I finally backed up all my stuff on the Ubantu Linux workstation onto DVDs, then wiped the two harddisks and install Nexenta OpenSolaris. The first PATA HD was used as the system HD, and the SATA HD was used as a ZFS volume. There are still rough edges in this Alpha 4 version. Disk management still doesn’t work (complains about wrong password without ever poping up a window to ask for password, either logged in as root or unprivileged user). zpool’ing has to be done on the command line in a root shell, but that’s okay. Setting up a ZFS volume gave an error message, something about device in use, but otherwise it worked. Still this is a bit confusing.
Supposingly Nexenta may be installed on and run from Flash memory. I can see that as a possibility for a low-cost and highly reliable NAS.
Ubuntu Linux is still much better for everyday use. I am sending this Pentium 4 machine to my old man shortly. He wants broadband Internet and a new computer. PCCW is coming to install broadband for him on Thursday, and I’ll see how he like Linux (Windows XP deteriorates far too quickly for him.)