OpenSolaris 2008.05 snv_97 Working on UX280P

[daplumber]

Graphics (Int and Ext and resize), KB, WiFi, Audio, TouchScreen, Thumbstick, and Batt/Power all work "out of the box".

Ethernet required the SKGE download via usb stick after install to work. Yeah, it says "Gigabit" and for Solaris10 but it's the same chipset family and works fine.

"Hold" switch disable KB and mouse input, but (obviously - no driver) doesn't blank screen.

I use the fingerprint reader for BIOS access only, I'll see if there's a Solaris driver and/or any applications later.

I repartitioned my whole-disk XP-Pro NTFS partition with Gparted LiveCD and gave OSol 8GB. Installer found the unused space, created the partition and laid down the slices for ZFS root and Swap.

I actually booted Gparted and the Install from USB flash drives, but a USB CDrom worked fine as well.

Note that my Osol 2008.05 is not the original iso download as that's a little out of date. I used build 97 and tried build95 which also booted.

I think I now claim the smallest Solaris box... :D

Anyone else interested in this OS? I'm addicted to ZFS. :p

Memory usage on my 1GB seems pretty light.

I'm not going to turn it into a Sun Ray server... yet. :cool:

James

[gabe]

That's one of the coolest things I've heard all week, despite knowing next to nothing about solaris! :D I've tried putting linux on this box, but couldn't disable thumbstick clicking (it did crazy things) or calibrate the touchscreen. Looks like solaris, which I've heard is far less ubiquitous than linux was supposed to be, works better?! :) Well...at least your exclusive ISO of it does... ;)

[daplumber]

Yeah, the trackstik click is a little twitchy under OSol 0805 too.

You can build updated install images, and sometimes download, but I wouldn't recommend it for a first time install. There's a new OSol due out next month: 0811 improvements so far look good. Updating the system is as simple as "pkg image-update" once you've installed the network driver if you don't want to wait. Oh, and it snapshots the boot disk and updates that while the system is still live. If something doesn't work right after a reboot, booting the previous state is as simple as selecting it in the GRUB menu. Since the snapshot process on uses space for actual changes, disk consumption is light, so updating and/or testing often is a breeze and low risk.

OpenSolaris is an acquired taste, however the benefits of things like ZFS are worth the effort for the Geek inclined. OSol 0805 is a little rough around the edges, but compared to rev 1.0 of other OSS OS' it's impressive.

"OpenSolaris is what Linux wants to be when it grows up." :D

Download another great freebie from Sun VirtualBox (virtualbox.org) if you want to mess around with OSol (or anything else) in a virtual machine. VBox runs under Windows, OS X, Linux, and Solaris.

James