[OpenIndiana-discuss] Fun Task - Comparing OI packages vs CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu etc

[Alasdair Lumsden]

Hi All,

I've got a fun task for someone who is looking to contribute to the project.

It would be really useful to compare packages and versions between:

OpenIndiana oi_147
CentOS/RHEL 5.5 and 6
Debian 5
Ubuntu 10
FreeBSD

Doing this in a spreadsheet might be the easiest method. The "primary key" would be the software/package, so something like:


Package | OI_147 | Deb 5 | RHEL 5.5 | RHEL 6 | Ubuntu 10
--------------------------------------------------------
PHP     | 5.2.12 | 5.2.8 | 5.1.6    | 5.3.?  | 5.3.2
Exim    | n/a    | 4.72  | 4.63     | n/a    | 4.71
...


But including FreeBSD if possible.

Obviously this is a lot of work to do manually, so I'd recommend somehow automating the process of getting versions of packages/software by inspecting package repositories. Then cleaning the data up manually if needed.

The main thing as a project we'd like to get a handle on is what software is common across the major distributions that is missing from OI, with a view to including this.

It would also be useful to know what packages are popular that are missing, so getting info from http://popcon.debian.org/ might be useful.

Personally I'd love for OI to include as much quality well packaged software as possible, so people converting from Linux are pleasantly surprised. In my day job, we sell managed hosting, and we try to get everyone to go on Solaris 10. People coming from Linux are mortified at how little software is available. The situation is much better on OpenSolaris/OI, but it's still behind Linux, and I want to address that.

If people are going to make the switch from their comfort zone on Linux, we need to give them something equal or better. Packaging so far seems to be the most common complaint, so we should do all we can to address that!

Some of my other ideas include providing multiple versions of packages, so people can choose what they deploy. For example providing dual PHP 5.2 and PHP 5.3, ruby 1.8 and ruby 1.9, Tomcat 5.5 and 6.0 AND 7.0, etc. The idea being that providing multiple versions shouldn't be too hard really, but would be immensely useful to a lot of people and would make OI a compelling install.

I'd like us to get KDE integrated into our main repo as a first class citizen at some point in the future if the KDE4Solaris people were happy to help with this.

I'd also like us to set up a patent encumbered repo which is hosted in Europe (where there are thankfully no software patents), which contains VLC, MPlayer, FFMpeg, etc - lots of stuff that people want and would be immensely useful.

Anyway, I've gone slightly off topic :) People interested in doing the package report, please get in touch!

Cheers,

Alasdair