There has been a lot of talk about the StormOS installer which is basically the Nexenta Core Platform 2 installer with a few modifications. Most of this talk has about how slow (which has been fixed) it is and user unfriendly (which has not been fixed) it is.
For a server its fine but it's not for the desktop, so we have a few options the way I see it.
We can write a new installer which is something I started to do but no longer think this is the route to take, and we start the road to something new, or we can pick a side: OpenSolaris or Ubuntu. If we go the OpenSolaris route we use the Caiman installer, if we go the Ubuntu route we use the Ubiquity installer.
Personally I think Ubiquity is the way to go, but I'm interested in what others have to say on the topic.
Comments please.
On a similar note:
A new script "nexenta2stormos.sh" will be available soon to make the installation of StormOS on top on NCP2 easier and less prone to error.
I still can't proceed with installation, because StormOS failed to enter the graphical mode. I have 22-inch Acer display with 1680x1050 native resolution and Ati Radeon x1950 Pro card. StormOS as well as Nexenta, as well as Belenix can't enter desktop due to this issue. The thing is that the picture gets distorted even before X starts.
So by now I can't do anything in StormOS.
The only SunOS that runs smoothly on my machine is OpenSolaris.
Hello Andy,
I recently discovered StormOS and I'm very excited about it and think it have a *brilliant* future. I'm currently using Mint (a Ubuntu/Debian based distro) but StormOS seems what I really would like to run in my system, so I have few questions and depending on them please count with me with anything I can help you - anything but code, lol :D
1. I would like to know if StormOS will have multimedia support or at least will have some way to make it multimedia capable. I already know about issues with non free codecs in OpenSolaris and I know this may be an issue as well here, but as Storm will be Ubuntu focused too it might be as well be fully multimedia capable.
2. I would like to contribute to StormOS with spanish translation (I live in Argentina): interface, bash, documentation, anything, everything.
I use my computer for lot of things, from copying DVDs to scanning & printing and playing every type of multimedia files -music and videos- both free and patented formats so this is why I'm asking about [wide] multimedia support. One of the best things about Linux Mint is it's fully multimedia support - flash and silverlight included - and to be realistic, a modern desktop based OS definetely should be *fully* multimedia capable.
If you think I can fit anyhow in your project don't hesitate and leave me a line.
Best!
Listening to music works great, I've had no problem playing my massive flac and mp3 collection with Rhythmbox (see the screenshots). Movies are a bit different though.
Until recently all of the movie players have been quitting with X errors but totem-xine 2.26 no longer seems to do this, since xine is not built with sunaudio support you wont get any sound though. Media, Flash and Mono stuff (like Silverlight, Banshee, Gnome do) are pretty high on the todo list.
We need to get some decent documentation done before we can start thinking about translating things, I could really use some help with this.
Since I can't code please coun't on me on anything else :)
I think the OS can be developed into two ways: a server version and a desktop version
And I agree with you that Ubiquity installer is better than Caiman installer.
Hello Andy,
The Debian installer has been ported to the Debian/kfreebsd architecture recently, although it is still a work in progress. This ported version, that is using a BSD kernel, might be easier to port to StormOS. Also ZFS is supported on both Solaris and BSD, so it might be a good joint project with Luca Favatella towards a universal installer.
You may try it:
[1] http://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/kfreebsd-amd64/
[2] http://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/kfreebsd-i386/
I have used: http://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/kfreebsd-i386/daily/monolithic/mini.iso
Google summer of code project:
http://socghop.appspot.com/student_project/show/google/gsoc2009/debian/t...
Hope this helps,
Anton
Hello Andy, I have two questions:
First, I would like to know why do you prefer Ubiquity over Caiman. It's an honest question, I would like to hear your POV.
It would be very interesting to see more of Debian/Ubuntu in StormOS, that's looking better every day... But will it take advantage of OSol's strong points like ZFS?
Another question, have you thought about a Windows based installer like Ubuntu's WUBI (http://wubi-installer.org/) for StormOS? ... Something like WUBI was in the works by a Japanese guy (http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/chototsu_moushinp/54805608.html) but I'm not sure if the code is freely available.
That would certainly ease installation for new people testing StormOS outside a virtual machine.
Hi Phobos,
There are 2 reasons why I lean towards Ubiquity: Its familiar to Ubuntu users and its written in Python, which I prefer.
A WUBI like installer is probably a long way off at this stage but enough people have requested it to make it worth looking into.
Caiman understands ZFS , and has been tested by a large audience. Belenix has ported it from IPS to spkg, so modifying it to apt should be easy.