Solaris 32-bit Sun4U Kernel

Many installations of the Solaris 7, 8, and 9 software use the default 64-bit kernel to support 32-bit and 64-bit applications. Customers who use the 32-bit kernel on UltraSPARC systems should read this notice.

In the Solaris 7, 8 and 9 operating environments, all systems that are based on the UltraSPARC I and UltraSPARC II processors allow administrators the choice of booting a 32-bit kernel or a 64-bit kernel. The UltraSPARC III® and later systems support only the 64-bit kernel.

In a future release of the Solaris operating environment, the 32-bit kernel might not be available for the UltraSPARC I and UltraSPARC II systems.

The primary impact of these changes are to systems that rely on third-party 32-bit kernel modules: firewalls, kernel-resident drivers, and replacement filesystems, for example. These systems must be updated to use 64-bit versions of those modules.

Another impact of these changes is that UltraSPARC systems that contain UltraSPARC I processors with clocks that run at 200MHz or lower frequencies might not be supported in a future release.

To identify the system's kernel type, use the isainfo(1) command.

% isainfo -kv

To identify the system's processor clock rate, use the psrinfo(1M) command.

% psrinfo -v | grep MHz