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posted by n1 on Monday June 19 2017, @08:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the disappointing dept.

OpenIndiana is a free and open source Unix operating system derived from OpenSolaris and based on illumos.

Curmudgeonly software reviewer Dedoimedo AKA Igor Ljubuncic reports:

Conclusion

I find the test today somewhat sad. Sure, I did accomplish what I needed, but it gave me no joy, and no hope that this operating system can even even remotely compare against any Linux. Even CentOS is lightyears ahead. In the server environment, it may have its uses, but it completely misses the mark on the desktop.

Package management, applications, it all just feels raw, alien, unfriendly. What do you do if there are problems with drivers, or hardware? Where do you find the latest apps, and this isn't just an act of mercy by a volunteer? What about compatibility on actual hardware. The fact I was not willing to commit my test laptop also tells something.

You can master and tame OpenIndiana, to a level. But it is mostly a futile exercise in obstinacy. All of the stuff we've done above are more or less a given in Linux, and have been so since about 2007. It's like driving an old car and trying to match its abilities to new, modern technology. Unless you're into antiques, it's not really worth it.

The worst part, I guess, isn't the specifics. That can be sorted. It's the absolute lack of progress since 2011, in the desktop space. Underneath it may be wonders, but if you cannot use the system, then it's worthless. Lots of the stuff from the previous version have been removed [or] made less accessible, but we get nothing new in return. So it is nerdier and harder than before, and that's a grim sign of a future that has no place on the desktop. This seems to be true with other operating systems in this family, too. Just not worth the effort. Stick with Linux. Grade wise, 4/10.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Shimitar on Monday June 19 2017, @09:47AM (6 children)

    by Shimitar (4208) on Monday June 19 2017, @09:47AM (#527826) Homepage

    Old time Gentoo user here.
    To be honest, all this fuss about SystemD, PulseAudio, Network Manager and so on does not touch "us" Gentooers too much. Gentoo proves it can be done "the linux way", which means with freedom. You can use one or all of them, or just avoid all of them with no problems on Gentoo.

    The direction where Linux is going is "nowhere". Or better, it is NOT where Ubuntu and Redhat are driving toward. Linux is not "going" somewhere... Somebody is driving to oblivion, somebody else is missing the point. Desktop is going to die... Soon(er) than anybody expects, there will only be "power users" who will either use Windows/MacOSX or Linux, which will not care or know how to avoid the mess you are talking about. The rest 95% of people will be happy with tablets and phablets.

    The "future" of linux is Android(*), which is much worse than SystemD.

    (*) until Google will remove the Linux kernel, which is in the works.

    --
    Coding is an art. No, java is not coding. Yes, i am biased, i know, sorry if this bothers you.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday June 19 2017, @02:01PM (1 child)

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Monday June 19 2017, @02:01PM (#527908) Journal

    The direction where Linux is going is "nowhere". Or better, it is NOT where Ubuntu and Redhat are driving toward. Linux is not "going" somewhere... Somebody is driving to oblivion, somebody else is missing the point. Desktop is going to die... Soon(er) than anybody expects, there will only be "power users" who will either use Windows/MacOSX or Linux, which will not care or know how to avoid the mess you are talking about. The rest 95% of people will be happy with tablets and phablets.

    I doubt the desktop will ever fully die. The more likely scenario is a (oh jesus im about to use a buzzword, forgive me lord!) convergence of the tablet and desktop. Instead of a dedicated desktop, a tablet would allow a wireless keyboard and mouse, probably bluetooth, and use wifi to stream it's screen to a larger monitor, probably a TV or desktop monitor.

    The other scenario is the PC AT* formfactor dies off and we move to bookshelf style PC's like the Mac Mini or raspberry pi. We already have such high levels of integration that the SoC has made discreet PC components mostly obsolete. Plug in the little box, hook to a monitor and you're finished. There will be a point where the divide between GPU and CPU will be gone and all we will have are APU SoC's. So long as there are high speed I/O ports like USB C and no locking down of the firmware (e.g. locked to secure booting windows/android/fuschia only) I am fine with that.

    The "future" of linux is Android(*), which is much worse than SystemD.
    (*) until Google will remove the Linux kernel, which is in the works.

    The future of Linux is server side web/iot/cloud/container/buzzword. It was never going to make it to the desktop because it has and always will suck at that (And I 'm a Linux/*nix/plan 9 fan).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @12:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @12:41AM (#528252)

      Yeah??

      M$ has dropped the ball so many times that nobody pays them any mind any more WRT mobile.

      Apple split desktop and mobile.

      Ubuntu dropped Ubuntu Touch in their recent rejiggering.
      A group has picked up that but their website is such a complete mess that I don't know how they expect to accomplish anything.
      They don't even have dates on things on their site. [ubports.com]

      Tizen is going nowhere fast and doesn't seem at all interested in convergence.

      In the future, is everybody going to be running Google's stuff?

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday June 19 2017, @05:01PM (1 child)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday June 19 2017, @05:01PM (#528012) Homepage
    Agreed. I still plan on getting Gentoo on at least one of my systems, the last time I tried it (post Debian's systemderp scare, pre Devuan) it looked like it would nearly do what I wanted. Alas I'm a legacy hardware kinda person (I have a 15 year old PC as my main server) - I really don't want to be compiling big packages. 8 iterations of Moore's law means that big jobs become biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig jobs.

    And regarding Linux' growth and future, I feel that Linux is a bit like kudzu - it's going in whatever direction seems easy for it. Some big companies with big budgets are able to invite it to grow in their field, but that doesn't mean linux has moved there, only that it's expanded there. If Evilcorp starts to kill bits of it that aren't in their field, then that's something to start worrying about. In a way, the attempted assassination of sysvinit was one of those things. Fortunatly Gentoo's rootstock is hardy.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @12:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @12:53AM (#528262)

      plan on getting Gentoo

      I'm surprised The Mighty Buzzard hasn't already chimed in as he has before.
      Must be fishing.
      Calculate Linux [soylentnews.org]

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Monday June 19 2017, @06:09PM (1 child)

    by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Monday June 19 2017, @06:09PM (#528064) Homepage Journal

    The problem is the Gentoo learning cliff.

    As much as I do like Gentoo, I got off it originally for Ubuntu because I don't get a lot of enjoyment with constantly fiddling with my system. Installing a system with Ubuntu and my preferred DE of the time took about an hour. Setting up Gentoo from stage3 and setting up Cinnamon with my app set is more like a 1-2 day job.

    If someone would make a distribution that dumped most of the crap I hate about Linux, but kept the things about Ubuntu I liked, I'd probably jump there.

    --
    Still always moving
    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 19 2017, @11:42PM

      by kaszz (4211) on Monday June 19 2017, @11:42PM (#528216) Journal

      What is the crap you hate about Linux?

      And what is that you really like?