In general, there are at least two problems: * Linux swap partition ID conflicts with original Solaris partition ID 0x82 (IIRC even though the Solaris partition ID might have been in wider use earlier, although this isn't clear; AFAIK, both Linux and Solaris x86 were released in the same year, and if there is an "official" registry of partition IDs, I haven't been able to find it yet); to avoid this, newer Solaris (since something like 2005) prefers a new partition ID (0xbf) that doesn't conflict
* other OS's bootloaders (typically even versions of GRUB that come with Linux) may not know how to boot Solaris; in some cases, that can be circumvented, see for example http://www.linuxselfhelp.com/gnu/grub/html_chapter/grub_4.html the section on booting an unsupported operating system (which uses rootnoverify, makeactive, and chainload) and sometimes a third problem: * some OS's installers don't play nice and co-exist nicely with already-installed OSs. Probably the simplest solution to these problems is to simply install Solaris _last_, leaving a large enough partition unused by all other installed operating systems. GRUB as packaged with Solaris can be set up to boot Solaris directly, and other OSs either directly or indirectly (as previously described); although there may be some problem areas, the Solaris installer will probably make a reasonable effort to leave other OSs alone, while some installers (notably Windows, I think) will not. If you've already done otherwise, but no partition contents have yet been overwritten, it may be possible to fix things up the way you want, but that's beyond the scope of what I'd attempt to explain, because I've never actually had to deal with it. That may at a minimum require reconfiguring Linux GRUB to chainload Solaris; better would perhaps be (once that's done, or after booting off a Solaris CD perhaps) to re-install the GRUB that comes with Solaris, and let it take charge (since it could boot either Solaris or Linux directly). Either way, to do it safely might require not just following instructions but actually _understanding_ what you were doing. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
