You can install the GNOME 2.0 Desktop on the Solaris 8 operating environment, and subsequently upgrade your system to the Solaris 9 operating environment. However, for each Solaris operating environment, the GNOME 2.0 Desktop has specific patch and package dependencies.
If you upgrade from the Solaris 8 operating environment to the Solaris 9 operating environment, then you must do the following:
Install the required Solaris patches using the Installation Wizard.
Update manually a number of non-GNOME packages that are still present as Solaris 8 packages. You must remove these packages to ensure future Solaris 9 patching.
Solaris 9 Update 4 will contain an updated version of the GNOME Desktop. If you upgrade in future to Solaris 9 Update 4, then you will install a complete new version of the GNOME Desktop.