[ILUG] In other news

[Paul Jakma]

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, Niall Walsh wrote:

> Can someone else (i.e. I don't care and wouldn't have the 
> knowledge) not build an install cd?

I guess.

Again, the BFU archives are there - just unpack them and look at what 
the script does. It does however assume its unpacking over an 
existing Solaris install.

As for building an install CD, I dont think the installer bits are in 
OpenSolaris. You have to understand the following about how Solaris 
is built internally:

- You have lots of different 'projects' which deliver what ends up as
   Solaris
 	- OS/Net (aka 'ON' - the core Solaris kernel+userspace bits)
 	- JDS
 	- CDE
 	- X11
 	- Sun FreeWare (aka SFW, eg apache, apache2, etc..)

And more. These each have their own internal source trees, which are 
worked on - called 'consolidations'. At various points a team takes 
snapshots of the various relevant consolidations and puts together a 
'WOS' (Wad Of Stuff) and creates DVD and CD and various other images. 
A recent version of the Solaris Nevada WOS is what you get if you 
download a Solaris development 'release' via the 'Solaris Express' 
programme on www.sun.com.

What was released on OpenSolaris.org today is (AIUI) derived from the 
core OS/Net consolidation. Hence, does not include the installer 
(which is a seperate consolidation iirc).

Also made available were the Sun One Studio 10 compiler toolchain 
(binary only) for x86 and UltraSPARC. OpenSolaris should also mostly 
be buildable with gcc.

> Go through the pain of getting the working binaries, and then use 
> them to build their own version of an OpenSolaris Express installer 
> (or some other method of installing an OpenSolaris system).

See above, there is no installer other than BFU over an existing 
Solaris install. BFU => Blindingly Fast Upgrade btw - a shell script 
which drops you into a chroot and tries to take care of upgrade 
issues, marks conflicts it cant resolve and gives a safe environment 
from which to resolve to them (not for the faint-hearted though).

The ON bits /do/ contain everything needed to build SySV packages 
btw. So you can build the various packages and if you have the 
'pkgadd' binaries you probably could use those to install 
OpenSolaris.

>  Or what is missing, or what am I missing?  Is it the installer 
> itself that's missing?  If so it shouldn't be hard to knock up some 
> form of primitive installer which would work surely?

And indeed, there are people working on this. One of them is Joerg 
Schilling apparently, who seems to be working on creating an 
OpenSolaris derived 'Schillix'[1]. Another is Erich Boetilier, who 
has documented how to put together 'Unix from Scratch' (essentially, 
GNU/OpenSolaris), see:

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/eric_boutilier/20050406#unix_from_scratch_table_of

I think he has GNU/OpenSolaris pruned down to under 100MB worth of 
packages. The rest of his blog is interesting too.

> From there how long from there until we have a Debian 
> GNU/OpenSolaris?

It'd be nice.

> Or is CDDL even DFSG Free (the patenting clauses anyway makes me 
> wonder)?

I can't see why the patent clauses would be a problem. They further 
the goal of a patent commons (which is a good thing), and CDDL code, 
implementing a patent or not, is quite miscible with code under other 
licences.

The GPL however probably would not allow linkage with CDDL code. Eg, 
for one because the GPL has no mechanism for non-public patent 
grants, and some other incompatibilities. If you wanted to release 
your own code under GPL /and/ use some CDDL code, you'd have to give 
your own project an exception to link to the CDDL files. (As, eg, 
RedHat have done with their netscape directory thing, for proprietary 
plugins).

> Of course whether it's worth it or not is another matter.  I guess 
> both will be projects like rebuilding a Freely redistributable 
> Suse/Novell Professional image, a test of just how many people 
> care.

I can't quite speak for Sun, however I suspect Sun hopes people don't 
just restrict themselves to rebuilding their own Solaris images, but 
that they go and do whatever they want with it (within confines of 
CDDL licence)...

> Niall
>

1. I can neither confirm nor deny rumours that Schillix will banish 
/dev and make all device references in utilities be according to 
arcane topology id numbers. (ifconfig dev=1,2,3,4). You'd have to ask 
Joerg.. ;)

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	paul at clubi.ie	paul at jakma.org	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
Happiness adds and multiplies as we divide it with others.