[OpenIndiana-discuss] well travelled Q about mving from oi_151a9 to ?

[Harry Putnam]

setup:
  SunOS 2x 5.11 oi_151a9 i86pc i386 i86pc
  Running on HP xw8600 2x of these:
  Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5470 @ 3.33GHz XU1 PROCESSOR

I've been running build 151a9 for a good while but starting to see
problems with compatibility in some areas... had a few go arounds with
ssh, and now the latest virtual box won't install involving what I think
is incompats there too.  I run 5-9 vms that are no more than toys
really.  Nothing commercial or involving much money.

If not now then soon the aging software problems will increase without
upgrading to something.

I need some sage advice about what to move to.  Is hipster likely to
last a while and be upgradable etc.  Is it likely to install on my
hardware?  I have it running in 2 vms but one can't really tell how it
react to real (no oldish) hardware.

There are so many contenders in the solaris alike field I barely know
what to even consider.  I tried making a vm from sol 11.3 today but it
failed severly with many services unable to start wouldn't evem boot
to crippled state but just crash clear down after a few minutes way
more mess that I wanted to wade into.

But can anyone say how it might go were I to get a successful install
on my hardware not a vm with 11.3

My skill level is very low but somehow... with lots of help here and a
few other places I've stayed online for several years. With only small
downtime.

I'd like to move to something I can expect to stay up for maybe 3yrs
or so without major reinstalls required.

So in blunt terms we have a dope at the helm who stumbles along with
some help.. I have a working knowledge of zfs but afraid my zpools will
be so outdated there will be major problems.

The good side is currently I have nothing onboard I can't loose or
could rsync the data onto linux hosts on my local lan.

So not tons of data.. maybe 460 GB total.

Any advice about what to get restarted on that will seem familiar to
at least some degree, and will be upgradable into the future for
several yrs.