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Convert Microsoft to LINUX: Latest Solaris Install

This section will feature info on the latest Solaris UNIX Distribution. Solaris is actually open source UNIX not Linux. However, there are enough similarities that it is worth focusing on. Note, Solaris uses the UFS file system as opposed to Linux which uses the ext3 file system . It does have a GRUB program so you can still multiboot. Some Linuxes such as Arklinux will get confused when they see this file system and fail on a file system check fsck on this device because they do not recognize this file system type. The solution is to not multiboot Arklinux with Solaris on the same physical hard drive. The installation of Solaris is pretty straight forward. Pick a device and let it go and format it as UFS. In this case I chose /dev/hda2. I then had to edit the Solaris menu.lst file in the directory of /boot/grub to add back the previous Linuxes I had, excluding Arklinux.

A few notes about the installation:

1. Select choice 2 Solaris Install Jump Start.
2. Hit the ESC key to change proposed configuration. It defaults to the wrong monitor and dimensions. Put an X in Video/Monitor and change the monitor to
   Notebook LCD XGA 48 khz (1024 x 768 @ 60 Hz)
   Similarly change the keyboard to
   English-default from English-104.
3. Type ESC-2 to continue and then type F2 to test the keyboard and mouse.
4. When it asks for name service select "none" unless you want to do NIS.
5. Just chose the default standard install , when it asks you for the type of install. This will automatically give you the man pages . They are necessary as Solaris is quite a bit different from Linux.
6. When done you will get a boot menu with just Windows and Solaris. Boot into Solaris to verify it works then modify the menu.lst appropiately in the /boot/grub directory.
7. Be aware from that here on you must do everything with the Solaris Grub program when adding new operating systems to this hard drive. Solaris GRUB can see itself, Windows and Linux. However the standard Linux GRUB program can not see the Solaris UFS partition and boot to it. The command to install GRUB in Solaris is installgrub. It is defined in more detail on my commands link. Click here to see the menu.lst file for Solaris.
8. The Apache Web Server is installed by default. To invoke it in the directory of /etc/apache type:
   cp httpd-example.conf httpd.conf
   Note, the default directory for the start of the index.shtml documents is:
   /var/apache/htdocs
9. One final annoyance that can be easily solved. The default shell in Solaris 10.0 does not give you tab completion and history ability. Invoke the shell that has this by typing:
   tcsh or bash
   You can put an entry to do this in your profile to make it permanent.
10. Here is one added bonus I discovered. Since my MAC is multibooted with Ubuntu on it, I can start up Ubuntu click option and choose Logon on to XDMCP Session . This allows me to logon to my Solaris 10.0 Server with my full Java Desktop. I did not even have to type in the IP Address because it was broadcasted to my MAC which is on the same network.