SmartOS - hype and a demo iso

So, there is this new distribution of Illumos, SmartOS but it’s not as ready as they claimed. Sure, there is an ISO but that ISO has no installer and no package manager. So one of the crucial part for using SmartOS is missing.

As Joyent wrote on the blog they are working on a wiki and the documentation and this night, they showed the wiki. Until now there is only a documentation on how to use the usb image which got released the same time. But i think, that there will be much more coming.

At the same time I found out, that kvm was released into the Illumos core too, so that kvm will be available with every other distribution too. And OpenIndiana said, they want it in their 151 release too. 151 was planned to be released some months ago, so let’s see, how fast they can get that out to the users.

Joyent too should release a real distribution as fast as they can, because they created a large hype for SmartOS, but have nothing to use it in production. The ports are missing and an upgrade path is missing too. They wrote, that they are already using it in production, so why did they not release that?

Illumos, OpenIndiana and Joyent with SmartOS are missing a big chance here to make that fork of OpenSolaris popular. They created much traction, but without having something, which could be used in production. We will see, how fast they can react. Hopefully, the release of either OpenIndiana or SmartOS, will be useable and stable in production. Then, they have a chance of getting me as an user.