Chapter 1 Introduction

The Solaris 7 Maintenance Update 2 Release Notes explain how to install the Solaris^TM 7 Maintenance Update^TM 2 (MU2) software, a set of patches that have been tested together and packaged for one-step installation. These release notes are for system administrators installing the MU2 software. If you need more information on general procedures for system administration, refer to the Solaris 7 System Administration Guide.

The Solaris 7 MU2 applies to all systems running Solaris 7 software and to all Solaris 7 locales. The installation automatically updates previously installed patches without regressing any patches that are resident on your system.

Maintenance updates are primarily designed to update the Solaris operating software to a known, tested patch-level. If you want to apply a particular patch, and only that patch, you should do so through your normal support channels.

The Solaris 7 MU2 (Intel Platform Edition) contains bug fixes and performance improvements to existing driver support. If you intend to upgrade your hardware, use the Solaris 7 5/99 CD for additional hardware support.

The name of this product is Solaris 7 MU2, but code and path or package path names may use Solaris 2.7 or SunOS^TM 5.7. Always follow the code or path as it is written in this document.

The Solaris 7 MU2 installation procedure takes much less time than it takes to install the MU2 patches individually. The Solaris 7 MU2 installation time varies depending on:

• CPU speed of your machine

• install_mu option you select

• Transfer speed of the CD-ROM drive, hard drive, or network you use to access the install_mu code and patch set

If you install the MU2 with the backout option disabled, installation will proceed more quickly. However, you will not be able to back out any of the patches MU2 delivers.

If you are performing an initial installation and want to make install_mu run slightly faster, use the -u option, which skips the validation step of install_mu. The validation step verifies that the files to be updated were not changed since the initial installation.