ZFS: When the hardware is the problem…

Ok, that’s a big problem!
I do remember when i did start to work with GNU/Linux, and the critics against that move were that:
– “What video card will you use”?
– “What ethernet card”?
– “There is some RAID controller that works”?
Two things were common:
– Yes, no drivers;
– The drivers did not work as expected, because of excuses from the companies about “tech secrets” or “reverse engineering” (normally much better drivers;-);

And i’m sure, all of you know that the (supposed) answers for all that questions (problems) was… the GPL. Ok, i will not start another flame about that…
With OpenSolaris and Solaris i think that is not a problem, and i admit i think BSD and CDDL are more “free” in that aspect. I like Open Source, all my projects are open source (basically GPL), but for Operating Systems and Drivers, seems more appropriate use a license that gives more “freedom” for companies… anyway, my point is: Why we have so few options on OpenSolaris Operating Systems with respect to hardware drivers?
Find a real stable hardware/firmware combination is some kind of art, and make all the pieces work together is another fight! Do you use LSI, 3ware? What backplane, disks?? Do we have the software and don’t have the hardware? Seems like hotplug will just work in x86 for USB devices? Do we need to buy SUN hardware (maybe Jonathan Schwartz can answer that ;-)?
Please, give me your opinion!
peace.

benr - March 15th, 2009 at 10:03 pm

I think Solaris does really well with drivers actually… all things considered. Almost every sound card supports av97 (or whatever it is) and we have NVidia support, both Intel and AMD support is good… LSI has drivers.

Sure there are lots of things missing, but I remember in 1997 hassling the guys in the 3ware booth at a conference to “finally” write Linux drivers… I think any of us who lived through the pre-2000 years of Linux remember what it was like to get by on what drivers you have.

OpenSolaris is different in that most of the drivers that we do have are really good, where as this isn’t the case with Linux. For instance, the NGE driver for Linux was a joke for a very long time.

So, my point is, its not great but its not nearly so bad as some people believe.

bandi - March 15th, 2009 at 10:57 pm

i have one (ok, two) devices which dont work on *solaris:
1. tv tuner
2. webcam (i gave it to a friend..)

sanjay nadkarni - March 16th, 2009 at 4:27 am

We are buying diverse *new* hardware every quarter to try to install and run OpenSolaris. So while old hardware may not be easily supported, the newer ones have a better chance. Check this out:
https://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/data/os/