[OpenIndiana-discuss] No longer using OI Desktop

[ken mays]

Jonathan,
Very good points as some similar issues haunt the BSD/Linux desktop worlds.. I remember when I mentioned that Solaris 11.2 still lacked decent AMD/ATI Radeon support or when OI-Hipster started with a newer Nvidia driver that dropped Nvidia GeForce 6000/7000 support used on my laptop. Had to suck it up and move on, use an older OI release, or adapt to the newer OI-Hipster releases....
Here are a few things I've done: 
1. You can use PDF Studio, linux VM, or Wine for using later versions of Adobe Reader.2. Intel driver support affects BSD, all OpenSolaris/Illumos distro releases, as well as even Solaris < Solaris 11.2.3. OI is as flexible with desktops as BSD/Linux distros. Not really a major issue - just your choice. Windowmaker is still used.4. FF 17ESR & 24ESR are supported. Flash Player 10 & 11.2.202.223 varies. (see: https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html) There is now FF 37.1, ported to OI which is a bit leading-edge so your mileage may vary there as well....
Using other OSes is a matter of choice and many of us like the 'new and shiny' applications available on those distros. Like a toolbox,it is a matter of picking the best tool (i.e. distro/OS/app) for the job. 
The other thing I mentioned was the older linux wrapper, QuickTransit, or other VM/hypervisor tech option which lets you run most linux apps without porting everything. I worked with that before I got more into Wine ports, but that is just another option.
Otherwise, use what works best for your desktop needs.
~ Ken

On Thursday, June 4, 2015 2:00 AM, Jonathan Adams <t12nslookup at gmail.com> wrote:


  

 Just a note to say that I have stopped using OI on the desktop, and have
moved to the "backup" system of Ubuntu on the laptop.

OI Hipster no longer worked well with Firefox provided on the Mozilla
website (every time a dialog box appeared there was a 50% chance it would
crash, and a 100% chance if the mouse cursor went near it), and the version
24 in the repository didn't run flash at all, so I couldn't use the
Enterprise Manager from Oracle.  I got around this using Martin Bochnig's
version for which I was very grateful.
The Mozilla provided Thunderbird suffered the same issues as Mozilla
provided Firefox, dialog boxes kill it (file attachment to emails was an
instant death, "open with" the same) and the OS provided Thunderbird core
dumped without starting.  I could get around the file attachment by
dragging and dropping from the file explorer onto the message, I could live
with the "open with" by letting it use the default application (which
didn't work) then picking the files up from /tmp in the correct application.

The Adobe Reader 9.3 core dumped instantly.  I know that evince works well
as a PDF viewer, but since I work with Electronically signed documents;
Adobe is the only graphical application that deals with these correctly.  I
worked around it by not checking any signing of the document.

There is no longer a working Intel graphics driver, although I could get
around this by removing the driver and running in vesa with the
915resolution program.

I started to play with making the ubuntu partition work better with our
network and settings, getting sccs, autofs, openldap relication, etc. etc.
working, and in the process of mounting my zfs root (to access the /etc
directory of OI) I managed to stop a working BE from booting, meaning that
I was forced to use a BE after the upgrades that broke all of the above.

Consequently, Ubuntu died on my laptop during an system upgrade where it
decided to uninstall the Intel graphics and disk drivers (would have been a
serious win for beadm btw) and rather than trash the computer and all the
settings I bought a new internal drive to copy all of my files.

My laptop was dual boot on an 80Gb harddisk.  I bought a new 1TB harddisk
(was wondering about SSD, but felt that if I wanted to run Illumos I'd be
better with spinning rust because of TRIM) ... I thought about the issues
as stated above ... and I installed just Ubuntu on it.

I feel a little guilty about it, like cheating on your first love, but I
don't feel guilty about the 25 second boot times (as opposed to 5 mins) or
the fact that I can run programs without them crashing.  It also allows me
access to more updated versions of software, and versions not available on
Solaris (chromium, etc)

I'm still keeping OI on the servers, ZFS root FS, Virtual network
interfaces and Zones are brilliant, and no OS can compete, but I have
decided to give up on the desktop.

Thanks for reading this.

Jon
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