  Linux+Solaris HOWTO
  Max Berger <mailto:max.berger@xslt.de>

  v0.8-$Revision: 1.1 $, $Date: 2000/04/17 23:48:03 $

  Describes how to use Linux (x86) and Solaris (x86) together on one
  machine

  ______________________________________________________________________

  Table of Contents


  1. Introduction

     1.1 Why Solaris?
     1.2 Things covered in this HOWTO
     1.3 Referenced versions
     1.4 Warning

  2. Preparing your Hard Drive

     2.1 Traditional PC partitions
     2.2 Solaris partition labels
     2.3 Hard disk space
     2.4 Quick check list

  3. Preparing Linux

     3.1 Building a new kernel
     3.2 Preparing your boot loader

  4. Installing Solaris

     4.1 Solaris interactive
     4.2 Web-Start
     4.3 Getting GNU-tools

  5. Boot managing

     5.1 Using the Solaris boot manager
     5.2 Using lilo
     5.3 Using grub

  6. Sharing data

     6.1 Using a shared partition
     6.2 Alternative ways

  7. Running foreign binaries

     7.1 Linux binaries on Solaris
     7.2 Solaris binaries on Linux

  8. Finding additional info

  9. Credits and legal stuff

     9.1 Credits
     9.2 Questions, comments, suggestions
     9.3 License


  ______________________________________________________________________


  1.  Introduction

  1.1.  Why Solaris?

  This is actually a good question. Why use Solaris, when you can have
  Linux?  Solaris is a commercial system, the hardware support is
  scarce. But if you are reading this you have probably already decided
  on using Solaris. If not, here are some reasons:

  ·  I have a part-time job administrating Solaris machines. It is of no
     use that I learning all the neat command parameters and nifty Linux
     tricks at home, when I can't use them on my Solaris-Box.

  ·  Sun was giving away Solaris for what they call ``Shipping and
     handling cost only'' for some time. They might do that again. And
     almost-free-of-charge is always a good deal.

  ·  Another reason might be that you like CDE.

  1.2.  Things covered in this HOWTO

  This HOWTO tries to help you install Solaris 7 or 8 on an x86 computer
  already running Linux. The main targets are

  ·  not to destroy any data, see section ``Preparing your Harddrive''

  ·  To make Linux and Solaris coexist (boot manager), see section
     ``Boot-Managing''

  ·  To share data between Linux and Solaris, as described in section
     ``Sharing Data''

  1.3.  Referenced versions

  The reference versions used while creating this document where:

  ·  Solaris 7 x86 (= Solaris 2.7 / SunOS 5.7)

  ·  Solaris 8 x86 (= Solaris 2.8 / SunOS 5.8)

  ·  Linux 2.2.14, 2.3.99-pre3

  ·  fdisk v2.10f

     The information might apply to other versions of the software, or
     it might all be different.

  1.4.  Warning

  Please back up any data before messing with your system!  A lot of the
  things described in this document may result in excessive data loss!
  I am not responsible for any data loss! See also section ``Legal
  stuff''

  2.  Preparing your Hard Drive

  To Prepare your hard-drive for Solaris, you need to know about
  standard PC partition tables and about Solaris disk slices. In this
  HOWTO I talk about single-disk systems only, but all the information
  should also apply to a multi-disk environment.

  2.1.  Traditional PC partitions

  The standard partition-table has only 4 entries. The entries important
  for us are the following:

     A Primary Partition
        Takes up one entry, and contains exactly one partition. A waste
        of resources, but the only partition you can boot from!

     An extended Partition
        Takes up one entry, but can contain multiple DOS, Linux, and
        other partitions

     A Solaris Partition
        Takes up one entry, but can contain multiple Solaris Partitions

  To find out what partitions are present on your system, use the fdisk
  program. Partitions numbers 1 to 4 (hda1..4, sda1..4, ...) are the
  ones in your partition table.

  2.2.  Solaris partition labels

  Solaris has its own partitioning scheme. It uses one entry in the
  partition table, and this entry is and acts as this partition would be
  the entire disk.

  This virtual disk is then divided in up to 8 slices. The third slice,
  s2, covers the whole virtual disk, so you actually have up to 7 slices
  for Solaris.

  Unfortunately, the Solaris partition entry has the same type as a
  Linux Swap partition (82). Therefore, you should not have any Linux
  swap partitions as primary partitions. Linux doesn't care about this,
  but who knows what Solaris does?

  Although the Linux fdisk program has some ``Sun disklabel'' support,
  this doesn't seem to help any.

  2.3.  Hard disk space

  Of course, Solaris needs disk space. The minimum installation of
  Solaris 8 is about 300 MB. For the normal tools its about 700 MB, and
  for a ``developer-system'' about 1 GB.

  But this is only the space required for the base installation. You
  might want to add a lot of GNU-Tools, and other stuff. And if you want
  to share data between Solaris and Linux, this has to happen on the
  Solaris partitions.

  You might even think of sharing your home directories between Solaris
  and Linux. As the time of this writing: Forget it! I messed up my home
  directory doing so and I was very happy about my backup. See also
  section ``sharing data''

  2.4.  Quick check list

  Here's the quick check list. Make sure you:

  ·  have used no more than 3 entries in your partition table

  ·  have no Linux swap partitions as primary partitions

  ·  Have at least 1 Linux ext2 partition as primary

  ·  Have at least 1 GB unpartitioned space

  3.  Preparing Linux



  3.1.  Building a new kernel

  Some people donīt like building a custom kernel. For those of you: you
  must build your own kernel if you want to share data between Solaris
  and Linux on one hard disk. If, however, you do not want to share
  data, you are safe with your old kernel.

  Here are your kernel options for ``Solaris compatibility'':

  ·  Under code maturity:

     Prompt for development drivers
        Unfortunately UFS writing is still experimental.

  ·  In file systems:

     UFS file system support
        UFS is the Solaris file system

     UFS file system
        write support" The only way to pass data to Solaris

     partition types / Solaris
        (x86) partition table support" Is needed for the slices within
        your Solaris partition to be found.

     Additional info about kernel building can be found in the Kernel-
     HOWTO

  3.2.  Preparing your boot loader

  Before messing with your boot loader, please make sure that you have
  an emergency disk ready which enables you to boot your old system.

  Unfortunately the Solaris install overwrites the master boot record
  (MBR) and overwrites your old boot manager.

  Fortunately, the Solaris boot manager is able to chain-boot. For this
  to work you have to put your old boot loader (e.g. lilo) into the boot
  sector of one primary Linux partition.

  For lilo this means: look at your /etc/lilo.conf. Look for the boot=
  line. If it is something like boot=/dev/hda1 everything is fine. But
  if itīs something like boot=/dev/hda it points to the MBR. Please
  change it to point to a primary Linux partition (e.g. boot=/dev/hda1)

  A way to check if your boot-loader is chain-loadable is installing
  lilo in to the MBR and trying to chain load your other boot-manager. I
  used the following file called lilo.conf.mbr for this:

  ______________________________________________________________________
  #lilo.conf.mbr
  #Lilo in Master Boot Record doing nothing but chain-loading another lilo
  boot=/dev/hda
  root=/dev/hda5
  install=/boot/boot.b
  map=/boot/map
  vga=ask
  delay=50
  other=/dev/hda1
  label=lilochain
  ______________________________________________________________________


  You can then run lilo -C lilo.conf.mbr to install lilo into your MBR.
  And donīt forget to run lilo to have lilo in the boot sector of your
  hard-drive.

  If you reboot now, you should have a lilo-prompt. When you select
  other this chain loads the old lilo, which in turn loads Linux.

  4.  Installing Solaris

  4.1.  Solaris interactive


     Solaris 7
        Solaris Interactive is on the first CD. Boot it, select Solaris
        interactive

     Solaris 8
        On the Solaris 8 CDs the interactive installer is on the first
        software CD. You don't need the install CD at all.

  The Solaris installation itself is quite straight forward. One thing
  that might be confusing is the partitioning. Solaris will automati­
  cally use all the free space on your hard disk, and create it's own
  virtual disk in it. And when it comes to slicing up your virtual disk,
  donīt forget to add space for Solaris/Linux exchange. A good place for
  this is an extra /export/share partition.

  Please Note: If you abort during the Solaris installation, the MBR of
  your hard disk may already be overwritten and you may not be able to
  boot from the hard disk at all.

  4.2.  Web-Start

  I couldn't get Web-Start to work at all. Please mail me if you have
  any experience using it.

  However, once Solaris was installed, I had no problems adding web-
  start-packages

  4.3.  Getting GNU-tools

  Solaris standard installation doesn't even have a less command. Some
  people recommend getting the Redhat Package Manager (RPM) for Solaris,
  but the standard packaging tool will usually do it. You can find many
  nice packages at http://www.sunfreeware.com The standard packages can
  be used with pkgadd <package>, and the web-start packages with
  java <packagewithoutclassextension>

  5.  Boot managing

  5.1.  Using the Solaris boot manager

  When booting, the Solaris boot manager gives you all 4 primary
  partitions for choosing which to boot from. If you had your boot
  loader installed on the boot sector of a primary partition, everything
  should be fine. Just boot from this partition, and Linux should come
  up.

  5.2.  Using lilo

  Now you have lilo as a secondary boot loader, but you want it to be
  your primary boot loader again? No Problem. Lilo can easily chain boot
  Solaris. Just add the appropriate other= lines to your lilo.conf

  For testing, you should add the Solaris chain loading to the lilo in
  your boot sector first. Then try chain loading lilo, Solaris, lilo,
  Solaris, ... until you have enough of it. If this works, you should be
  able to put lilo back into the MBR again.
  However, Solaris might have messed up your partition table. This has
  happened on my system after installation of Solaris 8. Lilo doesn't
  like the new partition, nor does fdisk. I had no problems with
  Solaris 7

  5.3.  Using grub

  Unfortunately, I have no experience with grub booting Solaris. If you
  do, please mail me!

  6.  Sharing data

  6.1.  Using a shared partition

  If you have build your kernel with Sun disk label support and UFS
  support as mentioned in section ``building your new kernel'', you are
  now able to mount your Solaris partitions. During boot up, you should
  get something similar to:

    hda: [PTBL] [523/255/63] hda1 hda2 < hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 > hda3 <Polaris: [s0]
    hda9 [s1] hda10 [s2] hda11 [s3] hda12 [s6] hda13 [s7] hda14 >


  Meaning (in this case): partition 3 (hda3) is a Solaris partition with
  6 slices (s0,s1,s2,s3,s6,s7). They are mapped to Linux devices hda9 to
  hda14.

  Try mounting your Solaris partitions. When mounting UFS partitions,
  you always have to add an -oufstype= argument, in this case
  -oufstype=sunx86. So the command to mount a partition is something
  like:

    mount -oufstype=sunx86 /dev/hda14 /mnt


  Now, test your partition. Please note: The write support on UFS parti­
  tions is very experimental. Please don't trust any data you write on
  your UFS partitions!

  If you want your Solaris partitions automatically mounted at boot
  time, you can add a line like

    /dev/hda14 /solaris ufs ufstype=sunx86 0 0


  to your /etc/fstab

  6.2.  Alternative ways

  And, of course there are always other ways of sharing data:

     Floppy disk
        I don't know which floppy disk file systems are supported by
        Solaris. Do you? Mail me.

     Network
        Solaris knows NFS. Linux knows NFS. This might actually be the
        best way of sharing data

  7.  Running foreign binaries

  7.1.  Linux binaries on Solaris

  Is supposed to work using a program called ``lxrun''. I haven't got
  around to testing it yet. See the Solaris web site for more
  information.
  7.2.  Solaris binaries on Linux

  Are as far as I know unsupported

  H.  Finding additional info

  Here are some URI that might help you:

  ·  Sun Freeware <http://www.sunfreeware.com>
     My first stop for Solaris resources. Has many GNU-tools in binary
     format ready to install.

  ·  Sun Microsystems <http://www.sun.com>

     Suns official web page

  ·  Solaris Homepage <http://www.sun.com/Solaris>

  ·  Solaris Hardware Compatibility List (HCL)
     <http://soldc.sun.com/support/drivers/hcl/index.html>

  ·  Solaris Online Documentation <http://docs.sun.com>

  ·  My Website <http://www.xslt.de>
     You will always find the newest version of this document somewhere
     on this page

  I.  Credits and legal stuff

  I.1.  Credits

  Thanks to Marcel Meyer for beta testing this HOWTO while installing
  Solaris on his machine

  I.2.  Questions, comments, suggestions

  Are always welcome. You can reach me via e-mail at max.berger@xslt.de

  I.3.  License

  This document is copyrighted Đ by Max Berger. You may use and/or
  modify it according to the Linux Documentation Project License (LDPL)
  found at http://www.linuxdoc.org/COPYRIGHT.html.

  According to the license you don't have to tell me, but I'd very much
  like to know when you modify and/or republish this document.

  Although the information given in this document is believed to be
  correct, the author will accept no liability for the content of this
  document. Use the tips and examples given herein at your own risk.



