Solaris Intel Preinstallation Tasks

Device Configuration Assistant

The first task performed by the configuration assistant is determining the bus types supported by your system, and collecting data about the devices installed in your system. During this process, the following message will be displayed on your screen:

Determining bus types and gathering hardware configuration data

After all of the devices have been discovered by scanning, a list of identified devices is printed on the screen:

The following devices have been identified on this system. 
To identify devices not on this list or to modify device 
characteristics, choose Device Task. Platform types may 
be included in this list.

     ISA: Floppy disk controller
     ISA: IDE controller
     ISA: IDE controller
     ISA: Motherboard
     ISA: PS/2 Mouse
     ISA: PnP bios: 16550-compatible serial controller
     ISA: PnP bios: 8514-compatible display controller
     ISA: PnP bios: Audio device
     ISA: System keyboard (US-English)

If you are satisfied that the devices required for installation have been correctly detected (for example, video card and RAM size), then you may press F2 to proceed with booting. Alternatively, you may perform several other tasks on this screen, including

• Viewing and editing devices

• Setting the keyboard type

• Saving the current configuration

• Deleting a saved configuration

• Setting the default console device

If your system does not already have a UNIX File System (UFS) file system installed, or if it is a completely new system, you will need to use fdisk to create new partitions at this point, so that your system may be installed. However, if you have an existing Linux that you wish to dual boot with Solaris, you must ensure that the Linux swap partition is not confused with a Solaris UFS device, since they have the same type within fdisk. You should be able to distinguish Linux swap partitions by their maximum size (127MB). The following page will be displayed during booting and prior to the execution of fdisk:

<<< Current Boot Parameters >>>
Boot path: /pci@1,0/pci-ide@6,1/ide@2/sd@1,0:a
Boot args: kernel/unix
SunOS Release 5.8 Version Generic 32-bit
Copyright 1983-2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Configuring /dev and /devices
Using RPC Bootparams for network configuration information.
Solaris Web Start 3.0 installer
English has been selected as the language in which to perform 
the install.
Starting the Web Start 3.0 Solaris installer
Solaris installer is searching the system's hard disks for a
location to place the Solaris installer software.
No suitable Solaris fdisk partition was found.
Solaris Installer needs to create a Solaris fdisk partition
on your root disk, c0d0, that is at least 395 MB.
WARNING: All information on the disk will be lost.
May the Solaris Installer create a Solaris fdisk [y,n,?]

You should heed the warning that all data will be lost if you choose to overwrite it with fdisk.

fdisk

If you consent to using fdisk, you will see a screen similar to the following:

Total disk size is 2048 cylinders
Cylinder size is 4032 (512 byte) blocks
Cylinders
Partition  Status  Type  Start  End  Length  %
=========  ======  ====  =====  ==== ======  ===
1                  UNIX   0     1023  1024   50
2                  DOS    1024  2047  1024   50
SELECT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:
1. Create a partition
2. Specify the active partition
3. Delete a partition
4. Exit (update disk configuration and exit)
5. Cancel (exit without updating disk configuration)
Enter Selection:

In this example, we can see that there are two existing partitions occupying 1,204 cylinders each. Partition 1 is a UNIX partition (perhaps from SCO UNIX), and Partition 2 is a MSDOS partition. If we want to use the entire disk for Solaris, we would need to select option 3 on this menu twice, to delete each existing partition in turn. Alternatively, if we wish to retain the UNIX partition, but delete the MS-DOS partition, we would use option 3 only once, and select partition 2 for deletion.

After you have freed up space (if necessary), you will be required to select option 1 to create a partition. You will then be required to select option A from the following menu to create a Solaris partition:

Select the partition type to create:
1=SOLARIS 2=UNIX 3=PCIXOS 4=Other
5=DOS12 6=DOS16 7=DOSEXT 8=DOSBIG
A=x86 Boot B=Diagnostic 0=Exit?

Note that it is not possible to run Solaris from a non-UFS partition; however, it is possible to mount non-Solaris file systems after the system has been installed. Next, you need to specify the size of the partition, in either the number of cylinders or the percentage of the disk to be used. In this example, we would enter either 100% or 2048 cylinders:

Specify the percentage of disk to use for this partition
(or type "c" to specify the size in cylinders)

Next, you will need to indicate whether or not the target partition is going to be activated. This means that the system will attempt to boot the default operating system loader from this partition. If you are going to use the Solaris boot manager, then you may activate this partition. However, if you are using Boot Magic or LILO to manage existing Microsoft Windows or Linux partitions, and you wish to continue using either of these systems, then you should answer no.

After you have created the partition, the fdisk menu will be updated and displayed as follows:

2 Active x86 Boot 8 16 9 1
Total disk size is 2048 cylinders
Cylinder size is 4032 (512 byte) blocks
Cylinders
Partition  Status  Type       Start  End  Length  %
=========  ======  =========  =====  ==== ======  ===
2          Active   x86 Boot   0     2047 2048    100
SELECT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:
1. Create a partition
2. Specify the active partition
3. Delete a partition
4. Exit (update disk configuration and exit)
5. Cancel (exit without updating disk configuration)
Enter Selection:

At this point, you should select option 4. You will then be prompted with the following message:

No suitable Solaris fdisk partition was found.
Solaris Installer needs to create a Solaris fdisk partition
on your root disk, c0d0, that is at least 395 MB.
WARNING: All information on the disk will be lost.
May the Solaris Installer create a Solaris fdisk [y,n,?]

Since you’ve just created the appropriate partition using fdisk, you should type n here. You will then see this message:

To restart the installation, run /sbin/cd0_install.

After restarting the Installer, you will see the formatting display shown in the next section.

Formatting and Swap

If your system already has a UFS partition, or if you have just created one, you will see a screen similar to the following:

<<< Current Boot Parameters >>>
Boot path: /pci@1,0/pci-ide@6,1/ide@2/sd@1,0:a
Boot args: kernel/unix
<<< Starting Installation >>>
SunOS Release 5.8 Version Generic 32-bit
Copyright 1983-2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Configuring /dev and /devices
Using RPC Bootparams for network configuration information.
Solaris Web Start 3.0 installer
English has been selected as the language in which to perform the install.
Starting the Web Start 3.0 Solaris installer
Solaris installer is searching the system's hard disks for a
location to place the Solaris installer software.
The default root disk is /dev/dsk/c0d0.
The Solaris installer needs to format
/dev/dsk/c0d0 to install Solaris.
WARNING: ALL INFORMATION ON THE DISK WILL BE ERASED!
Do you want to format /dev/dsk/c0d0? [y,n,?,q]

At this point, you simply reply y, and the disk will be formatted as required, so that new partitions may be created. You will then be prompted to enter the size of the swap partition:

NOTE: The swap size cannot be changed during filesystem layout.
Enter a swap partition size between 384MB and 1865MB, default = 512MB [?]

You will the be asked to confirm that the swap slice can be installed at the beginning of the partition:

The Installer prefers that the swap slice is at the beginning of the
disk. This will allow the most flexible filesystem partitioning later 
in the installation.
Can the swap slice start at the beginning of the disk [y,n,?,q]

After creating the swap partition, the other slices can be created on the target disk, since the installation program requires a UFS file system to install correctly; however, the system must first be rebooted to perform the layout.

The Solaris installer will use disk slice, /dev/dsk/c0d0s1.
After files are copied, the system will automatically reboot, and
installation will continue.
Please Wait
Copying mini-root to local disk....done.
Copying platform specific files....done
Preparing to reboot and continue installation
Need to reboot to continue the installation
Please remove the boot media (floppy or cdrom) and press Enter
Note: If the boot media is cdrom, you must wait for the system
to reset in order to eject.

After you press the ENTER key, you will see the standard Solaris shutdown messages, including

Syncing file systems... 49 done
rebooting

kdmconfig

After ejecting the installation CD-ROM from your drive, you will see the standard Solaris boot manager menu.

SunOS - Intel Platform Edition Primary Boot Subsystem, vsn 2.0
Current Disk Partition Information
Part#   Status  Type      Start  Length
=======================================
1       Active  X86 BOOT  0      2048
Please select the partition you wish to boot:

After you enter 1 and press the ENTER key, you will see the following message:

SunOS Secondary Boot version 3.00
Solaris Intel Platform Edition Booting System
Running Configuration Assistant
Autobooting from boot path: /pci@1,0/pci-ide@6,1/ide@2/sd@1,0:a
If the system hardware has changed, or to boot from a different
device, interrupt the autoboot process by pressing E FILENAME 15503f.docSC

A few seconds later, the boot interpreter is initialized:

Initializing system
Please wait
<<< Current Boot Parameters >>>
Boot path: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@7,1/ata@1/cmdk@0,0:b
Boot args:
Type b [file-name] [boot-flags] <ENTER> to boot with options
or i <ENTER> to enter boot interpreter
or <ENTER> to boot with defaults
<<< timeout in 5 seconds >>>
Select (b)oot or (i)nterpreter:
SunOS Release 5.8 Version Generic 32-bit
Copyright 1983-2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Configuring /dev and /devices
Using RPC Bootparams for network configuration information.

Next, you will need to use kdmconfig to set up your graphics card and monitor, so that the Web Start Wizard can display its windows correctly. To start kdmconfig, press F2, after which you will be taken to the kdmconfig introduction screen. After pressing F2 again, you will be asked to perform the kdmconfig view/edit system configuration window. Here, you can make changes to the settings detected for your system. If your system is listed on the HCL, you won’t have any problems with hardware detection. After pressing F2, the display settings will be tested, and if all of the colors appear OK and you can move the mouse, the Installer begins.