Sun Microsystems on Monday released the OpenSolaris operating system. Some industry analysts are suggesting the community-developed platform based on Sun’s Solaris kernel could give Linux a new challenge.
OpenSolaris combines the foundation of Solaris technologies and tools with desktop features and applications developed by open-source communities such as GNOME, Mozilla and the Free Software Foundation. The OS will also be available through Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).
Stephen Lau, an OpenSolaris Governing Board member, called the software a “massive advancement for OS development and deployment.”
“OpenSolaris provides an ideal environment for students, developers and early adopters looking to learn and gain experience with innovative technologies like ZFS, Zones and DTrace,” Lau said. “And yes, it uses bash by default.”
Test, Troubleshoot and Deploy
The OpenSolaris OS was designed to enable developers to develop, test, troubleshoot and deploy Web services, high-performance computing and network applications. LiveCD installation and the new network-based OpenSolaris Image Packaging System (IPS) aim to simplify and speed installation and integration with third-party applications.
According to Rich Green, executive vice president of Sun’s software business, the “network economy” has ushered in new, dramatically different business models that have changed both the pace and approach with which individuals, communities and companies compete and succeed. “It is critical,” he said, “for the participants in this new market to have the right tools and technologies to meet these challenges.”
OpenSolaris features ZFS as its default file system, which protects work with instant rollback and continual check-summing capabilities to allow users to test ideas. Meanwhile, Solaris Containers let developers build virtualization-aware applications that can be deployed on more than 1,000 systems, from single machines through multi-CPU and multi-core systems.
Challenging Commercial Linux Distros
OpenSolaris creates interesting opportunities and challenges for Sun, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT Research. Sun, he said, is attempting to leverage the open-source…