Happy Anniversary to the OpenIndiana project!

Release date: Sept 14, 2011

OpenIndiana oi_151a was released on 14th September 2011, exactly one year after our first release, oi_147! Our latest build brings a wide variety of enhancements, including being our first build based on Illumos.

Installing or Upgrading

If you are currently running OpenSolaris, please see Upgrading from OpenSolaris. If you are currently running OpenIndiana, please see Upgrading OpenIndiana.

For information on installing, please see Installing OpenIndiana

Downloading OpenIndiana

ISO images and Torrents are available from:

Also please see our mirror sites at http://wiki.openindiana.org/oi/Mirrors

New features in OpenIndiana oi_151a

OpenIndiana Kernel & Core Userland

OpenIndiana oi_151a is based on Illumos. Notable changes to the kernel and core userland since OpenIndiana's oi_148 release includes:

KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine)

OpenIndiana oi_151a now includes KVM, the open source Kernel-based Virtual Machine, as a basic virtualization solution along with the QEMU package! This KVM port includes virtualization extensions for Intel VT. Using KVM, a user or system administrator can run multiple virtual machines running unmodified x86_64-based operating system images for Linux, BSD, or Windows images. Each virtual machine has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc.

For information on using KVM, please see 7.3 KVM

New terminal definitions:

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/c1ed50709bff

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/c1ed50709bff New whois tool:

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/b2fbfacb9f9c

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/b2fbfacb9f9c New TCP socket options:

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/3185061eadee

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/3185061eadee Grub support for large sector disks:

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/a4721c685d96

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/a4721c685d96 ZFS aclmode property added:

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/8c04143bd318

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/8c04143bd318 Zone administration enhancements:

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/4844172c07f8

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/4844172c07f8 Easy access to service log files via svcs -L:

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/c1720cb807d5

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/c1720cb807d5 Areca ARC-1880 RAID card driver support:

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/5d49ca4e35b2

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/5d49ca4e35b2 UNMAP support for COMSTAR:

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/4b9dc4ca8e9f

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/4b9dc4ca8e9f iostat -E now correctly displays disk serial number:

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/5fc9a1e8f648

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/5fc9a1e8f648 Bombproof taskqs:

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/b42c1f0432b6

http://hg.openindiana.org/upstream/illumos/illumos-gate/rev/b42c1f0432b6 Open source replacements for locales, libc utf-8 support and many userland tools

Spec Files Extra Repository

A wide variety of software is now available through the Spec Files Extra repository, OI-Userland, and third-party community package management systems.

AbiWord (2.8.6)

(2.8.6) Arora Web browser (0.11.0)

Web browser (0.11.0) Blender (2.49.2)

(2.49.2) ClamAV (0.97.1)

(0.97.1) Drupal (7.8)

(7.8) ffmpeg (0.8.6)

(0.8.6) GCC (4.6.2)

(4.6.2) ghc (Glasgow Haskell Compiler) (7.2.1)

(Glasgow Haskell Compiler) (7.2.1) git (1.7.7)

(1.7.7) ImageMagick (6.7.2-6)

(6.7.2-6) Inkscape (0.48.1)

(0.48.1) MPD (Music Player Daemon) (0.16.2)

(Music Player Daemon) (0.16.2) Mplayer (2.0.99)

(2.0.99) mpg123 (1.13.3)

(1.13.3) Netatalk (2.2.0)

(2.2.0) PostgreSQL database (9.1.1)

database (9.1.1) Postfix (2.8.5)

(2.8.5) Openbox (3.5.0)

(3.5.0) Qt (4.7.3)

(4.7.3) Scribus (1.4.0)

(1.4.0) Stellarium (0.11.0)

(0.11.0) Sylpheed (3.1.1)

(3.1.1) Tightvnc (1.3.10)

(1.3.10) Transmission (2.22)

(2.22) VLC (1.1.11)

(1.1.11) Wine (1.3.34)

(1.3.34) x264 (20111012)

(20111012) XFCE desktop environment (4.8.3)

Community packages contributed and ported by other package maintainers/ISVs:

Known issues

Here is a list of known issues that are still outstanding:

See https://www.illumos.org/projects/openindiana/issues for more known issues and detailed information

OpenIndiana svn_151 support on Adaptec 6xxx (1497)

SFE's runtime/gcc package breaks VirtualBox. See SFE notes for a workaround.

i/o hang with mega_sas driver (618)

cpqary3 driver is old and causes panic in oi_151 (1441)

Chinese input method lost in b151 (1084)

ZFS time-slider and auto-snapshots not working due to missing zfssnap-roleadd SMF service (1179)

Reporting bugs

Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help fix bugs and improve the quality of future releases. Please report bugs through the provided bugtracker system:

If you want to help out with bugs, the OpenIndiana bug team is always looking for help.

Participate in OpenIndiana

As a community maintained distribution, we depend on community members getting involved. There are a wide variety of ways you can help us, from blogging and talking about OpenIndiana, adding content to our wiki, through to helping us developing the operating system.

If you would like to get involved, the quickest way is to jump on IRC and talk to our developers directly.

More information

You can find out more about the OpenIndiana distribution project, please see:

Note: oi_151a Release Notes originally written by Ken Mays (kmays). Please contact for any major corrections or changes.