>> > Seems odd that I can install OS on a Sun Blade 100 >> > with 512MB RAM in full graphical mode, but can't even get the text >> > mode to work on an x86 system with the same amount of memory... >> >> Most of the difference is directly due to running the >> miniroot out of a ramdisk rather than directly off the media. > >So, on SPARC, the miniroot runs off of the CD, but on x86, it loads into a >ramdisk? Do I understan d your statement correctly? Why the difference? Is this due to GRUB requirements?
Yes. Originally, both ran the miniroot from disk but this required the realmode drivers for bootstrapping (loading bits from all over the place until the disk/net device driver was loaded). BIOSes turned out to be extremely brittle under the demands of Solaris booting and reading scores of files and the need for real mode drivers made driver development much harder. With grub, we just use the BIOS to load a single large file and uncompress it; this can be done using BIOS calls and doesn't require the realmode drivers. >If I [i]have[/i] understood the statement correctly, then the installer is >problematic for exactly those people that would most likely be one of our new target audiences; that is, users trying OS o ut on an older spare x86 system. Is there a way around this? It also means that people like me (exp erienced, wanting to build a system for someone else) are also toast. I [i]really[/i] don't want to load some Linux variant on this system, because I would then have to build and support something I don't even use myself. :-( (I also don't want to spend $$ on memory for a system I am giving away .) It is hard to get around. Is it the graphical install you want or is it just the 256MB limit which is bad? Casper
