Open Source: Last Year's Penguin

By Kenneth Hess

June 15, 2008 —  (Page 1 of 3)

I can’t think of anything sexier than dressing up a computer with a new operating system. There is just something pleasing about seeing that login screen for the first time. Drinking in that new operating system smell, checking out the applications, tweaking the background, getting sound to work, installing updates—just basking in the less-than-familiar glow of a new desktop.

OK, don’t let the crickets start chirping just yet. I know, I’m a nerd—that isn’t front-page news. I get as excited installing and discussing new operating systems as you must when you see next year’s car models, or as my wife does when she gets a peek at the newest fashions from up-and-coming designers. I appreciate creativity, quality and something a little different in an operating system, too, but I maintain an undying loyalty to my first love: Linux.

It’s been just more than a month (May) since the first official OpenSolaris release, and already people are saying it could replace Linux. Replace Linux?! It’s interesting to see the winds of change alter their course so quickly in favor of a fair-complexioned newcomer. I guess the Operating System business is much like fashion: “One day you’re in and the next day you’re out” (a la Heidi Klum on television’s Project Runway).

Linux won’t be going away anytime soon and certainly not in favor of upstart OpenSolaris. OpenSolaris isn’t groomed or polished, nor has it paid any dues in the OS Wars. It is a nice niche OS, but it just isn’t Linux. In fact, I scoff in the general direction of those who prefer it to Linux.

Would someone have the nerve to pluck the Linux kernel and replace it with OpenSolaris? Projects like Nexenta Core, which is the OpenSolaris kernel wrapped in a Debian/Ubuntu distribution schema, will pop up everywhere. They’ll expect us to embrace it as if we’d thought of it ourselves. Everyone who is anyone—or who knows anyone—will sport the new hybrid operating system because of its status of hip and cool.

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