Nexenta... how I loath thee.

01000101 · Post by **01000101** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 12:06 am

I recently tried running an OpenSolaris sub-project (found at http://opensolaris.org/os/downloads/) called Nexenta. It is supposed to be a community driven OS that is built ontop of the Solaris kernel. the exact quote is

NexentaOS is a complete GNU-based free and open source operating system built on top of the OpenSolaris kernel and runtime. NexentaOS integrates OpenSolaris (SunOS kernel) and Open Source Software (OSS) applications a foundation that combines the best of both worlds.

blahblahblah, sounds great to me actually. So i downloaded it and gave it a test install. Everything went smoothly except for the extremely annoying repetitious "are you SURE you are ready to commit those changes... " and then after that screen (no joke) "are you POSITIVE?".

after the initial install which took only about 15 minutes, it said it was done and ready to be rebooted. I thought great, now lets boot into a solaris-style GUI and start checking out the neat new OS... wrong.

There is no GUI shipped with the ISO for nexenta, in fact, there is no 'official' package picked out either (gnome, kde, etc...), so I had a shell. I usually don't mind a shell, except when the backspace is not really a backspace, and the arrow keys dont actually move the text cursor.

After searching around the net for a bit on how to download a GUI of some sort, I found that I could simply use the apt-get install nexenta-gnome feature and install the third-party package (which is not officially supported btw). After typing that in, I realize, I HAVE NO NETWORK CONNECTIVITY!?!?!. On startup I saw the expected error saying that one of my NIC's wasn't connected to the net (because it isn't), but no second error or anything like that, it just didn't work.

So I begin shutting it off; which takes TWO clicks from the power-button btw (yes I used the power-button, that's right), and it takes me through multiple shutdown bits laster a little over 3-4 minutes. that's a long time, my XP box and OSX box shut down within a minute and without an extremely over-verbose display.

needless to say, I give the project 2-thumbs down. I'm sure I'll get the responses "learn to be proficient with just a shell", "one network error is not that big of a deal" or yattayattayatta, but to me, it is. No network, no GUI, no useful documentation... that doesn't cut it. For 300+ MiB, there should at least be basic functionality.

I'm now (as we speak) reinstalling Fedora 9a. Which is fantastic btw, even the alpha is great.

Thank you for tuning in to my extremely long bad review of NexentaOS.

Pe@cE

jzgriffin · Post by **jzgriffin** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 2:43 am

I've never really liked Solaris OSes and their derivatives. They just don't seem very...it's hard to put a word to it...good. Either you get a bunch of CDs, concatenate them into a DVD yourself, then go through the lengthy installation process only to wind up with a massive pile of bloat or you get a nice, small ISO and don't get anything.

Honestly, I'm not surprised at anything in your review. Still, thanks for sharing...I hadn't tried Nexenta yet, but now I definitely won't.

01000101 · Post by **01000101** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 3:15 am

I don't mind SolarisOS that much, the ACTUAL one. I wouldn't use it on a daily basis, but if I HAD to, I wouldn't complain. I would really like to try out Solaris on a SPARC-based server.

JamesM · Post by **JamesM** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 8:06 am

No network, no GUI, no useful documentation...

You forget that solaris is designed to be used in the enterprise space. Hence headless boxen, no gui (servers don't need a gui). The documentation, well, there doesn't need to be much as companies pay megabucks for instant support.

Why would they do that if there was perfect documentation freely available?

01000101 · Post by **01000101** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 2:12 pm

then why does SolarisOS comes with a GUI then?
Also, SolarisOS has much better documentation.

jerryleecooper · Post by **jerryleecooper** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 3:38 pm

01000101 wrote:then why does SolarisOS comes with a GUI then?
Also, SolarisOS has much better documentation.

Solaris was Sun's workstation's OS for their SParks based workstations. It had a gui started with SunOS 2 I think. The open windows system .

Later with solaris they got the cde, and now the java thing.

Does Sun still makes Sparc workstations? I don't know. They are to me the PC to the mac that IRIX and Silicon Graphics were.
Silicon graphics gone intel too, just like apple!

01000101 · Post by **01000101** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 3:41 pm

Yeah, they make sparc servers still as I get frequent emails about their releases because I'm a member.

Colonel Kernel · Post by **Colonel Kernel** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 4:02 pm

Sun's new Niagara chip is Sparc-based, so it's still alive and kicking.

We have a few Solaris boxes at work. The project I'm working on targets Solaris as well as Linux, AIX, and HP-UX.

JamesM · Post by **JamesM** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 4:14 pm

Yeah they make sparc servers, but they're a bit outdated. Most of my projects at work involve tools to help migration from sparc solaris boxen to x86-64/linux or x86-64/solaris.

www.transitive.com

Solar · Post by **Solar** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:08 am

01000101 wrote:I would really like to try out Solaris on a SPARC-based server.

Don't hold your breath for it. I worked on one for the last couple of years, and was definitely underimpressed. It's unbelievable how many things you're taking for granted on any Linux or even a Cygwin box simply doesn't work on Solaris.

Most annoying for shell dinos like myself is that the userspace isn't GNU, resulting in many "funny" problems (like 'tar' not being able to unzip, 'sed' / 'grep' not interpreting '\t' as tabulator, 'diff' knowing '-b' but choking on '--brief'... fun.

There might be niceties on the administrative level that make up for these shortcomings, I don't know, but it wasn't a revelation and I'd prefer a proper Linux boxen anytime.

JoeKayzA · Post by **JoeKayzA** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 2:40 am

Solar wrote:There might be niceties on the administrative level that make up for these shortcomings, I don't know

I'm still looking for those. Solaris might have so much more throughput in the file or db server area (never had a direct comparison to an x86 server running linux, though), but once you have to touch the shell it's a nightmare, IMO. Our sparc-based machine at work is pretty good in terms of io bandwidth, but I guess it could do so just as well running something else than solaris.

Wave · Post by **Wave** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:53 am

I'm now (as we speak) reinstalling Fedora 9a. Which is fantastic btw, even the alpha is great.

Fedora! One of the few linux distros that patches the stock kernel so that it panics on my computer. Yes, a vanilla kernel works, Fedora panics.

01000101 · Post by **01000101** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 2:50 pm

lol really? I have NEVER had fedora kernel panic on me.

JackScott · Post by **JackScott** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 4:46 am

I hate Fedora with a passion. My kernel booted, but X wouldn't. No matter what I tried. I lived with it for a day while I *painfully* downloaded Debian. Never looked back.

01000101 · Post by **01000101** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 5:59 am

exact same happened to me when I tried SuSe.