Solaris 10 11/06 Installation Guide: Planning for Installation and Upgrade

What's New in the Solaris 10 1/06 Release for Solaris Installation

This section describes the following new installation features in the Solaris 10 1/06 release.

Upgrading the Solaris OS When Non-Global Zones Are Installed

Solaris Zones partitioning technology provides the ability to configure non-global zones in a single instance of Solaris, the global zone. A non-global zone is an application execution environment in which processes are isolated from all other zones. Starting with the Solaris 10 1/06 release and if you are running a system with non-global zones installed, you can use standard Solaris upgrade programs to upgrade. You can use either the Solaris interactive installation program or custom JumpStart to upgrade. There are some limitations to upgrading with non-global zones installed.

For details on using the Solaris interactive installation program, see Solaris 10 11/06 Installation Guide: Basic Installations

x86: GRUB Based Booting

Starting with the Solaris 10 1/06 release, the open source GNU GRand Unified Boot Loader (GRUB) has been adopted in the Solaris OS for x86 based systems. GRUB is responsible for loading a boot archive into the system's memory. A boot archive is a collection of critical files that is needed during system startup before the root (/) file system is mounted. The boot archive is used to boot the Solaris OS.

The most notable change is the replacement of the Solaris Device Configuration Assistant with the GRUB menu. The GRUB menu facilitates booting the different operating systems that are installed on your system. The GRUB menu is displayed when you boot an x86 based system. From the GRUB menu, you can select an OS instance to install by using the arrow keys. If you do not make a selection, the default OS instance is booted.

The GRUB based boot feature provides the following improvements:

For more information about GRUB refer to the following sections.

Task 

GRUB Task 

For More Information 

Installation 

Overview information about GRUB based booting 

x86: GRUB Based Booting (Overview)

Installation planning for GRUB based booting 

x86: GRUB Based Booting (Planning)

How to boot and install over the network with the GRUB menu 

Installing the System From the Network With a DVD Image in Solaris 10 11/06 Installation Guide: Network-Based Installations

How to boot and install with the GRUB menu and the Custom JumpStart installation method 

Performing a Custom JumpStart Installation in Solaris 10 11/06 Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations

How to use the GRUB menu and Solaris Live Upgrade to activate and fall back to boot environments  

Locating the GRUB menu's menu.lst file

Locating the GRUB Menu’s menu.lst File (Tasks) in Solaris 10 11/06 Installation Guide: Solaris Live Upgrade and Upgrade Planning

System Administration 

How to perform system administration tasks with the GRUB menu 


Note –

GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not UNIX.” For more information, go to http://www.gnu.org.


Upgrade Support Changes for Solaris Releases

Starting with the Solaris 10 1/06 release, you can upgrade the Solaris OS from the Solaris 8, 9, or 10 releases. Upgrades from the Solaris 7 release are not supported.