Let's discover OpenSolaris!

Where can you find OpenSolaris?

If you are interested in OpenSolaris, let's download it now! When the announcement of OpenSolaris 2008.05 was made, a new Web site （http://opensolaris.com） was opened. An OpenSolaris binary distribution can be downloaded from this Web site. It is free to download and free to use. Please feel free to try it out.

The CD images are available in two: OpenSolaris 2008.05 Primary Languages (12 languages) and OpenSolaris 2008.05 Compressed (All languages). Please download the Primary Languages version that supports the Japanese. OpenSolaris 2008.05 is provided as a binary distribution for the x86/x64 only.

Let's start booting with LiveCD!

Burn downloaded image to your CD-R, insert it into your PC's CD/DVD drive, and then boot it.

After a while you will be asked to select your keyboard layout and desktop language. When you select Japanese, you will see a desktop window as shown in Figure 3. It may look unfamiliar to Solaris or OpenSolaris users, but may look very familiar to Ubuntu users.

Please read the license agreement that appears at the center of the desktop window.

If a Log In screen appears, log in with user name, jack, and the password, jack. Note that you cannot directly log in as root for security reasons. To gain root user privilege, you must log in as a jack and run a su command on the terminal window to assume the root user privilege. The root password is opensolaris.

Now, you can click an icon of Firefox, Thunderbird or other browsers and use it if your PC is connected to the network. Note that under this environment, OpenSolaris is running on memory, your data will be loaded if you reboot your system. Try out different pulldown menus that appear at the top of the screen. Those who think it is very risky to install the OS on your PC may be willing to try it out if it is provided as a LiveCD.

Sun providest the potal site for developers, "Sun Developer Connection（SDC）". You can get more information about OpenSolaris.

Well, we've come to the end of this issue. We will explain how to install OpenSolaris 2008.05, how to use its features and explain the features in concrete terms in the following issues. So, don't miss it!