Well, I’ve got the opensolaris test server at the point I want it now. My next question is what do I do with it.
Lets see, my website runs on linux, my development server is linux, and my home desktop is linux.
So while I have mysql and php downloaded, I don’t think I will bother starting them or even apache; I have no plans to migrate my website from linux.
I will use the javac and gcc compilers to make sure my code is portable from linux to solaris, although I was using a solaris 0606 build from the sun website that I shoved into a qemu VM quite happily for that (with the latest apache, php and mysql compiled from source as well).
And I already had the developer2 release of opensolaris so I am over playing with LZ zones (and zones in general).
I suppose I could search the web for usefull software for opensolaris ?, business software, movie players, games… but they already exist for Linux and it’s hard to find any for opensolaris.
Shades of OS/2, a really good OS but it is hard to find the software (unless you want to compile it yourself, which as GCC and the OS header files are not installed by default is not going to happen for a home user).
However I really like the ZFS filesystems, much easier to use than LVM under linux; and supposedly more integral but while I have played with zfs mirrors and dropping disks in a VM I don’t have spare real disks anyway.
But integrity aside it is a lot easier to use than LVM. Also the new fault tolerant (what is it? SMF?)
process management system is fantastic once you get used to the xml files and the svc* commands.
I would consider moving my website onto an opensolaris system, except
-
all my servers are linux and automatically backed up to a version controled pxe/network-boot kickstart system that
gives total recovery. I don’t plan to buy a new server just to make a solaris jumpstart server.
So another to-do, investigate if a linux server can serve opensolaris jumpstart images
(it probably can, probably just another pxeboot file needed somewhere, and all the software on the server of course). The issue
being that even if it can, do I want to rewrite all my install (and pull backups back to install server) scripts. -
Linux already has experimental ZFS filesystem support in the user mode filesystem space.
It’s only a matter of time until ZFS boot filesystems for linux are available (I hope, because cloning the rootfs is something I can use now).
So… do I wait ?…
I guess I answered all my own questions in a roundabout way here. There are not enough business/home applications easily available to make it my desktop solution.
Like everone else I long ago put in process fault-recovery/automation so I don’t really need the svc* commands, although they do work brilliantly.
I don’t need zones, fun but I’ve had no problems with a qemu and vde combination that mixes different OS’s, not interested in zones as they are currently solaris or LZ only zones.
What I do need, and want is full ZFS filesystem support; rechunking my many LVM filesystems is a real pain.
So I think I will give it 12 months.
If a lot of usefull software suddenly appears in the opensolaris package manager I will put in in the seriously to be considered category.
If on the other hand complete ZFS filesystem support appears in linux then linux wins again
(by complete I mean a ZFS bootfs, data filesystems don’t count as they get backed up anyway. Hmmm, and mkCDrec backs up my network boot server just fine (I have done a format/recovery install from a mkCDrec backup if anyone is interested. Yes it works just great).
In fact thats another bugbear. I suppose something like plan/b or areca can remotely back up an opensolaris server just fine, but you still need to install the OS and backup agents before doing a restore.
Is there an equivalent of mkCDrec for solaris. For a total blank hardware install from backup media linux has mkCDrec, AIX has mksysb, solaris has..(anyone that says UFS dump gets shot, you need a working OS to recover that way).
The question has been asked, is there an answer ?.
