Solaris 9... can it work?

[bgreat]

I have made several attempts to install Solaris 9, and finally have a version that installed and boots. But I am only able to get it to run in text mode. As soon as it attempts to switch to the graphical login, I get the correct size window, but it is black and the virtual machine appears to be hung.

Has anyone been able to get the graphics mode working? If yes, how did you do it?

Thanks in advance,
Bill

 

[rjgebis]

I tried installing Solaris 10 4/06 and no luck so far with beta 6

 

[Andrew @ Parallels]

Please search the forum - there were some tips how to configure X11 for guest Solaris.

 

[bgreat]

I have Solaris 10 running under Parallels. The X11 configuration and network configuration were not difficult.

The issue is with Solaris 9. It seems that the X server VESA driver and the Parallels VESA implementation are not working together. The Parallels window resizes to match the requested resolution, but remains black. I was able to get the network installed and redirect applications to the Mac X11 server for doing some work, but I really need access to the "real" Solaris 9 X11 environment for development work. (If I can make this function reliably, we will be buying several licenses for all of our engineers)

Bill

 

[Andrew @ Parallels]

Ok then - we will check this. Thanks for reporting!

 

[rjgebis]

Andrew,

Will there be a fix for Soalris 10 in next beta? I am stock @ the beginning of installation.

 

[bgreat]

Which Solaris 10 release are you working with? I understand from the Sun forums that there is a problem with the Solaris 10 Express releases even on native hardware -- installation fails due to a reported missing file and then says the image/disk is not a valid install disk. Not really an issue specific to Parallels.

If you use the Solaris 10 release DVD version (dated 1/06), the install is relatively painless -- just be sure you manually configure X11 to use the xorg server, select VESA video, set your desired resolution (with no virtual display support), and select PS/2 mouse. Otherwise the initial display is set some large window with no mouse support and it becomes difficult to reconfigure -- not impossible, you are just typing in the blind a few times and have to use keyboard shortcuts in place of the mouse to reconfigure. You can install the networking after you have everything else configured by mounting the Parallel tools CD image and finding the Solaris driver and following the README in the directory.