Solaris installation with Ubuntu and XP there..

Hi, i have for this moment Ubuntu 8.04 and XP SP2 and of course the grub loader for starting them.
I donwloaded Solaris 10.5 and intend to install it but i want to know if it will rewrite the grub loader i use now (and if, it will detect all OS?) or just append the new Solaris - any case would be ok. I`m afraid from what i read in this forum that it will rewrite my grub with its own and i won`t have access to other OS file systems.
I don`t want to delete any wind or linux partitions, reformat hard drive or things like this, i hope Solaris is "understandable" with my data.
Solaris have its own "booked" space on hard drive so, no matter for that.
Please adivise me.

it will rewrite grub... sun needs the grub loader there own way because a "standard" grub can't boot solaris... (afair).

hth

Thanks DukeNuke2 for reply... is there a way after installing Solaris to rewrite, edit the "standard solaris grub" so it knows about the other OS?
In fact i don`t want anything else but this... multi systems boot loader.

That's what I did. Here is my menu.lst file from Solaris:

#pragma ident	"@(#)menu.lst	1.1	05/09/01 SMI"
default 1
timeout 30
#
# To enable grub serial console to ttya uncomment the following lines
# and comment out the splashimage line below
# WARNING: don't enable grub serial console when BIOS console serial
#	redirection is active!!!
#   serial --unit=0 --speed=9600
#   terminal serial
#
# Uncomment the following line to enable GRUB splashimage on console
#splashimage /boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

color red/black black/green
title Trinity --- triple boot system with Windows XP/RHEL 5/Solaris 10
	root
title Windows XP
	rootnoverify (hd0,0)
	chainloader +1

title Redhat Enterprise Linux 5
	root (hd0,7)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
	initrd /initrd-2.6.18-8.el5.img

#---------- ADDED BY BOOTADM - DO NOT EDIT ----------
#title Solaris 10 5/08 s10x_u5wos_10 X86
title Solaris 10 
kernel /platform/i86pc/multiboot
module /platform/i86pc/boot_archive
#---------------------END BOOTADM--------------------
#---------- ADDED BY BOOTADM - DO NOT EDIT ----------
title Solaris failsafe
kernel /boot/multiboot kernel/unix -s
module /boot/x86.miniroot-safe
#---------------------END BOOTADM--------------------

# Unknown partition of type 15 found on /dev/rdsk/c0d0p0 partition: 2
# It maps to the GRUB device: (hd0,1) .

# Unknown partition of type 187 found on /dev/rdsk/c0d0p0 partition: 4
# It maps to the GRUB device: (hd0,3) .

title -----UTILITIES-----
	root
title _^H      reboot
	reboot
title _^H      off
	halt
title _^H      halt
	halt --no-apm
title _^H      boot from floppy
	chainloader (fd0)+1

That _^H is an underscore followed by a backspace. I had to play around to get leading spaces with a grub title and I settled on that.

This statement is slightly incorrect. Solaris installer doesn't rewrite/overwrite any grub or other existing boot loader. It only installs its enhanced version of grub in its own primary partition and mark that partition active.
In addition to Solaris, it adds entries for booting Windows partitions when found but not other OSes so you'll indeed need to manually add their entries in menu.lst as already explained.

Thanks Perderabo and jlliagre, for your explanations and activity on forum, I will try soon to experiment this. In case of success "I`ll be back" - reading on forum posts, tips and comments of course :slight_smile:

Well, i got stucked at "reading CD/DVD for installing operating system" faze, better said, no readings, no input available, so i shutdown it -f let`s say so (from the great great button).
I`ll go to read some more and maybe try another install.

I succeded finally to go further with installation, through interactive text desktop way, which is much faster than the default interactive one, but Solaris (10.5) only "sees" the Windows C partition and the extended one.
As i don`t want to get rid of Windows, or make the rest of the drive only for Solaris, pls advice what to do next - i have "prepared" (right now is FAT32, but before was unformatted and still "invisible" as "right place to install there" for Solaris) on extended volume 10 GB for it... just how can i point it to install there? What FS is to be seen as "OK"?Or, what to do?
In addition, i have only 1 hard disk, so that`s it, those 10 GB is the best i can do for Solaris.

You have 4 partition slots in the partition table in sector 0. The first is a primary for windows. The second is an extended partition that points to the chain of logical partitions. So define another primary partition for Solaris. Set the type to 0xBF and Solaris 10 will recognize it. Now install Solaris in that 10 GB primary.

OK...i have to admit... i did it through wind - partition magic, but i did it... now Solaris is ON (installed and functional), ready to fill my needs of testing, which...speaking about:

  • Why keeps booting without network card interface enabled??? I installed the drivers, enabled the card, dhcp created files, modified files (hostname, defaultrouter).... everything was ok until next reboot, when surprize, only the loopback interface is "seen".
    I had lot of work at my job, and still have, so if anybody knows a quick answer to this, thanks, if not, i`ll search and find something, sometime...

which files have you edited and created?

here is a good description:
Setting Up a Solaris DHCP Client

In the most simpliest ways, i want my Solaris 10 to have a static IP as 10.10.10.100, going "out" through the switch we have here - 10.10.10.1 and if not possible, at least to have automated enabled network interface with dhcp on it.
Now i am confrunting with doing after every reboot "plumb" and "dhcp primary" lines on network interface...
I`ve read not only here but also on other results of google, tried many other things, nothing worked until now and AFTER the reboot.

So, it is like this:

  • my interface is bfe0
    # dladm show-dev
    bfe0 link: unknown speed: 0 Mbps duplex: full

  • created and fill in the hostname like this in /etc:
    # cat hostname.bfe0
    laptop

  • created and fill in the gateway (switch) like this in /etc:
    # cat defaultrouter
    10.10.10.1

  • modified etc/inet/hosts to be like this (also etc/hosts and etc/inet/ipnodes are the same):
    # cat inet/hosts
    #
    # Internet host table
    #
    127.0.0.1 localhost loghost
    10.10.10.100 laptop laptop

  • modified this file:
    # cat inet/netmasks
    #
    10.10.10.0 255.255.255.0

But after every restart i have to plumb the interface and it is not enough:
# ifconfig bfe0 plumb
# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=2001000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,VIRTUAL> mtu 8232 index 1
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000
bfe0: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 2
inet 0.0.0.0 netmask ff000000
ether 0:15:c5:6b:a:33

As you can see my IP is set to 0.0.0.0 so i have to let it to DHCP to do it:
# ifconfig bfe0 dhcp primary
# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=2001000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,VIRTUAL> mtu 8232 index 1
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000
bfe0: flags=1004843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,DHCP,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 4
inet 10.10.10.10 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 10.10.10.255
ether 0:15:c5:6b:a:33

So, basicly the static IP i want - 10.10.10.100 is not set, but not at least the interface bfe0 is up after restart, every time i have to plumb it manually.
I`m sure there is some mistake of mine... maybe i modified or created some other files.
I read this upper link "Setting Up a Solaris DHCP Client" but still the same problem: bfe0 is not up after reboot and after i enable it it returns me that 0.0.0.0 address...

  • one last thing, content of etc/path_to_inst:
    # cat path_to_inst
    #
    # Caution! This file contains critical kernel state
    #
    "/pseudo" 0 "pseudo"
    "/options" 0 "options"
    "/xsvc" 0 "xsvc"
    "/objmgr" 0 "objmgr"
    "/scsi_vhci" 0 "scsi_vhci"
    "/isa" 0 "isa"
    "/isa/i8042@1,60" 0 "i8042"
    "/isa/i8042@1,60/keyboard@0" 0 "kb8042"
    "/isa/i8042@1,60/mouse@1" 0 "mouse8042"
    "/ramdisk" 0 "ramdisk"
    "/cpus" 0 "cpunex"
    "/cpus/cpu@0" 0 "cpudrv"
    "/pci@0,0" 0 "npe"
    "/pci@0,0/display@2" 0 "vgatext"
    "/pci@0,0/pci1028,1c9@1d,7" 0 "ehci"
    "/pci@0,0/pci1028,1c9@1d,7/storage@1" 0 "scsa2usb"
    "/pci@0,0/pci1028,1c9@1d,7/storage@1/disk@0,0" 0 "sd"
    "/pci@0,0/pci1028,1c9@1d" 0 "uhci"
    "/pci@0,0/pci1028,1c9@1d,1" 1 "uhci"
    "/pci@0,0/pci1028,1c9@1d,2" 2 "uhci"
    "/pci@0,0/pci1028,1c9@1d,2/mouse@1" 0 "hid"
    "/pci@0,0/pci1028,1c9@1d,3" 3 "uhci"
    "/pci@0,0/pci8086,2660@1c" 0 "pcie_pci"
    "/pci@0,0/pci8086,2666@1c,3" 1 "pcie_pci"
    "/pci@0,0/pci1028,1c9@1b" 0 "audiohd"
    "/pci@0,0/pci8086,2448@1e" 0 "pci_pci"
    "/pci@0,0/pci8086,2448@1e/pci1028,1c9@0" 0 "bfe"
    "/pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,1" 0 "pci-ide"
    "/pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,1/ide@0" 0 "ata"
    "/pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,1/ide@0/sd@1,0" 1 "sd"
    "/pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,1/ide@0/cmdk@0,0" 0 "cmdk"
    "/pci@0,0/pci1028,1c9@0" 0 "agptarget"
    "/iscsi" 0 "iscsi"
    "/agpgart" 0 "agpgart"

.... help?

  • and forgot about this (nameservers are some dns servers i know):
    # cat /etc/resolv.conf
    nameserver 193.231.233.1
    nameserver 193.231.233.8
    # grep hosts /etc/nsswitch.conf
    # "hosts:" and "services:" in this file are used only if the
    hosts: files dns