From: user@example.net   
      
   Aragorn wrote:   
   > On Thursday 03 July 2008 23:16, someone who identifies as *J.O. Aho* wrote   
   > in /alt.os.linux.gentoo:/   
   >   
   >> Aragorn wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> Either way, it would seem that OpenSolaris is by far not as robust as   
   >>> GNU/Linux, and given it's legacy, this is really surprising. :-/   
   >> There is a lot to do with the installer, I would say it's back on the   
   >> level as Linux had back in the mid-late 90's. Even Solaris itself have a   
   >> difficult installer procedure (at least when I used it back at version   
   >> 8), maybe in 10 years time, when the community of users is larger, they   
   >> may start to get a user friendly installer that don't use java.   
   >   
   > Well, you mention two points of interest here.  First of all, there is the   
   > community thing.  Given how Sun is not exactly playing by the usual rules   
   > of Free & Open Source Software, and given that Solaris is quite a   
   > heavyweight compared to GNU/Linux, I don't really see that community   
   > growing substantially larger for the near future.   
      
   Yes, Soalris is a heavy and slow piece of operating system, just visit   
   the Gentoo Sparc IRC channel and you will be aware about the fact, even   
   on Suns own machines, people rather run Linux than Solaris, even if that   
   means less hardware support.   
      
      
   > Secondly, there's Java.  To Sun Microsystems, Java is the "end-all and   
   > do-all" for everything.  They even already have a desktop environment   
   > written entirely in Java.   
      
   Ain't that true for most companies to think that their products are so   
   much better than anything else...   
      
   Didn't Sun ditch that Javadesktop a couple of years ago? It wasn't any   
   fast one, even if it had some nice features as putting notes on the   
   backside of the applications window.   
      
      
   > Well, so far I had always thought of Solaris as a mature operating system,   
   > but given your reports on it - as well as some other things I've picked up   
   > from other people who've also given it a try - I am now inclined to believe   
   > that GNU/Linux is actually a lot more mature than Solaris, which is older -   
   > it used to be called SunOS in a past long gone.   
      
   I had my first experience with SunOS in mid 90's at the university,   
   where all the desktop machines where Sparcs and with NFS share of user   
   directories. There had been a lot of trouble with the NFS going up and   
   down, it turned out that 32MB wasn't enough on the desktops, so Sun did   
   upgrade all the desktops to have 64MB of ram, for free.   
   After that the NFS down time had gone.   
      
   I think the maturity of SunOS may lay on a completely on a different   
   level than Linux, which is a lot more user friendly and normal end users   
   hasn't been what Solaris have had, but servers locked down in a server   
   hall with a Sun educated admin, so there haven't been the need to have   
   easy to use operating system.   
      
   I wouldn't be surprised if the community version will grow more Linux   
   like, but that will take time and keep the masses from choosing opensolaris.   
      
   --   
      
      //Aho   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)