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Sender: Dan Anderson <dan@tahoma.drydog.com>
From: Dan Anderson <faq@drydog.com>
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Subject: Solaris x86 FAQ 2/2
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Archive-name: Solaris2/x86/FAQ
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: 2003/09/20
URL: http://sun.drydog.com/faq/
Version: 2.25
Copyright: Copyright © 1997-2003 Dan Anderson.  All rights reserved.
Maintainer: Dan Anderson <faq@drydog.com>, San Diego, California, USA

 _________________________________________________________________

(9.33) Can VMware be used with Solaris x86?

Yes. VMware is commercial software to allow one to boot and use
multiple operating systems at the same time, such as Linux and Windows

provides graphical (VGA/SVGA) and X display capabilities. For
networking, VMware provides for a "virtual disk" for the client O/S.
It also can provide access to the floppy, CD-ROM, a virtual NIC and a
virtual sound blaster 16. Note, the CD-ROM is a "virtual" ATAPI
CD-ROM. Networking can be either host-based (private IP space and
TCP/IP + SMB between the host O/S and the client O/S), or bridged
(client uses an address on the actual network, host's NIC is bound to
two or more IP addresses).

VMware doesn't have documentation on installing Solaris Intel, but you
can use these notes instead:

Please read the other HOWTOs on the VMware site,
http://www.vmware.com/ before installing Solaris x86. My install of
version 7 on the dual PII 300 took about 1 hour. I have tested Solaris
x86 version 7 (11/99 release) with VMware 2.0.1 with a Linux host. The
host is a dual PII/300 with 128 MB of RAM. Solaris under VMware seems
stable (it has been up for days). The host was setup with Linux
(RedHat 6.2, patches, and 2.2.16). VMware was installed and bridged
networking was enabled. Bridged networking allows the virtual machine
to appear as a host on the local LAN. The CDROM, Floppy and virtual
NIC were enabled.
 1. Create a virtual disk for Solaris using VMware. I used 1GB on a
    free partition. When creating a virtual machine, VMware will ask
    you to select the guest OS type. Since Solaris is not currently a
    selection, use Windows 98. That has seemed to work best for most
    folks.`
 2. Insert the Solaris x86 boot floppy and boot CD-ROM in the host
    computer. Start vmware and "power on" the virtual machine. The
    virtual machine should boot from the floppy and run the Solaris
    hardware detection program.
 3. Follow the normal Solaris install instructions. Let Solaris find
    the floppy, CDROM, and virtual NIC. Partition your virtual disk (I
    let Solaris do it for me). Install Solaris normally.
 4. I am using my virtual Solaris as a test NISPLUS server so I
    enabled NISPLUS and set the server to point to this machine.
    Following install, I setup NISPLUS on the virtual Solaris and all
    seems functional.
 5. Setup X as VGA. It appears to work fine. However, I typically use
    my virtual Solaris in text mode and export xterms to my base O/S
    (Linux). Someone suggested that you try a Linux or other XF86
    server but I have not tried this. The vmware server for Linux may
    work. If anyone does this could they please mail me instructions
    on what they did?
 6. Setup files in /etc including /etc/hosts, etc. For example I
    changed /etc/netmasks: 172.16.4.0 255.255.255.0
    
Problems and issues noted:
 1. Sometimes the Solaris install is very unhappy with the
    VirtualFloppy drive. Just disable it for your Solaris config if it
    gives you grief. One of the symptoms of this may be a VMware panic
    dialog box during the install.
 2. I recommend you either a) Setup Solaris with an FTP Server ASAP or
    b) Insure you have an FTP server on the same network. This is the
    quickest way to get files in and out of a virtual machine --
    especially until you get DNS working properly.
 3. Solaris x86 currently does not use the HLT instruction in the idle
    loop (a post indicated this will change in the future). This
    causes the virtual machine to try to use 100% of your CPU (or on
    an SMP machine, 100% of a single CPU as VMware only emulates an UP
    machine). This makes a virtual Solaris only really usable as a
    server on an SMP machine.
 4. A "volcheck" followed by a "mount" resulted in a strange
    "unimplemented" error from VMware. However, the CDROM appeared to
    be properly mounted.
 5. There are no VMware tools for Solaris x86. There is no VMware X
    server.
 6. Since there are no VMware tools for Solaris, the best
    resolution/color combo you can get out of the box is 640x400, 16
    colors. However, you can use remote access programs (VNC is highly
    recommended) to set up a console "server" that you can connect to
    with a remote "client". I have used VNC to access my Solaris VM at
    any resolution and a color depth of 32. Accessing the Virtual
    Machine via VNC not only looks better because of the color and
    resolution, it is faster than using Solaris the native way it
    comes out of the box.
    
Earl Fernandez has posted an alternate solution using a third-party
video driver by http://www.mostlysoftware.com/ His solution is
posted at
http://miataru.computing.net/solaris/wwwboard/forum/545.html

[Thanks to W. Wade Hampton & additional notes from Patrick Allmond]
  _________________________________________________________________

(9.34) Is Solaris on Intel really "Slowaris"--slower than other
Intel-based operating systems?

By default, the other free OS's aren't SMP very capable out of the
box--Solaris is. So, one single CPU system, Solaris has a fair amount
on un-necessary overhead--which slows it down a bit.

Because the other OSes don't have this capability, or at least don't
use it to full advantage, they have a bit of a performance advantage
on a single CPU machine. This advantage disappears when you start
adding processors.

So, I think Slowaris is a little bit too far, but it is at a bit of a
performance disadvantage. But on an 800Mhz processor, who cares?! Odds
are you'll just be idling very quickly!

[Thanks to Rich Teer]
  _________________________________________________________________

(9.35) How can I remove (uninstall) Solaris from my hard drive?

If you have another Operating System installed, boot into the other
operating system (usually Windows or Linux). Select the current
(non-Solaris) partition as the "Active" partition. Reboot. If the
computer boots into the other operating system without the Solaris
boot menu, you can safely delete the Solaris partition.

If you have no other Operating System installed, simply install
another operating system over Solaris on the hard drive. Select
"Entire disk" or similar during the installation.
  _________________________________________________________________

(9.36) I can install Linux on a system with Solaris x86, but why can't
I boot it?

One possibility is because Linux kernels with UFS filesystem support
will rearrange the numbering of the extended partitions in certain
circumstances. Look at the following partition map reported by Linux
during booting:
     Partition check:
     hda: hda1 hda2 <solaris: [s0] hda5 [s1] hda6 [s2] hda7 [s7] hda8 >
             hda3 hda4 < hda9 hda10 hda11 >

Partition number 4 (hda4) is an "extended" partition, containing three
logical partitions used by Linux. In this particular case, these
logical partitions were created by the Red Hat Linux 7 installer, and
they hold the Linux root filesystem, swap space, and a filesystem
mounted on /home.

The kernel used by the installer did not include UFS support, so it
perceived /dev/hda4 to logically contain hda5, hda6, and hda7, and it
recorded these settings with LILO and /etc/fstab.

However, when the new Linux installation booted for the first time, it
assigned hda5 to a Solaris partition, then tried to boot with it as
the root filesystem. Under Red Hat Linux 7 with the 2.2.16 kernel,
this generates the following error:
     Invalid session number or type of track
     Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on xx:xx

To boot this system, provide LILO with something like "linux single
root=/dev/hda9" to force the proper selection of the root filesystem
(or you could also boot from the install CD with options like "linux
single root=/dev/hda9 initrd="), then modify the root filesystem
parameter in /etc/lilo.conf to reflect the change (and run the "lilo"
command after modifying the file):
     image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.16-22
             label=linux
             read-only
             root=/dev/hda9

Under most Linux distributions, you must also modify /etc/fstab to
reflect the new partition layout. Red Hat Linux 7 now uses "labels" in
/etc/fstab (which are maintained with the "e2label" command), which
obviates the need to adjust /etc/fstab in this case (you still may
need to adjust the swap partition in /etc/fstab, though).

If the extended partition has a lower number than the Solaris
partition, this renumbering won't occur.

[Thanks to Charles J. Fisher]
  _________________________________________________________________

(9.37) What hardware solutions are available for dual booting?

Romtec makes "Trios," which allows for dual or triple booting off of
multiple hard ATAPI disk drives. Trios fits into a 5.25" drive bay and
comes with cables to connect the hard drives to it. An operating
system may be installed on each hard drive. A button selects between
which drive to boot off of. The other drives are not seen. See
http://www.romtecusa.com/ for details.

Copyright © 1997 - 2003 Dan Anderson. All rights reserved.
http://sun.drydog.com/faq/
This FAQ is provided "as is" in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law; without even the
implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.
  _________________________________________________________________

                End of the Solaris on Intel - x86 FAQ.
                   http://sun.drydog.com/faq/
       Maintained by Dan Anderson, San Diego, California, USA.
  _________________________________________________________________

