Illumos
Encyclopedia
Illumos is a derivative of OS/Net (aka ON), which basically is a Solaris/OpenSolaris
OpenSolaris
OpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems. It was also the name of the project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around the software...

 kernel with the bulk of the drivers, core libraries, and basic utilities. It is dependent on OS/Net, which Illumos will follow very closely while allowing to retain changes to code which might be unacceptable to upstream OpenSolaris. Illumos is aiming at 100% ABI
Application binary interface
In computer software, an application binary interface describes the low-level interface between an application program and the operating system or another application.- Description :...

 (Application Binary Interface) compatibility with Solaris ON, focusing just on the core foundation blocks.

Overview

Illumos was announced by webinar
Web conferencing
Web conferencing refers to a service that allows conferencing events to be shared with remote locations. Most vendors also provide either a recorded copy of an event, or a means for a subscriber to record an event. The service allows information to be shared simultaneously, across geographically...


on Thursday, 3 August 2010, as a community effort of some core Solaris engineers to create a truly open source Solaris by swapping closed source bits of OpenSolaris
OpenSolaris
OpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems. It was also the name of the project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around the software...

 with open implementations.

The original plan explicitly stated that Illumos not be a distribution or a fork. However, after Oracle announced discontinuing OpenSolaris, plans were made to fork the final version of the Solaris ON kernel allowing Illumos to evolve into a kernel of its own.

Efforts at the moment focus on libc, the NFS lock manager, the crypto module and numerous device drivers to create a Solaris-like OS with no closed, proprietary code.

The name "Illumos" is a pun on "SunOS", the name previous to "Solaris" for the same commercial product. "Illumos" is derived from the Latin illuminare meaning "to enlighten," concatenated with the acronym "OS" for 'operating system'.

Currently, Illumos is led by Garrett D'Amore.

At OpenStorage Summit 2010, the new logo for Illumos was revealed, with official type and branding to follow over.

Affiliation

The Illumos team stresses very heavily its independence from any company or legal entity whatsoever, maintaining this autonomy as a cornerstone of the community effort.
With independent status, it cannot "be 'shut down' or subverted by any corporate master".

There are some companies and community efforts sponsoring the effort, though.
Featuring as partners are Nexenta
Nexenta OS
Nexenta OS, officially known as the Nexenta Core Platform, is a 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. Version 1.0 was released in...

, Joyent
Joyent
Joyent is a cloud computing software and services company based in San Francisco, California, since 2004. Joyent provides application virtualization....

, BeleniX
BeleniX
BeleniX is an operating system distribution built using the OpenSolaris source base. It can be used as a Live CD as well as installed to hard disk. From the information provided on the BeleniX website, it may appear that currently, BeleniX is compiled only for 32-bit execution...

, BerliOS
BerliOS
BerliOS is a project founded by FOKUS, a Fraunhofer Institute located in Berlin, to coordinate the different interest groups in the field of open source software and to assume a neutral coordinator function...

, Schillix
SchilliX
SchilliX is a Live CD operating system distribution based on OpenSolaris. It was released on 17 June 2005, three days after the first release of OpenSolaris. Its developers claim that it is the first OpenSolaris distribution...

, Greenviolet, EveryCity Managed Hosting and Reliant Security.

Relatives

  • Solaris
  • OpenSolaris
    OpenSolaris
    OpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems. It was also the name of the project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around the software...

  • OpenIndiana
    OpenIndiana
    OpenIndiana is a Unix-like computer operating system released as free and open source software. It forked from OpenSolaris after the discontinuation of that project by Oracle and aims to continue development and distribution of the OpenSolaris codebase. The project operates under the umbrella of...

  • BeleniX
    BeleniX
    BeleniX is an operating system distribution built using the OpenSolaris source base. It can be used as a Live CD as well as installed to hard disk. From the information provided on the BeleniX website, it may appear that currently, BeleniX is compiled only for 32-bit execution...

    , an OpenSolaris based "distribution"
  • SchilliX
    SchilliX
    SchilliX is a Live CD operating system distribution based on OpenSolaris. It was released on 17 June 2005, three days after the first release of OpenSolaris. Its developers claim that it is the first OpenSolaris distribution...

    , an OpenSolaris based "distribution"
  • Nexenta, Ubuntu
    Ubuntu (operating system)
    Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...

    -based, Debian
    Debian
    Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...

    -style GNU
    GNU
    GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...

    /OpenSolaris
  • SmartOS, an Illumos based "distribution" with Kernel-based Virtual Machine
    Kernel-based Virtual Machine
    Kernel-based Virtual Machine is a virtualization infrastructure for the Linux kernel. KVM supports native virtualization on processors with hardware virtualization extensions....

     integration
  • EON , an OpenSolaris based embedded NAS
    Network-attached storage
    Network-attached storage is file-level computer data storage connected to a computer network providing data access to heterogeneous clients. NAS not only operates as a file server, but is specialized for this task either by its hardware, software, or configuration of those elements...

    system

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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