The boot architecture and partitioning of Solaris/x86 stink.

It's been a long time (Solaris 7, I think) since I've tried to get Solaris/x86 working in parallel in a multi-boot Intel system. On my main server, Solaris/x86 is the only OS; so these problems don't appear.

FWIW, the hardware is on the Dell OptiPlex GX240. I'm holding out hope that true to the word of the other blogs that Firewire is actually supported in Solaris 10 now. I don't have enough hard drive space internally to perform a build of the OpenSolaris system, but should have just enough for the install. But, I do have a Firewire enclosure, spare 120GB hard drive, and a Belkin Firewire PCI card. (It works just fine with Linux!)

So, I started this process on Monday. I've been doing this in my spare time as I wait for other tasks to complete that I need to get done. It's only today that I've actually gotten it to pass the initial CD install. Groan.

First off, the Solaris 10/x86 installer hangs when trying to do a graphical install. Only 'Option 4' (Console) mode worked. Very odd. I don't know if it doesn't like the ATI graphics card in these machines or not.

After figuring this out, it then barfed at the partition layout that I had. Solaris requires installation into the primary partition: i.e. 1-3. Well, on the Dell boxes, they have a 'System Utility' partition in #1. #2 was Ubuntu, and #3 was FreeBSD.

for a new primary partition. Something needs to move.

Since Ubuntu is way cooler and probably the most resilient to being moved around in such a horrific fashion, I decided that I would copy it's / partition (i.e. #2) to a space in the extended partiton scheme via

rsync -axHSD / /mnt/hda7

That's archive, one file system, preserve hard links, devices, and spare files. Tweaking /etc/fstab of course! Other than the fact that I didn't reboot Ubuntu after creating that 7th partition (which meant that I did the first rsync into /dev/null essentially; which meant that I had to do the rsync twice), it worked out okay. There were also some problems getting grub comfy as the Ubuntu partition housed the boot loader. Remember:

root (hd0)
setup (hd0,6)  # Grub is N-1 from Linux's partition space!  Mine was hda7

You can do this via the 'grub' binary on a Linux rescue CD or whatnot (see Knoppix and Ubuntu's Live CD. At that point, I could reuse partition #2. Not done with it yet...

So, I go through the Solaris Installer for about the ninth or tenth time (I lost track, seriously). I made it through the section where it asks me to create the fdisk partition. However, the deletion of partitions was buggy: it never would commit the change to disk, so it always thought the partition was still there, so I had to go to Linux and clear out the #2 partition manually. Reboot and go through the installer again. Sigh

On this time, I go through and do the layout again creating a new Solaris partition. Am I done? No way.

I finish the layout, but it then complains that the extended partition exceeded the whole disk and that it would not let me proceed. Never mind that Solaris doesn't even reside on that partition!! As I grumbled on IRC, Solaris needs a 'shut the f*c* up, I know what I'm doing option' to avoid this being a fatal error.

There's nothing obviously wrong with the partition table as far as I can tell in Solaris's fdisk CUI system. Exit to a shell. Solaris's fdisk on the raw disk doesn't show anything either. Grr. Reboot back into Linux: perhaps Linux's fdisk would be more helpful.

Nothing wrong at first glance, either. However, in going to expert mode of fdisk, I see that the extended partition (#4) overlaps with (#3) by two sectors. However, none of the partitions inside the extended partition overlap (so there isn't any overlap in the real data partitions). The only way to fix that was to delete the extended partitions and recreate the data partitions manually. (Pencil and paper to record the start/end sectors and the partition ID.) Shouldn't have to modify the data in those partitions since the data partition boundaries are correct.

Cross fingers. Offerings to Cthulhu (who obviously wrote this boot and partitioning system).

Reboot. Go through the install steps for the fifteenth time at least.

It then proceeds to install the Solaris #1 CD. (No DVD drive on this Dell machine, alas.)

After it was done with that, I needed to reuse my rescue CD to overwrite Solaris's lame boot manager (circa 1995) to reactivate GRUB.

Instructions for Solaris and GRUB is very helpful as it gives the incantations for using GRUB to invoke Solaris.

It's currently going through and finishing up the #2 & #3 CDs. Interesting note that it doesn't recognize the CDs on the first time I put them in: I have had to retry them each time to get it to read the CDs successfully.

I am definitely looking forward to 'newboot' available soon. The boot and partitioning system in Solaris 10 stinks on Intel boxes.

[/software/solaris] permanent link

Tried the Ubuntu Live CD...Nah.

I tried out the Ubuntu Live CD on an Intel box today. Feh.

It's okay, but I wouldn't use it as a rescue CD. For that, KNOPPIX is still better as it autoconfigures everything.

[/software/ubuntu] permanent link

Game 21: The long-ball wasn't enough.

Four solo HRs wasn't enough.

Drese wasn't fooling anyone. Brocail is just proving he doesn't belong in the bullpen.

On the bright side, Teixeira has 6 HRs now. Yay.

Rogers takes the hill tonight. Look for the Rangers' bats to go quiet.

[/sports/rangers/2005] permanent link