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 provide 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 is to systems that rely on third-party, 32-bit kernel modules: firewalls, kernel-resident drivers, and replacement file systems, 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 200 MHz 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