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Requirements and Preparation for Installing the Solaris 10 Software

The first step in the installation is to determine whether your system type is supported under Solaris 10. Second, you need to decide which system configuration you want to install and whether you have enough disk space to support that configuration.

In preparation for installing Solaris 10 on a system, use Table 2.1 to check whether your system type is supported. Also, make sure you have enough disk space for Solaris and all of the packages you plan to install. (The section "Software Terminology" later in this chapter will help you estimate the amount of disk space required to hold the Solaris operating system.)

Table 2.1. Sun Platforms That Support the Solaris 10 Environment

System

Platform Name

Platform Group

Workstation Systems

Sun Blade 100

SUNW,Sun-Blade-100

 

Sun Blade 150

SUNW,Sun-Blade-100

 

Sun Blade 1000

SUNW,Sun-Blade-1000

 

Sun Blade 1500

SUNW,Sun-Blade-1000

 

Sun Blade 2000

SUNW,Sun-Blade-1000

 

Sun Blade 2500

SUNW,Sun-Blade-1000

 

Ultra 2

SUNW,Ultra-2

 

Ultra 5

SUNW,Ultra-5_10

 

Ultra 10

SUNW,Ultra-5_10

 

Ultra 30

SUNW,Ultra-30

 

Ultra 60

SUNW,Ultra-60

 

Ultra 80

SUNW,Ultra-80

 

Ultra 450

SUNW,Ultra-4

Entry/Workgroup Servers

Sun Fire V100

SUNW,UltraAX-i2

 

Sun Fire V120

SUNW,UltraAX-i2

 

Sun Fire V210

SUNW,Sun-Fire-V210

 

Sun Fire V240

SUNW,Sun-Fire-V240

 

Sun Fire V250

SUNW,Sun-Fire-V250

 

Sun Fire 280R

SUNW,Sun-Fire-280R

 

Sun Fire V440

SUNW,Sun-Fire-V440

 

Sun Fire V480

SUNW,Sun-Fire-480

 

Sun Fire V490

SUNW,Sun-Fire-490

 

Sun Fire V880

SUNW,Sun-Fire-880

 

Sun Fire V890

SUNW,Sun-Fire-890

 

Sun Fire B100s

SUNW,Serverblade1

 

Sun Fire B10n

SUNW,Serverblade1

 

Sun Enterprise 2

SUNW,Ultra-2

 

Sun Enterprise Ultra 5S

SUNW,Ultra-5_10

 

Sun Enterprise Ultra 10S

SUNW,Ultra-5_10

 

Sun Enterprise 250

SUNW,Ultra-250

 

Sun Enterprise 450

SUNW,Ultra-4

 

Sun Enterprise 220R

SUNW,Ultra-60

 

Sun Enterprise 420R

SUNW,Ultra-80

Mid-Range and Mid-Frame Servers

Sun Fire V1280

SUNW,Netra-T12

 

Sun Fire 3800

SUNW,Sun-Fire

 

Sun Fire 4800

SUNW,Sun-Fire

 

Sun Fire 4810

SUNW,Sun-Fire

 

Sun Fire 6800

SUNW,Sun-Fire

 

Sun Fire E2900

SUNW,Sun-Fire

 

Sun Fire E4900

SUNW,Sun-Fire

 

Sun Fire E6900

SUNW,Sun-Fire

 

Sun Enterprise 3000

SUNW,Ultra-Enterprise

 

Sun Enterprise 4000

SUNW,Ultra-Enterprise

 

Sun Enterprise 5000

SUNW,Ultra-Enterprise

 

Sun Enterprise 6000

SUNW,Ultra-Enterprise

 

Sun Enterprise 3500

SUNW,Ultra-Enterprise

 

Sun Enterprise 4500

SUNW,Ultra-Enterprise

 

Sun Enterprise 5500

SUNW,Ultra-Enterprise

 

Sun Enterprise 6500

SUNW,Ultra-Enterprise

High-End Servers

Sun Fire E20K

SUNW,Sun-Fire-Enterprise-20K

 

Sun Fire E25K

SUNW,Sun-Fire-Enterprise-25K

 

Sun Fire 12K

SUNW,Sun-Fire-12000

 

Sun Fire 15K

SUNW,Sun-Fire-15000

 

Sun Enterprise 10000

SUNW,Ultra-Enterprise

Netra Servers

Netra 20

SUNW,Netra-T4

 

Netra 120

SUNW,UltraAX-i2

 

Netra 240

SUNW,Netra-240

 

Netra 440

SUNW,Netra-440

 

Netra 1280

SUNW,Netra-T12

 

Netra T1 AC200/DC200

SUNW,UltraAX-i2

 

Netra X1

SUNW,UltraAX-i2

 

Netra ct 400

SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIi-Netract

 

Netra ct 800

SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIi-Netract

 

Netra CT 820

SUNW,Netra-CP2300

 

Netra CP2300

SUNW,Netra-CP2300

 

Netra t1 100

SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIi-cEngine

 

Netra t1 105

SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIi-cEngine

 

Netra t 1120

SUNW,Ultra-60

 

Netra t 1125

SUNW,Ultra-60

 

Netra t 1400

SUNW,Ultra-80

 

Netra t 1405

SUNW,Ultra-80


If your system is running a previous version of Solaris, you can determine your system type using the uname -m command. The system will respond with the platform group and the platform name for your system. Compare the system response to the Platform Group column in Table 2.1. For example, to check for Sun platforms that support the Solaris 10 environment, use the command uname -m. On a Sun Ultra5, the system returns sun4u as the platform name and on an x86/x64 system, the command will return i86pc as the platform name.

Note

OpenBoot Commands To determine the system type on a system that is not currently running some version of Solaris, you'll need to use the OpenBoot commands described in the next chapter.


Table 2.1 outlines a general list of Sun systems that support Solaris 10. For a complete, up-to-date listing of all hardware that is compatible with the Solaris 10 OE, including all x86/x64-based systems, go to http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/. This site features a searchable database to quickly locate equipment in three categories: Sun Certified, Test Suite Certified, and Reported to Work. X86- and x64-based systems are available from many vendors, and the components can vary from system to system. Use this site to track down the specific components that are installed in your system to determine if it is compatible with Solaris 10. Overall, your x86/x64-based system needs to have a 120MHz or faster processor with hardware floating-point support required, a minimum of 128MB of RAM, and 12GB of disk space.

Check slice 2 by using the format command to determine whether your disk drive is large enough to hold Solaris. See Chapter 1, "Managing File Systems," for the correct use of this command. As described in Chapter 1, slice 2 represents the entire disk.

Minimum System Requirements

The computer must meet the following requirements before you can install Solaris 10 using the interactive installation method:

  • The system must have a minimum of 128MB of RAM (256MB is recommended). Sufficient memory requirements are determined by several factors, including the number of active users and applications you plan to run.

    Exam Alert

    Minimum Memory Requirements Although Sun states that 128MB of RAM is the minimum required, it is possible to install Solaris 10 on a system that has 64MB of RAM. With less than 128MB, the system will run sluggishly. It's important that you use Sun's RAM recommendations when you encounter this question on the exam. Also, pay close attention to the question and understand the difference between "minimum" and "recommended."


  • The media is distributed on CD-ROM and DVD only, so a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive is required either locally or on the network. You can use all of the Solaris installation methods to install the system from a networked CD-ROM or DVD-ROM.

  • A minimum of 2GB of disk space is required. See the next section for disk space requirements for the specific Solaris software you plan to install. Also, remember to add disk space to support your environment's swap space requirements.

  • When upgrading the operating system, you must have an empty 512MB slice on the disk. The swap slice is preferred, but you can use any slice that will not be used in the upgrade such as root (/), /usr, /var, and /opt.

  • The system must be a SPARC-based or supported x86/x64-based system.


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