The wonderful thing about OpenSolaris is that you can make it run as either 32 bit or 64 bit by just editing the parameters that GRUB uses when it boots up the kernel. Thus there is no need to have a separate 32 bit or 64 bit installation because you can switch it any time you want just by editing GRUB provided that your hardware allows you to run in both 32 bit and 64 bit modes.
I think Solaris is way ahead of Linux and Microsoft Windoze when it comes to 32-bit / 64-bit interoperability (i.e. running 32 bit programs smoothly in 64 it mode) and it's also ahead when it comes to built in kernel-level virtualization (Branded Zones / Containers) and multithreading / memory / resource management (some of the self-healing capabilities you get when you run it on SPARC hardware are particularly stunning IMO). However, Solaris is also way, way, way, WAY behind most Linux distros in terms of having good support for Intel x86 hardware, as you have just found out with your laptop adventures. I bet there's probably still a way we'll get it to boot, but it will probably take some grub tweaking to pull it off. I remember Ubuntu used to have some similar problems booting on some of my laptops a year or two ago on one of the older versions, maybe Ubuntu version 6.0 or version 7.0? Don't remember. Anyway, all the Ubuntu issues with some of those laptops seem to have been solved with 8.04 and 8.10. Those canonical engineers are some of the fastest guys out there when it comes to cranking out device drivers and fixing this kind of stuff. Have to give them props for a job well done. Hopefully OpenSolaris Indiana will be at the same place in two years time. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
