Installation of the Solaris 9.0 OS x86 Platform Edition Introduction

Supporting heterogeneous environments takes far more time and effort than it takes to support only one hardware and software platform. The downside of the full use of a homogeneous platform is that the higher the server's performance, the faster the hardware it requires, the better the scalability, but the inexpensive x86 hardware used by desktops and small servers. To overcome this disadvantage and provide multi-platform support to users, Sun provides the Solaris operating System for x86 platforms. When the underlying hardware is completely different, the x86 Platform Edition works very much like the SPARC Platform Edition. The resulting semi homogeneous environment can help reduce the bottom line costs of system management and development. This article provides a brief introduction to the x86 Platform Edition, which is an interactive installation of the Solaris 9 OS.

The last time I installed a Unix-like operating system on a x86 machine, I needed to keep working with IRQ, jumper, and address, so I was especially careful when installing the Solaris 9 OS x86 Platform Edition. But what I am very grateful for is that my fears are completely superfluous! As long as all the hardware is assembled together, the Solaris OS installer will automatically detect all things smoothly. If you install the Solaris OS on x86 hardware, you must first refer to the Hardware Compatibility List for the configuration information supported by the system. Most of the hardware we use is listed in this list, and I want the rest of the hardware to use some generic drivers as well.

Hardware

Hardware components are:

• Motherboard: ASUS a7v133 4-channel IDE
  • CPU Slots: Socket A (supports 133/266 DDR MHz)
  • Chipset: VIA kt133a
  • Schema: ATX
  • Frequency multiplier option: up to 12.5x
  • Bus speed options: 100-166 MHz (1 MHz time interval)
  • Voltage: 1.1-1.85v (with 0.25v voltage increment)
  • Memory support: 3 x 168-pin SDRAM pc100/pc133 support
  • Expansion slot: 5/0/1/1 (PCI/ISA/AMR/AGP)
  • AGP Support: 4x AGP Pro
  • USB support: 2 standard USB ports, 2 USB ports can be extended
  • Bios:award BIOS Flash ROM
  • Onboard Ide:2 ATA100 EIDE, 2 ATA100 Promise PDC20265 raid (only RAID 0 supported)
• CPU:AMD 1.2 GHz Athlon
• Memory: 256M apacer PC133 CL2 Memory Strips
• Hard drive: Seagate st340016a barracuda ATA IV 40G (main IDE's primary interface)
• Dvd:hitachi GD-7500 (Secondary interface for the primary IDE)
• CDRW: Normal 4x4x32 burner (ATA100 interface of the main IDE)
• Floppy: Normal 3.5-inch floppy disk
• Nic: 3Com 3c905b PCI
• Sound card: Sound Blaster Audigy 2
• Graphics card: ATI all-in-wonder Rage 128 Pro
• Monitor: Modograph MG-3930 9 "SVGA 800x600
• Keyboard: normal Windows PS2 keyboard
• Mouse: Logitech m-c43 PS2 3D Mouse

Instead of using the RAID 0 setting in the motherboard BIOS, I chose to use all four IDE channels, so there is no need to set up a primary/from connection. Hard drives, DVDs, and CDRW drives are set primarily on their own IDE controllers. The machine can be set to boot from the primary (hard drive) device, or it can be set to boot from the secondary (DVD drive) device.

For this machine, the hardware I want to use is the PCI PC Weasel card. I can plug this x86 hardware into a serial Terminal server with all SPARC hardware, so I won't be waiting in the engine room while I'm performing an interactive operation. If this installation is not a one-time test installation, I will set the x86 jumpstart image on the SPARC Jumpstart server. Using jumpstart images and/or flash images also automatically performs much of the work that I do at the end of the console. Similar to previous installations, the x86 interactive installation is fairly intuitive and resembles a SPARC installation.

Guide and select Languages

The first step is to guide and select the language and location from CDROM:

1. Insert CD 1 (a total of 2) into your DVD drive, and then power the system on.
2. The system scans the connected devices and presses F2 to accept the devices found by the system.
3. The next screen prompts you to select the device you want to boot from. I chose the second device, CDROM, and press F2 to continue.
4. Then choose the installation type, which is the first option, the Solaris OS Interactive installation.
5. Select option 0, "English", as the language I use.
6. Select option 0, "UK" (7-bit ASCII character), as my location.
7. The system then displays the Solaris OS installation screen, pressing F2 to continue to the next step.
8. Select Ignore screen settings.

Network configuration

The next step involves configuring the machine's network settings. After you have selected the correct settings for each step, press F2 to continue.

Configuration settings	Choose
Network setup Information screen.	No more input
is the machine connected to the Internet?	Is
Does the machine use DHCP?	Whether
Host name?	Solx86.my.domain
IP address?	192.168.100.2
is the machine part of a subnet?	Is
Network mask	255.255.255.0
Enable IPV6?	Whether
Default Router?	Specified
Specifies the default router.	192.168.1.1
Confirm Network settings.	No more input
Configure Kerberos?	Whether
Confirm Kerberos Settings	No more input
Select the naming service.	Dns
Domain name?	My.domain
DNS Server IP (up to 3).	192.168.1.3
192.168.1.1
DNS search domain (up to 6).	My.domain
My.other.domain
Confirm the naming service settings.	No more input

Time and date

Then you need to set the time and date information, after each selection, press F2 again:

Configuration settings	Choose
Specify the time zone	America
Countries	United States
Time	Eastern Time
Set time and date	No more input
Confirm Time and date	No more input

Disk and file system layouts

After the basic system configuration is complete, the installer moves to the planning system layout and selects the packages to be installed. The Installation Instructions screen shows that you are now customizing the type, disk, and file system layout of the software. The Solaris OS will generate a configuration file based on the decision, and then start the actual installation process.

1. On this information screen, you are prompted to perform a standard installation or press F5 to perform a quick installation by F2. Select F2.
2. On the next screen, select not to support other geographic areas, and then press F2 to continue.
3. Then select the software group Entire distribution plus OEM support. You can customize the package to be installed by pressing F4, but here I choose to accept the default installation option and press F2 to continue.

   Note: I will never actually install any programs in a non-test environment. For security reasons, I tend to perform a minimal installation on the machine and then add packages as needed.

4. On the next screen, you select the installation disk. I have only one disk c0d0 and it has been selected. Then press F2 to continue.
5. The next screen prompts you to press F4 to manually schedule the file system layout, or press F2 to accept the automatic layout of Solaris. I always arrange the layout for my file system, so I press F4.

At this point, I encountered the entire installation process is the first and only one obstacle. Next screen the current file system and disk layout do not display any options at all. I expect it to note that the machine does not format a disk for the Solaris OS and provides me with the option to format the disk. Alternatively, when I first select a disk, the system should notify the disk that it is not appropriate.

2. I had to press F3 two times to return two screens to the screen where I chose to install the disk.
4. Cancel the selection of 0d0 as the installation disk, and then select the disk again. Here, the installation software prompts me to install the Solaris OS fdisk partition on this disk in order for the disk to be available. Press F2 to continue.
6. The next screen prompts you to create a Solaris OS partition. Select the Solaris OS to use the entire disk and boot partition, and then press F2 to continue.
8. The system takes me back to the screen where I need to select the installation disk. C0d0 is still selected, so press F2 to accept the selection again.
10. Press F4 again to schedule the layout manually instead of pressing F2 to perform the automatic layout.
12. At this point, the screen shows the c0d0 disk layout, and c0d0s2 only overlap fragmentation. To support tracing, press F4 to invoke the partition editor and customize the layout.
13. Use the disk partition editor to configure the following layouts, reserving 10MB of space in fragmentation 7 so that the Volume Manager state database and similar programs use this space.

    Sharding	Mount point	Size (MB)
    0	/	1024
    1	Swap	1024
    2	Overlap	38152
    3	/usr	2048
    4	/var	1024
    5	/files	33015
    6
    7	10

15. Press F2 to accept the layout and the system goes to the layout confirmation screen.
17. Press F2 again to confirm the file system configuration.
19. The next screen asks if you want to load the remote file system. Optionally, press F4 to configure the remote file system. But because I do not use NFS, press F2 to continue the installation.
21. The next screen requires confirmation of the configuration file. You can change the configuration file by pressing F4, but because this profile is the correct profile, press F2 to continue.
23. The next screen prompts you to choose whether to restart automatically after installation or to manually restart. Select the manual reboot and press F2 to start the actual installation process.

Software Installation and X configuration

This installation process is fairly fast, and the system provides the following information screen statement: If you want to bypass the device configuration and boot screens when the system reboots, eject the D Evice Configuration assistant/boot Diskette now. (If you want to ignore the device configuration and boot screen when the system restarts, eject the device configuration Assistant/boot disk immediately).

After you install Disk 1 (a total of 2), restart the machine and eject CDROM when the machine is reset. When the boot loader screen asks which partition to boot from, wait a moment to timeout, so the system chooses the default value. You also need to time out the secondary to boot, so the system chooses the default value, that is, automatic booting.

Press F4 to ignore the X configuration because I suspect this configuration is a bit complicated and I don't want to be forced to abort when the installation is halfway through. Then, when prompted, set the root password. The system asks if you type the root password to configure X, and press ctrl-d to continue the boot sequence.

The next screen asks if you want to select media to continue installing. I select option 1, CD/DVD. I insert disk 2 (a total of 2) and press ENTER. Setup adds another package from the second CD, and then pops the CD after the installation completes. When the system displays the installation menu, enter option 2 (complete) to complete the software installation.

After the installation is complete, the system starts and displays a text login screen. Log in as root, then run Kdmconfig and configure X at the end. Since my video card is almost (but not completely) similar to some of the driver options, I hesitate to pick the right driver. When I decided to adopt the common VESA driver, the startup went well. I'm happy with the following settings, which seem to work well with my low-resolution display.

• General VESA Driver
• SUPERVGA Monitor type (800x600 @65hz and 1024x768)
• 9 "screen
• 800x600 256 color, refresh rate 56Hz
• Visual screen resolution 800x600 (no translation)
• Third party Solaris OS free packages available from sunfreeware.com

Save this configuration and test the x server, the x server displays the X root window and gives a running mouse pointer. As a last test, shut down and start the machine to make sure that no errors occur at boot time. The X login screen is activated to log in as root, and all the higher-level parts of the operating system are very similar to SPARC machines. I kept the machine working for several days to make sure that there were no hardware or software incompatibilities or other problems, and then you could use the machine.