OpenSolaris, Security and the NSA

If you value security, this collaboration between the US National Security Agency, Sun and the OpenSolaris community should be of interest. They will bring us the future of ultra-secure operating systems.

Äntligen ett livstecken

Poltikerna börjar äntligen intressera sig för samhällets förorter, nu när hobbypyromanerna härjar fritt. Se artikel i GP.

Virtualbox in OpenSolaris

It was really easy to manage Virtualbox in OpenSolaris 2009.06.


I have a real license for WindowsXP Home Edition, and it will only be running virtualized from now on. I will use Windows to play poker on the internet, because the support to run a poker client under WINE is not so good at the moment.


I virtualize OpenSUSE as well, so I can read pdf-files using Okular.

OpenSolaris 2009.06 build snv 122

OpenSolaris 2009.06 was originally released of build 117, and the build 122 that i run is a part of the upcoming release 2010.02, see:

ONNV Flag Days, Heads-Ups and Project Integration History

OpenSolaris 2009.06 was easy to install. Reboot and you will see the familiar desktop of Gnome, a little polished by Sun. I run the latest Gnome release 2.26.3


Nautilus 2.26.3 is the file manager in the upgrade build snv 122 (original version of 2009.06 is 2.24.2).


The cube by Compiz is of course a part of OpenSolaris.


Write around the corner...


The ring switcher is one of many functions possible via Compiz.


Many graphics cards are now supported out of the box, e.g. my Nvidia card was found and correct drivers automatically installed, without tweaking for the right package in the repositories.


Songbird is a great player for playing internet radio...


...and SHOUTcast is integrated. Songbird is in my opinion actually a better solution for playing internet radio than what BMPx is.


Spotify plays well in OpenSolaris under WINE.


Elisa Media Center is an option for playing different kinds of multimedia.


It just works after install. It was quite the contrary that I never got Elisa working fully functional in any linux distribution.


For the office management you can choose between Adobe reader or Evince, the whole OpenOffice suite, choose Serena OpenProj or Planner for your project management.


If you for instance want to install GIMP, you can do it with the Package manager. Choose the package SUNWgnome-img-editor and click Install/Update, or you can type in the terminal:
pfexec pkg install SUNWgnome-img-editor
as non-root, or as root:
pkg install SUNWgnome-img-editor


I bought Writer's Café, which is an excellent fiction writers program, available for Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris/OpenSolaris.


You can download a demo of Writer's Café for free. The demo is restricted to 20 cards and 20 scraps, and does not display the Fiction: The Facts e-book.


The network configures automatically, and wireless networks is easily found.

A letter to the European Commission

I wrote this letter to the
Competition Commissioner
Neelie Kroes, at the
European Commission.





------
Hi Neelie,

The European Commission has delayed the Sun-Oracle deal and it worries me a lot. I have been using Linux/Unix and other Open source software for more than three years now.

I hope that everyone at EC really understand that MySQL,the database purchased by Sun Microsystems, has a licensing policy of GPL, the Gnu Puplic License.
That means that Oracle never can get monopoly on the database market. And MySQL has already been forked to the MariaDB by Michael Widenius, the founder and original developer of MySQL.

Oracles intention is to provide a better integration with their existing database and the excellent operating system Solaris/OpenSolaris of which I'm using at this very moment. They have also expressed their interest in the programming language of Java.

Please do not delay this issue to much, if so EC will probably destroy many years of innovative engineering at Sun. Sun is the company that gave us Java, OpenOffice and now OpenSolaris. Oracle could with Sun Microsystems technical skills, balance the world dominance of Microsoft. OpenSolaris has a big opportunity to be what GNU/Linux never can be. Because GNU/Linux lack a uniting force between a big company and a large community.

There is one book I can recommend you all to read, and it's "The Success of Open Source" by Steven Weber. There everything about GPL and Open source is described in an utterly intelligible way.

Sincerely Jan Ekbom
near Gothenburg, Sweden

Mamma Mu & Madde

En blivande cowgirl.

Open Solaris 2009.06 build snv 122

Running OpenSolaris with the new build 122. Mixing between Spotify and Songbird, which is the ultimate internet music experience for free.