I think Nexenta might be a good OS someday once it matures a bit and it’s development is worth following. Here are some things of note recently:

• Nexenta 1.0.1 was released recently. (Download, Announcement)
• Nexenta 1.0.1 seems to work much better under KVM in my testing.
• A Nexenta 2.0 Hackathon is underway which will sync Nexenta with Ubuntu 8.04 instead of 6.04. (Details)

I’ve been excited about Nexenta ever since it was announced. I’m not sure if it can really move me away from Linux but I’m anxious to compare a GNU/Linux system with a GNU/Solaris system, preferably for server use. I’m a fan of the Debian package system and I think using that is the right choice. I’m not sure if the Nexenta folks still have a goal of merging their work into Debian (perhaps it will be Ubuntu now), or if that would even be possible but I like the idea. Anyway, if I can get some free hardware I’d like to try it out. The current release can be downloaded at:

• http://www.nexenta.org/os/Download