3.3 Installing OpenSolaris

OpenSolaris 2008.11 can be obtained in various many ways. I ordered mine from OpenSolaris Free CD/DVD shipment program from Sun directly. OpenSolaris can be freely downloaded from http://www.opensolaris.com/get/index.jsp as well.

= =  STEPS TO FOLLOW = =

Step1: Put the OpenSolaris 2008.11 Installation media in your CD/DVD-ROM drive and restart the computer. 

Step2: GNU GRUB version 0.95 screen is displayed. I receive 5 options on the screen:

OpenSolaris 2008.11 snv_101b_rc2 X86
OpenSolaris 2008.11 snv_101b_rc2 X86 test console
Boot from Hard Disk
OpenSolaris 2008.11 snv_101b_rc2 X86 with magnifier
OpenSolaris 2008.11 snv_101b_rc2 X86 with screen reader

Select 'OpenSolaris 2008.11 snv_101b_rc2 X86' and press <ENTER> to continue.

Step3: Live image from the installation media is loaded onto RAM and prepared for use. Once mounting Live image is accomplished, we get the 'Choose keyboard layout' screen. Choose the layout that you wish to work with; I choose the default one, US-English. Press <ENTER> to continue.

Step4: We are provided with the 'Choose Desktop Language' screen. I choose the default one, 3: English, press <ENTER> to continue.

Step5: Devices are configured, cdroms are mounted, and we receive the OpenSolaris Live CD desktop.

Step6: To start the installer from the Live CD desktop, select the "Install OpenSolaris" icon on the Live CD desktop and double click on it. If you are prompted to log in to the Live CD, both the user name and password are jack. The root password is opensolaris. The OpenSolaris 2008.11 Installer begin and presents you with a Welcome screen. Click on 'Next' to continue.

Step7: Disk panel is presented wherein you can see the complete break-up of your current hard disk drive(s) and partitions therein. Note that recommended partition size is 8GB, whereas minimum partition size is 2GB. E.g. in my case, I see my 150GB ATA HDD being exhibited in the Disk panel. There are two options on the screen:

OpenSolaris can be installed on the whole disk or on a partition on the disk.
( ) Use the whole disk
( ) Partition the disk

Step8: Choose the 2nd option, and in the Partition Type and Size (GB) drop-down list, choose Solaris. Allocate size as you feel thought fit; I allocated a 30GB partition space for my OpenSolaris partition. Click 'Next' to continue. Additional essential information for the reader here is that the partitions are displayed in physically sequential order as they are laid out on the disk. Resizing a Solaris partition destroys the data on that partition and all physically subsequent partitions. If you have unallocated chunks of space in your hard disk between two already existing partitions and you wish to utilize this free space, this is not possible by the installer. In such a case, you need to use the Solaris fdisk utility which creates new partitions that use the free space between existing partitions.

Step9: Time Zone, Date and Time screen is displayed, wherein choose your current location from the map and click 'Next' to continue.

Step10: Choose the default language support and locale specific data formats in the next screen. I choose English as Language and United States as Territory. Click 'Next' to continue.

Step11: Enter root password, create an account for yourself and enter computer name for this system. Click 'Next' to continue.

Step12: A final installation review screen is displayed. You can go back to make further changes or exit the installation here by clicking on the Quit button. For commencing installation, click on the 'Install' button.

Step13: You are presented with the Installing screen wherein you can review the installation progress bar.

Step14: Finished screen appears wherein you can check and study the OpenSolaris installation log file. Click on 'Reboot' to restart the system.

When the system does come up, you shall see the GNU GRUB screen in blue with the following options:

OpenSolaris 2008.11 snv_101b_rc2 X86
Windows
OpenSolaris 2008.11 snv_101b_rc2 X86 test boot

Selecting OpenSolaris 2008.11 snv_101b_rc2 X86 and pressing <ENTER> boots OpenSolaris, whereas Windows boots WinXP. You can also login to a text console via the 3rd alternative. Congratulations! You already have a dual-boot system up and running... and check out the features of your new OpenSolaris system. Let's now move on to installing CentOS 5.2 on our system, configuring GRUB and multi-booting the entire system.



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