Giving up on Linux and adopting Solaris for 'serious' server applications

ASGR71

Hi Guys and Gals,

I've just about had it with all Linux distros with inconsistencies and

competing technologies that nothing gets implemented completely.

Henceforth, I'm adopting Solaris as the operating system for my

Oracle installation. It's only a small installation for learning and

coding on a Dell 3060.

I have several questions about the installation of the operating

system:

1) Does / How-does - Solaris manage SSD drives. I'm guessing

it's advanced enough to handle this technology but I've not been

able to find any documentation regarding this?

2) Trim / Discard - Assuming Solaris runs on SSD's, does Solaris

handle the equivalant of the discard/trim function automatically or

is it a case of manually launching the command as in Linux via a

cron job?

3) I've read about UFS and ZFS and I don't think I have the resources

or hardware setup to implement ZFS. Does Solaris still support UFS?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank in advance.

Steffen Moser

1) It does. A lot of people use SSDs for storage when IOPS are important. Often, SSDs are used as Caches (e.g. ZIL or L2ARC) for ZFS storages.

2) Regarding TRIM/UNSET, see: https://support.oracle.com/knowledge/Sun%20Microsystems/2053431_1.html

3) ZFS is absolutely great and it has been the default FS in Solaris 11.x for a few years. The system boots from ZFS. Though, it does still support UFS: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37838_01/pdf/E61016.pdf

User_91Z99

While attempting to adopt Solaris 11.4 is admirable, you are a little too late at this stage of the Solaris lifecycle.   Having no support contract will be your primary obstacle in that you won't be able to keep your installation updated.  Another inhibitor is that the community has vanished and it will be difficult to find like-minded Solaris users that you can share experiences with.  Finally, it may not matter to you, but experience with the Penguin will be much more valuable on your resume/CV than Solaris these days. Even Oracle recently promoted Linux as their #1 OS internally and that Oracle RDBMS runs best on it.  It's still fun to kick the tires on Solaris, perhaps on Virtual Box, but anything longer-term than that would not be pragmatic in 2020.    I wish you could have been around for the couple of golden years of OpenSolaris ~2008, to experience the worldwide enthusiasm that was.    Good luck. 

Steffen Moser

1) It does. A lot of people use SSDs for storage when IOPS are important. Often, SSDs are used as Caches (e.g. ZIL or L2ARC) for ZFS storages.

2) Regarding TRIM/UNSET, see: https://support.oracle.com/knowledge/Sun%20Microsystems/2053431_1.html

3) ZFS is absolutely great and it has been the default FS in Solaris 11.x for a few years. The system boots from ZFS. Though, it does still support UFS: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37838_01/pdf/E61016.pdf

Krum

Sounds like the desired server application is a storage device .  DAS or NAS , in mixed a environment of clients ,Solaris 11 fits excellent . But a major drawback - the license price barely justify just a file server role in S&M business area .

Solaris 11.4 Essentials is needed  :-) !

ASGR71

Thanks Guys!

I think I'm heading at least in the right direction with Solaris instead of Linux!

I seem to be having an install issue with the 11.4 ISO and USB images. I've tried

'burning' the image to USB flash drive and DVD disc but seem to get the same error

message relating to GRUB, the error message is as follows:

error: couldn't terminate EFI services

failed to boot default and fall back entries

I've done some searching but nothing specific to Oracle or Solaris materialises.

The poster did suggest that a GRUB config file needed to be altered!?

The system I'm trying to install Solaris on is a Dell 3060 Micro with 32GB of non

ECC RAM and 2 SSD's of 256GB each. I reset the BIOS to factory default and

upgraded the firmware to the latest about a month ago via Orace Linux.

Although the system is not supported by Oracle Solaris it was supported by

Oracle Database / Oracle Linux 7.4 and I believe it does meet minimum

requirements.

Any nudge in the right direction to solve the Grub issue would be much

appreciated or I may have to go back to Linux (head-smack-emoji).

Thanks.

YTC#1 - Bruce D Porter

Assuming there is nothing wrong with your write to USB or DVD method. I'd suggest BIOS settings. Not sure which ones, but something around UEFI/Legacy ?

IIRC I had to tweak a setting on my SuperMicro motherboard.

YTC#1 - Bruce D Porter

Aha, old thread here

Solaris 11.4 x86 live usb fails to boot - grub error couldn't terminate EFI services

Steffen Moser

I'd also suggest looking for UEFI and legacy boot settings in the mainboard's BIOS setup.

ASGR71

Thanks Guys.

You're awesome!

What a great community!

ASGR71

Phew!

That worked guys. Apparently 'Legacy' mode is for booting from external devices on a Dell.

Changed the following in the BIOS setup:

General -> Boot Sequence -> Legacy External Devices = enable via radio button

General -> Advanced Boot Options -> Enable Legacy Option ROM = enable via check box

General -> Advanced Boot Options -> Enable Attempt Legacy Boot = enable via check box

and make sure that:

Secure Boot -> Secure Boot Enable -> Secure Boot Enable = disable via check box

Now I seem to be proceeding through the boot process but now I have new problems.

The boot process hangs on the initial:

SunOS...

Copyright...

screen

I've search the net and found this page in the Oracle Documentation:

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26502_01/html/E28983/glyas.html

that describes all the additional parameters for the Kernal Arguments...

So... I edited the GRUB commands before booting line, specifically this line:

$multiboot $kern $kern

and changed it to:

$multiboot $kern $kern -k -v

and a whole list of process scrolled down the screen and stopped at the

following line before freezing:

...

ramdisk0 at root

ramdisk0 is /ramdisk

root on /ramdisk:a fstype ufs

and it freezes at this point!

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Steffen Moser

Have you found the following hint, yet?

https://manatails.net/blog/2018/10/fix-freezing-solaris-kernel-on-boot/

tmuehle

Just as a quick side node, since Steffen's link seems as it will/could solve your issue.

This is the latest Solaris 11.4 version  of the doc you used for the kernel arguments:
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37838_01/html/E60978/glyas.html#scrolltoc

Cheers