Monday Dec 22, 2008
After my posting about a new zone for a web server, I did some more tests with the sysidcfg file and found that the following entries work (thanks, Jerry, for sending me a simple sample sysidcfg file):
system_locale=C
works fine.
system_locale=en_US.UTF-8
works after I added the following to file /usr/lib/brand/ipkg/pkgcreatezone in the global zone (after line 179) before starting the installation of the zone:
#
# Get some locale and language packages:
#
pkglist="$pkglist SUNWloc SUNWlang-enUS"
I found out the packages by looking into /usr/share/locale and /usr/lib/locale and searching for locales using (for example):
$ pkg search en_US.UTF-8
An example of a package that contains several languages is: SUNWinstall-l10n.
root_password=(short password string from Solaris 10's /etc/shadow file)
works fine. The old password string will be put into the new /etc/shadow file of the 2008.11 zone but can later be changed from the command line (using the passwd command) and will then be replaced by a long string.
keyboard=...
is apparently not needed, as the terminal and keyboard works fine for me even without that parameter.
name_service=NONE
works fine.
name_service=DNS {domain_name=domain.TLD
name_server=DNS_IP_ADDR_1,DNS_IP_ADDR_2
search=domain.TLD
}works fine as well. In case the system cannot verify some of the information, it displays just one confirmation screen (as usual, after configuring the same settings by hand) and after choosing "No" to not enter the information again and using
<esc>-2, the rest of the
sysidcfg configuration remains intact and will not be asked again, and shortly afterwards the login prompt is displayed.
terminal=xterms
works fine.
Sunday Dec 21, 2008
I chose the Intel D945GCLF board with an Intel Atom processor 230 with a TDP of just 4W. The northbridge/GPU apparently needs more power, so it is cooled with a fan whereas the CPU does not need one. Unfortunately, the fan is really loud. The following picture shows the original configuration with an additional case fan for CPU and RAM:
I looked at various northbridge coolers (for example the Zalman ZM-NBF47, mentioned in this blog entry by Matthias Pfützner) but then found a much cheaper and very elegant solution: I just removed the existing northbridge/GPU fan and installed a standard 80mm quiet fan (about 1000/min) on top of the cooler, using just one of the two cooler holes by mounting the fan with a 3mm screw and nut:
I also added a small part of a plastic packaging to the fan so more air would flow downwards towards the CPU cooler (this reduced the CPU temperature by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius):
The whole PC with 2 GB RAM and DVD-ROM drive needs just 30W which is OK, I think.
For the OpenSolaris 2008.11 installation, my first attempt was to install it on an external 200GB USB drive. But contrary to my installation experience on my Intel D201GLY2A (see my other blog entry), this time the USB ports got renamed at every next cold boot attempt, so I had to try all USB ports until the disk drive was found. Which is really funny if your USB disk has two connectors (an additional one for extra power). The good thing was that the power supply of the case had an additional SATA power outlet. And as the D945GCLF mainboard has two SATA connectors, and my external USB disk was a SATA type disk drive, I could remove the disk from its USB case and install it inside the computer case. As it only has 5.25" and 3.5" drive bays, I attached an additional u-shaped sheet of metal in the 5.25/3.5" drive bay so that the 2.5" disk is supported from below and has a solid, flat metal surface to lay on, and the two mounting screws on just one side of the disk are sufficient to keep it in place:
Installation went smoothly from the OpenSolaris 2008.11 CD. Network and Sound worked right from the start. Up to now, I only had a problem with printing from Firefox: The fonts were either pixel fonts with a very coarse resolution or the font hinting was not implemented (the spaces between characters did not look correctly). I have not yet analyzed that problem so far.
Sunday Dec 14, 2008
For installing OpenSolaris 2008.11 on a USB stick (installation on a 250 GB USB drive worked fine for me), please be aware of bug 4755 which leads to a GRUB> prompt after attempting to boot from a newly installed OpenSolaris 2008.11 USB stick.
Here's how it worked for me, on a Intel D201GLY2A system with 1 GB RAM:
- Change your BIOS so that it will boot from USB or CD, if present
- Boot from the OpenSolaris 2008.11 CD
- After the system as booted, plug in a USB stick with at least 4 GB (in my case 8 GB) capacity and wait until a new symbol shows up on the desktop
- Double click on the "Install Solaris" icon, select the USB stick, use the "use whole disk" setting, proceed through the rest of the installation customizing and press the appropriate button to start the installation.
- Wait until the installation has completed, but do not press the "Reboot" button!
- Follow this advice:
- Download this file (76.8 kB)
- unzip and untar it to /tmp, using command
cd /tmp
gzip -d grub_zfs_devid.tar.gz | tar -xf -
(will create two files: stage1 and stage2)
- run
zpool status
to find out the device name of the newly created pool on the USB stick. Let's assume the device name shown is /dev/rdsk/c4t0d0s0.
- and install the two files from the tar file on that device:
installgrub /tmp/stage1 /tmp/stage2 /dev/rdsk/c4t0d0s0
- Then, press the reboot button. Take out the OpenSolaris CD when the system starts booting, so that it will boot from the USB stick. According to the bug, booting might fail if the boot order is changed in the BIOS, so until the bug is fixed, you should keep the boot order as it was during the installation.
Wednesday Dec 10, 2008
Why? Because of: Security, Package Manager, ZFS Time Slider, ZFS, Zones, integrated CIFS and NFS file server, and more.
Who? Everyone that needs a robust and secure operating system with some really unique features and a growing community. For example: for safe web surfing without having to install a virus scanner, for creating office documents, for building a flexible multimedia file server or for programming.
Where to download? http://www.opensolaris.org/os/downloads/. On the right, under "Quick Download Links", click on OpenSolaris 2008.11 to download the image. You can then burn a bootable CD from it, install it on your internal or external hard disk or on a USB stick, or use it as a bootable image in VirtualBox.
What else?
Wednesday Dec 10, 2008
Please read this and this page, and
this and this after 09:00 PDT today...
Tuesday Aug 28, 2007
Looks like more and more customers see Solaris and our T2000 and other Niagara Chip based systems as a real alternative to servers with high single thread performance running other operating systems for their web applications. This is where our Startup Essentials program can help a lot. Read this report about a company that had been using Linux only and now has successfully started using Solaris on T2000.
Solaris will make the transition from other operating systems even more easy in the future, with more GNU tools integrated, more hardware drivers, better installation and administration experience, and more. If you haven't tried it, just download and install it on one of your PCs at home!
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