[osol-mktg] Solaris For Home Users

[Tim Foster]

hi Sean,

On Sat, 2006-08-12 at 23:13 -0700, Seon Cort wrote:
> have you considered making this os available to the average home user

My opinion[1], is that _right now_, pushing OpenSolaris for the
mass-market home user would be a mistake. I've said before that
OpenSolaris is ready for the desktop, and it is - but just the developer
desktop so far, we're just not in enough shape to take on a purely
consumer oriented desktop. Yet. [ imho ]

Now, that's not to say that there's not work going on in this area.
There is - a lot of people are working very hard to improve:

 * desktop experience
 * install
 * approachability
   (that is, everything from automatically figuring out network
configuration, to working nicely with your USB camera, etc.)
 * non-server hardware


If you're interested in helping out, have a look at

* http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/desktop
* http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/install/
 (in particular, these:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/install/prototype_usability_study1/ 
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/dminer/prototype1.swf )
* http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/approachability/
* http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/laptop/


> and about that solaris version thing. no more version numbers. just
> one solaris, always up to date, always running, you'd almost never
> know its there?

The guys at the install community are also looking into packaging, and
what it means to have a system that's "always up to date", so there's
another area you might be interested in contributing to

As I say, none of the things you mention are beyond the realms of
possibility, it just takes time, dedication and the hard work of a lot
of talented people.

> i really would like your feed back and hope that you are not too
> arrogant to take the time to consider what i have said or at least
> pass it onto someone in sun who would. 

Hey, calm down - also note that it's not just Sun you're talking to
here: certainly OpenSolaris has participants from Sun Microsystems, but
this isn't a Sun mailing list :-)

> i want solaris as a big zip file, download it to my computer, unzip
> the file, burn it to a cd, shutdown my computer, insert the cd restart

Have you looked at the OpenSolaris LiveCD-based distributions like
Belenix or Nexenta ?

More at
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about/distributions/

	cheers,
			tim


[1] Speaking for myself, not Sun - remember, this is an OpenSolaris
list, not a Sun Microsystems list..
-- 
Tim Foster, Sun Microsystems Inc, Operating Platforms Group
Engineering Operations            http://blogs.sun.com/timf

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