The OpenSolaris Operating System and Sun xVM VirtualBox Blake Deville

Solaris Since the early 1980s, Sun worked on the SunOS variant of UNIX. In 1987, Sun and AT&T merged BSD, System V, and Xenix to create System V Release 4. Releases ending at SunOS 4 were based off of BSD and later renamed to Solaris 1. SunOS 5 was based off of SVR4 and referred to as Solaris 2. After Solaris 2.6, the minor version replaced the major (The current Solaris 10 is SunOS 5.10).

Solaris, cont'd. Became very popular on Sparc systems. SunOS 5 included the OpenWindows environment, and later included the Common Desktop Environment. As of Solaris 10, the default desktop environment is the Java Desktop System. Alternatives are supported, such as KDE, Gnome 2.0, and XFCE.

OpenSolaris Started as a fork of the Solaris 10 code. First available on June 14, Both binary and source availability, free of cost. Gradually, more of the Solaris code will be available. Starting with the current version of Solaris (Nevada), code will be used on OpenSolaris. Also available as a weekly-updated developer release. The only SVR4-based open-source UNIX.

OpenSolaris, Cont'd. The code for Dtrace was released first, followed by much of the Solaris code. Some parts were still only available as binary. Licensed under the Common Development and Distribution License. The CDDL is OSI-approved and based off of the Mozilla Public License (MPL). Because of MPL roots it is not compatible with the GPL.

Project Indiana One of the most significant releases of OpenSolaris. Version (Released in May). Ian Murdock of Debian fame was asked to head the project. Brings several successes of Linux distributions to OpenSolaris. Includes Gnome, GNU tools, and a network- based package manager.

Project Indiana, Cont'd. Functions as a live CD. Contains the Grub bootloader. X86(_64), PowerPC, and Sparc architectures supported. Linux influences make OpenSolaris easier to pick up with hardly any learning curve.

The Image Packaging System Similar to Debian apt and FreeBSD ports. Slight emphasis on setting up one's own repository. Has the ability to send packages to a repository. GUI (Package Manager) and command-line variants (pkg). Not yet complete, and has some quirks. Repositories based on “Authorities.”

OpenSolaris Variants Nexenta OS – OpenSolaris with Ubuntu influences MilaX – Minimalist OpenSolaris distribution SchilliX – First OpenSolaris live CD/distribution OpenSolaris for System Z – port to IBM's System Z mainframe. Belenix – Served as a basis for Project Indiana.

Typical Installation Boot the OpenSolaris live CD Double-click the “Install OpenSolaris” icon on the desktop. Select a partition. Timezone, date, etc. Default language Set the root password (Optionally create a user)‏ Install and reboot.

Sun xVM VirtualBox Originally developed by Innotek, but now by Sun. At first only free for personal/evaluational use, but later most of the source code was released under GPLv2. Features seamless desktops, USB support (not in open-sourced version), audio, mounting an iso as a CD/DVD drive, and snapshots. Runs most operating systems decently.

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