Submitted by The final 1.0 version of the Nexenta Core Platform has been released. “Nexenta Operating System is a free and open source operating system
combining the OpenSolaris kernel with GNU application userland. Nexenta
Operating System runs on Intel/AMD 32/64bit hardware and is distributed
as a single installable CD. NexentaCore is a minimal (core) foundation
that can be used to quickly build servers, desktops, and custom
distributions tailored for specialized applications.”
I can suggest why nobody has commented this story so far: Nexenta is yet another *buntu with a different kernel. How much need do we have for something like that?
At least we know that the Linux kernel support almost every hardware.
<sarcasm>At least we know that the Windows kernel support almost every hardware</sarcasm>
Personally I’m more interested in Nexenta then *buntu.
I *love* Nexenta, it’s by far the most accessible Solaris I’ve ever used. The problem is, like most, I don’t know much about Solaris, so I’m not very comfortable with it as a platform – the stuff in /dev scares me a little – let alone getting non-standard stuff to work.
I’m afraid too many people are simply too unfamiliar with it in general, that’s why not many comments. Lots of interest, but not many experts on hand.
Indeed, yours is another plausible explanation: lack of familiarity.
because I want ZFS without having to deal with the crappy Solaris userland.
Maybe you’re interested in using FreeBSD with both ZFS and the GNU userland (with some BSD additions / exchanges).
Impressing: http://opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/docs/zfs_last.pdf
The Solaris userland is often characterized “crappy” or something similar. In some cases – please note that I’m not talking about you especially – this is due to people who come from Linux and expect certain commands at places they know well. On Solaris, some commands have different names (e. g. top) and locations (e. g. the C compiler). You’ll soon see the logic behind this and adopt to these changes as soon as you’ve made some experiences with Solaris. I won’t say the Solaris way is the ultimate one because I don’t think so. Standardization and familiarity among the Linusi, the Solaria, the BSDs and other UNIXens can benefit the user – less adoption, improved productivity. So it may be good to have an alternative to the “old fashioned” Solaris userland which can enable Linux users to explore the Solaris use & feel.
According to the Linusi, the Solaria, and the UNIXens, I am guilty of the diagnosis “pluralis creativae incorrectus”.
I already use FreeBSD predominately. In fact, if it had a complete NFSv4 implementation, I wouldn’t need Solaris with our without the userland.
No, the default userland in the common PATH (/usr/bin etc) is truly crappy. The /bin/sh is buggy as hell and not POSIX compliant, /usr/bin/awk appears to be from V7 UNIX.
First thing I do on a Solaris machine is stick /usr/xpg4/bin at the front of my PATH. This gives standards compliant tools (where standards > V7).
If you mean ‘desktop’, then, not exactly…at least not since the Indiana Project was launched. I ran across this earlier this month, it may help explain Nexenta’s current direction:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20080204#feature
The NexentaCP product is focusing on some of the current ‘deliverable’ strengths of the OpenSolaris project. Namely it’s kernel, Zones, ZFS and network storage capabilities. (Check opensolaris.org projects for NWS, AVS, COMSTAR). Then adding APT capabilities and GNU userspace to the mix. It actually looks like a good combination. A commercial version of this, called NexentaStor, is in beta. I found what appears to be a blog of one the the beta testers outlining his multi-tier storage solution using Nexenta. Check it out (and the “Archives” links on the website):
http://jmlittle.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
Looks interesting, best of luck to the Nexenta team!
Just fyi you are wrong and it is not “just another *buntu”. What do you think it shares with Ubuntu? gnu/linux apps and apt-get? Don’t a lot of distros outside of ubuntu use those?
NexentaCore is OpenSolaris using apt-get for package management and a gnu/linux/debian/ubuntu app compatibility layer. I can’t speak for the people behind it, but that sounds like a better shallow description to me than yours.
That sounds better. More interested that its not another U’distro.
Edited 2008-02-12 02:32 UTC
If you’re interested just download the iso, install it into a vm, and boot it up. You’ll get bash. You can type apt-clone to use their apt-get-like update system.
Because this is built in: “OpenSolaris’s BrandZ is a technology based on OpenSolaris Zones, which allows an OpenSolaris system to run unmodified Linux binaries.” You can install supported gnu/linux apps from the NexentaCore repository and run them on this OpenSolaris distro. Just remember that this distro isn’t gui-focused.
OpenSolaris documentation is a bit crazy and strewn around the internet, but the manuals for zpool and zfs can be found on the zfs project page if you want to tinker with it: http://opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/docs/
There are also some sketchy OpenSolaris docs at genunix and solarisinternals.
If you want to try out the new cifs/smb server, you can disable Samba and enable the cifs server and try to get it going. There are some docs out there along with some successes and failures in setting it up.
That is just about everything I checked out when I was testing NexentaCore as a storage server.
I just downloaded the ISO and installed it in a VM. I must say I’m not very impressed.
Nexenta has morphed into a bland text-mode server OS; I found it cooler as a workstation OS with Gnome. The APT repository still seem outdated and probably still laden of buggy/broken packages just like before.
ZFS is an interesting file system technology but it doesn’t seem very intuitive to use. Plus, Linux has cool new FS too: Ext4, ZFS FUSE driver, etc. DTrace is interesting as well but Systemtap is being improved to rival many of the debugging and monitoring features in DTrace. Zones doesn’t seem too useful on Linux because there really aren’t any popular Solaris or BSD apps that haven’t already been ported to Linux.
If by intuitive you mean works like what you’re used to, then, yeah, it’s not intuitive. Intuition only gets you so far. At some point, you have to read the friendly manual. For a storage box, ZFS is pretty much the best thing since NetApp’s WAFL filesystem in my opinion.
I’ve been using the Nexenta RCs for a while, and I haven’t run into any broken/buggy packages. There are a few that are getting a little on the stale side such as Samba for an example.
The packages aren’t the latest from Ubuntu, but to call them out of date is misleading.
NexentaCore keeps in sync with the last Ubuntu LTS on purpose.