Whats wrong with writing a VERY VERY basic program that gives a list of browser, the user picks one and then the program downloads it via FTP from a central respository and then installs it.

Honestly, It sounds to me like everyone is over-engineering this to to death. That would take any capable programmer (myself) included less than a day to make. Whats the problem?

Agreed. Personally I'd never use OSX as I absolutely refuse on principal to use an OS I can't run on my own custom built PC, but thats another story. I still only see Solaris as being particularly practical in a server enviroment.

One of the lovely things about linux is this: I have my HTC Hero sitting next to me, One the box it says Android but I know that under the hood (and a very thin one at that) its still running a standard linux kernel. Aswell as running on my phone, the exact same Operating system is also running on a couple of servers I run my buisness from. That is the true greatness of linux. Although as the saying goes: Jack of all trades, Master of none.

Wow thats impressive....

My OP post gets Modded +3 Insightful, and then my reply to someone who commented on it gets modded troll.

Slashdot, well done, you never fail to amaze me.

Most applications that run on Linux compile just as well on a variety of platforms...

That is why Linux is practical and others aren't. Most isn't good enough. Only ALL is satisfactory.

You miss my point. Thats user ready for US - me and you - who are interested in computers and are happy to take the time to learn all about it. Most people are too damn lazy (i refuse to accept stupid to be the case given personal experience, its pure laziness) to learn a new OS. Setup Ubuntu on a laptop, then show someone how to open Firefox and thats it; their sorted.

Thats really not the case for OpenSolaris; nowhere near it.

But anyway, Im on the side as you here, anything that gets more people off Windows, the better. Personally im a hypocrite in that as both my laptop and Desktop are running Windows 7 but those are the only computers I own which do. At the moment, I have such a huge number of Windows-only programs that its simply impractical to switch. But given good reason - whether that be a bad new mistake in windows or something new in linux - I wouldn't hesitate to.

You could say the same about Linux. Doesn't mean it's a bad idea to try it.

Well not exactly, Linux wasen't written with servers in mind, Solaris was, but anyway thats by-the-by now. Im not against Solaris, I think its great also, infact ive even been toying with the idea of putting it on my home server for the exact same reason you just stated regarding ZFS. I just think that at the moment, the only Open Source OS thats even nearly practical for typical day-to-day desktop use is Linux. OSS is pretty thinly spread as it is, I think as a community, we need to just concentrate on getting at least 1 OS totally practical for desktop use before we start peddeling others.

I'd have to +1 this idea.

Currently, this is EXACTLY how any of the Valves multiplayer Source engine games (CSS, Left 4 Dead, TF2) work at the moment in regards to checking that no game files have been modified (read: cheating). The server asks for hashes of a number of game files when the client connects. It works fantastically well and I personally see no reason why it would not work for making sure that a copy of the game is legal also. Obviously this leaves potential for people to use cracked servers but those are few and far between.