Re: [orca-list] GRML VS Ubuntu 10.04

[Michael Whapples <mwhapples aim com>]

Hello,
I don't know about solaris 10, but opensolaris works well with orca. In 
fact I quite like some features in opensolaris (eg. ZFS and boot 
environments, the OSS4 based audio system (this is new for the up coming 
2010.03 release), etc). However it does have some draw backs (I am 
unsure on how good the hardware support is as I have found it doesn't 
support some of my hardware supported under Linux, the only access to 
virtual consoles will be using YASR (speakup is a patch to the Linux 
kernel so won't work with a solaris kernel, brltty doesn't have a 
solaris virtual console driver for solaris, etc), development is kept 
very internal at Oracle, etc). Some of the limitations regarding 
accessibility (IE. the lack of speakup and brltty in virtual consoles) 
aren't such a problem if you know how to work with the system properly 
(IE. you can use YASR as your text mode screen reader, if a BE fails to 
load then you can go back to a working BE and mount it and look into log 
files and repair the broken BE, etc). Also regarding the point about 
Oracle keeping the development fairly internal, while it may restrict 
what the community can put into it, there is the advantage that 
opensolaris does feel to have a clearer single direction (this is an 
advantage as it allows for boot environments, while Linux users may put 
BTRFS forward as a competitor to ZFS, BTRFS doesn't provide the boot 
environment stuff as it requires integration of the FS and boot loader 
and the tools to do managing BEs, Linux offers too many choices).

Also regarding java accessibility (Richard you asked about this in a 
previous message) there is a java access bridge for Linux, its normally 
included in distributions (sometimes its part of the JRE like in fedora, 
sometimes its a separate package like in debian and ArchLinux). You 
should be aware that the java access bridge for Linux is being replaced 
by the java ATK wrapper, however the take up of the java ATK wrapper in 
distributions does vary because of the java ATK wrapper being so new 
(opensolaris has the java ATK wrapper but fedora 12 has the java access 
bridge).

Michael Whapples
On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, Richard wrote:
> Is Solaris 10 64 bit accessible, to the same extent as the other Linux 
> distros discussed on this list?  I know that it comes with Orca Java 
> Access Bridge, JRE, etc.  It comes as a DVD .iso.  If it isn't as 
> accessible as I thought, that's fine, just throwing it out there, to 
> get some opinions.  Since I can also use that with Oracle 11G R2.