On Wed, Aug 20, 2025 at 8:22 AM Carl Brewer via openindiana-discuss < [email protected]> wrote:
> > What actually belongs in an operating system? > First of all, there's a distinction between an operating system (here, illumos) and a distribution built upon it (here, OpenIndiana). But a slightly different way of phrasing the question would be: what would a user of this system wish to do, and how do we enable that? > I see, or at least I think I see, a lot of effort on various platforms, > to maintain applications (gimp? really? bundled?!), and when humans are > scarce, is this at the expense of device drivers, installation systems > and so on? > If OpenIndiana had no applications, what would people use it for? On popular consumer OSes (Windows...) it seems that downloading random binary installers from anywhere on the web is seen as a viable mechanism to get software into the hands of end users, and while it works it generates a separate set of problems. In the case of gimp, how else is a user expected to get it other than the distribution vendor acting as an intermediary? > For a little while, I recall one of the *BSD ports systems being used on > some versions of SunOS 5.10+ (correct me if I'm wrong), which seemed a > good pathway to take, but now we seem to have this weird IPS thingo and > all the barriers to entry that it introduces. Every damn UNIX/clone > system has its own awful system for ports/packages/dependency mess > making and they *all* suck. > > Anyway, enough preamble ... > > An O/S (general purpose), must include : > > Compiler(s) and standard libraries for the common languages (C/C++ etc, > whatever GCC calls itself these days) so you can compile the system on > itself. > Scripting languages (sh, perl, python) > shells (sh, csh, tsch, bash etc) > A set of robust device drivers that 'just work' (this is 2025, you > shouldn't need to go futzing around to find the right driver for your > video card, it should *just work*) > A sane, sensible, simple install setup that works on modern hardware > without hacks. This, these days, means all the various BIOS stuff on PC > hardware shouldn't need weirdness to work. > Backup solution (borg? tar, zfs send etc) > A bombproof filesystem that supports auto up and downsizing etc (ZFS is > pretty close to perfect) and is cross-platform (hrm, it sorta is, but > then there's ZFS features, and they're not standard anymore, it *might* > work ... ) > Some sort of sensible firewall and tripwire'ish solution. Something > that makes FTP (ha!) "just work" etc. > System performance monitoring (top, ntop, nagios plugins, the standards > that we all use) > > I don't think there'd be too much dissent wrt that list. Where it gets > interesting is what then gets bundled in, and how? > > Should, for example, apache be bundled in? With the maintenance issues > that this brings with it? Should VLC? Should Firefox or some other > browser? If it's a desktop system, you'd want FF and Thunderbird or > similar, some reasonable version of TWM (golly, I am old!) but for a > server? I don't know where you draw the lines, but it does look like > "we" spend a lot of time farting around with applications that really, > aren't up to a niche community to support. I use VirtualBox on my O/I > servers, but should it be bundled, or something that we get with source > and compile ourselves? > Compiling from source isn't an answer. As those of us who package software for distribution know all too well, a lot of software simply doesn't build cleanly from source, or has a dependency tree that makes your eyes bleed. The effort here isn't in packaging it for distribution, it's making the modifications necessary to make it build or work at all. -- -Peter Tribble http://www.petertribble.co.uk/ - http://ptribble.blogspot.com/ _______________________________________________ openindiana-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
