[OpenIndiana-discuss] 32-bit support in OpenIndiana Hipster

[Bruce Lilly]

On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 3:59 PM, Aurélien Larcher <
aurelien.larcher at gmail.com> wrote:

> This discussion is actually a call for devising an organized plan !
> So what are you complaining about ?
>

I saw no call for discussion, only an official statement that 32-bit
support is dropped.


> So since there is an interest, let us identify how people showing such
> interest can help out.
>
[...]

> > Not practical without a well-defined place to find source code for
> > components in order to be able to work on them.
> >
>
> You can find the relevant code on OpenIndiana's Github:
>
> https://github.com/OpenIndiana/oi-userland


If the source for the installer is there, it's well-hidden.
More importantly, there is no reference to that Github repository
at http://wiki.openindiana.org/display/oi/Developing+OpenIndiana
which is a link from the main OpenIndiana wiki. [Incidentally,
the most recent entry to the "Developing OpenIndiana" page
is dated 2012].
So how do you expect people to find out about it?


> > Given the ready availability of systems (e.g. NetBSD) which do not
> > have many of the limitations of OI, but which do have thriving user
> > and developer communities, it's difficult to justify putting effort into
> > what frankly speaking appears to amount to little more than
> > flogging a dead horse when a similar effort expended elsewhere
> > will produce far greater benefit.
> >
>
> That's a chicken and egg issue: if everyone is waiting for each other to
> invest time and effor then yes it will surely go nowhere.
> Personally, as I use OpenIndiana and benefit from Alexander's, Ken's,
> Martin's and others work, I try to help out supporting what I use.
> If nobody does and waits for other people to do the job then there is no
> community.
>

It's a very real practical issue.
In my case, I'm looking for an alternative to Linux due to
systemd-induced breakage (e.g. see http://boycottsystemd.org/ ).
I've looked at many alternatives, and the resulting short list was
illumos-based distributions (of which OpenIndiana is representative)
and NetBSD.

NetBSD has most of what I need for general-purpose desktop and
server systems.  The one major thing lacking at the moment is a
decent office suite port. Minor deficiencies include limited support
for hardware sensors (temperature (HDD temperature via SMART
works, but not e.g. motherboard sensors), voltages), and the usual
BSD utility quirks (ps, ls, make; fixable by installing alternatives).

Then there's OpenIndiana.  Won't even install on modest-memory
32-bit systems, installs as 32-bit on modest-memory 64-bit systems
(and is sluggish).  If there's any CPU frequency scaling or power
consumption scaling support, I haven't been able to find it.  No
support for hardware sensors, not even HDD temperature sensors
via SMART on SATA drives (at least not on i86 systems).  Poor FS
support (no working ext2 FS support, for example).  An ancient
version of Xfree86 that doesn't support non-VESA (e.g. large
pixel-count, 16:9 aspect ratio) display resolution/aspect ratio.
Very limited GUI options(basically GNOME, and w/o pkg GUI tool
on "Hipster" [BTW,that name is very off-putting], although it is
possible to have partially-working alternatives (KDE,
Enlightenment, etc) via the Joyent/SmartOS pkgsrc repository
( http://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/Installing+pkgin )).
Ancient ("legacy") version of grub.  Syslog appears to lack
RFC 5424 format support.  A number of 32- vs. 64-bit
issues (time_t, library availability, default compilation setting).
In short, a great many things that would need work,
compounded by poor development information (see above).
And I haven't mentioned the learning curves associated
with Solaris-specific stuff (ZFS, zones, boot environments,
svcadm, etc.).

There are many Linux users and developers looking for
alternatives because of the systemd debacle -- where do
you think they will go? [that's a rhetorical question]

Another point: I recently put together some small systems
for educating children (and their parents!) about open-source
computing.  The systems have DoudouLinux <http://www.doudoulinux.org/> and
NetBSD
installed.  As these are modest-memory systems (fine for
educational use, web browsing, light office suite use, etc.),
OpenIndiana wouldn't install.   So the kids and their parents
will learn about Linux and BSD, but not "genuine UNIX".
Does that (should it) matter to the OpenIndiana project?