Release Candidate of OpenSolaris 2008.11 is out. We shall take it for a spin using Sun xVM VirtualBox 2.0 on Ubuntu 8.10.
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Download the OpenSolaris 2008.11 RC1 ISO from here:
Create a new Virtual Machine using VirtualBox with the main points of the configuration, as follows:
The Live session is now ready for use:
To start the installation, Double-Click on the 'Install OpenSolaris' Desktop icon. The installer starts, showing the current disks available. Select the one you want to use and also choose the mode of partitioning. I am using: Use the whole disk.
Then, in a next step you will have to provide access credentials:
The installation process should now start and enjoy the eye-candy tour of the various features:
Time-Slider:
The installation finishes up after sometime, and you are asked to reboot:
On reboot, you will be pleasantly surprised to see the white characters on black screen no more there. What you see is a cool blue background with a progress indicator in the foreground:
After you are done logging in at the GDM, your OpenSolaris session is ready to use:
VirtualBox Guest Additions:
To get the Full Screen mode working properly and better mouse integration, install the VirtualBox Guest Additions:
+ + Download the OpenSolaris 2008.11 RC1 ISO from here:
Create a new Virtual Machine using VirtualBox with the main points of the configuration, as follows:
- Make sure you set up your VM to boot from the ISO you just downloaded
- I have allocated ~ 1.5 GB of primary memory to OpenSolaris. You may give more, or less (1 GB is recommended)
- I have allocated a Virtual Hard disk of 21 GB. You may use less, depending on your usage. OpenSolaris 2008.11 when installed takes about ~ 2.5 GB of disk space
- I want to use my USB devices on OpenSolaris, so I have enabled them. You may *not* enable them
The Live session is now ready for use:
To start the installation, Double-Click on the 'Install OpenSolaris' Desktop icon. The installer starts, showing the current disks available. Select the one you want to use and also choose the mode of partitioning. I am using: Use the whole disk.
Then, in a next step you will have to provide access credentials:
The installation process should now start and enjoy the eye-candy tour of the various features:
Time-Slider:
The installation finishes up after sometime, and you are asked to reboot:
On reboot, you will be pleasantly surprised to see the white characters on black screen no more there. What you see is a cool blue background with a progress indicator in the foreground:
After you are done logging in at the GDM, your OpenSolaris session is ready to use:
VirtualBox Guest Additions:
To get the Full Screen mode working properly and better mouse integration, install the VirtualBox Guest Additions:
- Go to Devices > Mount CD/DVD ROM Image and Add the VirtualBox Guest Additions ISO
- It will be mounted under /media/VBOX-*
- Navigate to that directory, and do: pfexec pkgadd -d VBoxSolarisAdditions.pkg
Thanks for the pictures, it looks nice, i am waiting for the new release.
I really think that open solaris, should be more popular, at least in top ten, en the linux distro. I tell my friend about this os. and put in the forum too.
and i think Sun is a Cool Company.
Posted by everts garay on November 09, 2008 at 04:27 AM IST #
@ everts garay
The main reason why OpenSolaris is not as popular as Ubuntu is because when it was released, there were many buggy packages in its official repositories.
I think that mostly fo the buggy packages were fixed, but it was very upset.
Cheers
Posted by maty1206 on November 09, 2008 at 09:34 AM IST #
@everts garay, maty
OpenSolaris 2008.11 is a definite improvement, (I feel a lot better on the first install, atleast) to OpenSolaris 2008.05.
Sun is definitely a cool company with many cool folks and lots of cool technologies. Rock ya Sun :-)
Posted by Amit on November 09, 2008 at 10:42 AM IST #
Great guide Amit. Will try soon. As a suggestion for your blog, some where in the footer you can have navigation to your previous blog. It's tough to navigate the blog.
Posted by Vivek on November 09, 2008 at 10:39 PM IST #
@Vivek,
Do you mean previous blog entries?
Thanks,
Amit
Posted by Amit on November 10, 2008 at 09:54 AM IST #
"The main reason why OpenSolaris is not as popular as Ubuntu is because when it was released, there were many buggy packages in its official repositories."
Er, no, the main reason is that Ubuntu has several years of a head start, and so it has a much bigger community and far more software available. And because a lot of people just don't like Sun's open source licensing, however cool the technology is.
Posted by 213.202.142.75 on November 11, 2008 at 06:13 AM IST #