Initial OmniOS impressions by a BSD user

If one cares about real UNIX, I could not recommend enough giving any illumos OS a serious look and a long try.

If OpenIndiana works on your hardware, give it a longer test trial, I am sure you will like it much.

Once I moved to OmnisOS, I cannot even start to think of going back to FreeBSD, as it seems to me FreeBSD has been slowly drifting towards a "Linux weltanschauung" rather than embracing a more UNIX-esque worldview.

Originally Posted by JWJones As such, I am currently testing OpenIndiana. So far, I like it.

I could never get OI to boot on my ThinkPad (core i5 7th gen), and even verbose booting gave me no help. Got an error about being unable to find the zfs pool on boot media. Tried re-writing the USB image and to various USBs many many times before I gave up.

I would like to give it another try if others are liking it this much.

Before going for OmniOS (desktop installed via pkgsrc) I also tried OpenIndiana.

It was installing fine on my i7 Thinkpad W541, but I was unable to login after install on a HP z620 and a custom made server. I believe it must have BIOS, and not UEFI for now?

Did you ask on the mailing list, or irc?

It is not an illumos thing, as I was able to install OmniOS on all three hardwares.

Of course, having some uncommon hardware going is a different matter, as drivers are ported from FreeBSD, but not as quick as one would love to.

Originally Posted by priyadarshan_ Once I moved to OmnisOS, I cannot even start to think of going back to FreeBSD, as it seems to me FreeBSD has been slowly drifting towards a "Linux weltanschauung" rather than embracing a more UNIX-esque worldview.

I think there are many that would agree with you, particularly among the OpenBSD folks.

Originally Posted by priyadarshan_ Before going for OmniOS (desktop installed via pkgsrc) I also tried OpenIndiana.

That's really cool, thanks for this info. So, you are running OmniOS as a desktop environment? Which DE or WM are you using?

Yes, I am running OmniOS as desktop, using Mate installed via pkgsrc.

Just recently Andy Fiddaman and OmniOS devs added VirtualBox to the omnios-extra repo, so one could run Windows from there for those unusual needs (VirtualBox is not on illumos' pkgsrc, but it is available on OpenIndiana).

By the way, Andy Fiddaman is one of the many illumos unsung heros.

Originally Posted by priyadarshan_ Before going for OmniOS (desktop installed via pkgsrc) I also tried OpenIndiana.

I had another question regarding this: are the packages you are installing on OmniOS via pkgsrc more current than what is available in OpenIndiana? For example, the latest release of Hipster (from 10/18) has Firefox 52.9, even after updates. But then again, I guess I could just as easily install pkgsrc on OpenIndiana, but I was just wondering if one of the benefits is more current packages.

Still working my way through the particulars of this true UNIX environment, which is new to me. I have plenty of Linux experience (for better or worse!), and some OpenBSD experience, but true UNIX is new to me. I am enjoying the ride so far.

They share the same repositories. However, as illumos pkgsrc has been switched to nightly updates, none of that should be a problem anymore.

I believe pkgsrc's Firefox is at 64.0.

I use OmniOS as IMHO feels better for servers, in that way I can focus only on one illumos version for now.

But if I would have hardware that support OI, I would personally stay on that one, as it is a more mature desktop experience.

Originally Posted by YesItsMe They share the same repositories. However, as illumos pkgsrc has been switched to nightly updates, none of that should be a problem anymore.

Originally Posted by priyadarshan_ I believe pkgsrc's Firefox is at 64.0. I use OmniOS as IMHO feels better for servers, in that way I can focus only on one illumos version for now. But if I would have hardware that support OI, I would personally stay on that one, as it is a more mature desktop experience.

Thanks guys. Yes, I don't see a need to switch from OI at this point, I'm just a relentless experimenter.

Make sure you check out Time-Slider, a very nice ZFS-based backup system.

For some yet unknown reason, OmniOS stopped finding the (virtual) e1000 adapter a week ago. A few reboots later, it was back again. Did anyone of you have a similar issue once? I hate mysteries like that.

After latest update that botched a server[1], we had to stop using OmniOS. Unfortunately the developers are way too busy to take care of non-paying users. We are back to FreeBSD now, and, surprisingly, Windows Server 2019.

[1]: Panic after boot menu after upgrading to r151032

That's sad!

Originally Posted by YesItsMe That's sad!

Yes, indeed, I was quite disheartened for several days. I would not expect much change in the foreseeable future. Such a pity! Illumos still carries a clear superiority on almost every front, but it also shows a fatal flaw from Sun times, greed and self-centred pride. Even Microsoft was less fragile in that respect.