Perform System Boot and Shutdown Procedures for Solaris 10

Eugenia Loli 2006-02-05 Solaris 14 Comments

This chapter provides a description of the OpenBoot environment, the PROM, NVRAM, and the kernel. It describes how to access OpenBoot and the various commands that are available to test and provide information about the hardware.

About The Author

Eugenia Loli

Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.

Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli

14 Comments

2006-02-06 12:49 am

Shaman
I’ve been waiting all week to see if these two Sun stories would hit OSNews… but no!

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1917553,00.asp

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11012811/

2006-02-06 2:16 am

Adam Scheinberg
Then why didn’t you submit them??
2006-02-06 3:28 am

Accident
Teah Shaman…….submit next time and thanks for the links!
2006-02-06 6:57 pm

Sphinx
Big shout out and props to those brave system engineers who risked their livelihoods to form the rebel alliance as a force of goodness defeating the nay sayers with their solar zealotry, striking a blow for open-ness and starting the big E down the path long before. May the force be with you.

The E-Guy
2006-02-06 8:50 pm

segedunum
I’ve been waiting all week to see if these two Sun stories would hit OSNews… but no!

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1917553,00.asp

2006-02-07 1:37 am

ormandj
“If you’re a Sun fan those articles are nothing to be terribly proud about – at all. Small wonder you didn’t submit them, and if you’re thinking about submitting them, what are you going to say?”

Just as a FYI, Shaman is heavily anti-sun. That’s why he posted two completely unrelated links at the ^^ top of the thread, which were “bad news”, in order to yet again derail another Solaris/Sun discussion. Just ignore him as everybody else does.

Back on topic, how does EFI (or whatever they call the new arch. Apple is using w/ Intel procs) stack up against OpenBoot? Will Sun eventually move to EFI, or develop OpenBoot for their x86 line too?

2006-02-06 1:06 am

CapEnt
To bad who the x86 is so dependent of the crap BIOS. It’s too ancient and too inflexible, near impossible to do anything userful with then after the boot process.

The FCode interpreter is just lovable and can really decrase the cost to write portable drivers between different machines architectures.

Their command line interface is also more powerful than anything in existence today for x86. And any OS can provide high level interfaces to control all options directly.

I will love to see that on pcs (well.. x86) someday.

2006-02-06 3:54 am

ciphernaut
: I will love to see that on pcs (well.. x86) someday.

http://www.openbios.info/project/

Edited 2006-02-06 03:55

2006-02-06 7:44 am

nimble
To bad who the x86 is so dependent of the crap BIOS. It’s too ancient and too inflexible, near impossible to do anything userful with then after the boot process.

Yes, and that’s why Intel is pushing EFI as the BIOS replacement. Apple is already using it, and Windows Vista wil support it too, so hopefully dirty old BIOS won’t be around for too much longer.

2006-02-06 1:26 am

TomGoossens
Exerp from a book by Bill Calkins who is pretty much *the* authority on Solaris certification.

It goes without saying most of this stuff is SPARC specific. It’s odd that x86-related topics still aren’t included in the certification exam now x86 Solaris has become more prominent.

2006-02-06 1:22 pm

theuserbl
Hi!

A little bit off topic.

But I have heard, that OpenSolaris have in contradiction to Solaris some limitations like that only one processor is supported, so that computer with more then one CPU can not make use of all CPUs.

Do anybody know if this is true or not?

2006-02-06 1:48 pm

Robert Escue
To my knowledge there is no such limitation. I have run Solaris 10 and Solaris Express (the base for an OpenSolaris build) on SMP SPARC and x86 machines and all processors were recognized and used.

You might be referring to a previous Sun policy regarding Solaris 9 and SMP licensing for x86 where you paid more for the license based on the number of CPU’s your machines had. The OS itself has no software to stop you from running it on an SMP machine, it will recognize up to the maximum number of CPU’s supported based on architecture (21 x86, 144 SPARC).

2006-02-06 5:15 pm

Darren Moffat
There is no such limiation and there is no way that Sun could enforce such a limitation even if the code had been modified (and it HAS NOT) since the CDDL license would allow you to remove it.

Let me repeat there is no such limit someone is giving you bad information.

2006-02-06 8:51 pm

segedunum
But I have heard, that OpenSolaris have in contradiction to Solaris some limitations

No there is no such restriction simply because OpenSolaris is not a distribution or OS in any way shape or form. It is a base of code that others, like Nexgenta, are packaging into a distribution – nothing to do with Sun. No limits there. Not sure about Solaris Express though.