Dibbler's Net

For the past few months I have started running a dedicated opensolaris desktop system on my desk at home. It has two monitors, one screen displays nagios network status while the other one does generic web browsing and some twit live watching. I had run into an issue with 2008.05 that it did not want to nicely upgrade to svn_95 due to some mbr boot changes. Now granted this is a development so I don’t expect anything to be perfect, however I am finding myself surprised by more features each day. I am used to the fact that Solaris is a great Server OS first and a desktop second (for most users) but this is starting to change for me. This evening I decided to move to svn_95 as part of the pre 2008_11 version. Wanting to avoid my mbr boot issue (which is documented I just didn’t read the readme first) I went and got the ISO for 2008_11 svn_95 and downloaded it to the solaris system. Upon download I put a blank DVD+R into the drive. First Opensolaris saw the blank disk and auto launched a burning utility, this is new and I must say a nice touch. This shows Sun’s move to more of a end user friendly desktop. Next I went to the ISO file and right clicked on it. From there it gave me a burn to disk option which I used. From there a small utility popped up and with one click the dvd was being burned. This was actually an easier process than burning an ISO on windows. Congratulations to the Opensolaris team for a job well done and an OS that is quickly becoming a viable end user option.

D~

Since about 1994 I have always had some type of Sun Sparc machine somewhere near my desk. Usually acting as a server or some other minor task it has helped keep me proficient at my solaris skills. Now this has almost always been as a server because really that is what Sun’s are really good at. However with Solaris 10 Sun has been getting better at this desktop idea. Solaris has always had a desktop but CDE really was there because Sun had to have something and even a one legged dog can play fetch better than no dog at all. Well now with Solaris 10 and more Sun on Intel ideas I have been trying to do more with the java desktop and see how useful it can be. More recently I installed VirtualBox on my Vista system and ran Solaris under that. Since then Sun decided to buy VirtualBox which shows that even Sun really liked the product. VirtualBox works well and has a lot of features but if you want to try out a new desktop then you need to not be in a virtual instance of that OS.

Now we bring in the new small workstation. Intel CPU, 2GB of memory, 500GB Sata Drive. All the same I would have on a decent XP machine or low end Vista. Download the ISO which fits on a CD. Then as the web site says “Download, burn, boot, and launch.” With the CD burned and in the desktop machine it first boots to a live system. This allows you to run device driver utility so you can see if any of your hardware will be a major issue. For me the onboard audio has an issue but that’s not too critical yet. Once you are satisfied that you want Soalris on the system you just click the icon on the desktop for “Install to Hard Disk Now” and it starts the process.

Now installing Solaris was never actually difficult. Completing the install could be murder. Setting up your network card, networking, trying to get X to run, then realizing that some critical device didn’t work was usually how it went. Well I was quite suprised. The install stayed in the GUI the whole time. The process had some detail steps but not too many. Once the questions were over it started the install. Overall time less than an hour from burn to boot to launch. Once that is done you then have a pretty functional desktop. Solaris now has the Automatic Network Daemon that will figure out if your DHCP or not and set everything up. Or you can stop that service and configure it manually like we all did back in the day.

But here’s the nice part. In that one hour I now have a working desktop. Complete with a working email client. Internet browser and other critical apps. The same you would find on a base Vista or XP install. This is the same place that Ubuntu, Redhat, Suse and others all figured out years ago, it’s just nice to see that Sun is finally getting to the right place with desktops.

So with the new desktop I will see over the next two weeks how many daily tasks I can move to it and what end user problems I start to see. So far firefox, and thunderbird are working and they are on from the install. Plus with a running Solaris desktop so close it gives everyone a chance to learn more about SMF and other handy Solaris 10 features.

D~

So there is the i-Phone. While the phone as a phone is maybe par ? (I don’t own one I have just been told this). The true greatness of the phone comes from the apps. I have been needing a phone for about two years that has 2 things. Decent email read and reply, and ssh. This is pretty difficult to find. I really need an internet tablet that is the size of an i-Phone. Well this looks like it may be the idea. The OpenMoko Neo Freerunner is a phone with phone features, multiple network support, wifi, and best of all an open and completely useable OS. I imagine this is where google and android will be sometime next year or the year after that. I have been looking at the freerunner for a while wondering when it would be available in the US and this week they did become available. At the same time they sold out so finding some of these may be a bit difficult. But as soon as I have one I will have some real nice always with me Nagios alerting and an ssh console to help resolve those pesky quick issues.

If you already have one please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on them.

D~