Phantom Reference

I can kill but I ain't a killer

GUI based Package Manager for OpenSolaris

Have you checked out OpenSolaris Developer Preview 2? If not, download the 1 CD installer and try it out. If you are data-phobic like me, try out OpenSolaris from VirtualBox, a safe type 2 hypervisor.

I tried running OpenSolaris Developer Preview2 as a guest OS from my SXDE /08. It was amazingly fast. My only issue was with the VirtualBox's simulated nic. Due to some licensing issues the pcn driver will not work. But you can get the ae driver as explained by an excellent entry from Alan here.



For managing packages in OpenSolaris you can use the pkg tools or try out the new GUI based package manager that gives you a true Ubuntu experience when it comes to managing packages. Well almost. This piece of software is fully functional and you can test it now before the actual release.

Here are some quick steps to get you started using this GUI in OpenSolaris:

1. Get SVN - pkg install SUNWsvn
2. Get the source tree -
   svn co svn+ssh://anon@svn.opensolaris.org/svn/jds/ipsgui ipsgui
3. Run make and make install under ipsgui sub folder.
4. Install Packages - Go to ips-gui/packages/ and run
   pkgadd -d . SUNWipkg-gui SUNWipkg-gui-data (Accept the defaults).
5. Execute packagemanager.

Here is the screenshot.



I became little more adventurous and installed Apache Web Server through this tool.





Try this neat tool today!

( Mar 24 2008, 07:39:07 AM PDT ) Permalink