Transitioning From Oracle® Solaris 10 to Oracle Solaris 11.2

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Updated: December 2014
 
 

Firmware, Disk Labeling, and EEPROM Changes

    If you are transitioning from Oracle Solaris 10, note the following feature changes:

  • 64-Bit UEFI firmware support – Oracle Solaris 11 supports x86 based systems with 64-bit UEFI firmware. An installation on UEFI firmware is supported through the DVD, USB, and network installation methods. UEFI version 2.1+ is required.

    If you are booting a system with UEFI firmware from the network, the boot process has changed slightly. See Booting Systems With UEFI and BIOS Firmware From the Network in Booting and Shutting Down Oracle Solaris 11.2 Systems for more details.

  • Support for GPT labeled disks– GPT labeled disks are supported on both SPARC and x86 platforms. Installing an x86 or SPARC based system with GPT-aware firmware applies a GPT disk label on the root pool disk that uses the entire disk in most cases. For SPARC based systems that support a GPT labeled boot disk, see SPARC: GPT Labeled Disk Support in Oracle Solaris 11.2 Release Notes Firmware Issues in Oracle Solaris 11.2 Release Notes for information about how to apply the GPT-aware firmware update. Otherwise, installing Oracle Solaris 11.2 on a SPARC based system applies an SMI (VTOC) label to the root pool disk with a single slice 0.

  • Setting EEPROM variables on UEFI enabled systems – For UEFI enabled systems, the parameters are stored in two places: Oracle Solaris specific variables are stored in the bootenv.rc file and UEFI specific variables are set in the NVRAM store. Unlike SPARC based systems with the OpenBoot PROM (OBP), Oracle Solaris variables are not consumed by UEFI firmware. To enable the availability of UEFI specific variables available, you can use the eeprom command with the –u option. Most UEFI variables are in a binary format and are translated to a readable format. When translation is not possible, a hexdump is printed. See eeprom (1M) for details of this change.

  • Installing boot blocks — You use the bootadm install-bootloader command to install or reinstall the boot loader on both SPARC and x86 based systems. This command replaces the installboot command on SPARC platforms and the installgrub command x86 platforms. See bootadm (1M) .