Updating OpenSolaris Vbox Guest to 2009.06
I was doing my routine update to OpenSolaris 2009.06 from a build from just a couple weeks ago and ended up having all kinds of problems. First and foremost, after the update (I used Update Manager -> Update All), the new boot environment would only boot to the console login. Would not boot to the desktop. A couple of folks suggested maybe a problem / incompatibility between the ViritualBox Guest Additions I was using (they were old) and x11 in the new OpenSolaris. I was lucky enough to get some help from Evan Layton, who saw my boot problem at the CommunityOne Install Lounge. Anyway, here are the steps I ended up following to get my 2009.06 guest OS / BE running.
* Uninstall VirtualBox Guest Additions in original BE: pfexec pkgrm SUNWvboxguest
* Update Mgr -> Update All
* Start new BE - Only boots to console login
- Log in and remove /etc/X11/xorg.conf
- pfexec reboot
- BE now boots to the desktop
- Install guest additions
- pfexec reboot
Boots to desktop with Guest Addition functioning!
I also had come strange screen resolution issues I had to deal with in the VM, but finally got that working correctly, too.
Am surprised more people haven't encountered these problems. Not sure what it is about my configuration that led to the problems...maybe the older version of VirtualBox Guest Additions. Anyway, hope this helps others. I'll try to clean this up and post it to the docs wiki site. Wanted to capture the quick-and-dirty version here.
You're not alone out there :-) A collegue of mine had the same issue with his OpenSolaris in the Virtual Box.
Thanks for posting the solution.
Posted by Lemmy on June 10, 2009 at 03:27 PM MDT #
You're welcome. I will formalize this a bit and post on the docs wiki: http://wikis.sun.com/display/OpenSolarisInfo200906/Home.
Posted by Alan McClellan on June 12, 2009 at 11:34 AM MDT #
I expanded the instructions to do this procedure to make some of the steps more explicit and posted on the OpenSolaris Info Resources wiki: http://wikis.sun.com/display/OpenSolarisInfo/How+to+Update+to+2009.06+in+VirtualBox. Comments welcome there.
Posted by Alan McClellan on June 18, 2009 at 11:30 AM MDT #