Apple

Well, by now, pretty much every news site and blog across the world has picked up on the fact that Apple are making the move to x86. It doesn't really come as much surprise; IBM made promises it hasn't met, and the G4/G5 line has stagnated while x86 romped past it. As a recent Mac convert, I can't help but feel in some small way annoyed - but it's mostly down to the fact that the resale value of my Powerbook just took a nosedive.

But then, I wasn't planning on upgrading for a good few years yet, so that's largely irrelevant. Come to think of it, the actual processor that my computer runs is also largely irrelevant. I don't use Solaris on servers, or Mac OS X on my laptop because they run on SPARC or PPC; I use them because of the relative merits of the OS. I brought my Powerbook because I liked the wide screen and the built-in WiFi, but mainly for Mac OS X : A powerful, full-featured UNIX system that I could also stand to use as a desktop for more than 5 minutes. It could be running on x86, PPC, SPARC, Heck, even ARM - but it's the OS that sold me. As long as the supply of Mac OS PPC applications doesn't suddenly dry up (which I can't really see happening, just because of the large install base out there), I'm cool with it. It just means in 3 or 4 years, my next PowerBook will be Intel Inside, and will hopefully also dual-boot Solaris !

Now I've got my Powerbook back from repairs, I decided to continue my experiment to get Solaris 10 installed under Virtual PC 7. I've finally managed to get a useable system, although it did take a fair amount of hacking. The end result is a fully useable Solaris 10 installation complete with zones and dTrace, and provides a useful base for installing Blastwave packages.

Unlike previous versions of Solaris, there is no need to modify the ISO images, and the system will boot right off the CDs or DVD. However, there seems to be an issue with the Java VM and Virtual PC; whenever any Java application is run, the VM segfaults. This is an issue because some of the installer utilities are written in Java. The way around this is to perform a text-mode install, either at the console or in a X session. Install the bare minimum of packages - the "mininal networking" cluster is a great starting point. This should complete succesfully from the first CD without needing to reboot and add additional packages (which would fail, as it attempts to use the java installer again).

When the system has rebooted, you'll be left with a very minimal system, so you'll need to add some additional packages from the rest of the CDs, I've attached the list I use in the main article body (click the "Continue reading" link to see them). Using this set of packages, the install base comes to around 314Mb, but you are left with a system that lets you experiment with all the major new Solaris 10 features (zones, dtrace etc.). There is no X11 software included on that list, so if you need CDE or would like to experiment with the new JDS, you'll have to add those yourself.

Any additional software can be grabbed from Blastwave, and as the complier support packages are also installed, you can even build your own packages. However, as psrinfo reports the equivalent of a 300Mhz Pentium on a 1.3Ghz G4, you'll probably be waiting a while for things to finish! Continue reading "Solaris 10 on a Powerbook"