Desktop OpenSolaris fork OpenIndiana shoots fresh version – Hipster
(2022/12/07)
- Reference: 1670412609
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/12/07/new_version_of_openindiana/
- Source link:
The OpenIndiana project has opened the gates on "Hipster", its latest release and the first this year, and it includes MATE 1.26, LibreOffice, and more.
OpenIndiana is a desktop flavor of illumos, which has been [1]continuing development of OpenSolaris since 2010 . In the project's own words about [2]Version 2022.10 :
Hipster is a codename for rapidly moving development branch of OpenIndiana. Hipster is using rolling-release model and only publishes installation ISOs once in a while.
Judging by the project's announcements [3]page , this is the first new release the project has announced since this time [4]last year , although in previous years there were semiannual updates. The 2022.10 release integrates over 2,500 pull requests, and updates multiple components, including version 1.26 of the MATE desktop, 64-bit LibreOffice 7.2.7, and Perl 5.36.
The distro now includes the latest GCC 10, plus the option of GCC 11 and Clang 13. It also updates the bundled nVidia drivers, but we weren't able to test that as the Reg FOSS desk lacks any kit with a current nVidia GPU.
[5]
OpenIndiana looks much like any Linux with MATE, but under the hood is the Solaris kernel
To be honest, we suspect that even if we did have anything so shiny lying around, we might not have been able to test it anyway. We tried to start OpenIndiana on our trusty ThinkPad T420 and W520 testbed machines, as well as on an old W500 and an X220 with no dedicated GPU, but it failed to complete boot up on any of them, either in BIOS or UEFI modes. It does boot, install and run happily in VirtualBox – as one might expect when both the OS and the hypervisor derive from the same parent company. Given the MATE desktop and apps, it looks and feels much like Linux does, although as soon as you open a terminal emulator, the comforting feeling of familiarity fades quite quickly.
[6]Solaris is in maintenance mode – but Oracle added a significant feature anyway
[7]Disentangling the Debian derivatives: Which should you use?
[8]X.org servers update closes 2 security holes, adds neat component tweaks
[9]'Unbreakable' Oracle Linux 9 is a RHEL rebuild with built-in Btrfs support
Although not much news comes from the [10]illumos project , various distributions are alive and well. Although [11]its sponsors stepped away from it , the Community Edition of [12]OmniOS , a text-only server-oriented product, is still getting updated. So is the [13]Tribblix distribution.
Joyent cut down OpenSolaris to make a [14]hypervisor and container host called SmartOS , and offered a [15]hosted service called Triton .
Despite Samsung [16]shutting down Joyent's cloud three years after [17]acquiring it in 2016 , Triton's datacenter and commercial support business was [18]bought earlier this year and the service is still available. [19]SmartOS is still around and getting updated: it boots from a USB key, keeping just config on the hard disk, making version upgrades very easy.
[20]
Solaris engineer, Joyent veteran, and [21]DTrace co-creator Bryan Cantrill still sits on the illumos [22]council . He is co-founder and CTO of a new company, Oxide Computer, which has yet to launch its combined storage-and-compute product, but there is some [23]code on Github for the curious. Oxide is working on a Rust-based microkernel called [24]Hubris , but we suspect that illumos will also be involved somewhere. ®
[25]
[26]Youtube Video
Get our [27]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2010/08/03/illumos_opensolaris_spork/
[2] https://www.openindiana.org/2022/12/04/openindiana-hipster-2022-10-is-here/
[3] https://www.openindiana.org/category/announcements/
[4] https://www.openindiana.org/2021/12/05/openindiana-hipster-2021-10-is-here/
[5] https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/12/07/openindiana-hipster.jpg
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/19/oracle_solaris_updated/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/18/disentangling_the_debian_derivatives/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/13/xorg_servers_updated/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/12/oracle_linux_9/
[10] https://illumos.org/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2017/04/25/oracle_free_solaris_project_stops/
[12] https://omnios.org/
[13] http://www.tribblix.org/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2011/09/15/the_new_joyent_cloud/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2015/03/24/joyent_triton_cloud/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2019/06/07/samsung_joyent_closure/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2016/06/16/samsung_to_acquire_joyent/
[18] https://www.tritondatacenter.com/blog/a-new-chapter-begins-for-triton-and-smartos
[19] https://www.tritondatacenter.com/smartos
[20] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y5DGsakxCceFrxLMO@wGWgAAAIE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2010/08/02/bryan_cantrill_sun_joyent/
[22] https://illumos.org/docs/about/leadership/
[23] https://github.com/oxidecomputer
[24] https://hubris.oxide.computer/
[25] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y5DGsakxCceFrxLMO@wGWgAAAIE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[26] https://www.youtube.com/embed/XbBzSSvT_P0
[27] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
OpenIndiana is a desktop flavor of illumos, which has been [1]continuing development of OpenSolaris since 2010 . In the project's own words about [2]Version 2022.10 :
Hipster is a codename for rapidly moving development branch of OpenIndiana. Hipster is using rolling-release model and only publishes installation ISOs once in a while.
Judging by the project's announcements [3]page , this is the first new release the project has announced since this time [4]last year , although in previous years there were semiannual updates. The 2022.10 release integrates over 2,500 pull requests, and updates multiple components, including version 1.26 of the MATE desktop, 64-bit LibreOffice 7.2.7, and Perl 5.36.
The distro now includes the latest GCC 10, plus the option of GCC 11 and Clang 13. It also updates the bundled nVidia drivers, but we weren't able to test that as the Reg FOSS desk lacks any kit with a current nVidia GPU.
[5]
OpenIndiana looks much like any Linux with MATE, but under the hood is the Solaris kernel
To be honest, we suspect that even if we did have anything so shiny lying around, we might not have been able to test it anyway. We tried to start OpenIndiana on our trusty ThinkPad T420 and W520 testbed machines, as well as on an old W500 and an X220 with no dedicated GPU, but it failed to complete boot up on any of them, either in BIOS or UEFI modes. It does boot, install and run happily in VirtualBox – as one might expect when both the OS and the hypervisor derive from the same parent company. Given the MATE desktop and apps, it looks and feels much like Linux does, although as soon as you open a terminal emulator, the comforting feeling of familiarity fades quite quickly.
[6]Solaris is in maintenance mode – but Oracle added a significant feature anyway
[7]Disentangling the Debian derivatives: Which should you use?
[8]X.org servers update closes 2 security holes, adds neat component tweaks
[9]'Unbreakable' Oracle Linux 9 is a RHEL rebuild with built-in Btrfs support
Although not much news comes from the [10]illumos project , various distributions are alive and well. Although [11]its sponsors stepped away from it , the Community Edition of [12]OmniOS , a text-only server-oriented product, is still getting updated. So is the [13]Tribblix distribution.
Joyent cut down OpenSolaris to make a [14]hypervisor and container host called SmartOS , and offered a [15]hosted service called Triton .
Despite Samsung [16]shutting down Joyent's cloud three years after [17]acquiring it in 2016 , Triton's datacenter and commercial support business was [18]bought earlier this year and the service is still available. [19]SmartOS is still around and getting updated: it boots from a USB key, keeping just config on the hard disk, making version upgrades very easy.
[20]
Solaris engineer, Joyent veteran, and [21]DTrace co-creator Bryan Cantrill still sits on the illumos [22]council . He is co-founder and CTO of a new company, Oxide Computer, which has yet to launch its combined storage-and-compute product, but there is some [23]code on Github for the curious. Oxide is working on a Rust-based microkernel called [24]Hubris , but we suspect that illumos will also be involved somewhere. ®
[25]
[26]Youtube Video
Get our [27]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2010/08/03/illumos_opensolaris_spork/
[2] https://www.openindiana.org/2022/12/04/openindiana-hipster-2022-10-is-here/
[3] https://www.openindiana.org/category/announcements/
[4] https://www.openindiana.org/2021/12/05/openindiana-hipster-2021-10-is-here/
[5] https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/12/07/openindiana-hipster.jpg
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/19/oracle_solaris_updated/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/18/disentangling_the_debian_derivatives/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/13/xorg_servers_updated/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/12/oracle_linux_9/
[10] https://illumos.org/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2017/04/25/oracle_free_solaris_project_stops/
[12] https://omnios.org/
[13] http://www.tribblix.org/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2011/09/15/the_new_joyent_cloud/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2015/03/24/joyent_triton_cloud/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2019/06/07/samsung_joyent_closure/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2016/06/16/samsung_to_acquire_joyent/
[18] https://www.tritondatacenter.com/blog/a-new-chapter-begins-for-triton-and-smartos
[19] https://www.tritondatacenter.com/smartos
[20] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y5DGsakxCceFrxLMO@wGWgAAAIE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2010/08/02/bryan_cantrill_sun_joyent/
[22] https://illumos.org/docs/about/leadership/
[23] https://github.com/oxidecomputer
[24] https://hubris.oxide.computer/
[25] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y5DGsakxCceFrxLMO@wGWgAAAIE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[26] https://www.youtube.com/embed/XbBzSSvT_P0
[27] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Liam Proven
[Author here]
> Shame it doesn't work well on the Thinkpad
It really is. I hoped to give it a spin, and for similar reasons. In fact my testbed W520 has GhostBSD on it, too. I had more joy with a standalone (non-dual-booting) install of vanilla FreeBSD 13.1 on my old T420, the i5 model with no GPU. It's getting it to dual-boot cleanly that proved tricky for me, and in the end, I didn't like any of GhostBSD's tweaks.
There's a lot of manual work getting a desktop up and running. There's a post-install script that automates some of the process, but it does it by pulling bleeding-edge code from Git, resulting in something that both needs as frequent updates as any Linux distro, _and_ which you can't update using the normal methods. The worst of both worlds!
The Hello System may yet get there, but for now it feels a bit sparse and unfinished.
There doesn't seem to be a happy medium for the FreeBSD desktop right now, which is a great shame IMHO.
TVU
OpenIndiana = nice Solaris without the Oracle and Larry bits.
Nice, I might spin up a VM with this some day.
Shame it doesn't work well on the Thinkpad, I've been trying GhostBSD on there and funky though it is, it doesn't really handle my monitor setup very well.