Once more, winds of innovation come from Mountain View. Google has launched another offensive against Microsoft and... Skype. Yes, because it just added new voice and video call support into google chat and gmail.
Since the first time I saw the spartan google search engine main page, I felt sympathy for Google and the quality of its software (well, google software I use) never deceived me. I'm not the average user: as soon as I login I open a terminal window and start typing, rather than moving a mouse. Even in gmail I use the keyboard interface. The real Google revolution, in my opinion, it's in the fact that even in a world in which the great majority of the host operating systems is Windows (sadly), when an user logs in he usually opens up a browser and "googles" for something, looks for addresses or routes in Google maps, manages its photos with Picasa, writes its blog with Google docs and shares it with blogger, etc. Summarizing: the real desktop, for many people, is made up of a browser and Google software.
When people realize that they can speak and see their friends at the eyes without even leaving the gmail tab in their browsers, they'll probably uninstall (or leave there to rot) their copies of Skype or similar software. This is partially true, in reality, because Skype users often call landlines phones but at the end, there'll be a reason less to rely on Skype or Microsoft Messenger.
I'll be clear: I like what Google does, and I like the way Google does it, most of the times. I use Google software every day and, as far as it concerns my out-of-business activities, Google is probably the provider of most of the software I use. Google search engine, Gmail, Google docs, Google calendar, Google reader and so on: they're all part of the toolbox I use every day. I don't even feel like making the list, because probably I could just cut and past the list of Google software and remove a few entries.
Now, why am I not going to use it, then? Well, I would really like to explore this new functionality and satisfy my (technical and non) curiosity without having to look for information on the net. But I can not, because I'm a 95% Solaris user and the remaining 5% I'm a GNU/Linux user. And the beta version of this service, which relies on a browser plugin, is only available for Windows users and I'm not hoping to see it, ever, on Solaris. Just as it happens with Skype and many other proprietary software. If I were a 100% GNU/Linux user, moreover, I would probably be disappointed: my experience with GNU/Linux versions of some software bundles (such as Skype) is negative. Skype for Linux sucks (even more when compared with Windows or Mac OS X editions), and Picasa for Linux is even worse: I never thought I would see a customized Wine distribution to run a Windows binary on GNU/Linux, and less if who's doing this is Google. And I won't talk about Apple, who left us without Quicktime even if it ported ZFS on Mac OS X ;)
I won't trade off the proverbial stability of my Solaris for another OS. Neither I'll run (yet another) branded zone just to play with that plugin. I'll stick with VoIP and you, who can, enjoy.
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Joining an NTP server pool
Now that you've configured your Solaris NTP service, you might be able to give back some of your bandwidth and make a service to the community. As you've probably done, you're receiving data from random server from a pool you've chosen. NTP Pool Project pools' servers are servers like yours and if you've got some spare bandwidth to give for free (an estimate peak of 120 kbit/s it's a realistic traffic estimation) you could join the project and add your server.
Requirements
As explained in the project's webpage, the only requirement it's (not too variable) static IP address and an adequate bandwidth. NTP Pool Project historical data suggests an average traffiic about [10,15] kbit/s with peaks of about [50,120] kbit/s. Joining it's easy and you can monitor performance data of your server on the administration webpage which can be accessed after registration.
A quick warning before you rush and public your server(s):
Requirements
As explained in the project's webpage, the only requirement it's (not too variable) static IP address and an adequate bandwidth. NTP Pool Project historical data suggests an average traffiic about [10,15] kbit/s with peaks of about [50,120] kbit/s. Joining it's easy and you can monitor performance data of your server on the administration webpage which can be accessed after registration.
A quick warning before you rush and public your server(s):
Finally, I must emphasize that joining the pool is a long term commitment. We are happy to take you out of the pool again if your circumstances change, but because of how the ntp clients operate it will take weeks, months or even YEARS before the traffic completely goes away.
Configuring NTP server and client on Solaris 10
One of the task which is often performed during the setup of a machine it's the setup of the NTP daemon.
NTP is one of the oldest internet protocol still in use and it allows the synchronization of computer clocks distributing UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) over the network. NTP design is focused on compensating the variable latency of the network.
A machine may be an NTP client or an NTP server. Roughly, an NTP client it's a machine that uses the NTP protocol to synchronize its clock and an NTP server it's a machine that provides NTP client the information needed to set their clocks and itself uses other NTP server to keep in sync.
NTP on Solaris 10
Solaris 10 ships with an NTP daemon, ntpd, configured via SMF (svc:/network/ntp:default) and a bunch of sample ntp.conf files to quickly configure a machine as a client or as a server.
# svcs ntp
# svcs ntp
STATE STIME FMRI online 0:43:33 svc:/network/ntp:default
Configuring a client
If your machine is just a client, you can just pick the /etc/inet/ntp.client and copy it to /etc/inet/ntp.conf. The default client configuration it's just a one-liner:
multicastclient 224.0.0.1
You'll get a similar output. After a while, your query will output similar results. The server prefixed with an asterisk is the server you're synchronizing with. If you don't get an asterisk after a while, probably no NTP server is reachable, which is probably due to a firewall which is blocking UDP port 123. The difference between your clock and the data provided by NTP servers can be examined by catting the drift file:
# cat /var/ntp/ntp.drift -50.645
Setting up an NTP server
Now that you have an NTP client running, you'll probably want to setup all of your machines. If you're in a LAN, you can setup an internal NTP server which will provide data to other clients on your LAN. As before, you can take inspiration from the server configuration file shipped with Solaris 10, /etc/inet/ntp.server. After setting up the drift file and the clients you're going to use, you can examine the other options and fine-tune them at your taste. Let's give a quick look at it.
server 127.127.XType.0
This line sets up the server type and the XType value must be substituted with the correct value from the provided table:
# XType Device RefID Description
# -------------------------------------------------------
# 1 local LCL Undisciplined Local Clock
# 2 trak GPS TRAK 8820 GPS Receiver
# 3 pst WWV PSTI/Traconex WWV/WWVH Receiver
# 4 wwvb WWVB Spectracom WWVB Receiver
# 5 true TRUE TrueTime GPS/GOES Receivers
# 6 irig IRIG IRIG Audio Decoder
# 7 chu CHU Scratchbuilt CHU Receiver
# 8 parse ---- Generic Reference Clock Driver
# 9 mx4200 GPS Magnavox MX4200 GPS Receiver
# 10 as2201 GPS Austron 2201A GPS Receiver
# 11 arbiter GPS Arbiter 1088A/B GPS Receiver
# 12 tpro IRIG KSI/Odetics TPRO/S IRIG Interface
# 13 leitch ATOM Leitch CSD 5300 Master Clock Controller
# 15 * * TrueTime GPS/TM-TMD Receiver
# 17 datum DATM Datum Precision Time System
# 18 acts ACTS NIST Automated Computer Time Service
# 19 heath WWV Heath WWV/WWVH Receiver
# 20 nmea GPS Generic NMEA GPS Receiver
# 22 atom PPS PPS Clock Discipline
# 23 ptb TPTB PTB Automated Computer Time Service
# 24 usno USNO USNO Modem Time Service
# 25 * * TrueTime generic receivers
# 26 hpgps GPS Hewlett Packard 58503A GPS Receiver
# 27 arc MSFa Arcron MSF Receiver
In my case, it's just a (very) plain 1: an undiscilplined local clock.
broadcast 224.0.1.1 ttl 4
This line is the server equivalent of the multicast line seen in the default client configuration: it tells the NTP server to broadcast on the NTP multicast network.
Further readings
Complete documentation about ntp.conf syntax can be found on the xntpd man page:
# man xntpd
NTP is one of the oldest internet protocol still in use and it allows the synchronization of computer clocks distributing UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) over the network. NTP design is focused on compensating the variable latency of the network.
A machine may be an NTP client or an NTP server. Roughly, an NTP client it's a machine that uses the NTP protocol to synchronize its clock and an NTP server it's a machine that provides NTP client the information needed to set their clocks and itself uses other NTP server to keep in sync.
NTP on Solaris 10
Solaris 10 ships with an NTP daemon, ntpd, configured via SMF (svc:/network/ntp:default) and a bunch of sample ntp.conf files to quickly configure a machine as a client or as a server.
# svcs ntp
# svcs ntp
STATE STIME FMRI online 0:43:33 svc:/network/ntp:default
Configuring a client
If your machine is just a client, you can just pick the /etc/inet/ntp.client and copy it to /etc/inet/ntp.conf. The default client configuration it's just a one-liner:
multicastclient 224.0.0.1
This configuration, as explained in the same file, it's a passive configuration for a host that just listens for NTP server putting packets on the NTP multicast network, 224.0.0.1. Obviously, if your machine it's in a LAN without an NTP server, you're probably never going to receive such a packet, and you should use some public NTP server instead.
Using a server from a pool
I personally recommend using random servers from an NTP pool such as pool.ntp.org. In the official website of the NTP Pool Project you can find instruction about using the pool or picking up some server from the list they maintain. Pools maintained by the NTP Pool Project are organized in geographical hierarchy so that, for example, you can use server from a continent-level pool or, where available, from a country-level pool. The recipe is always the same: the nearer, the quicker, the better. In my case, I'm using the European pool europe.pool.ntp.org and my configuration file contains:
server 0.europe.pool.ntp.org
server 1.europe.pool.ntp.org
server 2.europe.pool.ntp.org
server 3.europe.pool.ntp.org
Setting up the drift file
The only thing left to set up it's just the drift file location, which in my case it's:
driftfile /var/ntp/ntp.drift
Starting the service
Once your ntp.conf is set up, you can start (or restart) the ntp service:
# svcadm restart ntp
# svcs ntp
STATE STIME FMRI online 0:43:33 svc:/network/ntp:default
Querying the service
Once the service is running, you can check which server you're using with ntpq:
# ntpq -p
remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset disp
==============================================================================
NTP.MCAST.NET 0.0.0.0 16 u - 64 0 0.00 0.000 16000.0 +fnutt.net
Time2.Stupi.SE 2 u 45 64 377 76.74 10.285 0.73 -sip1.viatel.ee
ntp.eenet.ee 3 u 430 1024 377 79.47 -0.988 1.05 *ntp1.net.edu.ie
ntp0.esat.net 2 u 28 64 377 63.45 4.104 0.78 +ns.airbites.bg
ntp2.gbg.netnod 2 u 27 64 377 85.13 1.723 1.05
Using a server from a pool
I personally recommend using random servers from an NTP pool such as pool.ntp.org. In the official website of the NTP Pool Project you can find instruction about using the pool or picking up some server from the list they maintain. Pools maintained by the NTP Pool Project are organized in geographical hierarchy so that, for example, you can use server from a continent-level pool or, where available, from a country-level pool. The recipe is always the same: the nearer, the quicker, the better. In my case, I'm using the European pool europe.pool.ntp.org and my configuration file contains:
server 0.europe.pool.ntp.org
server 1.europe.pool.ntp.org
server 2.europe.pool.ntp.org
server 3.europe.pool.ntp.org
Setting up the drift file
The only thing left to set up it's just the drift file location, which in my case it's:
driftfile /var/ntp/ntp.drift
Starting the service
Once your ntp.conf is set up, you can start (or restart) the ntp service:
# svcadm restart ntp
# svcs ntp
STATE STIME FMRI online 0:43:33 svc:/network/ntp:default
Querying the service
Once the service is running, you can check which server you're using with ntpq:
# ntpq -p
remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset disp
==============================================================================
NTP.MCAST.NET 0.0.0.0 16 u - 64 0 0.00 0.000 16000.0 +fnutt.net
Time2.Stupi.SE 2 u 45 64 377 76.74 10.285 0.73 -sip1.viatel.ee
ntp.eenet.ee 3 u 430 1024 377 79.47 -0.988 1.05 *ntp1.net.edu.ie
ntp0.esat.net 2 u 28 64 377 63.45 4.104 0.78 +ns.airbites.bg
ntp2.gbg.netnod 2 u 27 64 377 85.13 1.723 1.05
You'll get a similar output. After a while, your query will output similar results. The server prefixed with an asterisk is the server you're synchronizing with. If you don't get an asterisk after a while, probably no NTP server is reachable, which is probably due to a firewall which is blocking UDP port 123. The difference between your clock and the data provided by NTP servers can be examined by catting the drift file:
# cat /var/ntp/ntp.drift -50.645
Setting up an NTP server
Now that you have an NTP client running, you'll probably want to setup all of your machines. If you're in a LAN, you can setup an internal NTP server which will provide data to other clients on your LAN. As before, you can take inspiration from the server configuration file shipped with Solaris 10, /etc/inet/ntp.server. After setting up the drift file and the clients you're going to use, you can examine the other options and fine-tune them at your taste. Let's give a quick look at it.
server 127.127.XType.0
This line sets up the server type and the XType value must be substituted with the correct value from the provided table:
# XType Device RefID Description
# -------------------------------------------------------
# 1 local LCL Undisciplined Local Clock
# 2 trak GPS TRAK 8820 GPS Receiver
# 3 pst WWV PSTI/Traconex WWV/WWVH Receiver
# 4 wwvb WWVB Spectracom WWVB Receiver
# 5 true TRUE TrueTime GPS/GOES Receivers
# 6 irig IRIG IRIG Audio Decoder
# 7 chu CHU Scratchbuilt CHU Receiver
# 8 parse ---- Generic Reference Clock Driver
# 9 mx4200 GPS Magnavox MX4200 GPS Receiver
# 10 as2201 GPS Austron 2201A GPS Receiver
# 11 arbiter GPS Arbiter 1088A/B GPS Receiver
# 12 tpro IRIG KSI/Odetics TPRO/S IRIG Interface
# 13 leitch ATOM Leitch CSD 5300 Master Clock Controller
# 15 * * TrueTime GPS/TM-TMD Receiver
# 17 datum DATM Datum Precision Time System
# 18 acts ACTS NIST Automated Computer Time Service
# 19 heath WWV Heath WWV/WWVH Receiver
# 20 nmea GPS Generic NMEA GPS Receiver
# 22 atom PPS PPS Clock Discipline
# 23 ptb TPTB PTB Automated Computer Time Service
# 24 usno USNO USNO Modem Time Service
# 25 * * TrueTime generic receivers
# 26 hpgps GPS Hewlett Packard 58503A GPS Receiver
# 27 arc MSFa Arcron MSF Receiver
In my case, it's just a (very) plain 1: an undiscilplined local clock.
broadcast 224.0.1.1 ttl 4
This line is the server equivalent of the multicast line seen in the default client configuration: it tells the NTP server to broadcast on the NTP multicast network.
Further readings
Complete documentation about ntp.conf syntax can be found on the xntpd man page:
# man xntpd
Thursday, 6 November 2008
Stupidity never ends, as time, it continues to flow...
Just few hours ago I spent some time writing an entry about Mr. Berlusconi and his will to give advice to young and inexpert Mr. Obama.
No time has passed since then and I find myself writing again about the Italian Prime Minister and his first, and I bet not last, gaffe. If you can read italian, read it yourself. Here's the translated excerpt:
No time has passed since then and I find myself writing again about the Italian Prime Minister and his first, and I bet not last, gaffe. If you can read italian, read it yourself. Here's the translated excerpt:
"Barack Obama? Young, beatiful and sun-tanned."Mr Berlusconi goes just where nobody has, and wouldn't, gone before. I cannot even imagine Mr. McCain referring to Mr. Obama as "sun-tanned". What's worst, when he returned at his hotel and was asked about that unhappy statement, he quickly answered:
"If they don't have any sense of humor then it means that those fools have come into action, that they go be [offensive verb has been omitted]."It's very sad, but sometimes I'm really ashamed that in my country, such a guy has been elected Prime Minister.
What a wonderful gift: a dish of boletus edulis
I spent the last two weeks wondering what I'd cook as a "surprise dish" for my girlfriend who was coming to spend some days at my house. The last week, moreover, winter seemed to have made its way to Spain, and I was thinking about some heat dish: a soup or a good risotto.
I then decided I wanted to feel at home: my dish would have Boletus Edulis as main flavour. Now, let's go and solve the first problem: finding good boletus. Here in Madrid (Spain), it shouldn't be such a difficult task. During the last week, the weather was favoring mush growth.
Well... difficult, it was. I started looking for gourmet shops and spent at least 20 EUR of gasoline jumping from one shop to the other. The best options I found were nothing but cheap: one mushroom, 20 EUR. The problem was the mushroom itself: I think whoever saw a boletus edulis in its natural environment before, would refuse eating that "thing". There was no option left, and I bought a couple of those micro-"boletus"...
I cleaned them carefully and put them in the pot. Where was that fantastic perfume evaporating from the mushrooms? I don't know. And I went out, going to pick my girlfriend up.
When I arrived, the big surprise! My brother-in-law's father is fond of walking into the woods looking for mushrooms. And two big, very big, boletus edulis, in all of their splendour, were waiting for me! I felt like a children with a new toy. And here's the recipe to serve boletus edulis as a side dish or, if you're really fond of them, to fully taste them melting in your mouth.
To preserve the taste of the mushrooms, don't wash them with water. Try to clean them first with the blade of a knife, retiring all the earth and only if it's necessary, quickly wash them without rubbing them too much below cold water.
Just heat some garlic in a pot with a couple of spoons of extra virgin olive oil, retire the garlic when it starts to brown, cut the boletus in thick pieces (about 2 centimeters), put them in the pot with some parsley and let them cook slowly 15 minutes, until all the water released by the mushroom evaporates. Salt them almost at the end and add oil at pleasure.
You can now enjoy a fantastic side dish with some good meat or eat them all as a second dish!
I then decided I wanted to feel at home: my dish would have Boletus Edulis as main flavour. Now, let's go and solve the first problem: finding good boletus. Here in Madrid (Spain), it shouldn't be such a difficult task. During the last week, the weather was favoring mush growth.
Well... difficult, it was. I started looking for gourmet shops and spent at least 20 EUR of gasoline jumping from one shop to the other. The best options I found were nothing but cheap: one mushroom, 20 EUR. The problem was the mushroom itself: I think whoever saw a boletus edulis in its natural environment before, would refuse eating that "thing". There was no option left, and I bought a couple of those micro-"boletus"...
I cleaned them carefully and put them in the pot. Where was that fantastic perfume evaporating from the mushrooms? I don't know. And I went out, going to pick my girlfriend up.
When I arrived, the big surprise! My brother-in-law's father is fond of walking into the woods looking for mushrooms. And two big, very big, boletus edulis, in all of their splendour, were waiting for me! I felt like a children with a new toy. And here's the recipe to serve boletus edulis as a side dish or, if you're really fond of them, to fully taste them melting in your mouth.
To preserve the taste of the mushrooms, don't wash them with water. Try to clean them first with the blade of a knife, retiring all the earth and only if it's necessary, quickly wash them without rubbing them too much below cold water.
Just heat some garlic in a pot with a couple of spoons of extra virgin olive oil, retire the garlic when it starts to brown, cut the boletus in thick pieces (about 2 centimeters), put them in the pot with some parsley and let them cook slowly 15 minutes, until all the water released by the mushroom evaporates. Salt them almost at the end and add oil at pleasure.
You can now enjoy a fantastic side dish with some good meat or eat them all as a second dish!
Yes, with Silvio, we can
Weren't he Mr. Berlusconi, when I read the news, I wouldn't believe somebody would say it. And when this somebody is such Prime Minister, it's even more unbelievable.
Here's the article (sorry once more, it's Italian) and here's the translated excerpt:
Mr. Berlusconi, I would like to ask you some sincere questions: do you really believe what you're saying or it's just demagogy? And if it were demagogy, do you really think the average Italian is so stupid?
Personally I believe, Mr. Berlusconi, you should be asking Mr. Obama for advices, rather than offering yours. Italy would have its chance to change, too.
Here's the article (sorry once more, it's Italian) and here's the translated excerpt:
"The Prime Minister Mr. Silvio Berlusconi sent a message to Mr. Obama «for the important job waiting for him»: «I'm absolutely certain that friendship and collaboration between our two countries will continue growing and strengthening.». During his visit to the Eicma Fair in Milan, Mr. Berlusconi more informally added: «I can advise him [Mr. Obama] because I'm elder than him. I'll do it as soon as I'll be personally hugging him.»"I'm recalling into my mind the victory speech of Mr. Obama. I was imagining him standing in front of his supporters and adding: "Yes, with Silvio, we can." It's no coincidence that Mr. Severgnini had a very similar reaction, has he commented in his blog, Italians, in the Corriere della Sera homepage. Thanks Beppe for this image.
Mr. Berlusconi, I would like to ask you some sincere questions: do you really believe what you're saying or it's just demagogy? And if it were demagogy, do you really think the average Italian is so stupid?
Personally I believe, Mr. Berlusconi, you should be asking Mr. Obama for advices, rather than offering yours. Italy would have its chance to change, too.
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Why I set up my home network with Solaris
I often worked with Solaris, and I felt in love with it years ago, but until 2004 I never thought about installing it at home, mainly because what I really wanted was the system and a Sun machine. And in those times I couldn't afford buying a decent machine, neither was I interested in looking for an old-one and substituting my Slackware-based network, which was running on decent hardware.
I started to use Solaris for core network services, like exporting NFS shares, DHCP and so on. When Solaris 10 made was released and the Solaris Express program started, things have changed a lot and know I find myself running a pure 100% Solaris network and was left with not even a single GNU/Linux machine. Technologies like ZFS, DTrace and containers are revolutionary, I found them astonishing since the beginning: you can
virtualize operating system and storage, or instrument your system with a new ad-hoc language and clean set of administrative commands; this, and much more, supported by good documentation. I think they are a major feature I would really miss using another operating system. I couldn't think living without ZFS or zones, nowadays.
I have a X2100 M2 server running the following services on top of Solaris 10 update 4:
Another thing I love in Solaris 10 is the philosophy of some administrative commands: if you want to read the classical plain text UNIX configuration files, they're there. But the administrator is help by a great set of administrative command which act as a front-end to such files, greatly reducing the possibility of typos and misconfigurations which sometimes can be an headache.
All of the clients I have are either Solaris 10 or Solaris Express Community Edition whose setup is trivial: just install the system and load the LDAP profile. Voilà, 5 minutes after the first reboot, the machine is up and running and you can login with your LDAP-maintained account. And this is the same procedure I configure non-global zones, too. Moreover, since the earliest releases of the now defunct Solaris Express Developer Edition, I don't feel any longer the need of installing GNU/Linux in my clients because I have a good desktop and everything I need.
Another great feature of Solaris 10 are zones. Configuring a basic sparse zone is easy and it's a well documented procedure. The first zone I setup was aimed to solve a problem I had with deploying Blastwave's software. The second zone I deployed is used as development zone with an instance of Glassfish application server and Subversion server. The server is relatively small and always ran without any glitch. I don't have numbers, and I would like to have them, but zones seems a very lightweight solution with a good potential for scalability.
I can now connect to my home network, receive a DHCP number for the subnet I am connected to and start to browse files shared via NFS (or via the SMB protocol in the case a Windows succeeds entering my home), listening to music, watching a movie stored in my ZFS base RAID-Z disk array, or using remotely whichever program I need.
The only thing of which I'm left with the curiosity to try is buying a Sun Ray Client and give it a try.
100% Solaris, rock-solid, and free.
I started to use Solaris for core network services, like exporting NFS shares, DHCP and so on. When Solaris 10 made was released and the Solaris Express program started, things have changed a lot and know I find myself running a pure 100% Solaris network and was left with not even a single GNU/Linux machine. Technologies like ZFS, DTrace and containers are revolutionary, I found them astonishing since the beginning: you can
virtualize operating system and storage, or instrument your system with a new ad-hoc language and clean set of administrative commands; this, and much more, supported by good documentation. I think they are a major feature I would really miss using another operating system. I couldn't think living without ZFS or zones, nowadays.I have a X2100 M2 server running the following services on top of Solaris 10 update 4:
- DHCP server (global zone)
- DHCP relay (zoned)
- DNS server (global)
- Subversion server (global zone, zoned)
- NFS server (global)
- LDAP server (global)
- Web Proxy Server (global)
- packet forwarding
Another thing I love in Solaris 10 is the philosophy of some administrative commands: if you want to read the classical plain text UNIX configuration files, they're there. But the administrator is help by a great set of administrative command which act as a front-end to such files, greatly reducing the possibility of typos and misconfigurations which sometimes can be an headache.
All of the clients I have are either Solaris 10 or Solaris Express Community Edition whose setup is trivial: just install the system and load the LDAP profile. Voilà, 5 minutes after the first reboot, the machine is up and running and you can login with your LDAP-maintained account. And this is the same procedure I configure non-global zones, too. Moreover, since the earliest releases of the now defunct Solaris Express Developer Edition, I don't feel any longer the need of installing GNU/Linux in my clients because I have a good desktop and everything I need.
Another great feature of Solaris 10 are zones. Configuring a basic sparse zone is easy and it's a well documented procedure. The first zone I setup was aimed to solve a problem I had with deploying Blastwave's software. The second zone I deployed is used as development zone with an instance of Glassfish application server and Subversion server. The server is relatively small and always ran without any glitch. I don't have numbers, and I would like to have them, but zones seems a very lightweight solution with a good potential for scalability.
I can now connect to my home network, receive a DHCP number for the subnet I am connected to and start to browse files shared via NFS (or via the SMB protocol in the case a Windows succeeds entering my home), listening to music, watching a movie stored in my ZFS base RAID-Z disk array, or using remotely whichever program I need.
The only thing of which I'm left with the curiosity to try is buying a Sun Ray Client and give it a try.
100% Solaris, rock-solid, and free.
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