Reader supplied reviews for OpenIndiana
Average rating
4.1 from 14 review(s)
Version: 2022.10
Rating: 1
Date: 2023-09-10
Votes: 7
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Actually Security Release 2023.05
The latest release is apparently a 'security release' that deals with severe security Issue in illumos-gate (the underlying illumos kernel/operating system).
I downloaded the USB image & DDd it to a USB pendrive. It would not boot.
Derp: it's a '.usb' file: 'OI-hipster-gui-20230502.usb'.
I renamed it as a '.img' file & DDd it a USB pendrive. It booted.
It booted, and booted, and booted, .........., & went round & round in a boot loop, that destroyed GRUB, & nearly destroyed my boot sector and BIOS! It was no longer possible to boot from a USB pendrive. That's how bad it was.
This is little short of a bare-metal attack.
Fortunately, I was able to recover my engine, using the Dell/Ubuntu OEM recovery disk, and I discovered that the recovery disk can also be used to recover data, even from an encrypted /home folder, as long as you know the passphrase. Don't go straight to reinstall mode. Go to the drive address, and cancel, to go into a live session, whereby data can be recovered. This should be made more obvious. I discovered this by accident. (BTW, my data is always backed up, in triplicate.)
But I digress: apologies.
The fundamental point here is not only that the underlying illumos-gate is unsafe, but also that the 'security patch' effectively turns it into malware, on a Heartbleed level.
Fortunately, I am an advanced operator, who knows how to take time, and not go for the first solution & risk losing data. Less experienced operators would probably have lost their data.
Fundamentally, it is utterly heinous that OpenIndiana would release such an obviously untested update.
But then, they obviously do not even know how to suffix their file names.
I do not recommend OpenIndiana, to the extent that I consider it to be malware, & I would award it -10 if DistroWatch allowed.
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Version: 2022.10
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-24
Votes: 47
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Just installed the latest OpenIndiana Hipster on my Thinkstation p520 with nvidia p1000: everything works right out of the box. Surprisingly, basic desktop apps are up to date: at the time of writing Firefox is 115.0.2, Thunderbird is 102.13, python is 3.10.12 and Libreoffice is 7.5.4.2. The Hipster repo has ~1K packages, while pkgsrc has >25K available.
ZFS and boot environments give trouble-free updates (I mean it!); virtualization support is first class with zones (aka containers), which are baked into the system. I think OI is mostly an OS for servers/workstations although it can certainly be profitably used for desktops, with several limitations in terms of apps availability (eg, I haven't checked a/v capabilities).
OI is based on illumos, which is itself the open source descendant of Solaris (aka SunOS). Both OI and illumos are actively developed. If your hardware is compatible give it a go. OI is a 'proper' Unix, enterprise system: it enables you to get your stuff done with little fuss.
Of course, I am writing this review from Firefox on OI!
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Version: 2022.10
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-21
Votes: 13
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OpenIndiana is great if you had some experience with Solaris, want to avoid systemd, like using the MATE desktop environment, and have compatible hardware to install it on. So for me this OS is a 10/10. If it didn't exist, I would probably be using Devuan if I needed Debian packages or Artix if I wanted Arch rolling release...
It installed and worked with everything on a ThinkPad T530. It worked on a Dell Latitude D630 except for the Broadcom wireless card which had no driver. Users with Intel integrated graphics or NVIDIA GPU, Intel wireless, and slightly older hardware will have a higher chance of successful installation.
You can boot from live disc, do a graphical install, and have a working system with MATE desktop very quickly. NVIDIA driver 470.x is installed so GTX 6xx and newer work. Don't bother running Firefox or Thunderbird while booting from the live install disc, they will crash but run fine afterwards on the installed system.
Postinstall, I ran 'sudo pkg update' to get all the latest packages. OI nicely creates a clone after every update (maybe because of ZFS) so you can boot from the previous environment if needed. You can run 'sudo pkg uninstall firefox' and 'sudo pkg install librewolf' as I did. Also installed libreoffice, claws-mail, gimp, wine, etc. just as easily. Everything I need was in the repo.
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See all 14 reader reviews of OpenIndiana...
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