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Impressive hardware, but UGH!, not yet-another-Linux powered computer! If I had the time, I'd port illumos to it myself, but since I don't, Linux on this thing

by Annatar 10y ago

Impressive hardware, but UGH!, not yet-another-Linux powered computer! If I had the time, I'd port illumos to it myself, but since I don't, Linux on this thing makes it a non-starter for me.

ytjohn 10y ago
As someone who spent years maintaining Solaris systems, it always amazes me that there are people out there that like Solaris. Especially in the context of a hobby/experimental system.
- Annatar 10y ago
  I love Solaris (except Oracle Solaris 11, which I really dislike!), and I love illumos and SmartOS even more. I grew up on Solaris - my first ever UNIX was a Solaris 2.5.1 system on a SPARCStation 20. I've been running Solaris on intel since my first Pentium 90 workstation on Solaris 2.5.1. Since I know how to build and package software for Solaris, I have everything I could ever want or need on it. It's a comfortable system, and it's elegant, once one fully understands all of its capabilities. And it's extremely reliable and high performance, especially on intel based processors. For some context, I am forced to work on Linux and I spend my entire working day working on it. Compared to reliability of Solaris and ease of use, I have grown to dislike Linux in the extreme. If you are thinking, "but that is insane, Linux is so great, how is that possible!", remember that I grew up on UNIX, so I have different criteria for what is comfortable and reliable (even in terms of development) than your average Linux user or Linux system administrator does. I dislike the GNU tools and user land (with very few notable exceptions) because I'm used to AT&T System V tools and that is how I expect the tools to behave; GNU tool chain usually frustrates me to no end. Working with Linux frustrates me to no end (I do professional development and system engineering on it). For example: --some-long-option comes to mind, or lack of proper manual pages ("see the texinfo page"), lack of backwards compatibility support, tar -z (tar is a tape archiver, not a compressor!), and so on, and so on... I miss my ZFS, I miss my mdb, I miss my dbx, I miss my SMF, I miss my fmadm, I miss the simple and effective handling of storage area network logical units, I miss the fiberchannel stack which actually works... I don't have any of those issues on illumos based systems, but it drives the point home: the last thing I want is yet another Linux based computer. I have enough of that as it is at work - almost 71,000 servers, 49% of them running Linux, and it sucks.
  - schoen 10y ago
    > tar -z (tar is a tape archiver, not a compressor!) Did you not want -z to exist at all (so you would pipe through gzip separately), or not want it to be a magical default? GNU changed the -z handling at some point in the last decade (so that it autodetects whether input is compressed upon extraction and decompresses it without being told to), so now tar -xzf foo.tar.gz and tar -xf foo.tar.gz both work, where previously the second one would have failed because tar wouldn't have tried to decompress. Is that change what you're bothered by (it's pretty counterintuitive to me!), or did you just not want compression built into tar at all? GNU tar now includes flag-based support for -j (bzip2), -J (xz), --lzip, --lzma, --lzop, -z (gzip), and -Z (compress).
    - Annatar 10y ago
      I do not want -z at all, ever; -z has no business in a tape archiver, as it goes against the core UNIX philosophy of "do one thing, and do it well" [McIlroy]. Implementing UNIX tools inside of other UNIX tools is not how UNIX works; that might be acceptable on Windows, but it sucks on UNIX. For example, xz -dvc archive.tar.xz | tar xf - works everywhere as is, including Linux, while tar xzf archive.tar.xz will not work on systems which do not use GNU tar or where GNU tar is not linked with libz, libarchive and liblzma. GNU way is broken, because it is the Windows way, and Windows is busted.
      - schoen 10y ago
        Another example might be "sort -u" (because you can get the same result from "sort | uniq"). There seems to have been a pattern where people decided that if "foo | bar" (or "bar | foo") is a common enough idiom, they could or should create "foo -b" to mimic it.
        justinsaccount 10y ago
        Except that `sort -u` enables an optimization for dealing with a large number of duplicate lines.
  - 10y ago
khedoros 10y ago
How would Illumos be better? I don't have any experience with it (although I've got some with Solaris/SunOS itself), and I'm curious. I'd assume that Linux would have a lot more software available to it, as well as more maturity to its ARM ports.
- Annatar 10y ago
  illumos has the fault management architecture, SMF, and ZFS. I'm not interested in running this computer as a desktop, but as a UNIX server which I can carry in my pocket. As for software, the package library of illumos based systems can stand shoulder to shoulder with Debian based ones: http://www.perkin.org.uk/posts/building-packages-at-scale.html http://www.perkin.org.uk/posts/building-packages-at-scale.ht... Linux on these types of devices is not interesting to me, as every such device comes with it. It's neither different nor original.
  - khedoros 10y ago
    > Linux on these types of devices is not interesting to me, as every such device comes with it. It's neither different nor original. Being neither different nor original seems like a plus, when it comes to servers. Having a predictable, internally-consistent standard system would be best. Easier management, easier configuration, predictable behavior between machines, and all that. Of course, the opinion of which system it would be better to standardize on would be a matter of opinion. Also, I think anyone trying to run any sort of serious server on a CHIP is using a nailfile where a screwdriver would be better-suited. If it makes you any happier, ZFS is doable on a Linux-based SBC. I found a fair amount of documentation of it being done on the first generation of Raspberry Pi.
    - Annatar 10y ago
      Yes, but to me having a consistent server means having an illumos based server, because that guarantees SVR4, XPG4, SuS and POSIX behavior, as well as that my applications will JustWork(SM), and that my data integrity will be guaranteed. I can't use ZFS on Linux because the place where I work doesn't allow it, as they are scared of having to support it (and they don't know how), and they're scared of redhat denying them support. On top of that, why would I use ZFS on Linux when I can have the real deal on any illumos or FreeBSD derivative (assuming they would let me)? Again, zero interest in running Linux. I like sleeping through my nights instead of sitting in a priority 1 crisis bridge having a bunch of managers yelling at me, and all because of having problems on Linux I wouldn't be having if I were running SmartOS.

by Annatar 10y ago

Impressive hardware, but UGH!, not yet-another-Linux powered computer! If I had the time, I'd port illumos to it myself, but since I don't, Linux on this thing makes it a non-starter for me.

ytjohn 10y ago

As someone who spent years maintaining Solaris systems, it always amazes me that there are people out there that like Solaris. Especially in the context of a hobby/experimental system.

Annatar 10y ago
I love Solaris (except Oracle Solaris 11, which I really dislike!), and I love illumos and SmartOS even more. I grew up on Solaris - my first ever UNIX was a Solaris 2.5.1 system on a SPARCStation 20. I've been running Solaris on intel since my first Pentium 90 workstation on Solaris 2.5.1. Since I know how to build and package software for Solaris, I have everything I could ever want or need on it. It's a comfortable system, and it's elegant, once one fully understands all of its capabilities. And it's extremely reliable and high performance, especially on intel based processors. For some context, I am forced to work on Linux and I spend my entire working day working on it. Compared to reliability of Solaris and ease of use, I have grown to dislike Linux in the extreme. If you are thinking, "but that is insane, Linux is so great, how is that possible!", remember that I grew up on UNIX, so I have different criteria for what is comfortable and reliable (even in terms of development) than your average Linux user or Linux system administrator does. I dislike the GNU tools and user land (with very few notable exceptions) because I'm used to AT&T System V tools and that is how I expect the tools to behave; GNU tool chain usually frustrates me to no end. Working with Linux frustrates me to no end (I do professional development and system engineering on it). For example: --some-long-option comes to mind, or lack of proper manual pages ("see the texinfo page"), lack of backwards compatibility support, tar -z (tar is a tape archiver, not a compressor!), and so on, and so on... I miss my ZFS, I miss my mdb, I miss my dbx, I miss my SMF, I miss my fmadm, I miss the simple and effective handling of storage area network logical units, I miss the fiberchannel stack which actually works... I don't have any of those issues on illumos based systems, but it drives the point home: the last thing I want is yet another Linux based computer. I have enough of that as it is at work - almost 71,000 servers, 49% of them running Linux, and it sucks.
- schoen 10y ago
  > tar -z (tar is a tape archiver, not a compressor!) Did you not want -z to exist at all (so you would pipe through gzip separately), or not want it to be a magical default? GNU changed the -z handling at some point in the last decade (so that it autodetects whether input is compressed upon extraction and decompresses it without being told to), so now tar -xzf foo.tar.gz and tar -xf foo.tar.gz both work, where previously the second one would have failed because tar wouldn't have tried to decompress. Is that change what you're bothered by (it's pretty counterintuitive to me!), or did you just not want compression built into tar at all? GNU tar now includes flag-based support for -j (bzip2), -J (xz), --lzip, --lzma, --lzop, -z (gzip), and -Z (compress).
  - Annatar 10y ago
    I do not want -z at all, ever; -z has no business in a tape archiver, as it goes against the core UNIX philosophy of "do one thing, and do it well" [McIlroy]. Implementing UNIX tools inside of other UNIX tools is not how UNIX works; that might be acceptable on Windows, but it sucks on UNIX. For example, xz -dvc archive.tar.xz | tar xf - works everywhere as is, including Linux, while tar xzf archive.tar.xz will not work on systems which do not use GNU tar or where GNU tar is not linked with libz, libarchive and liblzma. GNU way is broken, because it is the Windows way, and Windows is busted.
    - schoen 10y ago
      Another example might be "sort -u" (because you can get the same result from "sort | uniq"). There seems to have been a pattern where people decided that if "foo | bar" (or "bar | foo") is a common enough idiom, they could or should create "foo -b" to mimic it.
      - justinsaccount 10y ago
        Except that `sort -u` enables an optimization for dealing with a large number of duplicate lines.
- 10y ago

khedoros 10y ago

How would Illumos be better? I don't have any experience with it (although I've got some with Solaris/SunOS itself), and I'm curious. I'd assume that Linux would have a lot more software available to it, as well as more maturity to its ARM ports.

Annatar 10y ago
illumos has the fault management architecture, SMF, and ZFS. I'm not interested in running this computer as a desktop, but as a UNIX server which I can carry in my pocket. As for software, the package library of illumos based systems can stand shoulder to shoulder with Debian based ones: http://www.perkin.org.uk/posts/building-packages-at-scale.html http://www.perkin.org.uk/posts/building-packages-at-scale.ht... Linux on these types of devices is not interesting to me, as every such device comes with it. It's neither different nor original.
- khedoros 10y ago
  > Linux on these types of devices is not interesting to me, as every such device comes with it. It's neither different nor original. Being neither different nor original seems like a plus, when it comes to servers. Having a predictable, internally-consistent standard system would be best. Easier management, easier configuration, predictable behavior between machines, and all that. Of course, the opinion of which system it would be better to standardize on would be a matter of opinion. Also, I think anyone trying to run any sort of serious server on a CHIP is using a nailfile where a screwdriver would be better-suited. If it makes you any happier, ZFS is doable on a Linux-based SBC. I found a fair amount of documentation of it being done on the first generation of Raspberry Pi.
  - Annatar 10y ago
    Yes, but to me having a consistent server means having an illumos based server, because that guarantees SVR4, XPG4, SuS and POSIX behavior, as well as that my applications will JustWork(SM), and that my data integrity will be guaranteed. I can't use ZFS on Linux because the place where I work doesn't allow it, as they are scared of having to support it (and they don't know how), and they're scared of redhat denying them support. On top of that, why would I use ZFS on Linux when I can have the real deal on any illumos or FreeBSD derivative (assuming they would let me)? Again, zero interest in running Linux. I like sleeping through my nights instead of sitting in a priority 1 crisis bridge having a bunch of managers yelling at me, and all because of having problems on Linux I wouldn't be having if I were running SmartOS.