Solaris can f*ck off (kinda)
So Solaris has:
- ZFS
- Zones/Containers
- No download/install/run charges
- DTrace
- Binary backwards compatibility
- LAE
1) The root user has, as its home directory, the root of the filesystem. Yup, that's / . I read a Linux book published in 1902 that mentioned this as a foible of archaic Unices, before saying that all modern flavours have sensibly gone on to use /root. But this is a 2006 OS!
2) There is no top, free, or sudo. You have to Google around to find replacements for these tools - but why should we have to bother? These have been standard *NIX tools since the day dot, if Sun wants to reinvent the wheel it can be my guest, but why chuck these venerable tools out?
3) ksh. A lot of people think this stands for the Korn shell, but it actually stands for krock of shit. Use bash like everyone else: tab completion is A Good Thing!
4) A reasonable package management system. This one's a biggie. How much time do you think I have to fart around the internet looking for software in a format that Solaris will like, only to have to sort out dependancies? Whether it's along the lines of ports. yum, apt, or even (God forbid) YaST, there should be something that gives straightforward access to (for example) an IMAP server package, following all dependencies. This is the 21st century - if Debian can do it, so can Sun.
Can't think of anything else of the top of my head at the moment, but will add to this list as I find further idioshitnesses.
Update:
Why the fuck is the compilation environment set up all arse-about-face? A simple ./configure results in a
*** You must set the environment variable CC to a working compiler
as the CC envvar has been set to /usr/bin/cc - a non-existent file. Changing this to /usr/ucb/cc (today's arbitrary path to the Sun compiler) results in a
/usr/ucb/cc: language optional software package not installed
Do I look like someone who gives a flying fuck about this? Sort your bleeding environment out before releasing code, you twats at Sun.
posted by CLF @ 3:35 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
OK, I grant you prstat and vmstat; although I'll be interested to see whether the various OpenSolaris distributions keep top and free out in the long run. Similarly with 1 and 3 - the customers may like their legacy behaviors, but it may well transpire that when people who use and install the systems on a daily basis get the chance to modify the distro's default configuration, a different pattern will emerge. Admittedly, I'm guessing - we shall see.
Fingers crossed for the package management - Nexenta seems to be veering towards the Debian method for the GNU parts of the system, and there are a lot worse packaging tools than APT. I know people who swear by it, even though I personally prefer yum, mainly due to familiarity.
I would really like to put a Solaris system into production on some of our servers, but at the moment I don't have time to learn all the foibles and skirt around the pitfalls that come with unfamiliar territory. Maybe next time I have a long weekend I'll give it another whirl.
Looks like someone agreed with me before I made the original post.
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