Indiana FAQ
From Genunix
About Indiana
What is Indiana?
Indiana is the project name for an open source community effort to create an OpenSolaris based binary distribution. Indiana is heavily sponsored by Sun, but many external people are also contributing to the project.
When was the project started?
Project Indiana was first mentioned informally on Jonathan's blog and more officially at the CommunityOne developer day during Ian Murdock's "What's a Linux guy doing at Sun?" talk (PDF). However, the project only really kicked off with the opening of the mailing list in early June and progress is still being made in real time to produce an initial version.
Who is Ian Murdock?
Ian Murdock is Chief OS Platform Strategist at Sun Microsystems and chair of the Linux Standard Base (LSB), the Linux platform interoperability standard. Prior to joining Sun, Ian was CTO of the Linux Foundation (formed through the merger of OSDL and the Free Standards Group, where he was CTO) and cofounder, chairman, and chief strategist of Progeny, a Linux distribution vendor that builds custom Linux platforms for companies building server appliances and other Linux powered products. A longtime Linux user, developer, and advocate, Ian founded the Debian project in 1993.
What are the goals of the project?
The overarching goal of the project is to encourage the growth of the OpenSolaris eco-system. When the OpenSolaris project started, it was originally focused on developers and a source base. With the introduction of Project Indiana, a binary distribution will be a reference for other binary compatible distributions to form with the hope of avoiding the same fragmentation that is frequent in Linux.
When can I see it?
It is hoped that a developer preview will be available in the October, with a first release available in Spring 2008.
How often will I see new releases?
One of the project management goals of Indiana is to produce a new version of the distribution every 6 months, operating a strict time based release schedule. Many open source software communities have already adopted similar schedules and have proved to work well. Not only does this give the opportunity of setting expectations from an end-user point of view of when to expect a new release, it also sets expectations of developers for when to deliver their work to the end-user within the context of a binary distribution.
Who is involved?
Indiana will be built entirely out in the OpenSolaris community, and will showcase many of the existing projects being worked upon by community members. The work to build the distribution is happening in real time, with discussions appearing on the Indiana mailing list.
Why did you call it Indiana?
Indiana is only the project name, and will not be the same of the final distribution. The project is named after the US state that Ian Murdock is from, and like Debian contains the letters 'ian'. Project Indiana maintains the tradition of using US states after Nevada was chosen for the next release of Solaris.
Why is Indiana different from Solaris?
Indiana will eventually produce a distribution with a faster moving lifecycle, both from development to deployment and support. The core install CD will be freely re-distributable and network repository easily mirrored locally. While Solaris will continue to be a high level enterprise operating system with a much slower lifecycle, Indiana will be a leading edge distribution delivering a current set of best of breed software to those who may require a particular feature set and accepting the consequences of a faster moving train.
Why was the Indiana Project started?
To create a reference distribution for OpenSolaris that is created by the community.
What is the goal of the Indiana project?
To create a reference distribution of OpenSolaris that is freely redistributable and non-proprietary.
Who controls Indiana?
Indiana is controlled by the OpenSolaris Community, for information about how the community is governed see the OpenSolaris Governing Board
Using Indiana
What does it include?
The core of Indiana is a single CD install with basic operating system, the GNOME desktop environment and a selection of command-line utilities. This install will already include many of the OpenSolaris innovations that you would expect to see eg. DTrace, ZFS, and Zones. Additional software will be available from a network repository of packages that you can easily download and install through a simple interface.
When can I download a copy of Indiana?
A download link for the developer preview will be published on opensolaris.org any time soon!
How do I install it?
Indiana uses a LiveCD capability. With a single CD download, you can try out Indiana before you are required to install it. If you are happy with your experience, you may launch the installer from the desktop and complete the install of Indiana. More details are available on the Get Indiana webpage.
Where can I get support for it?
It is expected that Sun will provide a support service for Indiana in the future, among other vendors.
Is there a specific enterprise release?
If you are running mission critical services, we would highly recommend that you run Solaris in your enterprise. However, Indiana is also very much intended for an enterprise environment where a particular feature set is necessary and a lower level of support is required.
Contributing to Indiana
How do I get involved?
Check out the webpage and subscribe to the mailing list if you would like to get involved in the project. Remember, Indiana is comprised of several other projects on opensolaris.org, all of which are available to participate.
How do I file bug reports?
Check out the Indiana reporting bugs page for full details of how to apply for an account on defect.opensolaris.org and report bugs.
