Learn More About OpenSolaris

OpenSolaris is an operating system (OS), an open source project licensed under CDDL, and a community. The project's goals are innovation, collaboration, and the extension of OpenSolaris technology.

Quality Assurance

OpenSolaris is free, open source, and well-suited for desktops, laptops, servers, and data centers. The quality requirement of OpenSolaris is perhaps best stated as Production Ready All The Time.

Who Develops OpenSolaris?

OpenSolaris technical communities maintain kernel and userland consolidations and launch new technology projects. OpenSolaris is developed by communities working in the different projects. Each project focuses on one or more specific areas of the system. The OpenSolaris developer project is sponsored by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Answers to Your Questions

See the FAQs for detailed information about how to get started with the developer project. You'll learn to use the OpenSolaris.org collaboration web site to create projects and lead communities. You'll also find FAQs for licensing, contributions, and links to technical FAQs.

Which Release Fits My Needs?

The OpenSolaris source code will find a variety of uses, including being the basis for future versions of the Solaris OS product, other operating system projects, and third-party products and distributions. Following is a list of current releases.

OpenSolaris 2008.05

The first delivery from Project Indiana to offer technical support from Sun Microsystems, Inc. This initial release includes a network-based package management system (IPS), the GNOME desktop, and LiveCD technology supported on AMD64, Pentium, and Xeon EM64T platforms. See Getting Started With OpenSolaris 2008.05 for detailed information about this pkg(5) release delivered on a six-month cycle.

Solaris Express Community Edition

Bi-weekly developer builds of the entire code base that is the current development release of the Solaris OS. This is Sun's unsupported binary release of OpenSolaris. Developers can build the OpenSolaris source by using this release as the base system. The release is also known as O/N Nevada it's updated every two weeks, and it's available as a free download. Refer to Solaris Express Documents for detailed information about this SVR4 release delivered every two weeks.

Community Distributions

• BeleniX is a *NIX distribution that is built using the OpenSolaris source base.
• MartUX mBE BlastwaRe Edition is the first non-SXCR OpenSolaris distribution that is available both for SPARC and for x64/x86.
• NexentaOS is a complete GNU-based free and open source operating system built on top of the OpenSolaris kernel and runtime.
• SchilliX is an OpenSolaris based UNIX Live CD and distribution for the x86, x64 and EM64T architectures.
• Milax is a small size Live CD distribution which runs completely off a CD or a USB pendrive.

Refer to Distribution Documents for more detailed information.