Anyone using OpenSolaris 2009.06 on the desktop?
After having used RPMforge’s version of gtk-nimbus-engine on CentOS 5.3, I decided that it’s not really appropriate for current use (the build is from 2007 and the theme has some bugs), but the icons and the controls are however nice.
I then reinserted the OpenSolaris 2009.06 CD and rebooted into it for a short LiveCD session. It wasn’t that bad, as long as the sound is now supported, the wired NIC too, etc.
I wonder whether OpenSolaris 2009.06 could really be used as a desktop OS. Of course, there are very few packages built specifically for it, the official Package Catalog lists 1705 packages, and the Contrib Package Catalog only 209 packages!
The first trick I’ve learned from this forum thread was that GIMP is called SUNWgnome-img-editor. The provided GIMP is 2.4.6.
Then, from OSNews I’ve learned that SUNWgnome-media-center is actually Elisa Media Center, something that can use the codecs provided by Fluendo. The problem is that only the MP3 playback codec is free, the others are paying (28 € for the whole set).
Some places on the web are saying that MPlayer and even VLC can be built for OpenSolaris, but I couldn’t find anything at ease, or at least certainly not on the horrendously ugly and unusable Sunfreeware.org.
Some other people were pointing to LifeWithSolaris.jp (LWS), which used to provide Xine and VLC in the past, but now their repository is down, and this is the coward notice they’ve put instead:
Dear users,
Thank you for using lifewithsolaris.jp.
Recently, we have received a caution by a third party that the packages provided at lifewithsolaris.jp may conflict the license and redistribution term. For this reason, the package service will not be available until this issue would be clear.
In addition, if people have already downloaded and installed our packages in the past, please delete them immediately since they may also imply the issue above. We sincerely apologize for your inconvenience and this situation that was caused by our lack of consideration.
No, really? Everyone knows that the missing codecs is because of some legal restrictions (in the United States and other jurisdictions), and this is exactly why 3rd-party repos are needed! Are those Japanese guys trying to tell us that they were “unaware” of the situation? Under what rock were they living?!
OK, here’s this page into rescue: there is a new multimedia-oriented repo, hosting 59 packages, including a lot of codecs, libdvdcss, but apparently for OpenSolaris 2008.05 or 2008.11. Would they work with 2009.06?
Other pages I’ve found were about building MPlayer on 2008.05, building libdvdcss, failing to play DVDs, failing libdvdcss, and so on. Sigh.
Would libdvdcss from sunfreepacks.com work? How about the VLC from Blastwave.org? (Old, it’s 0.8.6.) Oh, Blastwave also has MPlayer 1.0!
The SUN-oriented guys are much less organized than the Linux crowd… Who could tell what packages conflict with what, and what is safe to install?
OK, someone said he registered for the Flash (“additional packages”), he added several repos, but now he can’t play Flash in Firefox, nor can he play DVDs!
Is anyone to have solved all the multimedia problems with OpenSolaris 2009.06? I can’t find such a report with Google!
Another issue I could have (should I want to use OpenSolaris 2009.06 as a desktop OS) is related to the keyboard layout.
Despite using GNOME 2.24, the keyboard configuration applet does not include any tab to edit the keyboard layouts, nor they have a tab to edit layout options — such as the Compose key, the layout switch combination, etc.
Indeed, the layouts seem to be tied to the language, and you should look for them set in System -> Preferences -> Input methods, but I still can’t see anything to edit any layout options, once I change the keyboard & language. Should I hack xorg.conf manually?!
Tough desktop, OpenSolaris…
A last bookmark: How to update your OpenSolaris 2009.06 behind a proxy. Good to know.
Maybe some day OpenSolaris will become a real choice for desktop users, because I am just sick of the Linux eternal-rush-into-newer-bugs (countered by using EL5 with GIMP 2.2.13, beuark), and of the FreeBSD obsolescence too (unless Desktop NetBSD will really exist some day).
Jun 6, 2009 at 00:40
One of the things OpenSolaris people need to fix asap is the bloody GUI for installing packages.. the current one is slower than death, ffs.
Packages of VLC, MPlayer etc will come in time, even if from "unofficial" repos.
Jun 6, 2009 at 10:48
No, it's not slower than death. It's acceptable. Have you tried recent versions of YumEx (>2.0.3)? Now, *those* are slower than death.
Jun 6, 2009 at 12:24
I posted how to install vlc and flash in OpenSolaris 2008.11 (in Spanish) but you can follow the commands easily.
For Flash, download the tar.gz package and put libflashplayer.so in your $HOME/.mozilla/plugins
Maybe you need to create the plugins dir before. http://blog.samuelig.es/?p=121
For VLC and codecs, use Blastwave (http://www.blastwave.org/howto.html and http://blog.samuelig.es/?p=114 in Spanish)
Jun 6, 2009 at 16:28
I never used any graphical frontends for yum (I simply can't get used to GUI's for apt/aptitude, urpmi, yum etc. I feel like having one arm tied at the back so to say). I'll prolly have the same experience in OS' case, but my experience with it has been _minimal_. I find Solaris 10 much faster.
Jun 6, 2009 at 18:19
Samuel, thanks!
So you trust Blastwave. But VLC is only at version 0.8.6, from June 2008. Doesn’t this version exhibit some sort of vulnerabilities?
I have some problems with 2009.06, e.g. it does not see any USB stick, although the stick’s LED is lit and after the insertion there is a very brief disk activity. “rmmount -l”
and “rmformat -l” don’t show the stick!
I see that there are still some bugs wrt USB sticks:
http://defect.opensolaris.org/bz/show_bug.cgi?id=5109
http://defect.opensolaris.org/bz/show_bug.cgi?id=6781
http://bugs.opensolaris.org/view_bug.do?bug_id=6767150
(What is a “defect” and what is a “bug” in OpenSolaris?! Is a “defect” a “confirmed bug”?)
I could try something, but for this I should really install OpenSolaris — I was using it as a LiveCD so far. http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=97294 suggests a possible working fix in /kernel/drv/scsa2usb.conf.
But the inability to treat the USB sticks correctly by default is a major bug IMHO.
Secondly, it looks like there is no xorg.conf. How the fuck (and where) can I define a Compose key?!
Jun 7, 2009 at 08:42
@Béranger, thanks for the blog post. A couple of answers…
Defects and bugs are one and the same. defect.opensolaris.org is used for many of the newer OpenSolaris technologies like the installer and the Image Packaging System (IPS) and GNOME while bugs.opensolaris.org is a gateway to Sun’s internal bug database which covers pretty much everything else.
USB sticks should work but it might be due to the type of USB controller on your system. If you could file a bug on defect.opensolaris.org and include the output of “pfexec scanpci -v”, we’ll get someone to look at it.
There is no xorg.conf file by default but you can generate on using “Xorg -configure”. The easiest way to do this is to boot the system in single user mode (on the GRUB menu, type “e” (for edit), arrow to the kernel$ line and add a ” -s” to the end of the link and then press “b” (for boot).
When you get logged in single-user, type the command “Xorg -configure” and then copy xorg.conf.new into /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
@Lucian, previous versions of the package manager GUI were very slow but this is now *much* faster in 2009.06. Are you still seeing issues in the new release?
@Samuel, although can install Flash the way you specified, another way is to register at http://pkg.sun.com/register and get access to the “extra” repository which includes software such as Flash, VirtualBox, Sun Grid Engine, etc which are free but do require a license acceptance.
Jun 9, 2009 at 06:13
You asked if OpenSolaris will mount USB thumb drives. Yes, it will. Read here: http://blogbeebe.blogspot.com/2009/06/opensolaris-200906-and-usb-drives.html
Jun 9, 2009 at 10:04
Well, in my case it will not mount them.
I reported it as http://defect.opensolaris.org/bz/show_bug.cgi?id=9374
Jun 9, 2009 at 21:05
Mea culpa, the USB sticks work in 2009.06!
What looks to have been the issue is something ACPI/hardware-related:
– If the laptop has been *forcefully* rebooted by pressing the OFF button 5+ seconds, after the boot on OpenSolaris, it *might* not seen the USB sticks (in my case, it won't see them!).
– If the laptop has been *gracefully* shutdown or even hibernated (from CentOS), rebooting in OpenSolaris would always see the USB sticks!
So I closed the bug report.
Jun 10, 2009 at 09:46
“only 209 packages”
Est ce que le nombre de packages est un indicateur de qualité?
Par exemple, l’an dernier, j’étais surpris par la taille anormale de R sous Solaris , supérieure à ce que l’on obtiendrait à partir des sources -et je n’avais pas le temps de comprendre, surtout qu’il ne reconnaissait pas l’USB(qui est haché en au moins 22 packages sous debian ou Mandriva : ce que l’on obtient à partir des sources représente donc 22 packets).
Un de mes amis a fait un rpm unique (pour CentOS et RH) contenant 80 packets suppplémentaires de R (chaque paquet de R -il y en a 1700 à ce jour, moins 10 qui sont spécifiques à W$$$ liens avec Excel et quelques logiciels libres qui n’ont pas encore té ports sous linux (ça existe) - peut être converti en un paquet *.deb automagiquement, et vraisemblablement en un *rpm tout aussi automagiquement : il souhaitait simplement, non pas pour faire du chiffre, mais avoir une image exacte et exhaustive de ce qu’il utilisait pour son travail et recommandait…. J’ai remarqué que Mandriva, pour les paquets de R, avait les premiers … par ordre alphabétique, puis s’était cantonné à ceux qui présentent quelques difficultés d’installation (liens avec tcl/Tk + tktable ou avec gtk/glade).
Si une grandeur est définie à un facteur 100 (22 +80) , reste-t-elle une grandeur?
Qui a interet à ce que ce soit considéré comme une UBUgrandeur?