Solaris 9 on Parallels 4 or 5 ... anyone?

TedB · Nov 19, 2009

From reading the posts in this forum it's clear that Solaris support is problematic, at best.

My question is simple: Has anyone been able to get Solaris 9 to run in a Parallels v4 or v5 VM, and if so is there any reproducible way to do so?

I have gone so far as to boot Solaris 10 in a separate VM, mount the v9 virtual disk, manually lay out the disk with the base Solaris 9 OS and diddle the boot sectors into place, and still no joy. I've tried every marginally sane combination of OS type selection, RAM and number of CPUs on Parallels 4 and 5. With v5, I now can't even boot a floppy.

I have not purchased the v5 upgrade for any of my v4 Macs, but have installed the trial version and while I haven't tried Windows with it, since I assume they'll have or get that working smoothly, I sure can't see any reason to upgrade at this point.

Any and all help appreciated.

TedB · Nov 25, 2009

I guess I'll take the silence as a resounding no ... I hope at some point Parallels decides to support what they claim to, but I certainly don't see any more upgrades from me.

Elric · Dec 7, 2009

take a look into http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=96966
(there is a solution for Solaris 10, but it should also work for 9.0)

TedB · Dec 8, 2009

Elric said:
take a look into http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=96966
(there is a solution for Solaris 10, but it should also work for 9.0)

Well, Elric, now I'm really not enamored of Parallels. After trying it to no effect on v4, and since the trial key had expired, I shelled out the $50 for the upgrade to v5 to try your advice. The result? No change, same kernel read error, no Solaris 9.

I need 32-bit Solaris 9 to replicate a client's environment. You claim to support it. This is a plain-vanilla installation DVD of the current Solaris 9 x86 image from Sun. I'm running on a MBP w/ 2.6GHz C2D, 4GB RAM and plenty of disk space.

The new Windows eye candy is nice, but not $50 worth - I need Solaris 9 to run. Please tell me the repeatable setup you use in QA ... not Solaris 10 (I can get that to work just fine, but don't need it).

Looking forward to a prompt and informative reply,

- Ted

Elric · Dec 8, 2009

TedB said:
No change, same kernel read error, no Solaris 9.
- Ted

What is the exact screen on which the system hangs? Is it an installation process or it occurs when system is already installed?

Have you added the flag to disable ACPI (as in screenshot)?

I've just successfully installed Solaris 9 with default options - 1CPU, 1024MB mem. The CD I used is named "sol9-8_03-x86-installation.iso"

It would be nice if you could reproduce the problem (or at least start the failing VM) and send a problem report using menu of Parallels Desktop "Help" -> "Report a Problem" and post here its id.

TedB · Dec 8, 2009

Ok, problem report ID is 1243698.

I created a new VM from scratch: 1024MB, 1CPU, 64GB expanding disk, "devices.apic.disable=1".

I tried installing from the Solaris 9 9/05 DVD and CD images, accepting all defaults. Same symptoms all around.

Elric · Dec 8, 2009

TedB said:
Ok, problem report ID is 1243698.

I created a new VM from scratch: 1024MB, 1CPU, 64GB expanding disk, "devices.apic.disable=1".

I tried installing from the Solaris 9 9/05 DVD and CD images, accepting all defaults. Same symptoms all around.

Could you please upload the Solaris 9 9/05 CD images to us? Or somehow share the DVD, or just point me to the internet-site where I can download Solaris 9? It seems that Sun have removed Solaris9 from public access and I can't find a quick way to get access to this version. We'll check and likely will provide a workaround for this (and fix in later builds)

I've posted a private message with link to ftp where images could be uploaded (or, if it is just the first image, only first CD)

TedB · Dec 9, 2009

An image has been uploaded. I forgot that Sol9's end-of-life was the end of October. No problem, though, I have all of the images.

Elric · Dec 10, 2009

TedB said:
An image has been uploaded. I forgot that Sol9's end-of-life was the end of October. No problem, though, I have all of the images.

Thank you for the image.

A terrible miscommunication have occured. In order to install Solaris (both 9 and 10) during install it is required to have the line devices.apic.disable=0 (not 1). I've already fixed sticky-article at the top of the forum

After install it may be required (in order to use networking) to disable the IOAPIC by adding the following line to /etc/system (and rebooting after that):

set pcplusmp:apic_forceload = -1

TedB · Dec 22, 2009

I've now gotten the time to get back to it and yes, those two switches do indeed allow it to run and access the network. I don't even want to think about the time that would have been saved with the right settings to start with.

I am still not satisfied with the v5 upgrade (I may still try installing on v4 at some point on another machine, just to see if it works with the right switches)