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The boot simply hangs thereafter. Please help. I am terribly pissed off with Solaris as of now.

Solaris 5.8 and 5.9 are really old. However there are still ugly vulnerabilities that crop up with NIS, RPC Services to this day. Solaris 5.10 has managed to surpass 5.9 in the # of patches it can generate.

Somone above made the statement:

“You have a state of the art, most advanced operating system in the world in front of you, but the problem is, you’re trying to compare it to a dinky, hacked-together kernel-userland called Linux that doesn’t even stand up to Solaris’s ankle. And the worst of all, you don’t rightly understand what you have, and why things are the way they are. It’s not because “that’s how it was always done”, it’s because there is a damn fat good reason why.”

UH, mabe in 1992 there was a good reason to do things some arbitrary way. Get with the times folks it’s a new milleniumn. Hire some programmers and fix your damn product to be better than Linux. What you say? Service manager for 5.10 finally released. WOW! what was that syntax again?

Lastly, how many caveats are there when using Solaris to do anything?

Novell and IBM partnered and purchased SuSE, to prevent them from having to develop a proprietary OS in house. Sun’s old school methology stems from having proprietary hardware that requires proprietary software to work. All of this on a SPARC processor that hasn’t changed since 2003. R&D was too expensive to compete with x86 based chips, this is why they now utilize AMD’s. So long as the Government and money hungry VAR’s sell/purchase or promote Sun’s current products line they will die a slow death. Get with the program and go GNU while contributing something to the world…. besides grief on using your product(s).

Interesting blog. I found the Solaris 10 install maddening as well, but mainly because dependencies are not automatically resolved.

Just a word of caution on replacing root’s default shell: be sure to compile statically linked and plop it in /sbin. Otherwise, a hosed /usr (/usr/local, whatever) file system will send you running for a boot CD just to run just to fsck the offending file system. Better just to fire up your favorite shell from /.profile (or /root/.profile, if you prefer).

This sounds as a complaint song of a mediocre Linux sysadmin. How cares about the install?

I love how as soon as I criticize any part of Solaris, there’s no shortage of Solaris sysadmins out there who’s first response is “oh, look at the idiot linux guy! what a moron!”. Even if they don’t really mean it. It’s a gut reaction. I’m beginning to realize just how strong the bitterness towards Linux really is.

Anyhow, looking at the Solaris installer from the point of view of a Linux sysadmin was the *whole point of this post*. Personally, I come from a BSD and Solaris background, and I’m rather annoyed that I end up using Linux at least 90% of the time these days. So I’ve been turning a critical eye towards Solaris and asking “what’s driven such adoption in Linux?” when the commercial (and even BSDs) utterly failed to reach the community and “market” that Microsoft was so successful in targetting. What can Sun and/or the OpenSolaris community do to win back Linux shops?

Fundamentally, I think initial impressions are *critically important* in driving adoption of software, so that’s why I care about the installer.

The reason that we don’t have a /root is very obvious (only lousy admins would not know), that’s that when you only have the / file system left that we can still function 100% properly.

I didn’t suggest /root be a seperate filesystem, just a directory off /. /root is just as accessable as / in single-user mode. I have yet to hear a logical argument as to why root’s homedir must remain “/”, and until I do I’m firmly in the camp that wants a /root, and wants it used by default.

The dynamic/static sh argument isn’t a valid point, as there’s only one “sh” now and it’s dynamically linked. It does only link to libraries in /lib so you don’t need /usr mounted, so it is “single user friendly” I suppose, but when you boot to single user you can pick a different shell anyways. Personally, I’d prefer if I had to choose the featureless “sh” manually when booting single user, but was given a more featureful shell (the upcoming ksh93, if not bash, perhaps) by default for my normal duties. Alternatively, a better solutions might be to create a non-root user by default and force the user to login via that account instead of the root account after installation. Gain root priveleges through RBAC, similar to how OS X and most Linux distros utilize sudo these days. It seems I’m in the minority on the shell issue, though. Fair enough.

I’ll concede the vim point. How ’bout a non-X11 vim make it into /usr/sfw by default, though?

The rest of your arguments come down to “why complain, you can fix things up easily enough yourself after the install unless you’re an idiot Linux admin”. Which is nonsense. Why should I have to? Even if you’ve been using Solaris since 2.4, it’s a stupid waste of time, and that’s not even the point… A sysadmin new to Solaris just isn’t going to have any idea where to start. They aren’t going to know about jass, about how to actually set a usable PATH, fix crypt, enable syncookies, or how to do almost any of the things us experienced Solaris sysadmins do to bring Solaris up to snuff.

Try installing AIX, Tru64, SCO or Irix you will see exactly the same.

Yeah. And they’ve done so well in the marketplace, haven’t they!? Let’s be like AIX! Like Irix! That’s what we should do! Let’s give up and adopt Linux instead!

Seriously though, any OS has its idiosyncracies and nuances that take time to learn, appreciate, and master, but there’s lots of stupid stuff that stays the way it is for no good reason other than “that’s the way it’s always been”. If we’re to learn anything from the success of Linux, it’s that we shouldn’t be afraid to innovate in all areas of the UNIX experience. In my mind Solaris’ out-of-the-box-unreadiness is a contributing factor in why Solaris isn’t as attractive as the commercial Linux distros to many, many, many shops. It’s an unecessar barrier to entry. And that’s too bad, because everyone could benefit from taking a look at Solaris and the loads of stuff that truly is innovative. The good news is that the stuff I’m complaining about is pretty easy to fix in the grand scheme of things.

The only valid debate in my mind isn’t whether or not Solaris needs to improve in these areas, it’s whether or not “Solaris proper” is the place to tackle it. Should all such efforts be focused on the independant OpenSolaris efforts like Nexenta? I don’t have an answer for that one, but if I were Sun, I’d at least be hedging my bets in case Nexenta and friends don’t reach critical mass and get off the ground. Which probably means that these crufty bits of the Solaris experience need some tender loving care.

The terminal issue you describe makes sense, you odd to know that xterm-color is a non-existing xxterm subset a simple TERM=vt100 for xterm terminals is easy enough.

Who cares about bash prompt? Are you inapt and can’t set the prompt yourself?
The reason that we don’t have a /root is very obvious (only lousy admins would not know), that’s that when you only have the / file system left that we can still function 100% properly. I don’t hear anything about the fact that Solaris 10 is smarter than Linux with shells. You can set a ldd linked shell as your root shell and when in single mode it will automatically switch to a static linked sh shell. You can always set it to a different location.

I agree lets get rid of Sendmail, however sendmail is a defacto MTA and many a program uses sendmail. Why should you alter this when it’s easy enough too install Postfiix yourself?

As of Solaris 10 11/06 SUN can install a “secure” OS. BVut we’ve always had SUNWjass (Jass) to harden your OS beyond anything that Linux/OSX and BSD can do. How many Unixes have password retry lockouts?

Install is indeed SLOOOOOW but then again buy a DVD rom drive and you only install once.

VIM is again for pussy admins. A real admin doesn’t need vim! I never used any of the VIM extensions and I can do just fine. Besides VIM is a hog of memory and vi is nice and slim.

Nameservice is install by default, you just don’t need to configure it. How hard is it to make an /etc/resolve.conf file afterwards?

Conclusion your problems with Solaris install is build on a Linux foundation and no experience with “real” unixes before that. Try installing AIX, Tru64, SCO or Irix you will see exactly the same.

I kept root’s shell as /bin/sh back when it was statically compiled. It’s not anymore:

root@hubert:/bin# file sh
sh: ELF 32-bit LSB executable 80386 Version 1, dynamically linked, stripped

So I no longer see the point in sticking with /bin/sh as the root shell.

You couldn’t be more right if God from on-high burned them into stone tablets.

In my department, there is an ongoing debate over the shell issue. Personally, my only requirement is that I *must* be able to ’set -o vi’. That, and v to edit my command buffer. The shells that I use on a daily basis can do this (bash, ksh).

The only argument that I believe holds water for keeping /bin/sh as root’s shell is that it *does* take away those helpful shortcuts. Forcing an admin to explicitly type out each command gives the added fifth of a second to actually think about what you are doing.

The LSI driver swap is non-trivial because you can’t unload the driver that’s providing your root filesystem, or even remove the package. At least not without a lot of futzing around (i.e. moving the disk to a system that doesn’t have a LSI HBA in it). Since all of Sun’s amd64 hardware uses on-board LSI controllers, this is a bit tricky. Sun *officially* says they will not support you if you replace their ipt driver with the 3rd party version. Go ahead and place a service call and see for yourself.

I write scripts in ksh, and put a she-bang line at the top of my scripts specifying the shell, but I do prefer zsh or bash for interactive use. But you’re correct that it’s purely a matter of personal preference. Bash is there by default, at least. So I’m reasonably happy.

Regarding the Linux comment, well, what did you expect? The whole point of this post was to look at what a Solaris installation feels like to someone coming from years of Linux sysadmining. It’s worth noting that I sysadmin’ed on Solaris boxes for nearly a decade before the market went to Linux. It’s my belief that the Linux market is Sun’s biggest growth opportunity, so considering how to better cater to these people ought to be worth spending some time on.

The root home dir comment is rediculous. Why put it on /? What purpose does it serve? What am I gaining by having it there? Of course I always move it myself, but if you’re new to Solaris you’re going to run the graphical installer from the DVD and you’re only going to get the opportunity to create a root account. When the machine reboots, what else are you going to do but login as root?

I kept root’s shell as /bin/sh back when it was statically compiled. It’s not anymore:

root@hubert:/bin# file sh
sh: ELF 32-bit LSB executable 80386 Version 1, dynamically linked, stripped

So I no longer see the point in sticking with /bin/sh as the root shell.

vim is in there, you just don’t know where to look.

The LSi driver problem ought to be solvable by unloading the ipt module, taking the package out, and putting in the one that works. It shouldn’t cause you any problems to do that, and I don’t know why you’ve gotten recommendations to the contrary.

Not everyone likes bash, and for some good reasons too. It’s best to write stuff in ksh, unless all you ever want to write stuff for is Linux.

A lot of these arguments amount to “It’s not like Linux, you’re not pandering to my ignorance”, and trivial installers complaints. Oddly, if all you are used to using is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

As for root’s home dir being messy, well if you -must- login as root, it’s not that bad of a habit to clean it back out. afterwards. Changing root’s home, and worse changing roots shell, well I’ve seen people fired over the results of doing that. Figure out why for bonus points.

Incidently I’ll be interested to read up on the connection between Bill Joy and vi — sounds interesting.

To ux-admin: you epitomise the very ilk of sysadmin that I can’t stand to be around. Your fanatacism about which shell to and how things are to be done exposes you as nothing more than the Scientologist of System Administrators. Get over your way of doing things and appreciate alternative points of view.

I’m not sure if you follow Mark’s blog at all though I doubt very much that you have. If you did you’d see that you’re not dealing with the amature that you seem to be painting him to be, and your insinuations only serve to diminish your own credibility.

–FC

Another couple of annoyances:

- practically useless $PATH for ssh logins: /usr/bin. Who wants to prepend /usr/ucb everytime they want to see disk usage, the currently logged in user or link a file? These are common enough tasks and pose no security threat when they are in the path

- practically non-existent package management. apt-get install vim anyone?

The more people who speak up about this, the more likely it is that people in Sun will take notice.

So I installed from text mode using an nfs-mounted dvd image.

Jump start is fine, but we deliver systems to customer sides and don’t want the system to be moved at every reinstallation, because of hw-damage or upgrades.

Two reasons for this:
1. Customs - Computers and Computer parts have to be declared
CD and DVD media will go unnoticed (You can even declare them and take them back with you)
2. Installation on the side gives a good feeling the customer, that he is able to continue operations, even
when traveling is impossible.

Since breakdowns a seldom with solaris, this is just for the feel.

As for the last statement, I probably will write or support some RFE’s, but I think my posting here can serve just as well as any post to an OpenSolariis jive forum or an official bug report. One of the goals of any open system is to foster an open community, and for that to happen conversations can and should happen outside the mothership’s facilities.

If I’ve started even a single debate anywhere within the Sun / OpenSolaris community about what a modern-day Linux sysadmin’s first impressions of Solaris *might* be, then I’ve succeded.

As for the shell stuff, fair enough. The me vs. ux-admin “who’s a bigger man” banter was all rather childish and uncalled for, and really I shouldn’t have bitten his tcsh bait to begin with..

As I said, I personally didn’t like mixing two shell syntaxes daily. Of course, these days I don’t write sh (sh, bash, or ksh) scripts often and mostly rely on Ruby or Python for my scripting. So I could probably go back to tcsh no problems now. I always sorta like it when I come full circle. At this point, though, if I were to switch away from bash it would probably be to zsh.