Saturday, May 10, 2008
A Challenger Appears
OpenSolaris 2008.05 came out a few days ago, so I tried it out, being that I am a huge geek. Initial results are pretty positive, surprisingly positive, even.
It has the requisite missing drivers, but it supports the "exotic" WiFi in my MacBook. No sound, no bluetooth, no iSight. However, unlike the various BSDs it has a custom-tailored Flash plugin, so if they fix the sound thing it could be a real competitor for Linux/OS X. It's already a good deal on hardware platforms it fully supports.
I didn't take a screenshot, but it just uses a standard GNOME interface anyway. It supports Compiz, so you get your desktop effects, though I had trouble getting it to work properly (it doesn't have the right render path for my video card, couldn't find the switch to change it).
At any rate, it has the potential to change the OS landscape, probably moreso than the BSDs, since it's backed by a megacorp and supports all the latest buzzwords. I'll be keeping my eyes on it.
It has the requisite missing drivers, but it supports the "exotic" WiFi in my MacBook. No sound, no bluetooth, no iSight. However, unlike the various BSDs it has a custom-tailored Flash plugin, so if they fix the sound thing it could be a real competitor for Linux/OS X. It's already a good deal on hardware platforms it fully supports.
I didn't take a screenshot, but it just uses a standard GNOME interface anyway. It supports Compiz, so you get your desktop effects, though I had trouble getting it to work properly (it doesn't have the right render path for my video card, couldn't find the switch to change it).
At any rate, it has the potential to change the OS landscape, probably moreso than the BSDs, since it's backed by a megacorp and supports all the latest buzzwords. I'll be keeping my eyes on it.
Labels: OpenSolaris, operating systems
¶ 8:32 AM
