Alta's HowTo's Complement

pageicon Wednesday Jan 30, 2008

Boot into 32-bit kernel on 64-bit platform

Sometimes you need to boot into the 32-bit kernel on a 64-bit platform. Perhaps you have an application that is 32-bit only. Or perhaps you have developed a device driver for the Solaris OS. In general, Solaris device drivers must work both in 32-bit mode and in 64-bit mode.

To boot into the 32-bit kernel on a 64-bit platform, edit the GRUB menu. Either edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst and reboot, or reboot and enter e at the grub menu.

For Solaris 10, the lines in the menu.lst file look something like this:

title Solaris 10 11/06 s10x_u3wos_10 X86
root (hd0,2,a)
kernel /platform/i86pc/multiboot
module /platform/i86pc/boot_archive

Change the kernel line to this:

kernel /platform/i86pc/kernel/unix

For Solaris Express (nevada, SXDE, SXCE, OpenSolaris), the lines in the menu.lst file look something like this:

title Solaris Express Community Edition snv_79 X86
kernel$ /platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix
module$ /platform/i86pc/$ISADIR/boot_archive

Change the kernel and module lines to this:

kernel$ /platform/i86pc/kernel/unix
module$ /platform/i86pc/boot_archive

Save and reboot

To make this change persistent across reboots, become the root user and make this change using

eeprom boot-file="kernel/unix"

See also Forcing Solaris to load 32 bit kernel.

For more information on the GRUB menu, see GRUB's user interface on the GNU web site.

Comments:

Thanks a ton for this information.

Posted by Jitander Das on November 11, 2008 at 06:36 AM PST #

If you have a 32-bit only application it will run fine even if Solaris runs in 64-bit mode...

Posted by Henrik Johansson on December 28, 2008 at 04:45 PM PST #

I meant for this post to be about developing, not running. I should have been more specific. For example, you can boot into 32-bit mode (rather than use a machine that is 32-bit only) to compile and test a 32-bit driver that you have developed.

Posted by Alta on January 05, 2009 at 08:29 AM PST #

Post a Comment:
  • HTML Syntax: NOT allowed
« May 2009
SunMonTueWedThuFriSat
     
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
      
Today


OpenSolaris
Device Drivers community
Driver Development Resources

Hardware Compatibility List
Sun Device Detection Tool
Solaris for x86 Device Support
more wireless drivers

The Observatory: A Closer Look at Using OpenSolaris
Solaris Developer blog
Jyothi's blog
James Liu's blog

Glossary


XML