Nexenta OS Alpha 6 review
DownloadNexenta is a complete GNU-based open source operating system built on top of the OpenSolaris kernel and runtime. It is a result of
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Nexenta is a complete GNU-based open source operating system built on top of the OpenSolaris kernel and runtime.
It is a result of our inspiration and desire to build a great system based on the best existing software: SunOS kernel and GNU software. We use Debian - one of the best existing software distribution/packaging mechanisms - to glue the numerous pieces together.
At the moment, Nexenta is not part of the Debian Project. Our packages are not present in the Debian database. We are hoping that in the future this will change and our packages will get their "upstream acceptance".
Nexenta OS has been a hard and challenging work, yet every bit of it is fun! We spent many hours building the system and today it is out - it'll start speaking for itself.
Nexenta is completely open source and free of any charge.
It contains Apache, MySQL, Perl/Python/PHP, Firefox, Evolution, software update manager, Synaptic package manager, Gaim Instant Messenger, abiword, administration & development utilities, editors, graphics, GNOME, interpreters, libraries and many others. All of this is running on the state-of-the-art SunOS kernel. Visit our ScreenShots gallery to see them all in action.
There's a huge and growing multitude of software: the kernel, network services, databases, utilities, user applications. There is a conglomerate of code and hardware that is constantly changing, improving, and altogether getting more complicated. Somebody once rightly said: free software is only free if time has no value. Nexenta distribution integrates well over 2,300 packages. It installs, runs and upgrades. It delivers!
Nexenta software packages (for the most part) are originated from Ubuntu (Breezy) Linux. Ubuntu (yet another excellent distribution that uses DEB software packaging) contains more than 16,000+ software packages. One of our goals is to make them all available for use on top of our environment.
Today Nexenta runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit x86/x64 platforms. As a prove of relative maturity and a confidence booster - this web portal and the entire development environment (including Bugs and HackZone) are powered by Nexenta.
Nexenta makes its first steps into the big world. We invite you to join us and participate too! Help us make Nexenta the best operating environment in the world! Help us test Nexenta on your laptops, desktops, and servers. Help us improve our web portal, translate Nexenta into your own language, add new applications, enhance existing ones and define a set of software to be used in the future releases.
This is a complete Nexenta OS with select applications on a single CD with network and GNOME environment.
The LiveCD image can be burned into a bootable CD-R/CD-RW, and/or it can be booted in VMWare or QEMU environments. Our LiveCD contains support for 32- and 64-bit x86/x64 platforms.
Here are some key features of "Nexenta OS":
Major Features
OpenSolaris kernel build 26
Specifically for Desktop:
GNOME 2.12.1
Complete GNOME Office (Abiword, Gnumeric, GNOME-DB, Inkspace, GIMP, Gnomemeeting, Dia)
X.org 6.8.2 with wider hardware support
Synaptic package management and Automatic Update notifier
Nexenta artworks with "Solar" theme
Integrated DBUS, HAL (work in progress)
KDE libraries, GNOME 1.x libraries
Nice Fonts collection
Server applications:
Apache1 (1.3.33), Apache2 (2.0.54) next generation, scalable, extendable web server
PHP4, PHP5 with all sort of extensions
Perl 5.8.7 with varios CPAN modules pre-built
Python-2.2, Python-2.3, Python-2.4 with various extension modules
Java: JRE-1.5.0 and GNU gnj and classpath
Ruby-1.8 with all sort of extensions
Subversion, CVS, others...
Simplified (minimal) installer:
Script-based installer.
Automatically makes existing hard drive partitions available to the desktop
"Under the hood"
Debian packaging (including SUNW packages)
Mostly compiled with GCC 4.0.1, but GCC-3.4 and Sun Devpro is also used
More modular X.org packaging, latest CVS bits
HAL integrational work (ongoing)
Limitations:
pre-alpha1 release will not install on SCSI/USB disks. We are working on this issue and hoping that alpha1(which is due 1 week) will support both.
We have converted most SUNW packages to native DEB packages. We've made it such that package definitions and information from OpenSolaris code base are preserved; that means class action scripts (install and remove) will work. However, we don't currently support upgrading these packages on a live system, due to the nature of some of the scripts which require a non-live/non-running target. You can, however, freely upgrade any of the non-SUNW packages using apt-get or Synaptic package manager.
We are in the middle of upgrading FreeBSD/SchiliX libm to recently released SUN libm, so, expect some software to fail with such a message below (if you run it from console). Please report to us if you notice any other component that fails in similar way; we'll fix it ASAP.
ld.so.1: gimp-2.2: fatal: libm.so.2: version `SCHILY_0.1' not found (required by file /usr/bin/gimp-2.2)
ld.so.1: gimp-2.2: fatal: libm.so.2: open failed: No such file or directory
Killed
We are working on integrating more network device drivers.
We do not have NIS/NIS+/LDAP name resolution at the moment; we are working on resolving this in future release. DNS is the only supported mechanism for now.
Our system currently obtains network address information via DHCP (and will fallback to RARP). LiveCD will still come up in a non-DHCP environment, but network interface configuration must be done manually. We hope to resolve this issue in future release.
Login:
- user: root
- password: livecd
Nexenta OS Alpha 6 keywords