As mentioned before, I hate dogmas. Very brief information leads to distorted judgments frequently. And it would be really pitty to say 1) Solaris needs SPARC for running and 2) Everything including install is really hard. Well, 2x no 🙂
Downloading and installing
You can download Oracle Solaris 11.1 through this page. Please have on mind that x86 means really architecture – Solaris 11.1 is only 64-bit operating system – and x86 is mentioned just to distinguish this architecture from SPARC. And please also invest time for license reading. There were many changes during last year.
Create new Virtualbox machine, consider your options and Solaris 11 requirements (2GB minimum for running seemed to me very low) – I choose 8GB RAM allocation (counting with ZFS, java graphical environment and Oracle/DB2 databases running), 4 cores. After mounting iso (sol-11_1-live-x86.iso this time, graphical install mode), installer will run. After few minutes of waiting…
…you will be asked for keyboard layout and install language (both default values = English). After another few moments you will see classical (GNOME 2) gui:
Installer looks really familiar (at least for those who already installed Oracle database :-D):
6 steps (without first and last page) and installation is done? You must be joking, that seems much better than many linux distributions!!!! 🙂
No other choice…
Now few words – as you know, UEFI is unfortunately here. Solaris 11.1 is (U)EFI compliant operating system. BIOS Boot Partition is essential (and if you check this partition after installation, it will have BOOT flag). So don´t be scared and continue 🙂 (more information about boot process can be found here).
Nice! 🙂
Basic user information, no surprises till now 🙂
If you have subscription, don´t hesitate to admit it…
Final step. Is it possible? Really? Wow again! 🙂
Installation in progress…..
After rebooting I bet the first thing you want to do (if you plan to really use this virtual appliance) is installing Virtualbox Additional Tools.
Virtualbox Host Tools installation
Connect VBOXADDITION content from Devices menu.
You can see file called „VBoxSolarisAdditions.pkg“. What a surprise! Not really, Virtualbox belongs to Oracle (thx Sun), Solaris belongs to Oracle (thx Sun). Ok, enough of irony.
Now the mos beautiful part of installing. Those who are familiar with installing Tools with linux knows that there must be headers, gcc and few others packages installed in system. Well, everything you know about linux troubles, forget it!
All is done by one simple command. Interesting!
root@solaris:/home/j/Desktop/some# pkgadd -d ./VBoxSolarisAdditions.pkg
The following packages are available:
1 SUNWvboxguest Oracle VM VirtualBox Guest Additions
(i386) 4.3.8,REV=r92456.2014.02.25.18.34
Select package(s) you wish to process (or ‚all‘ to process
all packages). (default: all) [?,??,q]: <ENTER>
Processing package instance <SUNWvboxguest> from </home/j/Desktop/some/VBoxSolarisAdditions.pkg>
Oracle VM VirtualBox Guest Additions(i386) 4.3.8,REV=r92456.2014.02.25.18.34
Oracle Corporation
Using </> as the package base directory.
## Processing package information.
## Processing system information.
## Verifying package dependencies.
## Verifying disk space requirements.
## Checking for conflicts with packages already installed.
## Checking for setuid/setgid programs.
This package contains scripts which will be executed with super-user
permission during the process of installing this package.
Do you want to continue with the installation of <SUNWvboxguest> [y,n,?] y
Installing Oracle VM VirtualBox Guest Additions as <SUNWvboxguest>
## Installing part 1 of 1.
/etc/fs/vboxfs/mount <symbolic link>
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/1099.vboxclient
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/LICENSE
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/VBox.sh
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/VBoxClient
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/VBoxClient.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/VBoxControl.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/VBoxService.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/pam_vbox.so
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxfs
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxfs_s10
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxfsmount
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxmslnk
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_110.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_111.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_112.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_113.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_114.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_13.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_14.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_15.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_16.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_17.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_18.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_19.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_70.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/amd64/vboxvideo_drv_71.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/VBoxClient.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/VBoxControl.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/VBoxService.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/pam_vbox.so
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxfs
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxfs_s10
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxfsmount
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxmslnk
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_110.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_111.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_112.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_113.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_114.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_13.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_14.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_15.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_16.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_17.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_18.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_19.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_70.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/i386/vboxvideo_drv_71.so.Z
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/solaris_xorg.conf
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/solaris_xorg_modeless.conf
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/vboxclient.desktop
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/vboxguest.sh
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/x11config15sol.pl
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/x11restore.pl
/usr/bin/VBoxClient <symbolic link>
/usr/bin/VBoxClient-all <symbolic link>
/usr/bin/VBoxControl <symbolic link>
/usr/bin/VBoxService <symbolic link>
/usr/kernel/drv/amd64/vboxguest
/usr/kernel/drv/amd64/vboxms
/usr/kernel/drv/vboxguest
/usr/kernel/drv/vboxguest.conf
/usr/kernel/drv/vboxms
/usr/kernel/drv/vboxms.conf
/usr/lib/VBoxOGL.so
/usr/lib/VBoxOGLarrayspu.so
/usr/lib/VBoxOGLcrutil.so
/usr/lib/VBoxOGLerrorspu.so
/usr/lib/VBoxOGLfeedbackspu.so
/usr/lib/VBoxOGLpackspu.so
/usr/lib/VBoxOGLpassthroughspu.so
/usr/lib/amd64/VBoxOGL.so
/usr/lib/amd64/VBoxOGLarrayspu.so
/usr/lib/amd64/VBoxOGLcrutil.so
/usr/lib/amd64/VBoxOGLerrorspu.so
/usr/lib/amd64/VBoxOGLfeedbackspu.so
/usr/lib/amd64/VBoxOGLpackspu.so
/usr/lib/amd64/VBoxOGLpassthroughspu.so
/usr/sbin/vboxmslnk <symbolic link>
[ verifying class <none> ]
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/VBoxControl <linked pathname>
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/VBoxISAExec <linked pathname>
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/VBoxService <linked pathname>
/opt/VirtualBoxAdditions/vboxmslnk <linked pathname>
[ verifying class <manifest> ]
## Executing postinstall script.
Uncompressing files…
Configuring VirtualBox guest kernel module…
VirtualBox guest kernel module loaded.
VirtualBox pointer integration module loaded.
Creating links…
Installing video driver for X.Org 1.12.2…
Configuring client…
Installing 64-bit shared folders module…
Installing 32-bit shared folders module…
Configuring services (this might take a while)…
Enabling services…
Updating boot archive…
Done.
Please re-login to activate the X11 guest additions.
If you have just un-installed the previous guest additions a REBOOT is required.
Installation of <SUNWvboxguest> was successful.
root@solaris:/home/j/Desktop/some#
After this quick installation process without any troubles I was really suspicious. According my experiences in linux (I have installed this Tools in linux environment let´s say for 500x times) I KNEW that there must be some „but“ 🙂
After rebooting, everything related to Additional Tools went fine. Just fine. 1 point for this incredible and the real one ENTERPRISE operating system!
-a-