Key features

OpenSolaris provides many unmatched features in almost every aspect of its use. For a Desktop User: If you want to use OpenSolaris as a desktop operating system, here are some features which would make many things simple and possible.

Image Packaging System (IPS): Finding, installing and managing applications has never been easier. The Image Packaging System allows users to search applications and safely install them without hassles from various software repositories online. It is also possible to set up local software repositories over a standalone machine or over any local area network (LAN) infrastructure.

Time Slider: Timeslider is a unique feature of OpenSolaris. By utilizing the capabilities of the underlying ZFS file system, Timeslider automatically keeps taking regular snapshots of your files and allows you to access files which you might have deleted or changed just by click of a button. Device Driver Utility: OpenSolaris Device Driver Utility scans all the hardware and peripheral devices attached to the system and alerts the user if device driver for any particular device is not available. It also allows user to submit the details of such device to the OpenSolaris Device Driver support group.

Popular software like Firefox, Thunderbird mail client and the OpenOffice productivity suite are available on the OpenSolaris platform. Funky 3D desktop effects are also possible through the Compiz Visual Effects which comes preloaded with OpenSolaris.

For Developers: The real fun of OpenSolaris is when you use it for development purposes. It provides a very unique set of tools which allow programmers to write better and more optimized programs and debug them easily. It also makes developing and deploying applications easy. Some of the cool features which would appeal developers are as follows.

DTrace: A unique feature of OpenSolaris, DTrace allows you to enable probes on a running application and get to know its inner workings and functioning. There are more than 60,000 probes which can be used to profile an application and new ones get added regularly. We will cover DTrace in detail later in the book. You can also refer to the DTrace Quick Start Guide which is available on the Digit DVD.

Service Management Facility (SMF): SMF is a very easy way of managing various services which run in the background to perform particular tasks. You can enable or disable any service with simple commands and easily deploy your own services. You can learn more on SMF in the Quick Start Guide available at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/content/selfheal/smf-quickstart.jsp.

Network Virtualisation with Crossbow: You might have heard about creating virtual machines to run operating systems, but OpenSolaris has a unique feature called crossbow, which allows to virtualise the network. You can create multiple virtual Network Interface Cards (NIC), with their own IP and MAC addresses, based on a single NIC of your laptop or desktop and convert your laptop into a server like machine! You can learn more about Crossbow on http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Project+crossbow/.

ZFS File system: The ZFS file system is a revolutionary new file system that fundamentally changes the way file systems are administered, with features and benefits not found in any other file system available today. ZFS has been designed to be robust, scalable, and simple to administer. It is currently said to be the best file system in the world.

Apache MySQL PHP (AMP) Stack: OpenSolaris allows you to install a precompiled and configured AMP development cluster for web application development using PHP and MySQL. You can start your PHP MySQL development in just one click and the best part of AMP on OpenSolaris is that you can use DTrace to debug and profile your PHP applications.

With great developer tools like Netbeans, Sun Studio and Sun Compliers, development becomes very easy on OpenSolaris. Be it web applications using PHP, system programming using C or Desktop applications using Java, OpenSolaris provides impressive tools to the developers. There are many more key features of OpenSolaris and you can learn more about it in the Getting Started with OpenSolaris 2009.06 document which is free to download from http://dlc.sun.com/osol/docs/downloads/minibook200906/en/820-7799-12-doc.pdf and is also available on the Digit DVD