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OpenSolaris OS 2008.05 First Impressions

By David Stewart (Intel) (138 posts) on May 5, 2008 at 3:44 pm

I installed the final release of OpenSolaris OS 2008.05 on my Sony Vaio
Centrino Pro laptop. OpenSolaris 2008.05 is the new product based on
the OpenSolaris project. You can obtain yours by going to opensolaris.com. In fact I'm typing this
blog post between sessions at CommunityOne on my new OpenSolaris 2008.05
installation!

Some initial impressions:

1. The OS comes as a LiveCD. This means you can pop the CD into your drive,
reboot your computer and (assuming that the CD is in the boot path) you
can boot up OpenSolaris and give it a try. You don't need to install it on
your computer's hard drive to check it out. You can see what works and if
anything doesn't, and then if you like it, install the OS. This worked like
a champ!

2. The visual presentation of the OS is just beautiful. I was kind of
uninspired by the new bubbles logo for OpenSolaris. But when I installed
the OS, I was startled by how beautiful the look is.

3. So much stuff just works out of the box on my Centrino Pro. I was able to
wireless LAN right away of course on the last-generation 3945 chip. But
audio worked for me right away! This is honestly the first time I have
had sound worked for me out of the box without any fussing.

Now time for full disclosure: Not everything is perfect on all systems. I
also spun up the LiveCD on my Lenovo T61 Centrino Pro, and the audio wasn't
working, so your mileage may vary. Try it out and send feedback!

4. compiz is integrated with the window manager now. This means if you
have a decent 3D graphics chip, you can get these awesome 3D window effects
by selecting System->Preferences->Appearance from the top bar and then select
then select the Visual Effects tab. (I wouldn't necessarily try this in
a virtual guest, since I would imagine some odd things might happen). If
you are not familiar with compiz, you really should try it. You will truly
impress your friends who use Vista or Mac OS as to how cool and fun your
OpenSolaris desktop can be.

I showed off my laptop to my friend Max who couldn't believe everything
had worked so well out of the box. "Didn't you install some packages?" No, the
great thing is, all of these things "just work" out of the box on this PC.

I'm still playing with the distribution - I have yet to dive into package
installs for example. But I'm very excited that things worked so well
already.

Edited to Add: Thanks for all of the commenters who kindly pointed out that I had put "2009.05" instead of "2008.05" in the title of the post originally.  Guess I was just too excited!

Categories: Open Source, Visual Computing

Comments (10)

May 5, 2008 5:56 PM PDT SW

Nothing odd should happen in a virtual guest with compiz (certainly doesn't in VMware), just tells you no supported graphics card was found.

May 5, 2008 8:02 PM PDT stevel

I have the same Lenovo T61. Grab the opensound drivers and it'll work. But be warned, it comes up with the input mixer (internal microphone) set to high. Be ready to hit mute the moment it initialises, otherwise you'll hit a piercing feedback beep. Once it's up you can run the mixer app to set it to a respectable level.

May 5, 2008 8:33 PM PDT anonymous

Errr... typo in your heading? "2009.05" ?

May 6, 2008 3:00 AM PDT Ghee Teo

Hi David, Are you previewing a version of OpenSolaris 2009.05 that we have got yet ;)

May 6, 2008 6:30 AM PDT David Stewart (Intel) Total Points: 9,435 Status Points: 9,435 Black Belt

Thanks to my friends and commenters who noticed that my original title said something about "2009.05" - no time machines here, just fat fingers and short time between sessions!

May 6, 2008 8:47 AM PDT marco

hi, I just downloaded and installed Opensolaris Os 2008.05 on my Dell Inspiron 9300. Opensolaris is a very nice! My first Opensolaris wallpaper is downloadable at this link! http://www.flickr.com/photos/maccu/2471229308/ Bye!

May 6, 2008 9:58 AM PDT Dave Stewart

Marco - great news! I like the wallpaper.

May 6, 2008 11:52 AM PDT marco

thank you! Soon other wallpapers!!! Bye!

May 6, 2008 3:47 PM PDT Ruben Allas

This version 2008.05 live cd looks great! Internet connection (nVidia MCP51 Ethernet Controller) works out of the box, but the sound does not work (Driver Misconfigured!) Broadcom BCM94311MCG wlan does not work as well as ACPI (Driver Missing!). 2008.05 works well with Intel devices, as it configured my other laptop with Intel wlan interface, but unfortunately would not work with BCM5906M.

May 7, 2008 1:29 AM PDT Marco

Hi, Rubens you can download and install the Broadcom driver there: http://homepage2.nifty.com/mrym3/taiyodo/eng/ You must use drivers bfe 2.6, For every problem you can contact me, I made a script that compile drivers for each installation of Solaris 10 or Solaris 11

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