[oi-dev] Resignation as OI Lead

[Jim Klimov]

2012-08-31 19:43, Bob Friesenhahn пишет:
> On Thu, 30 Aug 2012, garrett.damore at dey-sys.com wrote:
>>
>> So then, I have just a single question:  What is the compelling reason
>> for doing all this effort?  Why not just load up Ubuntu on your
>> desktop (or buy a Mac, or even run *cough* Windows) and run illumos
>> bits in a VM?
>
> This position you advocate is a very low-performing one and not very
> reliable either.  It is much better to run the inferior OSs in a VM.
>
> The so-called "desktop" is a way to interact with the OS using a
> graphical interface.  It is not necessary for it to directly support
> idle social applications like "Skype".


That's what I said, though you phrased it better - thanks ;)

I did fire up VirtualBox (recent 4.2.0rc3) in my new oi_151a5 laptop,
and a VM can attach to those USB devices that the system can see -
such as the video camera. As long as VMs work with the interactive
user applications satisfactorily, OI is a way to paint them on the
screen, store the VMs safely and efficiently, and limit resource
consumption of some over-zealous end-user apps (i.e. a firefox
with 200 tabs should better lag in an intentionally constrained
VM, than bring the whole physical system down; reloading it with
FF session manager vs. save-stating and resuming the whole VM
with it upon host reboot also takes somewhat different times
to complete).

Now, there is a problem with those devices that OI does not see
and can't pass through - such as USB3 ports, or use (such as my
troubles with Wifi and SATA, and I'm not certain about sound
working right)... THAT should be tackled, so that my desktop
hypervisor can offer everything I've bought to those VMs which
might be the more correct tools for certain jobs - such as
skype or heavy tabbed browsing...

It has been my long stance that X11 is a way to open many
terminals instead of having just one in text mode. VMs on the
desktop quite fit into this paradigm; OI does not have to be
the all-around GUI desktop solution - it is a portal (or window)
to those OSes which arguably have got that edge better. You
still won't have, say, MS Visio or Adobe Photoshop on Linux
or Solaris (well, maybe with Wine), so if you need those apps -
you go get a Windows VM...

IMHO it *is* satisfactory if OI is good enough for devs and
admins to live in and use the same OS features as they do on
their servers for everyday interactive work, provide some of
the more baseline apps (current versions) and those which
really benefit from physical hardware, and be a shell to VMs
with other more complicated features.

//Jim