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On Sun, 2007-05-13 at 15:25 +0100, Anton Channing wrote: [chopped around the original message...] > > Next time I get a spare PC to mess around with I might perform some > experiments with these and various Linux distros. > Yes, it's a good way of finding out about these things. I have a PC at work running Belenix (OpenSolaris) and NetBSD (also one with Ubuntu and OpenSuSE). In my case I wanted to see how OpenSolaris compared to our standard Sun/Solaris servers, and likewise how did NetBSD compare. > > What are their advantages and disadvantages over using Linux distros? > Are their open source licenses 'less open' than Linux? > Unfortunately I have had little time to work much on these other than installing them. However, from first glance I can say: 1) NetBSD - supposed to be one of the most secure O/Ses available. I suspect that's because not too much is installed by default, and not much is standard up at boot time! :-) In terms of 'open' source, no problem, you have access to the source. Adding new software via their 'pkgsrc' mechanism though is different for me, and likewise for patching the system. I'm still not quite sure if the system is running the latest (patched) software or not! No hardware problems, but it is running on an bog-standard old PC. It includes more 'basic' software (i.e. general utilities usually seen on Linux), than does Solaris, and so is a bit easier to work with. Documentation on NetBSD itself seems to be *very* sparse. I gather a book is in preperation, not sure if that is still going or not, but I did find a 'Users guide'. I'm still, slowly, working through that. Installation disk partitioning can be awkward, since it installs all NetBSD into one actual partition, but then slices that partition up?!? Made a bit of a mess of the sector/cylinder boundaries, but everything seems to be okay. 2) Belenix - Installed no problem. Runs KDE on the desktop - can't remember if that was an install option, or if Belenix is KDE-biased! No idea about how 'open source' it is, as I haven't had time to look for any sources. I gather they use the NetBSD 'pkgsrc' mechanism for packages - that was solely coincidental with my installing NetBSD as well! You will probably find other opensolaris distros using other package managers. Generally easier to use than Solaris, again due to the provided utilities. However, they seem to use the Solaris service manager bootup mechanism (SMF) for services. This was introduced in Solaris 10, but personally I prefer the older sysv mechanism. (I'm having enough problems with SMF on a small Solaris 10 Sun box, so I'm biased about seeing it in opensolaris!) That is about as far as I have got with those two. Can't say I see us using either of them in production, but it has been interesting finding out about them. I can only suggest try them (or similar) for yourself. The nice thing is that with live-CD's O/S's have become sort of 'throwaway-able'. Try it, without affecting your hard disk, and if you don't like it then just try something else! :-) Belenix has a live-cd, NetBSD (I think) doesn't. John. -- --------------------------------------------------------------- John Horne, University of Plymouth, UK Tel: +44 (0)1752 233914 E-mail: John.Horne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fax: +44 (0)1752 233839 -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html