On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 3:21 AM Andreas Wacknitz <[email protected]> wrote:
> Am 15.07.20 um 08:38 schrieb Judah Richardson: > > My disclaimer: I run several OS's, have been a Linux fan during its > infancy days until I realized that there are other OS's that suit me > better. > I am running OI on servers and desktop. I'd say OI is my 2nd desktop, > MacOS being my 1st and Windows 3rd. > > I you want to run OI (or any other illumos based OS) you definitely have > to select your hardware, especially if you want to run a desktop. > My recommendation: use a desktop computer (no notebook) with NVIDIA > graphics card. Install from a text install image and after reboot run > first an update (pkg update -v) and after this (and another reboot) pkg > install mate_install. This will bring you X11 and Mate Desktop. > While using it you will find out how to find and install missing packages. > > The hardware support for desktop computers (especially for notebooks) > had been limited on illumos's origin - OpenSolaris - and haven't gotten > better since the fork because commercial illumos companies are focused > on servers and enhancements for the desktop are only done coincidentely > by them. > > > I run both FreeBSD and OpenIndiana on their own bare metal devices, so > what > > I'm about to say is based on my own experience. I hope it doesn't upset > > anyone. > > > > On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 8:21 PM Lonnie Cumberland <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > > >> Greetings All, > >> > >> Hope that everyone one is well today. > >> > >> Although I am assuming that this may not be the best place to ask this > >> question, I am wondering if there is an advantage of Openindiana > (Illumos > >> based) or perhaps OmniOS over FreeBSD, > > OpenIndiana advantages: > > > > 1. RBAC > > 2. Good documentation *for functionality inherited from Solaris* via > > Solaris' docs > > 3. Stability > > 4. Zones > > 5. Unix (FreeBSD is Unix-like) > > 6. DE included in installer > > 7. TimeSlider > > 8. GParted (if you can get it to work) > > 9. More repos available than just the OS' repo > 10. Crossbow (network virtualization) > 11. mdb / kmdb (modular debugger is a special low level debugger - can > you single step into your running OS?) > 12. BHyve and KVM (BHyve from FreeBSD and KVM from Linux) > 13. Boot environments out of the box (addon on FreeBSD) - Update your > system on a different ZFS file system, > then boot into it and if something bad happened revert to an > older boot environment! I don't want to live without this anymore! > 14. CIFS/SMB implementation - inherited from Solaris and heavily > enhanced during the last months (by Nexenta) > As long as you don't want to run your own AD on your machine you > don't need Samba for serving or using SMB! > It's well integrated with the rest of the OS. > 15. FMA (Fault Management Architecture) - well integrated fault > management that interacts with SMF > > the next two are controverse: > 15. SMF - the Service Management Framework - I'd say an init replacement > almost done right > 16. IPS (Image Packaging System) - a package management system that is > special; very powerful but very slow (python) and for OI a resource hog. > That being said, somebody is working on an alternative > implementation that should increase its speed dramatically > (alpha test version hopefully by the end of the year). > > > > > or perhaps the other way around. > > FreeBSD advantages: > > > > 1. Much better 3rd party package support (including recent Firefox > > releases > > 2. Much larger userbase > > 3. Much better documentation of the OS itself (documentation of > Illumos > > itself is relatively lacking; Solaris docs remain the best resource) > > 4. Actual proper UEFI support > > 5. Much better hardware support > > 6. Lower RAM usage > > 7. Actual modern DE (I don't consider OI's MATE to be anywhere near > > current gen) available and easily installed via FuryBSD 3rd party > installer > > (which is basically a stock FreeBSD installation with KDE included) > > 8. Single, well-documented control planes/locations for many critical > > features > > 9. Much easier email notification setup > > 10. Jails > > 11. Can do UFS installation if ZFS isn't your thing. Wouldn't > recommend > > it, but it's possible > > 12. Config is a lot more straightforward and consistent > > 13. Behavior is sufficiently consistent and well-understood that > > seemingly complicated issues can be more easily remotely troubleshot > than > > on other OSes > > > > If I had to choose between the 2, I'd run FreeBSD because at least if I > > have a problem there's a proper handbook and I'll get probably 5 replies > in > > r/FreeBSD or r/BSD instead 1 or 0 in r/Illumos and r/unix. > > > >> I am going to move from Linux to either OpenIndian or FreeBSD and seem > to > >> be caught in the middle as both seem to have almost the same features > with > >> exception that FreeBSD may have more support streams over OpenIndiana > >> although this could change as time goes on. > >> > > If you were migrating from Solaris, I'd recommend Illumos. Coming from > > Linux, definitely FreeBSD. That said, you will lose some hardware and > > package support on FreeBSD vs. Linux, and most tooling is built around > > Linux. > I have been searching for a desktop that suits me best for a while. > Alas Windows and MacOs are declining in my opinion so it's now necessary > to find alternatives more than ever. > I have tried FreeBSD more than once; even GhostBSD, PCBSD, and TrueOS. > While they all had better hardware and software support compared to OI > they always felt very rough or unfinished. PCBSD and its successor have > been abandoned (at least as FreeBSD based OS's) and GhostBSD is (as far > as I can tell) a one man show. > I'm a GhostBSD refugee and agree with that assessment. FreeBSD doesn't seem to be intended for desktop. It isn't, and that's definitely a major drawback I've pointed out in their forums <https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/does-anyone-have-kde-on-freebsd-working-with-multiple-monitors.74395/post-454902>, using OI as an example of a server OS that ships with a functional DE. However, 99% of that difficulty occurs during installation and setup of the DE. Once you get past that, DEs on FreeBSD work as well as MATE on OpenIndiana, with full bug support You can run FreeBSD on a > desktop but you have to do a lot of things by yourself to make it an > appealing > feeling. Disclosure: KDE is my favorite open source DE. Aside from installation, configuring KDE on FreeBSD is no more difficult than configuring it on Debian (my other KDE installation.) If you use FreeBSD's pkg latest repo you'll also get a new version of KDE than what Debian (Stable) uses. Thus, there are some desktop oriented FreeBSD derived > distributions. > > >> Perhaps the only real advantage that I might be able to see is that > FreeBSD > >> has more hardware support, but that may not be the defining factor for > me. > >> > > This might be a bigger deal than you'd think. I recently went through a > > fresh OI install and was more than a bit disappointed that in AD 2020 I > > still can't achieve UEFI boot. To be clear, other OSes UEFI boot on that > > same hardware just fine. > If you want to run OI you should choose your hardware wisely and be > aware of the fact > True. However, one does not have to "be aware" of that fact for FreeBSD (which is also server oriented). Unless you get too fancy, x86-64 hardware just works with the latter. This puts OI at a categorical comparative disadvantage until that gap is closed. that we have only a limited amount of software packaged with IPS > compared to FreeBSD. > If you miss something essential for you then you either have to port it > by yourself (or convince > somebody to do it for you) or choose a different OS. > > > > >> I am looking for that little gem in the rough, as it were, and do not > >> always believe that mainstream is the only stream that can yield a > bright > >> future. > >> > > I run both of the above, in addition to 3 release channels of Windows, 3 > > Linux distros, and Android, because I love OSes and am fascinated by the > > different approaches various projects take to solve the same problems. > > You'll learn a lot regardless of which one you choose. > If you are really interested in OS's then you omitted one of the best > arguments for OI: > You can get involved in its development easily! > Some people like working on cars, others (e.g. Motor Trend, Car And Driver, etc.) just like driving different cars. I fall into the latter group. As with the auto magazines, while Motor Trend may test and comment on Mercedes or BMW, they aren't expected to assist automakers with car development. This is how I become a contributor to OI - I started to care for one > package. I got > a lot of help from others when I started and after a while I was able to > update and enhance > other packages I found outdated. The next step was to import new packages, > eg. fonts like jetbrains-mono and fira-code, because I wanted them > packaged. > All you need for this is some free space on your machine and some time > devoting for it. > Of course you can also work on OI's documentation if you think it should > be enhanced ;) > I've offered to do so <https://github.com/joyent/pkgsrc/issues/253#issuecomment-610626302> for situations where I have a full grasp of what's happening and what the fix is. Unfortunately, that doesn't describe most of the OI issues I experience. As with the car example above, documentation is best written by developers with *a prioi*, global understanding of the system the documentation is intended to cover and who worked on that system. It doesn't fall to the user to close that gap any more than it falls on Motor Trend to help Mercedes with suspension or transmission adjustments. > > - OI on GitHub: https://github.com/OpenIndiana > - OI's main repository for packages: > https://github.com/OpenIndiana/oi-userland > > Regards, > Andreas > > _______________________________________________ > openindiana-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > https://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss > _______________________________________________ openindiana-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
