Jan
10
2009

Install OpenSolaris 2008.11 under KVM

A while ago I tested OpenSolaris 2008.5 under Virtualbox. Time to test the latest release.
As everybody knows OpenSolaris is a excellent Operating System offering lots of superior features. Follow the steps to install the latest release 2008.11 under KVM/QEMU

  • Download ISO file from www.opensolaris.com
  • Prepare a new KVM configuration for OpenSolaris with an empty harddrive.
    Add a network adapter. I recommend you to use a default NAT networking connection
    Choose x86_64 if you got 64-Bit hardware and Solaris 10 as Operating System
  • Follow the installation instructions
  • After installation OpenSolaris starts up with a fancy graphical splashscreen and login, but we don’t want that. OpenSolaris is most powerful on CLI.
    Login and become root to execute the command:
    svcadm disable gdm
    This command disables the graphical login immediately and for future sessions.
    You can choose OpenSolaris 2008.11 snv_101b_rc2 X86 text boot from the GRUB menu to have text output during startup. In my configuration sometimes the splashscreen doesn’t disappear after a successful startup. That could cause you some trouble if you can’t access your Virtual Machine by SSH or Terminal.
    Now edit GRUB configuration for textmode during startup. If you ran an update of you current image make the lasst entry in your menu.lst looks something my one.

    vim /rpool/boot/grub/menu.lst

    title opensolaris-1 text boot
    findroot (pool_rpool,0,a)
    #splashimage /boot/solaris.xpm
    #foreground d25f00
    #background 115d93
    bootfs rpool/ROOT/opensolaris-1
    #kernel$ /platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B $ZFS-BOOTFS,console=graphics
    kernel$ /platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B $ZFS-BOOTFS
    module$ /platform/i86pc/$ISADIR/boot_archive

  • Restart your machine. Hard work almost done.
  • Now use your new Operating System for example by checking out OpenSolaris features as a Fileserver and have fun following the article based on GUI tools on your CLI.
  • Written by mirko in: Computer, OpenSolaris | Tags: , ,

    1 Comment »

    • Ian says:

      I was having trouble running Opensolaris under KVM using 512MB RAM. Once I increased that to 750MB it ran fine.

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