[Axiom-developer] Building GCL and Axiom on Nexenta OpenSolaris

[Bill Page]

On April 7, 2007 5:58 PM C Y wrote:

> 
> --- address@hidden wrote:
> > I tried to install openSolaris nevada build 60 on my Dell
> > Optiplex 745, but eventually I gave up and installed SuSE
> > instead. :-( The reason being that openSolaris 64bit seems
> > to be largely unsupported by GNU tool chains, and openSolaris
> > seems to ignore many of GNU software. :-(
> 
> I've only installed it in a plex86 environment and haven't
> really worked with it, but you might want to try Nexenta and
> see if that works:  http://www.gnusolaris.org
> 
> I don't know that 64bit support will be any better, but the
> GNU toolchain support in Nexenta may be in better shape.
> 

Thanks to this recommendation for Cliff, I recently installed
nexenta OpenSolaris from the free OpenSolaris <starter kit> DVD.

http://get.opensolaris.org

I installed OpenSolaris under Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 on my
Windows XP box. It works great! Nexenta OpenSolaris is the first
Solaris distribution that I have been able to install on Virtual
PC, although I routinely run a 2nd copy of Windows and SuSE 10.2
virtual machines.

I had a small problem with the screen resolution (at first limited
to 640x480) but this was easily cured by a creating and modifying
the default xorg.conf to include horizontal and vertical sync,
default depth and monitor modes. Details on request.

I particularlly like the integration of the Debian work-a-like
'apt-get'. This makes it easy do things like this:

  # apt-get install subversion gcc m4 autoconf
  # apt-get install libxt-dev libx11-dev tetex-extra

(just like on Debian) to satisfy build requirements for Axiom.

Performance under Microsoft Virtual PC on my AMD 4200+ dual
core machine is quite fast.

Regards,
Bill Page.