting
feedback on anything.
.
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