Current location:	simpsong@ATLANTIS.FerretianCybernetics.local
Current mood:	The world is old chewing gum.
Current music:	The RAID Test Rap.
Entry tags:	compaq, fibre, fibre channel, hacking, hardy heron, opensolaris, ra4100, raid, scsi, solaris, ubuntu, unix

OpenSolaris: NOT what Ubuntu hopes to be.
Well, naturally - I have already begun testing OpenSolaris 2008/05.

In fact, I began today, attempting to install it on my (Currently) Ubuntu Hardy Heron Rack server (Compaq Proliant DL360.)

GNOME on Opensolaris seems better themed, and more stable than on Linux - however the tree from which Solaris-Gnome is forked is a little older so that's to be expected. It is also slightly less featured, as a Desktop Environment - but fine for general use.

I also noted that the livecd performance was spectacular compared to Ubuntu - which typically hugs the floor like treacle. It's Device Driver Utility made it easy to view device support in the system, and on an installed machine - download drivers for that hardware.

Therein lies my problem with OpenSolaris 2008/05. AFTER you install. Not helpful for me, when my two only storage controllers (Compaq SmartArray integrated SCSI RAID, and an Emulex LP8000 PCI Fibre Channel SCSI adapter) both lack support on the CD. This leaves me with a technical challenge.

Currently, I'm working on my alternate plan to install the OS. Namely: I plan to install the OS onto the IDE hard disk of a spare workstation, configure the bootloader, install drivers for the fibre channel scsi, PARTITION said array - and dd the hard disk image onto my new fibre partition. this will allow me to boot to Fibre Channel, with luck - and run my OS over the network (At least until I have dd'd it back onto the Compaq internal storage.)

What have I learned? Standardisation and Open Source are invaluable for the future of computing - wait, already knew that. More simple maybe?

Keep a PCI IDE controller lying around, you never know when you'll need it.
OpenSolaris needs to have more drivers on the CD.
RAID Arrays are great, and Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop mode allows you to connect 2 or 3 arrays to a single Fibre Channel controller in a server - making rackmount Network Attached Storage with redundancy a breeze - for the most part.

iGraham, signing off.

P.S. Drug induced insomnia sucks balls.