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64-bit support for Intel platforms in Solaris 10

807559Nov 10 2008 — edited Nov 11 2008
Hi all,

I am a newbie to UNIX-like systems; I plan to train myself to work on them. So yesterday I have downloaded the free Solaris 10 DVD to try it out.

I have a couple of questions:

{color:#000080}*1)*{color} In the free download option, there are two systems listed as being supported: the native Sun SPARC and "x86" (the verbatim listing in the dropdown list is: "Solaris 10 OS, SPARC" and "Solaris 10 OS (x86)"). As far as I can understand, x86 is the 32-bit architecture of most of the Intel and AMD processors. Its 64-bit version is commonly known as x86_64 or x64. Does this mean that the free Solaris 10 DVD available for download can be run on Intel/AMD in 32-bit mode only? Because in the "Buy the Solaris 10 5/08 DVD Media Kit" option the x64 platform is mentioned explicitly ("Solaris 10 5/08 media for x86 / *x64* systems"), while in the free download it's not. I have recently purchased a new 64-bit computer with Core 2 Quad 6600 processor, and have attempted to install Solaris on it. Everything goes OK but I am confused by an info message that I get upon booting the system from CD:

SunOS Release 5.10 Version Generic_137138-09 *32-bit*
Copyright 1983-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.

What does that mean? I'd like, of course, to utilize the full power of my PC and not to run Solaris 10 in a 32-bit mode.

*{color:#000080}2){color}* I have two hard disks. One of them is allocated for my existing Windows XP system and is the default bootdisk. I'd like to use the second one (identical in size) for my Solaris installation. The question is: will the grub bootloader recognize the existing Windows system and provide an option to boot it if I change the default boot device from disk 1 to disk 2 in BIOS setup? And if yes, can it make this option it the default one?

Regards,
Alex.

Comments

807559
For (2) : I have been using the two disks (one having XP) and other one with Solaris 10 and have seen the grub bootloader recognize the existing Windows installations (though a try with Windows 2003 behaved differently) and can boot either of them using grub.

Hope this answers your query..
alan.pae
attempted to install Solaris on it. Everything goes OK but I am confused by an info message that I get upon booting the system from CD:

SunOS Release 5.10 Version Generic_137138-09 *32-bit*
You got it installed and then you booted from the CD???

If you booted from the hard disk then run:

isainfo -kv

alan
807559
alan.pae wrote:
attempted to install Solaris on it. Everything goes OK but I am confused by an info message that I get upon booting the system from CD:

SunOS Release 5.10 Version Generic_137138-09 *32-bit*
You got it installed and then you booted from the CD???

If you booted from the hard disk then run:

isainfo -kv

alan
No, of course not. It isn't installed yet. I meant that I booted the
computer from from the install DVD to start the installation process.
But thanks for the info. I'll install it and will run this command.
807559
OK, I have installed it and upon booting (of the installed system, i. e. from the hard disk) I get similar info message but now it says "64-bit". So I guess the Solaris installer determines the architecture by itself.

Unfortunately, my video adapter is an unsupported nVidia GeForce 9400 GT, so the system appears to work only in CDE mode (I can't log on into the JDS mode and can't open any gtk-requiring apps even from a CDE terminal), but that's another topic.

Thank you both for answering.
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Locked on Dec 9 2008
Added on Nov 10 2008
#oracle-solaris, #solaris-on-x86
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