GNU Solaris: Real or Vaporware?

Some smart cookies have been beavering away at customized OpenSolaris distros for a while now, but the one that could get me to switch looks like it’s about to drop any moment now. Nexenta is a debian-derived (or is that Ubuntu-derived) GNU-Solaris implementation that looks positively peachy. I think the screenshot below summarizes my drooling and fawning.

I sincerely hope this isn’t vaporware, an Open Source Solaris distro that’s as easy to use as Ubuntu is something that I’ve been desperate to see for a long time. If Nexenta can deliver, then I’ll definately be one of the first to download it and try it out.

Just in case you were wondering, check out what Nexenta comes with:

Major Features:

• OpenSolaris kernel build 25 – released 10/21/2005.

Desktop functionality:

• GNOME 2.1.2.1
• Complete GNOME Office (Abiword, Gnumeric, GNOME-DB, Inkspace, GIMP, Gnomemeeting, Dia)
• X.org 6.8.2 with wider hardware support
• Synaptic package management and Automatic Update notifier
• Nexenta artworks with “Solar” theme
• Integrated DBUS, HAL (work in progress)
• KDE libraries, GNOME 1.x libraries
• Nice Fonts collection

Server applications:

• Apache1 (1.3.33), Apache2 (2.0.54) next generation, scalable, extendable web server
• PHP4, PHP5 with all sort of extensions
• Perl 5.8.7 with varios CPAN modules pre-built
• Python-2.2, Python-2.3, Python-2.4 with varios extension modules
• Java: JRE-1.5.0 and GNU gnj and classpath
• Ruby-1.8 with all sort of extensions
• Subversion, CVS, others…

Simplified (minimal) installer:

• Script-based installer.
• Automatically makes existing hard drive partitions available to the desktop
• Simple “dual boot” configuration with automatic resizing of an existing installed OS

“Under the hood”

• Debian packaging (including SUNW packages)
• Mostly compiled with GCC 4.0.1, but GCC-3.4 and Sun Devpro is also used
• More modular X.org packaging, latest CVS bits
• HAL integrational work

Impossible? No, but certainly a hard mountain to climb. I wish the Nexenta team the best of luck, and look forward to being part of their user community. What do you think, real or vaporware? And of course, the ultimate question: Is Solaris ready for the desktop?