Very Computer

Is it possible to install multi OS on the same disk drive? Like if I have a
40GB disk drive in my system, and I would like to install Sol. 9, 8, 7, 6,
in this drive, is it possible? If you can lead me to where the info to
accomplished this task, I trully and greatly appreciate it. Much thanks in
advance.

Yes, this is a utility. It is called open boot prom. Here is how you
can possibly do it. Install different versions of Solaris on the same
disk, but each should use a separate partition(s). You might get away
with using a single swap space partition but I am not sure about it (I
believe under certain circumstances the OS does use the swap to store
data between reboots, so it's better to use separate swap slices for
each OS). Once you have several versions of the OS installed, you can
simply select which OS to boot with command "boot <blah>" where blah
is the abstract path name that refers to the disk and the slice letter
on it from which you're trying to boot. Of course, typing a full
device name is a pain. I would create a device alias with nvalias
command and store it nvram with nvstore.

--
Akop Pogosian

This space has been accidentally left blank.

On Tue, 30 Jul 2002 21:49:17 -0700



:  
: > Is it possible to install multi OS on the same disk drive? Like if I have a
: > 40GB disk drive in my system, and I would like to install Sol. 9, 8, 7, 6,
: > in this drive, is it possible? If you can lead me to where the info to
: > accomplished this task, I trully and greatly appreciate it. Much thanks in
: > advance.
:  
:  Probably not on the same disk for Solaris SPARC.  There's no utility to
:  allow you to switch between OS versions on SPARC.  You can do it with 1
:  disk per each version without a problem.  

Sure there is: OpenBoot 2.5 or later allows specifying slices in the
boot device.

http://www.science.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2/Q3.46.html

--

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migrating caribou." "Now I have this image in my mind of a fish embracing and
extending a caribou." -- Paul Tomblin and Christian Bauernfeind in the SDM

Quote:>> Is it possible to install multi OS on the same disk drive? Like if I have a
>> 40GB disk drive in my system, and I would like to install Sol. 9, 8, 7, 6,
>> in this drive, is it possible? If you can lead me to where the info to
>> accomplished this task, I trully and greatly appreciate it. Much thanks in
>> advance.

>Probably not on the same disk for Solaris SPARC.  There's no utility to
>allow you to switch between OS versions on SPARC.

there certainly is, it's called OpenBoot.  you can specify the partition
to boot from as a modifier to the device pathname or device alias.
"boot disk:d" would boot from partition "d" (slice 3).

you can use devalias (nvalias) to create friendly names for the
various operating systems:

        nvalias solaris9 disk:d

once those friendly names are set up you can "boot solaris9" instead
of "disk:d".  setting auto-boot?  to false will allow the user to choose
each time the machine is powered on.  otherwise just set boot-device to
the default operating system.

The only thing the OS might put in swap between boots would be a core
dump.  Nothing wrong with sharing swap between the OSs.

Quote:> Are there any installation gotcha's?  I think Solaris 8 and 9 don't let
> you select the partition that's used for swap.  They might write over
> slice 0.

Depends on how you do the installation.  The old 'suninstall' is still
available with no problem.

Quote:> This isn't as easy as you make it out to be.  I think there will be much
> pain and suffering involved.

Not really.

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