RE: https://m.fru.bar/@banana/117367175824930661

Running inside #SmartOS branded zone <3

SmartOS: The illumos Way of Thinking About Servers

A practical look at SmartOS, illumos, zones, LX compatibility and the way this operating system approaches servers. Not a complete guide, just enough to understand why I like it.

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2026/09/28/smartos-the-illumos-way-of-thinking-about-servers/

#SmartOS #illumos #Hosting #Server #IT #SysAdmin #OwnYourData #ITNotes #Tutorial

SmartOS: The illumos Way of Thinking About Servers

A practical look at SmartOS, illumos, zones, LX compatibility and the way this operating system approaches servers. Not a complete guide, just enough to understand why I like it.

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2026/09/28/smartos-the-illumos-way-of-thinking-about-servers/

#SmartOS #illumos #Hosting #Server #IT #SysAdmin #OwnYourData #ITNotes #Tutorial

@chadmccullough

Don't overlook giving some attention and perhaps support to things like #DragonFlyBSD (with its SMP and HAMMER work) or to the #Illumos derivatives like #Tribblix, #OpenIndiana, #SmartOS, and #OmniOS.

Illumos, in particular, will show you what actual #Unix was like when you first started using Linux: you can pick operating system personalities by altering PATH (/usr/xpg4/bin /usr/bin /usr/xpg6/bin et al.) and there was already a better replacement for the actual System 5 Release 3 rc.

And it has zones and #ZFS and #dtrace of course.

RE: https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@stefano/117143645809189838

illumos is great for those platforms

#illumos #SmartOS #OwnYourData

Stefano Marinelli » 🌐 2026-08-23
@stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe

Months ago (or a year ago, by now), I bought a few Intel N150 mini PCs for dirt cheap, between 120 and 150 Euro each (depending on the RAM).
Two of them sat untouched on my desk for months, almost making me regret buying them.
Today, I'm glad I did: considering how high hardware prices are getting, having a little backup supply doesn't hurt.
And one of them is about to host SmartOS.

#illumos #OwnYourData

@pacavegano

If you're now in the mood to experiment, thanks to M. Torvalds, note that several #Illumos-based operating systems exist, such as #OmniOS, #OpenIndiana, #SmartOS, and #Tribblix.

@ptribble is even on the FediVerse.

https://tribblix.org

https://omnios.org

https://openindiana.org

https://docs.smartos.org

If you're running the SmartOS trunk package set, then ensure you have the latest pkg tools installed:

$ pkg_add -U pkg_install pkgin

This will help avoid a potential issue I discovered when upgrading a host that hadn't been updated for a long time:

https://smartos.topicbox.com/groups/smartos-discuss/Tdc4610e7190947a4/heads-up-potential-upgrade-issues-from-old-pkg-tools

For now I've only published the "tools" set, I'll hold off a bit before publishing the main x86_64 set to ensure everyone is ready.

Apologies if you hit this. The modern versions are a lot more robust.

#pkgsrc #smartos

Early next week I'll be updating the SmartOS trunk package sets to be built on 20250612, as per announcement to smartos-discuss:

https://smartos.topicbox.com/groups/smartos-discuss/T4d2e6741534082c1-M55c62305fa736b387d1fd04f/bumping-the-minimum-pi-requirement-for-trunk-packages

This also migrates them over to bob, and an improved build host configuration that will result in much faster and more reliable builds.

No need to do anything other than ensure you're running at least 20250612 (we release every 2 weeks with new features and security fixes, why wouldn't you?!) and "pkgin upgrade".

#pkgsrc #smartos #bob

Today, the Linuxulator did its job, and it did it very well.
A client is experimenting with moving from Docker to FreeBSD and jails, and they seem very happy with it so far.
The issue is that part of their build process - as so often happens - relies on Node dependencies that only compile on Linux, macOS, etc., but not on FreeBSD, due to a missing binary that isn't provided for it. Currently, they build on their local machines and push the output to the server, but sometimes they need to make quick changes on the fly.

So, I set up a Linux jail (Ubuntu) using BastilleBSD, installed the dependencies, set up a bind mount, and granted them access to the jail. The result: now they can compile right from there too, improving their overall workflow.

The Linuxulator - and even more so, illumos's lx zones - are truly remarkable pieces of technology.

#FreeBSD #Linux #RunBSD #illumos #SmartOS #OmniOS #Tribblix #Linux #IT #SysAdmin

Fable dishing out the compliments that those of us running these systems for decades have always known and advocated for.

"That DTrace trace was the whole game, by the way — owner identity from mdb plus lock/unlock pairing found one orphaned acquisition in 55k events and its exact stack. Nice platform to debug on."

#illumos #dtrace #smartos

@frobozz

#ZFS is nice. I've had it, with full root-on-ZFS, since PC-BSD. It took me several years to actually realize how nice it was.

If you want something more arcane than #FreeBSD to play with, take a look at #Illumos, in particular its derivatives #OpenSolaris, #OmniOS, #SmartOS, and @ptribble 's #Tribblix.

Illumos has original Joy+Horton #vi (not one of the clones), the SMF, zones, ZFS, and a fair number of System 5isms not in the BSD world (e.g. sar, which @rl_dane was talking about the other day).