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OpenSolaris 2008.11 Release Candidate

Saturday Nov 08, 2008

Last night we posted the first release candidate build for the 2008.11 release.  The announcement message has the details on how to get it and so on.  One very important limitation to point out is that this image will not install when booted in a system (or virtual machine) with 512 MB of memory.  Several of us are working on getting this resolved prior to the official release.  The announcement message specifies 768 MB of memory, since that's the next likely number found on real machines, but I'd expect installation to be successful with somewhere around 580 MB with this image, for those of you using virtual machines of some sort.

One notable change is that we've decided to start releasing pre-built images for USB flash memory devices.  You will need to use Solaris/OpenSolaris to create them, as the usbcopy script used to transfer them uses some Solaris-specific interfaces.  Contributions to make this work on other platforms would be welcomed, of course.

The installer has changed very little since 2008.05, as our installation efforts have been spent on building the Automated Installation preview, the Distribution Constructor, and adding zones support to the Snap Upgrade boot environment management code.  Though I should mention that there are some nice new graphic billboards during the install process itself!

Please give it a try and help us get the last bit of polish on this release before it goes final.  If you find bugs, check out the notes on how to report bugs. 

[7] Comments
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Posted at 05:17PM Nov 08, 2008 by dminer in OpenSolaris_Installation
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I updated to 101a yesterday and it has been perfect so far. I had a problem updating to 100 from 99, though, so I ended up doing a fresh install. I filed a bug on it (Bug 4391). Anyway, very nice job with all of this! :)

Posted by Jim Grisanzio on November 08, 2008 at 08:12 PM EST #

Really going to have to get the memory foot print down.

You would be surprised at how many boxes still only have 512mb of ram, and then have integrated graphics.

And with the economy is going there going to be sticking around for a little long.

Posted by kangcool on November 08, 2008 at 08:59 PM EST #

Looks really good, can't wait to move to this release, a massive improvement from 2008.05!

Posted by Che Kristo on November 08, 2008 at 10:33 PM EST #

I installed the RC 1 using VirualBox (http://blogs.sun.com/amitsaha/entry/open_solaris_2008_11_on). I am feeling a lot better, its even better than the 100a build I installed couple of days back. It definitely feels better than OpenSolaris 2008.05 release. But then, I really hope I have finally got a properly functioning OpenSolaris installation. Still to try out the IPS though.

Good Work!

Cheers,Amit

Posted by Amit on November 09, 2008 at 12:19 AM EST #

Great news! Thanks for all the hard work!

Re "pre-built images for USB flash memory devices", are they LiveUSB images similar to LiveCD, or "installed" os2008.11 images which, after "usbcopied" to the USB stick, allows the user to boot from and do image-update, etc.?

Also, will .vdi image(s) be available?

Thanks again for the hard work. I know I shouldn't ask any question, but you know human nature, we will never be satisfied. :-)

Posted by W. Wayne Liauh on November 09, 2008 at 02:54 AM EST #

Great news! When is the final release expected?

Please give some more info on the USB images - are the like a live environment? Do they have the same contents as the CD, or have more packages? If not, why the difference of 681mb vs. 818mb?

Please try to port the usbcopy program over to linux (at least) by the time of final release, that will give OS a real advantage.

Posted by Rohan Dhruva on November 10, 2008 at 04:09 AM EST #

@Wayne, @Rohan: the USB images are a translation of the live CD images to flash media, so you have to install from them to something else. They have the same contents as the CD, but they're bigger because the basic file system on the media is UFS, not HSFS, so the much smaller block size means there's a lot more metadata overhead, relatively speaking.

I expect some virtual disk images to appear around the time of release.

We have no current resources to port the usbcopy program to other platforms, though this would obviously be desirable. As I said, contributions are welcome.

Posted by Dave Miner on November 10, 2008 at 12:07 PM EST #

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