25 replies to this topic

[timf]

Hey folks,

Just to let you know, I got my eeePC today, and have OpenSolaris (the Indiana preview that is) nv_75 booting from an external USB disk. (on ZFS root :-)

So far, not much is detected out of the box - I'm having a problem with the keyboard, in that I have to modunload and modload kb8042 and devfsadm -i kb8042 before it works (external USB keybord works fine) Neither the wired nor wireless network cards are detected out of the box.

I think wireless should be okay - there's ath support in Solaris Express, so it might be just a case of tweaking the driver_aliases file a bit.

Will post more when I've time to look into it further (pretty busy with family stuff coming up to Christmas, but thrilled that gbax.com managed to deliver my new toy on time :-)

cheers,

tim

[gorilla]

Thanks for your efforts and I'm not just trying to play devil's advocate, but I must inquire. What are attempting to gain by running Solaris on your EEE that you can't achieve with Linux? I know the whole geek/neat factor, but I am not a Solaris fan..

Just curious..

[timf]

I'm more used to using OpenSolaris than Linux, and I figure if I can get OpenSolaris to run on the machine, I'll be more productive, and a happier camper.

I'm already missing stuff like DTrace, SMF and kmdb. Don't get me wrong, the default installed Xandros has most of the functionality I'm after, it just feels a bit, well, "pokey", but using it won't help me learn any more about OpenSolaris internals.

Full disclosure: I work at Sun - but not in any sort of x86 IHV role - I'm just an advocate of the operating system, and see no reason why we shouldn't be able to run it on an eeePC.

[Rom]

timf will be waiting for the installer. I prefer running OpenSolaris on the Eee than Windows! :)

Hope you can make it work before JavaOne 08. :D

Full disclosure: we develop courseware for OpenSolaris. :)

Edited by Rom, 26 December 2007 - 10:22 AM.

[pmeee]

@timf: How do you find Solaris speed wise on your Eee PC? I've always found it pretty slow, even on decent hardware.

[Rom]

@PaulMdx I run Solaris on VMWare Fusion on a 2.33GHz Macbook Pro with 3GB RAM (768MB allocated to Solaris) and it isn't slow to me.

[timf]

The desktop is actually pretty responsive indeed - the version of OpenSolaris (nv_75) I have is running Xorg and a GNOME 2.20-based desktop. Starting Thunderbird and Firefox is about the same speed as under Xandros. It's slower to boot, but it is starting a lot of services that I don't need at the moment, but even with those off, I suspect Xandros-on-Eee may have the edge on boot times.

If we can get wireless to work, I'd definitely start using it more and would be able to give a more "day-to-day" account of how fast it feels - without networking though, it's not that useful yet.

Other stuff - the brightness Fn keys work fine, but no suspend/resume, wifi on/off or audio control keys there yet. I haven't tried attaching an external monitor yet to see whether the alt-monitor function key works.

I've got some output from a few Solaris commands at
http://mediacast.sun...epc-info.tar.gz
if anyone's interested...

[BigWarpGuy]

http://opensolaris.org/os/
The OpenSolaris Site.

[timf]

Quick status update: I've now got my Eee back from repair (the first one had a dodgy motherboard) and now have it running OpenSolaris Developer Preview 2, the 2nd preview release of the Project Indiana distribution. (so yes, again ZFS root - this time off a 4gb SD card) I've installed more ram, 2gb and while the difference was noticeable between that and 512mb, it's still very usable with the smaller amount of memory.

With an as-yet unreleased ath driver, I've got wireless networking too, but still no wired ethernet support.

Audio doesn't work at the moment, but I'm told the people at OpenSound are working on it, and have a test driver that's almost working.

No suspend/resume yet either, but battery usage is reported from the gnome-panel applet so that's something at least.

All in all, I'm very happy with OpenSolaris on this machine, and think that I'll be using it instead of Xandros on this machine. I'll probably leave the default Xandros on the internal disk for the time being, but it'd be nice to have my SD slot back again - we'll see...

[Gleth]

Quote

Quick status update: I've now got my Eee back from repair (the first one had a dodgy motherboard) and now have it running OpenSolaris Developer Preview 2, the 2nd preview release of the Project Indiana distribution. (so yes, again ZFS root - this time off a 4gb SD card) I've installed more ram, 2gb and while the difference was noticeable between that and 512mb, it's still very usable with the smaller amount of memory.

With an as-yet unreleased ath driver, I've got wireless networking too, but still no wired ethernet support.

Audio doesn't work at the moment, but I'm told the people at OpenSound are working on it, and have a test driver that's almost working.

No suspend/resume yet either, but battery usage is reported from the gnome-panel applet so that's something at least.

All in all, I'm very happy with OpenSolaris on this machine, and think that I'll be using it instead of Xandros on this machine. I'll probably leave the default Xandros on the internal disk for the time being, but it'd be nice to have my SD slot back again - we'll see...

That's great news timf. Any idea when the wireless driver will become available as I'd rather have some form of networking working before playing with the installer. (sound and wired networking would be good too, but they can wait)

[timf]

W00t - they've finally put the hacked version of ath that works for the EEE over on the opensolaris.org laptop pages.

http://opensolaris.o...p/wireless/ath/

I've now got OpenSolaris DP2 installed on the internal SSD, and performance is fantastic - from off to complete desktop in about 1:30. Compiz also works just fine on OpenSolaris - all in all, I'm pretty happy now. Using instructions partly at
http://wiki.eeeuser....drosbootfromusb

I've moved the factory-installed Xandros to a 4gb SD card, so I can still boot that if I really need to.

There's a version of OSS also that works on OpenSolaris, so I have sound too now, which is excellent. I think the webcam should also be working in more recent builds, I just haven't tried that yet.

Next stop, suspend/resume hopefully!

[timf]

Suspend/resume now works flawlessly with 2008.11 release candidate 2 - you need to add:

S3-support enable

to /etc/power.conf and rerun "pmconfig"

There's also a wired ethernet driver, atge, available at
http://homepage2.nif...m3/taiyodo/eng/

[inselland]

Tried opensolaris 2008.11 snv101 with limited success. Boot in textmode from CD/DVD works fine. Display manager gdm could not generate a working config and breaks.

Would be kind if anyone has a hint how to get gdm working or can supply a working config file.

Many thanks

[masafumi_ohta]

Quote

Tried opensolaris 2008.11 snv101 with limited success. Boot in textmode from CD/DVD works fine. Display manager gdm could not generate a working config and breaks.

Would be kind if anyone has a hint how to get gdm working or can supply a working config file.

Many thanks

Hi

you should check my blog

http://masafumi-ohta.../fantastic.html (blogged about intel 945GME graphics driver)
and there are some issues about OpenSolaris on Eee 901(Atom-based Eee PC)

-cheers

masafumi

[oupsemma]

http://code.google.c...eusb-for-eeepc/
http://www.masafumi-ohta.blogspot.com/
http://weblogs.java....t.html#comments
http://wikis.sun.com...tomizing+Images

[DavAlan]

I have tried this a few times with other solaris releases unsuccessfully (none booted up completely from the live).

Currently running on my 701s w/ 2gb ram and to an Iomega 250 gb usd hd "sdb2" 32gb zfs primary partition formatted from ntfs ....
also on this hd: sdb1->winxp 32gb......sdb3->160 gb extended partition with: (all 16 gb ext3fs: sdb5-dreamlinux 3.5, sdb6-crunchbang, sdb7-ubuntu 9.04, rest unallocated)..... sdb4->4 gb common linux swap primary partition:



The live run loaded in 5m or so, and accessed the wireless right away, however this installation has been running for 2 hours with no change on the % counter although the dvd seems to still be running and the hd is also showing major activity.

To get this screenshot during install was a 1/2 hour "task" of mostly waiting on those almost forgotten mouse clicks.

To anyone trying this to a usb stick or hdsd. This may take days or weeks if it works out at all. And to anyone attempting a solaris install to an usb hd running off an asus eee, dont try to use any apps. from the live run during install as that may have halted mine.

Will give this 4 more hours, check the other hd partitions out for any corruption, and retry to the sdb2 partition sized down to 16 gb if that counter still reads 35%.

EDIT: one hour later and still at 35% :S

IMHO this may be way over the practical ability of an asus eee? :|

Edited by DavAlan, 08 May 2009 - 10:04 PM.

[W8WCA]

OpenSolaris Rawks on my 1000H !
OpenSolaris 2009.06 snv_111a X86

[DavAlan]

4 hours later and installl counter "shot" to 40%. Allocating this 4 more hours before I throw in the towel. Will not matter anyway as I got to shut down for the night then.
I just hope if this is successful I dont have to wait longer on startups than the 5m required to get the live run up
This is by far the longest install of any os I have tried (about 40 linux releases, 3 dozen or so winxp's, 2003 servers, 2000 pro's, vistas, and etc). Getting all the hardware early on (lan, wlan, sound, graphics) but this install crawls along and does not allow much else to be done while installing :S
I would never attempt this to the slower ssd, hdsd, or usb flash or would have time beyond a 12 hour run for installation.

[DavAlan]

Installation failure seems to have been due to a bad dvd iso burn. After reburning the disk the os installed to my usb hd in about 20 minutes or so, but did not leave a valid grub to boot up with. So I installed to my 4gb ssd (500 mb out of 4 gb are now free there :S )
And solaris booted up to a log-in screen (timed it) 87 seconds.
Will run it this way while I sort out the hd installation.

Am on my way to a windows / linux / solaris tri-boot hd now ;)

BTW-Solaris appearently DOES ROCK ;)

[W8WCA]

I used This:
http://kohju.justpla.../eeepc-special/
and pick iso or usb image:
osol-0906-111-x86-for-EeePC-gzip9-x86.iso 12-Apr-2009 01:14 1.0G
osol-0906-111-x86-for-EeePC-gzip9-x86.usb 12-Apr-2009 06:38 1.2G

And even use this to make the usb flash: http://devzone.sites...liveusb-creator
(If you have a XP machine around)

Edited by W8WCA, 14 June 2009 - 07:08 PM.