Sun Studio Express 11/08 is now available!
The latest Sun Studio Express release with updated features and enhancementss is now available for download. Available on OpenSolaris 2008.05, Solaris 10 and Linux (RHEL 5/SuSe 10/Ubuntu 8.04/CentOS 5.1),
Sun Studio Express 11/08 features:
1. Full OpenMP 3.0 compiler support
2. Enhanced Performance Analysis of MPI applications
3. Updated IDE based on NetBeans 6.5
4. Remote Development and Debugging capabilities
5. New stand-alone lightweight GUI debugger, dbxtool
Improved Performance for Intel x86, AMD x86, UltraSPARC and SPARC64-based systems
Plus Netbeans was recently made Multilingual that means NetBeans IDE 6.1 is now available in Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Brazilian Portuguese! The entire range of NetBeans Packs and Bundles can be downloaded in these languages, as well as in English.
Netbeans is no more just a Java IDE. It supports PHP ( Netbeans Early Access for PHP ), Ruby and so many other languages too.
Coolest thing about Netbeans is the Matisse Builder where you could just Drag and Drop components into your GUI Application. Netbeans is way faster now and is the Coolest Grand Unified IDE.
Hi, This is Ashwin Bhat K S the SUN CAMPUS AMBASSADOR of NITK Surathkal India, and i will be telling about my experiences with Opensolaris 2008.05. [ THE LIVE CD WHICH TAKES THE LEAST TIME TO INSTALL ] This Blog is more focussed on Desktop and Laptop usage of OpenSolaris. In the Server Side its no secret Solaris Rules with Features like ZFS, Predictive Self Healing, DTrace, Zones etc which rule the Data Centre and simplify Administration and MAnagement.
At the end is a list of Links which will help any Solaris enthusiast be it Sysadmin / Developer / End User . Do remember to see them.
Let me start with some really cool features and interesting stuff.
I Downloaded the Live CD from the OpenSolaris Website. It was an ISO around 685 MB. You could also order a Free Live CD which sun will ship to your Doorstep.
The term “live” derives from the fact that these “distros”, or software distributions, each contain a complete, functioning and operational operating system on the distribution medium. A LiveDistro does not alter the operating system or files already installed on the computer hard drive unless instructed to do so. LiveDistros often include mechanisms and utilities for more permanent installation, including disk partitioning tools. The default option, however, is to allow the user to return the computer to its previous state when the LiveDistro is ejected and the computer is rebooted. It is able to run without permanent installation by placing the files that typically would be stored on a hard drive into RAM, typically in a RAM disk. However, this does cut down on the RAM available to applications, reducing performance somewhat. As of 2007, certain LiveDistros run a graphical user interface in as little as 32MB RAM.
SO you could Play around with the cool features of OS without affecting your hard disk.
First i would like to tell about my experiences with installation.
I put the Live CD inside my CD ROM Drive and in 2 minutes i had the OpenSolaris Live CD running with a cool Desktop Background. it was bundled with the latest Build 86 of the famous Solaris Kernel.
Solaris Works really cool with the NVIDIA Graphics Card and I am lucky to have it my Laptop. So i had no trouble whatsoever with the GUI Working wonderful and fine. In case anybody has any problem with the gui they can type this command $ gdm or just leave a comment for this blog. I can help you with xorg configuration just in case. I recommend Opensolaris folks to buy a laptop or a Desktop with an NVIDIA Graphics Card
There is complete Documentation in the Firefox link provided in Desktop of Live CD. ( Getting Started with OpenSolaris 2008.05 ) This includes installation Procedure , Dual Boot instructions, Solaris Basic System Administration etc and other useful fundae.
There were a couple of interesting Features I noticed. First was a device Driver Utility. This detected almost all my drivers in the System except for my network card , Wi-fi and AUDIO ( which are all available for download in the Internet) .
But there was an option for me to submit my Device Configuration to the BigAdmin Portal Hardware Compatibility List so that they can get the Drivers Well integrated into the next BIG Release.
The next BIG Thing is the easiest to use CAIMAN INSTALLER. I found it amazing and even a newbie computer user would find it easy to install Opensolaris. In just 6-7 Clicks OpenSolaris was installed. TO install OpenSolaris from live CD you need to Double click the INSTALL Icon waiting to be clicked on the Desktop.
When you click NEXT you get to give your partition Options. I already had a Primary Partition of 39.1 GB Free out of the 150 GB Hard Disk. So i just selected SOLARIS in the Partition Type Field.
In case you did not have a primary partition you could use Gparted Live CD to do so. My advice to guys is not to use partition magic as it damages your MBR sometimes. If you have Linux already installed you could use the command format or parted. If you have Windows then Control panel -> Administrative tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management You could right click on any partition , create a partition delete a partition etc and make necessary primary partition required by Solaris . Extended Partition support for installation is a project which is going on and we would soon see extended partition install support for Solaris. The Image for Changing partition configuration through windows is here
Select Your Country , Date, TIme, etc. Even a New born could do this And then say NEXT
Select your Language Options.
Enter Root Password and Fill in other User related Details. Don’t Forget to give a good name for your COMPUTER.
So all Installation options are listed and OpenSolaris will wait for your Approval to install itself. Just Say INSTALL.
50 % of the installation took hardly 7 minutes. That was amazingly Fast.
In another 20 minutes OpenSolaris in running in your Bare Metal. Congratulations. Good Job Done. You could also try to install opensolaris 2008.05 as a virtual machine / guest using XVM VIRTUALBOX
I felt that OpenSolaris 2008.05 was the fastest Live CD which i could install. It beat even Knoppix.
Belenix which uses Gzip / Lofi / HSFS compression and OpenSolaris 2008.05 which uses LZMA Compression are the fastest live CDs currently existing. This is a little known Fact. More than 3.5 GB of Packages is compressed to less than 700 MB. Thats amazing Compression ratio.
Installation is complete and Press Reboot. Remember to take the CD out of the CD ROM Tray.
When the System reboots you get a message that 139 SMF Services are started. Also you see that ZFS FIlesystem is being used. Note ZFS is used as a Root Filesystem in this Release.
ZFS Automounts the various Filesystems. So administering Filesystems is so easy. Just 2 Commands – $ zfs and $ zpool.
GNOME is the Desktop Environment and it really looks cool.
Now for the Really big one… IAN Packaging System.. Just Kidding. The Image packaging system is a great way to install packages from a network repository. IPS Server currently supports 4464 Packages. Thats really cool.
The COOLEST Feature that i liked about OpenSolaris was the IMAGE PACKAGING SYSTEM( IPS ). Have a look at the list of packages in the IPS server. There are 4464 packages currently being supported by the IPS server.
OpenSolaris 2008.05 also supports SVR4 Packages in .pkg format. So we do have SVR4 backward Compatibility using pkg-get / pkgadd . Those packages can be installed from BLASTWAVE
Installing Packages never got easy. Its just a simple command.
Netbeans – $ pkg install netbeans
OpenOfficeSuite – $ pkg install openoffice
Sun Studio express – $ pkg install sunstudioexpress
Glassfish Application Server v2 – $ pkg install glassfishv2
Web stack tools and UI – $ pkg install webstackui
any problem ? just do a $ man pkg and all options along with parameters are displayed.
This was by command line.
There is also a GUI to manage ( Add / Update / Remove ) Packages.
Now i needed MYSQL to be installed in my Laptop. Installing MYSQL is as easy as demonstrated below using the Package Manager GUI.
Go to System -> Administration -> Package Manager in the Menu of Title Bar. You would get a GUI Something like this.
This lists all the available Packages. Type MYSQL in the field provided.
And then i select SUNMySQL5 , the Mysql Server. But wait these have some dependencies. IPS is cool enough to know the dependencies and resolve them automatically. WOW thats great. If you notice, Below there are three tabs namely General Info, Files Details, Dependencies. The Files Details tab tells you where this package would be installed in your Disk. I feel this is very useful so that we can add this to our PATH variable.
Dependencies being resolved in a royal way A user need not break his head regrading dependencies. This i believe is one of the cool features in Opensolaris 2008.05.
Sit and watch as Solaris installs MYSQL from the network. You could meanwhile have a tea break. Mysql would be installed in /usr/mysql.
Uninstalling Packages, Updating Packages can also be done using the Package Manager which uses IPS written in Python Programming Language.
COMPIZ
OpenSolaris is never short of cool features. COMPIZ Desktop effects are very well integrated into OpenSolaris 2008.05 and extremely easy to configure.
To turn on compiz desktop effects go to System->Preferences->Appearances
In the Visual Effects Tab Click on Extra Radio Button.
Click on Appearance…
Click the Extra Button to enhance / turn on Compiz Desktop settings.
3D CUBE
Some other Cool Compiz Effects
Somebody call the fire Engine My Desktop is burning.
There is also a CompizCOnfig Settings Manager in System->Preferences->CompizCOnfig Settings Manager where one can enable/ disable various Compiz Effects.
Some other features.
The Default shell was bash. Great going. This is one significant improvement over the previous Bourne (sh) Shell.
Lot of GNU Utilities are also available in /usr/gnu/bin
GNOME Environment Rocks. This is a cool enhancement over JDS.
Another Great feature with this release is that it comes up with ZFS root, i.e The root Filesystem is ZFS. So one does not have to create zpools, mount filesystems etc . Everything is done automatically and so easy to use.
Also Solaris is great in Networking. I installed the driver and absolutely nothing else. I could Connect to Internet through he DHCP Server. ( With Zero Configuration ). Network Auto Magic ( NWAM ) is already configured and it was a great experience. ( In the Previous Release i had to use the command $ svcadm enable network/pysical:nwam or svcadm enable nwam so that solaris could detect my Internet connection) All that is history now.
Sun Technologies are the most important in the web space and web companies especially web 2.0 start ups need to make the best use of Sun technologies to be technically relevant in todays fast paced world.
Now let me explain each Technology in detail so that you get to know why SUN technologies are the best for web and solve the myth.
Let us start from server side. Typically a web company ( Web 2.0 Social networking sites, Web application Service providers and others) needs a Good Web Server ( Hardware and Software)
Web Servers need good computing speed and power. Sun has the perfect stack for running the latest Technologies.
Lets Start from the microelectronic layer – Yes UltraSparc T2 Processor powered Server.
Some of its cool features:
Higher performance and throughput, more network bandwidth, integrated security, low power consumption
Optimized to run multithreaded applications rapidly, efficiently, and securely
Superior consolidation and virtualization capabilities: Up to 64 domains on a single processor
Leverages Solaris 10, the most advanced OS available
With All these cool features its no doubt Sun Ultra Sparc supported Processors can handle the load efficiently which a Typical Web Application ( Example Online Transaction Analytical Processing ) would impose on the underlying OS /Hardware.
Next we come to Solaris Operating System – The Best and Most Advanced OS on the Planet. Lot of innovation has been happening in OS like Dynamic Tracing (Dtrace) , Zetta Byte File System (ZFS) , Service Management Facility (SMF), Predictive Self Healing, Virtualisation using Zones ( Containers ), Network Virtualisation and Resource Management using Project Crossbow etc
Perhaps the most revolutionary Technology applicable to the web is the Database. And Sun has 3 databases to offer.
The best in the pack being MySQL which it recently acquired. The coolest features based on my personal experience are :
Easy to use and very Developer Friendly – even a newborn can start creating tables and forms
Well integrated with PHP , Python , Java , Ruby etc. The Database ODBC Drivers are easily available.
Open Source , Hence No vendor Lock in.
Free . Customer needs to just pay for the Support / Service. Hence lower TOTAL cost of ownership (TCO).
Has a pluggable Database Engine which is a great innovation unique to MYSQL.
All these amazing Database Technologies Along with ZFS storage solutions can store really large amounts of Data at very cheap cost and also retrieve data within a flash giving a good experience for a user visiting a user.
Now we get to Application Layer where you have a plethora of technologies supported by SUN. Java leads the way. You have JavaFX to develop sexy rich internet Applications ( RIAs) . JavaFX Script allows you to make cool Applications in a very short time. You also have visual tools to help ease of Development. And wait….. JavaFX is not just for web. It also takes care of Mobile clients too. The processing and networking capabilities in today’s mobile handsets have the potential to deliver a new class of rich, Internet-enabled content. To allow content creators to tap into this power, Sun Microsystems is bringing JavaFX technology to mobile devices. Moreover, JavaFX Mobile builds on top of the market-leading Java ME platform to take advantage of its powerful, device-level capabilities.
Just check the following web pages to experience Javafx
Great going. This is one significant improvement over the previous Bourne (sh) Shell.
