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I haven't personally used SmartOS, but from my experience with Solaris 11, package management and availability wasn't great. Many common packages weren't availa

I haven't personally used SmartOS, but from my experience with Solaris 11, package management and availability wasn't great. Many common packages weren't available, some were only available through a semi-maintained community repository (OpenCSW), and other things were difficult to build due to non-GNU Solaris components (even when GCC and GNU tools were installed). PS: I don't mean any disrespect towards OpenCSW, the packages that were there saved me a ton of trouble earlier this year. Packaging is tough.

justincormack 13y ago
but as the other poster mentioned it uses pkgsrc which used to be the NetBSD package system but has been adopted more widely. you can even use it in Linux. it has a lot of packages.
jdboyd 13y ago
With SmartOS, you get the netbsd userland and package system rather than the Solaris one. For the most part, this means it is more likely to just have what you want and be easier to build for.
jdboyd 13y ago
BTW, Solaris 11 and OpenIndiana support Linux Branded zones. These have a linux user land and are mostly syscall compatible with Linux, so many linux programs can be run on them as is. I suspect that SmartOS took that out, but OmniOS (the Illumos distribution I'm using) still has that feature.