> I am hoping to get to the Sun Studio on OpenSolaris. > It would be nice to exercise some code under the Sun > compilers as well as the Mac, Windows and Linux ones > I already have. The surest way to find portability > problems is to try another compiler. > > My WhiteBox PC (ASUS P5K) is on the hardware list as > supposedly OK. The liveCD works nicely, is friendly > and even reads CNN. > > But after the install there are two immediate > problems. 1. The eject button on my CD drive has been > disabled so it is useless until software (or a reset) > enables it again. So no eject before the reboot. 2. > The Boot HDD option seems to go to the first disk > even though the installer was quite happy to use a > partition on the second disk. So no booting to the > partition just installed to. Disk 1 has three > generations of Windows so primary partitions are in > short supply there. > > The question is does OpenSolaris ONLY live on the > first disk as I was told in comp.unix.solaris or will > it operate from the second disk after some amount of > fussing? If the first disk is required then I have > not been able to trip over that fact as it must so > well known that noone bothers to mention it anymore. > It would help if the install objected. Or is this > just a minor fuss that would be helped along by a > Boot HDD#2 option on the CD? Hopefully if control > gets to the Partition Boot Record this will work like > they do for other systems. > > In the short run I will use the BIOS setup to reorder > the disks but that can not last.
When OpenSolaris installs itself onto a disk it changes the partition table so that the partition it is installed into is set as the active partition. It does not change the MBR on that disk or any other disk. If you want to have the option of booting into OpenSolaris and your other operating systems then you have 2 options: 1. "Chainload" the OpenSolaris-supplied GRUB from whatever boot loader you use on the other hard disk. This might be your easiest option if you currently use GRUB or LILO as your main bootloader. 2. Set the disk containing OpenSolaris as the first in the BIOS HDD boot order, and "chainload" your existing bootloader. This is probably the easiest option if you use the NT Boot Loader used with Windows version up to and including XP and Server 2003. (Vista is different). "Chainload" means that the bootloader simply runs the other bootloader directly (GRUB uses the option "chainload"). If you have Linux installed you can usually boot this directly from the OpenSolaris boot menu, although support for booting from partitions identified by GUIDs is missing from the OpenSolaris-supplied GRUB. I don't know what a "Partition Boot Record" is. OpenSolaris places its version of GRUB in the first cylinder of the partition it is installed in. Cheers Andrew. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
