Blastwave

If you’re a sysadmin like me, you’re probably finding your Solaris to Linux quotient has reversed from what it was, say, 5 years ago. Now days, most everything I deal with is Linux, with a few special-purpose Solaris boxes thrown in here and there. Getting a Solaris box ready for use by a new generation of UNIX users (i.e. they grew up on Linux, not the other way around) has always been a little frustrating. OK, it’s been very frustrating, tedious, and stupid. Until Blastwave. Finally, a Debian-inspired package management system for Solaris! You install one Solaris package the old fashioned way, and from that point on, you’ve got apt-like convenience and dependency resolution:

# pkg-get install apache

That did just what you thought. Automatically figured out what dependencies apache needs, downloaded and installed them, and then did the same for apache itself. Yay! Feel like upgrading all your installed Blastwave packages? No problem:

# pkg-get upgrade

It’s not quite apt, but it’s pretty close. Sunfreeware is great and all, and Sun’s attempt at putting “SFW” onto the base Solaris 9/10 installs was a step in the right direction, but Blastwave is so much better I’m sure it will be the only game in town in a year. Yes, it Blastwave saves you that much time.

So visit, buy a DVD to support the Blastwave effort, and be happy.