Tears of the SUN

So I got that Ultra 5 and to try something new I followed a suggestion to install Solaris 10 "the most advanced OS on the planet" on it.

First of I had to get it, it's free you know!

I registered and got on to downloading the 5 CD's. YES 5! This is just as bad bloat ware as Vista!The download site recommended using their own download manager that could resume CRC check and all that. Sounds sensible and would come in handy if those downloads end suddenly. Installed it, seemed to be a Java program. Tried it and uninstalled it. The screen capture tells all...

Now why the hell does this DL manager use only 1 slot for downloading and WHY is it so DAMN SLOW compared to "inferior" MS technology?

Seeing this I can only wonder why they don't supply a Torrent download? (yes it's actually used for other things than warez leezing).
Downloading the OS Sun 0 Microsoft 10.

Ultra 5 is not that media sexy looking like an old AST Pentium 166 desktop.

Here are some "autopsy" pictures.

Tested if regged EDO simm modules I had would work on the Ultra5 but these werent buffered I think, so 256MB hasto do.

The only thing I'm left wondering is what the hell is that AGP like slot on the mobo?

I guess some manual reading is in order.

Worth a mention is the CPU section. The CPU is installed on a CPU board that has the L2 cache on it. The CPU board is connected via 2 sockets to the mobo. Only the spring loaded heat sink holds the CPU in place there is no clamp or mechanism other that the heat sink and the CPU has no pins, like the modern CPU's these days, uuu advanced technology!

To my disappointment this is a 366MHz 256k L2 model. That 400MHz whit it's 2MB of L2 would have ben so cool! One was for sale at an affordable price on eBay but "0 money down" is my policy, so it has to be "found" not bought.

The Ultra 5 came whit out its original HDD and the only IDE hdd in stock was 4Gb witch is 2x more than the minimum requirement for Solaris 10.

The Ultra was complete and ready for a first boot. The Ultra complained about the changed disk but would go in to "setup" nicely.

I read on some forum that you should reset the machines "bios" back to factory settings for a fresh start and that's what I did.

The next boot ended in a net boot loop and I couldn't get out of it.

So I searched the net and found a manual.

The trick is a key combo of stop and A, how logical.

Using the setup or mini OS that boots the machine is like using DOS whit out 4dos, no command line completion, no command history toggle, nothing to guide you except the help messages, witch are nice but lack crucial information. For example changing the boot device from net to HDD should be simple, the help tells you the command but what it doesn't tell you are the parameters like what devices can I choose and what are the switches for them. They might be in the manual but WHO reads a manual while operating a computer?

I found that the parameters cd-rom and cdrom both are accepted but only cdrom will boot from the CD, how logical! OK I have to say at this point that I hate all systems that don't help the user learn the system or don't help in the usage.

Obviously SUN systems are not intended for the layman but for people that have passed courses in using these systems. You either know what to do and how, or you don't. The machine wont guide you.

I started my first installation of Solaris.

The setup is spartan to say the least.

The navigation and selection is all with the keyboard and this is mentioned right at the beginning. Except there is a small bug the window where you have to make the selections of what to do is not active by default but you have to point at it to make it active and accept key input with the mouse.

How OBVIOUS since you were told that the mouse is not used during setup...

My next quibble is with the space needed for setup. The default installation is over 4,3Gb so I selected the "second best" option that was only 3,8Gb or so. The setup let me continue but after CD 1 I started seeing errors that there was not enough space on disk please insert next CD...

I installed the OS 3 times to to get a "no errors installation". The last attempt was a minimum core setup of 900Mb that only required CD1/5.

Ok I'm a Sun / Solaris newbie but the fact that the setup lets me continue because there is enough space for the installed OS on disk BUT not enough for the installation is just plane stupid. A check for free space before the installer would continue was already in Windows 95! Sun Micro please!

What I do like about the system is its ability change setup parameters during OS installation, NICE!

Well the rocky road under the SUN continues and my next task is to figure out how to hell do I get in to the GUI?

Solaris 10 has a gui, tell me it DOES!!!

I'll get back to this after I search Solaris documentation and have some spare time again...stay tuned and subscribe to the wonderful adventures of a dummy in Sun-vill.