Issues You Need to Know About Before Installing Solaris 8 Software

Insufficient Space for Extra Languages During Upgrade (4414329)

When you upgrade from the Solaris 2.6 and Solaris 7 operating environments using a CD or CD images, extra European languages might be installed for locales that are not present on the system. If there is insufficient space in the file system, the upgrade will not complete. Languages for locales that are present on the system may not be installed.

Workaround: Choose one of the following workarounds.

Manually select the languages you want installed during the upgrade process. Follow these steps.
1. When the Language CD install panel is displayed, click the Back button.
2. Deselect the extra languages and continue with the upgrade.
Use a combined net install image to upgrade from the Solaris 2.6 and Solaris 7 operating environments. Do not use CDs or CD images to upgrade.
After upgrading, follow these steps.
1. Login to the system.
2. Run prodreg.
3. Uninstall any extra languages.
4. Insert the Language CD into your CD-ROM drive and run the top level installer.
5. Choose Custom Install.
6. Select the languages you want installed.
7. Complete the Language CD installation by clicking the Next and Install Now buttons.

Previous Versions of Solaris Management Console Software Are Not Compatible With Solaris Management Console 2.0 Software

If you upgrade to the Solaris 8 10/01 , or compatible, operating environment and you have Solaris Management Console^TM 1.0, 1.0.1, or 1.0.2 software installed, you must uninstall the Solaris Management Console software before you upgrade. Solaris Management Console 2.0 software is not compatible with any previous version of the console. Solaris Management Console software might exist on your system if you installed the SEAS 2.0 overbox, the SEAS 3.0 overbox, or the Solaris 8 Admin Pack.

Workaround: Choose one of the following workarounds.

Before you upgrade, run /usr/bin/prodreg and perform a full uninstall of the Solaris Management Console software.
If you did not uninstall Solaris Management Console 1.0, 1.0.1, or 1.0.2 software before you upgraded, you must remove all Solaris Management Console 1.0, 1.0.1., or 1.0.2 software packages. You must use pkgrm for package removal instead of prodreg and you must carefully follow the order of package removal. Follow these steps.
1. Become superuser.
2. In a terminal window, type the following commands.
  # pkginfo |grep "Solaris Management Console" # pkginfo |grep "Solaris Management Applications" # pkginfo |grep "Solaris Diskless Client Management Application"
  The package names in the output identify a Solaris Management Console 1.0 software package if the description does not start with "Solaris Management Console 2.0."
3. Use pkgrm to remove all instances of Solaris Management Console 1.0 software packages in the following order.
  
  Note -
  Do not remove any package that has "Solaris Management Console 2.0" in the description. For example, SUNWmc.2 might indicate the Solaris Management Console 2.0 software.
  
  Note -
  If the pkginfo output displays multiple versions of Solaris Management Console 1.0 software packages, use pkgrm to remove both packages. Remove the original package first and then the package that has been appended with a number. For example, if the SUNWmcman and SUNWmcman.2 packages appear in the pkginfo output, first remove SUNWmcman and then SUNWmcman.2. Do not use prodreg.
  # pkgrm SUNWmcman # pkgrm SUNWmcapp # pkgrm SUNWmcsvr # pkgrm SUNWmcsvu # pkgrm SUNWmc # pkgrm SUNWmcc # pkgrm SUNWmcsws
4. In a terminal window, type the following command.
  # rm -rf /var/sadm/pkg/SUNWmcapp
The Solaris Management Console 2.0 software should now function. For future maintenance, or if the console does not function properly, remove the Solaris Management Console 2.0 software and reinstall it by following the next steps.
1. In a terminal window type the following commands.
  # pkginfo |grep "Solaris Management Console" # pkginfo |grep "Solaris Management Applications" # pkginfo |grep "Solaris Diskless Client Management Application"
  The package names in the output identify the remaining Solaris Management Console software packages that are installed on your system.
2. Use pkgrm to remove all Solaris Management Console 2.0 software packages in the following order.
  
  Note -
  If your system has multiple instances of Solaris Management Console 2.0 software packages, such as SUNWmc and SUNWmc.2, first remove SUNWmc, and then SUNWmc.2. Do not use prodreg.
  # pkgrm SUNWdclnt # pkgrm SUNWmga # pkgrm SUNWmgapp # pkgrm SUNWmcdev # pkgrm SUNWmcex # pkgrm SUNWwbmc # pkgrm SUNWmc # pkgrm SUNWmcc # pkgrm SUNWmccom
3. Insert the Solaris 8 Software (Intel Platform Edition) 1 of 2 CD into your CD-ROM drive and type the following in a terminal window.
  # cd /cdrom/sol_8_1001_ia/s0/Solaris_8/Product # pkgadd -d . SUNWmccom SUNWmcc SUNWmc SUNWwbmc SUNWmcex SUNWmcdev \ SUNWmgapp SUNWmga SUNWdclnt
All previous versions of the Solaris Management Console software are now removed and the Solaris Management Console 2.0 software is functional.

Locale Installation Mechanism Change

The locale support installation mechanism has changed in the Solaris 8 operating environment. In the Solaris 2.5.1, 2.6, and 7 operating environments, the level of locale support that was installed depended on the software cluster that was chosen. The Solaris 8 operating environment includes a new installation interface that prompts you to select specific geographic regions for which you require locale support. Therefore, you can customize the configuration of your system at installation of the Solaris 8 operating environment with more freedom than in the Solaris 2.5.1, 2.6, and 7 operating environments.

Notice especially the following behaviors:

You must select the locales to be installed during the initial installation in the Geographic Selection screen. C (POSIX locale) and en_US.UTF-8 (Unicode support) are the only locales that are automatically installed.
When you upgrade from previous releases, some of the locales are automatically selected, depending on the available locales on the system to be upgraded. Note that English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish partial locales were always present on the system in the Solaris 2.5.1, 2.6, and 7 operating environments.
Unicode locales (UTF-8) have a feature to enable multilingual text input. Because these locales use Asian input methods that are provided by each individual locale, install those Asian locales for which you need to type text.

Do Not Install a Large Partition on Systems That Already Have Installed `symhisl`, `mega`, or `cpqncr` Disk Controller Drivers

Do not attempt to install a large partition that extends beyond the 8-Gbyte boundary on a disk that uses any of the controllers that are listed next. If you do attempt to install such a partition, the installed system does not behave properly.

The Solaris operating environment installation program cannot detect that the driver does not support large partitions. The installation continues without displaying an error. However, when you reboot your system, the reboot might fail.

Even if you successfully reboot your system, it will fail later because of other changes that are related to boot devices or added packages. The disk controllers that are associated with these drivers are the following.

Symbios 53C896-based controllers (symhisl)

AMI MegaRAID controllers (mega)

Compaq 53C8xx-based SCSI controllers (cpqncr)

Workaround: Do not install a large partition that extends beyond the first 8 Gbytes of a disk on systems that have disk controllers that are driven by the symhisl, mega, or cpqncr drivers.

Update the DPT PM2144UW Controller BIOS to the Latest Revision Before Upgrading to the Solaris 8 Operating Environment

The Solaris 8 operating environment includes a new feature that enables you to install large partitions. The DPT PM2144UW controller's BIOS must support logical block addressing (LBA). The latest revision of the BIOS fully supports LBA access. The problem can also affect other DPT controller models.

Workaround: Prior to upgrading your system to the Solaris 8 operating environment, ensure that the DPT PM2144UW controller's BIOS is the latest available version from DPT.

To determine if your system has a DPT controller, perform the following steps:

Run the prtconf -D.
If the name dpt is displayed, run the card's configuration utility to obtain information about the model and BIOS revision.
Upgrade DPT PM2144UW controllers by flashing the BIOS or by installing the latest BIOS EPROM that you have obtained from DPT. See http://www.dpt.com for the latest BIOS images for all DPT controllers.

You can now upgrade the system to the Solaris 8 operating environment.

Do Not Upgrade Hewlett-Packard (HP) Vectra XU Series Systems With BIOS Version GG.06.13

The Solaris 8 operating environment includes a new feature that enables you to install large partitions. The system BIOS must support logical block addressing (LBA). BIOS Version GG.06.13 does not support LBA access. The Solaris boot programs cannot manage this conflict. The problem can also affect other HP Vectra systems.

If you perform this upgrade, your HP system can no longer boot. Only a blank black screen with a flashing underscore cursor is displayed.

Workaround: Do not upgrade HP Vectra XU Series systems with the latest BIOS Version GG.06.13 to the Solaris 8 operating environment because it no longer supports these systems.

You can still boot your system by using the boot diskette or boot CD because the boot paths do not use the hard disk code. Then select the hard disk as your bootable device instead of the network or CD-ROM drive.

Direct Memory Access (DMA) Is Disabled on PCI-IDE Systems

By default, the Solaris ata device driver has the DMA feature disabled for ATA/ATAPI devices. Installing the Solaris 8 operating environment works properly with DMA disabled.

To enable the DMA feature for improved performance, see "Direct Memory Access (DMA) Is Disabled On PCI-IDE Systems".