My “desktop” machine has been a problem of late. I do most of my home computing on a Mac laptop and like it a great deal. My desktop machine is a tougher call, though. I like the Mac OS well enough to use it there, too, but Apple doesn’t sell the desktop I want. They offer either the all-in-one iMac, the underpowered mini, or the insane Mac Pro workstation. I want a machine in between the iMac and the Pro. Its purpose is to run server applications that I want to use on my LAN (along with serving as a development sandbox for my own stuff) and to be a virtual machine host so that I have a beefy and convenient place to try out new software that I don’t trust yet.

I’ve had a problem determining what Operating System should power this machine. Apple does not offer Mac OS X or Mac OS X server for non-Apple hardware. Since this machine is connected to the internet with minimal filtering and runs server applications, those would be right out anyway, honestly. Windows is out for the same reason. OpenBSD meets my security requirements, but does not host virtual OSes well at all. FreeBSD is a serious degradation in the former area and an insignificant improvement in the latter. Ubuntu Linux gives me the willies when I try to lock it down (not as much as Windows does, but it still makes me nervous) and is slightly unstable with either VMWare or VirtualBox on my hardware. Besides, though I’ve used Linux for 13 years now (!) I still prefer a more traditional UNIX environment.

OpenSolaris now feels like it just may fit the bill. It’s got a package manager that is the equal of deb/apt. Sun purchased VirtualBox and has really made it hum with SunOS 5.11 as the host. And with OpenSolaris, they seem to finally be serious about making sure Solaris runs well on non-Sun hardware. In my house, Sun has just eaten Canonical’s lunch. I should mention that that’s a net gain of $0 for them in my house. But in the houses I advise and configure, it’s nothing to sneeze at. Among other things, since my desktop now runs Solaris, it’ll become a first class citizen for the software I maintain.