If you don't have a big Internet downloading pipeline or can't be bothered to download the dvd for another reason you can now get the OpenSolaris DVD starter kit shipped for free. The kit contains instructions and all popular OpenSolaris distributions. A nice promotion to get Solaris more widespread as a desktop system.
To me though, the biggest problems Solaris has at this point for the desktop is poor hardware support and some very rough edges on the user experience. It may have military grade security options, a file system large enough to house all hard drives on the planet, self-healing capabilities, on-demand profiling/tracing and built-in virtualization and provisioning, but my mother is not interested in that. She wants click & run, pretty colors, understandable messages, something that works out of the box. And I want that too!
Fortunately, the Solaris teams now reaps some of the sowing in the open source community. The latest Nevada builds have the new version of the Xorg window system on-board, meaning lots of new hardware support improvements, and a new version of GNOME. Maybe soon, I'll be able to order a free starter kit for my mom after all. ;)