OpenSolaris

I have just installed OpenSolaris Express build 54 on my desktop machine, and so far it’s…. to be honest bulky. Owing it’s roots to the big iron, but it takes quite a while to get up and running. I haven’t been able to connect this machine to the Internet, but other devices seem to be working (blasted Marvell and their closed source. I’m buying from Ralink next time).

My impressions of OpenSolaris Express is… meh. The desktop looks very professional, but I’m having quite a lot of issues with regards to applications. The GNOME file browser Nautilus outright refuses to run, as well as a number of other applications that require root privileges. BUT, Solaris, or rather SunOS is about the kernel, and I’m looking forward to diving into that.

PS: Below is some notes I took while trying to get the NDIS wrapper to work. Still haven’t been able to get things to work though.

Using the ndis wrapper on OpenSolaris (Solaris 10)
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/laptop/wireless/ndis/

1. Download the NDIS wrapper toolkit to somewhere convenient.
2. Now untar this file. The homepage suggests in root, but it can be done as a normal user.
   $ gzip -dc ndis-0.1.tar.gz | tar xvf -
3. Change to your architecture directory (i386 or amd64)
4. Add /usr/sfw/bin to your PATH. This is where the GNU toolchain lives (gmake, gcc, bison, flex).
   $ chmod +w Makefile
   $ chmod +w ../Makefile.com
5. Edit line 44 in Makefile (NOT the one in the root directory):
   inf-parse.o:
   yacc -d -v ../inf-parse.y
   to
   inf-parse.o:
   $(YACC) $(YFLAGS) ../inf-parse.y
   and line 34 in ../Makefile.com
   YFLAGS += -d -v
   to
   YFLAGS += -d -v -y
   YACC = bison
6. Start building!
   $ gmake ndiscvt CFLAGS=”-I../include -O”
   $ ./ndiscvt -i $(INF_FILE) -s (SYS_FILE) -o ../ndis.h
   $ gmake ndis CFLAGS=”-g -O2 -D_KERNEL -I__I386__ -I../include -I.”
   $ gmake ndisapi CFLAGS=”-g -O -D_KERNEL -I__I386__ -I../include”
7. Copy things into your kernel directory.
   $ cp ndis /kernel/drv/
   $ cp ndisapi /kernel/misc