Nexenta OS

Last updated
Nexenta OS
Nexenta OS giraffe.png
NexentaOS desktop.png
Nexenta OS Alpha 5 running GNOME 2.14
Developer Nexenta Systems / HackZone members
OS family Unix-like (SVR4 and Linux)
Working stateDiscontinued [1]
Source model Open source
Final release 3.1.3.5 (October 31, 2012;10 years ago (2012-10-31)) [±]
Final preview 3.0 Release Candidate 3 (July 28, 2010;13 years ago (2010-07-28)) [±]
Update method APT (front-ends available)
Package manager dpkg (front-ends like Synaptic available)
Platforms i386, AMD64, SPARC
Kernel type Monolithic (illumos)
Userland GNU, libc of OpenSolaris
Default
user interface
Command line/GNOME
License Various
Official websitewww.nexenta.com www.nexenta.org (archive)

Nexenta OS, officially known as the Nexenta Core Platform, is a discontinued computer operating system based on OpenSolaris and Ubuntu that runs on IA-32- and x86-64-based systems. It emerged in fall 2005, after Sun Microsystems started the OpenSolaris project in June of that year. [2] Nexenta Systems, Inc. initiated the project and sponsored its development. Nexenta OS version 1.0 was released in February 2008.

Contents

In late 2011, the Nexenta OS brand was terminated and replaced with Illumian, which is derived from community development for illumos and OpenIndiana, but was distinguished by its use of Debian packaging. Illumian version 1.0 was released in February 2012. Following the initial release of Illumian in 2012, the Illumian project was discontinued. [3]

Repositories

There were initially two official APT repositories: "testing" and "unstable", totalling more than 9000 packages. A third "stable" was added for the first official release. Nexenta OS is available as InstallCD and VMware images. A Live CD is also available, but only for releases up to alpha 5.

Nexenta repositories follow the general Debian structure (main contrib non-free). Stable releases use a subset of this structure. Packages originate from Debian GNU/Linux. The nexenta.org website was retired in early 2012.

Development

Since Nexenta OS does not use the Linux kernel, and Sun only recently began releasing the code of their Solaris operating system as free and open source software, it supports less diverse hardware than other Debian variants.

The Nexenta OS team has decided to focus on a minimal OpenSolaris effort called the Nexenta Core Platform (NCP) [4] which forms the basis of the NexentaStor NAS storage solution. Version 1.0 of Nexenta Core Platform was released on February 10, 2008.

Nexenta Core Platform was the first operating system to combine the OpenSolaris kernel with GNU userland tools. It aimed to bring technologies such as ZFS and Zones to the GNU/Debian community. An additional purpose of the OS was to provide a kernel allowing proprietary closed source hardware drivers to be produced for inclusion in an open source operating system. [5]

Releases and History

NexentaStor

NexentaStor is a proprietary operating system built by Nexenta Systems on top of the Nexenta Core Platform. It is optimized for use in virtualized server environments including NAS, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel applications, and is built around the ZFS file system. It features iSCSI support, unlimited incremental backups or 'snapshots', snapshot mirroring (replication), block level mirroring (CDP), integrated search within ZFS snapshots and a custom API. Through its focus on ZFS, it carries with it potential benefits for virtualized server farms in terms of performance and thin provisioning. The operating system is currently distributed as ISO and VMware disk images with pricing determined on a per-terabyte and per-server licensing basis. [9]

A "community edition" was available free of charge for users with less than 18 terabytes of raw disk space (pre-redundancy and volume creation). [10] This free tier model changed with the release of version 5.0 (community edition only) to a 10 terabyte limit of assigned and usable (post-redundancy and volume creation) disk space. It is the same as the enterprise version, except for the lack of paid plugins and commercial support. It can install many of the free and open source plugins that are developed and hosted on the community edition website. The "community edition" though is only intended for hobbyist use. Production use of the "community edition" is forbidden by the NexentaStor EULA. Therefore, the use of the term "community edition" remains very disputable.

ReadyDATAOS

The ReadyDATAOS firmware is an embedded network-attached storage (NAS) distribution based on Nexenta OS and has the same ZFS support as Nexenta OS. It runs on NetGear ReadyDATA hardware.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Debian</span> Linux distribution based on free and open-source software

Debian, also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of Debian (0.01) was released on September 15, 1993, and its first stable version (1.1) was released on June 17, 1996. The Debian Stable branch is the most popular edition for personal computers and servers. Debian is also the basis for many other distributions, most notably Ubuntu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linux distribution</span> Operating system based on the Linux kernel

A Linux distribution is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel, and often a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one of the Linux distributions, which are available for a wide variety of systems ranging from embedded devices and personal computers to powerful supercomputers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oracle Solaris</span> Unix operating system originally developed by Sun Microsystems

Solaris is a proprietary Unix operating system originally developed by Sun Microsystems. After the Sun acquisition by Oracle in 2010, it was renamed Oracle Solaris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNU GRUB</span> Boot loader package

GNU GRUB is a boot loader package from the GNU Project. GRUB is the reference implementation of the Free Software Foundation's Multiboot Specification, which provides a user the choice to boot one of multiple operating systems installed on a computer or select a specific kernel configuration available on a particular operating system's partitions.

Software versioning is the process of assigning either unique version names or unique version numbers to unique states of computer software. Within a given version number category, these numbers are generally assigned in increasing order and correspond to new developments in the software. At a fine-grained level, revision control is used for keeping track of incrementally-different versions of information, whether or not this information is computer software, in order to be able to roll any changes back.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenSolaris</span> Open source operating system from Sun Microsystems based on Solaris

OpenSolaris is a discontinued open-source computer operating system based on Solaris and created by Sun Microsystems. It was also, perhaps confusingly, the name of a project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around the eponymous operating system software.

Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) is a software interface for Unix and Unix-like computer operating systems that lets non-privileged users create their own file systems without editing kernel code. This is achieved by running file system code in user space while the FUSE module provides only a bridge to the actual kernel interfaces.

The Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) is a free and open-source software license, produced by Sun Microsystems, based on the Mozilla Public License (MPL). Files licensed under the CDDL can be combined with files licensed under other licenses, whether open source or proprietary. In 2005 the Open Source Initiative approved the license. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) considers it a free software license, but one which is incompatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Solaris Containers is an implementation of operating system-level virtualization technology for x86 and SPARC systems, first released publicly in February 2004 in build 51 beta of Solaris 10, and subsequently in the first full release of Solaris 10, 2005. It is present in illumos distributions, such as OpenIndiana, SmartOS, Tribblix and OmniOS, as well as in the official Oracle Solaris 11 release.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PulseAudio</span> Sound server for Unix-like operating systems

PulseAudio is a network-capable sound server program distributed via the freedesktop.org project. It runs mainly on Linux, various BSD distributions such as FreeBSD and OpenBSD, macOS, as well as Illumos distributions and the Solaris operating system. It serves as a middleware in between applications and hardware and handles raw PCM audio streams.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linux</span> Family of Unix-like operating systems

Linux is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which includes the kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name "GNU/Linux" to emphasize the use and importance of GNU software in many distributions, causing some controversy.

GNU variants are operating systems based upon the GNU operating system. According to the GNU project and others, these also include most operating systems using the Linux kernel and a few others using BSD-based kernels.

Sun Open Storage was an open source computer data storage platform developed by Sun Microsystems. Sun Open Storage was advertised as avoiding vendor lock-in.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Illumos</span> Free software implementation of the Solaris kernel

Illumos is a partly free and open-source Unix operating system. It is based on OpenSolaris, which was based on System V Release 4 (SVR4) and the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Illumos comprises a kernel, device drivers, system libraries, and utility software for system administration. This core is now the base for many different open-sourced Illumos distributions, in a similar way in which the Linux kernel is used in different Linux distributions.

Linux on IBM Z or Linux on zSystems is the collective term for the Linux operating system compiled to run on IBM mainframes, especially IBM Z / IBM zSystems and IBM LinuxONE servers. Similar terms which imply the same meaning are Linux/390, Linux/390x, etc. The three Linux distributions certified for usage on the IBM Z hardware platform are Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and Ubuntu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenZFS</span> Open-source implementation of the ZFS file system

OpenZFS is an open-source implementation of the ZFS file system and volume manager initially developed by Sun Microsystems for the Solaris operating system and now maintained by the OpenZFS Project. It supports features like data compression, data deduplication, copy-on-write clones, snapshots, and RAID-Z. It also supports the creation of virtual devices, which allows for the creation of file systems that span multiple disks.

Besides the Linux distributions designed for general-purpose use on desktops and servers, distributions may be specialized for different purposes including computer architecture support, embedded systems, stability, security, localization to a specific region or language, targeting of specific user groups, support for real-time applications, or commitment to a given desktop environment. Furthermore, some distributions deliberately include only free software. As of 2015, over four hundred Linux distributions are actively developed, with about a dozen distributions being most popular for general-purpose use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nexenta Systems</span> Software company

Nexenta by DDN, Inc., is a subsidiary of DataDirect Networks that markets computer software for data storage and backup, headquartered in San Jose, California. Nexenta develops the products NexentaStor, NexentaCloud, NexentaFusion, and NexentaEdge. It was founded as Nexenta Systems, Inc., in 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proxmox Virtual Environment</span> Linux distribution for server virtualization

Proxmox Virtual Environment is a hyper-converged infrastructure open-source software. It is a hosted hypervisor that can run operating systems including Linux and Windows on x64 hardware. It is a Debian-based Linux distribution with a modified Ubuntu LTS kernel and allows deployment and management of virtual machines and containers. Proxmox VE includes a web console and command-line tools, and provides a REST API for third-party tools. Two types of virtualization are supported: container-based with LXC, and full virtualization with KVM. It includes a web-based management interface.

References

  1. http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=nexenta
  2. Milek's blog
  3. "Illumian - Overview" . Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  4. "Announcing NexentaCP(b65) with ZFS/Boot integrated installer". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27.
  5. "NexentaOS has a chance to succeed on a Desktop". Linux.com. June 16, 2006.
  6. Ross, Alex (February 10, 2008). "Nexenta Core Platform 1.0 available". gnusol-devel (Mailing list). Retrieved May 25, 2011.
  7. Gulecha, Anil (May 25, 2009). "Nexenta Core Platform 2 Released". gnusol-devel (Mailing list). Retrieved May 25, 2011.
  8. "Distribution Release: Nexenta Core Platform 3.0.1" . Retrieved 19 September 2010.
  9. "Home".
  10. "NexentaStor License Versions". Archived from the original on 2010-12-19. Retrieved 2010-12-14.