So after the initial install I made the following initial tweaks to the installation.

• 1. Create user account.
• 2. Modify /etc/autohome
• 3. Change machine name (hostname)
• 4. Configure for UK keyboard
• 5. Add frkit
• 6. Add inetmenu (Internet Menu)
• 7. Update GNOME preferences and create (copy) user environment

Modify /etc/autohome

As I'm used to using /home for the location of my home directory it makes sense for me to configure this. See automount(1M) for more information on this.

Change machine name (hostname)

solaris-devx is a nice name, but its time I re-awoke Scully.

Interesting point here was that previously to change the machine name there were several files that needed to be modified. Not so now, it seems all I have to do is change nodename(4) (that's /etc/nodename) and run uname(1M), or vice-versa:

uname -S scully
uname -n > /etc/nodename

Note that if your DHCP server gives your machine a name then nodename is ignored (effectively running 'uname -S' for you on the name supplied by the DHCP server).

Configure for UK keyboard

A UK keyboard typically has a sterling pound sign (£) above the number while a US keyboard has what I call a hash or number sign, but what I have heard my American friends (and Audix) refer to as the "pound sign"! Initially I created an xmodmap(1) to map the correct keys but as Chris Gerhard points out I simply need to set an eeprom value:

# eeprom keyboard-layout=UK-English

However as I don't think that comes into effect until you reboot here is the xmodmap file and command to use it. Remember to backup the original first just in case!

$ xmodmap -pke > .xmodmap.backup
$ cat .xmodmap-ferrari4000
keycode  11 = 2 quotedbl
keycode  12 = 3 sterling
keycode  48 = apostrophe at
keycode  49 = grave notsign brokenbar
keycode  51 = numbersign asciitilde
keycode  94 = backslash bar brokenbar
$ xmodmap .xmodmap-ferrari4000

(the brokenbar and bar have been swapped around when compared to the physical keyboard, but believe me its better that way)

Update 25 Jan 2007: Use kbd(1) to set the keyboard (thanks to Alan Coopersmith for this tip).

Add frkit

The frkit , AKA the Ferrari kit (though it is not just for Ferrari's), adds some very useful extensions from the OpenSolaris laptop community:

* acpidrv

Adds support for the power button and battery statistics.

* gnome battery

A port of the GNOME battery meter

* powernow

Juggles the CPU speed based on demand.

* acerkb

Multimedia keyboard hack

* gnome emifreq

GNOME applet that displays current CPU state.

Further information on all of these features is available by executing 'frkit -s readme'.

One tip, when running frkit remember to set your http proxy if necessary (or indeed, unset it!):

# frkit
Could not download "http://opensolaris.org/os/community/laptop/downloads/frkit"
# http_proxy=webcache:8080 frkit
Probing acpidrv ... installed and up to date.

Probing gnome-battery ... installed and up to date.

Probing powernow ... installed and up to date.

Probing acerkb ... installed and up to date.

Probing gnome-emifreq ... installed and up to date.

No modules applicable to your system or none out of date.
#

Add inetmenu (Internet Menu)

The inetmenu is a cool little package which provides a command-line interface (CLI) or GUI to select different network configurations. Thus when for example the laptop is at home I simply select the DHCP-noNIS profile, and when in the office I select DHCP. The application makes the necessary configuration changes for the network access point the system is using.

The package installation output gave me the impression that I had to create some profiles in /etc/inetmenu but this is not the case as the defaults suffice for me. I did have to reboot though before it worked. I presume I had not started some service or something? After-all I've never rebooted Solaris in the past quiet so often

One tip, rather than editing user_attr(4) to add the Ginetmenu profile to your UID use the usermod(1M) command, but be careful to list all your non-default profiles though!

Update GNOME preferences and create (copy) user environment

Added the battery meter to gnome-panel and assigned some of the multimedia keys to gnome applications and/or functions.

As an old Solaris user I copied most of my shell scripts, user environment customizations (aliases, .profile and the like) across from my Sparc system. Perhaps I'll tell you more about those another day...

What's next?

The next thing at the top of my to-do list is to get the external display working at the same time as the built in one so I can avoid the hunched-back.

Stace