#solaris-7 — Public Fediverse posts

Solaris 2.6 (x86) on 86Box with Socket 7 [1996]

Solaris 2.6 was released on July 1997 with SVR4 as the base, which makes it compatible with UNIX System V 4.0. This version was the first to provide TrueType fonts, Kerberos 5 authentication, and large file support. As of today, you can obtain the Solaris 2.6 installation (but unbootable!) ISO file here.

As we said “unbootable,” we mean that you can’t just insert the ISO file to the CD-ROM drive and expect Solaris to boot. Therefore, we have extracted the two floppy disk images from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine dump, and the final boot images can be obtained here. We will showcase how we’ve managed to get those boot images at the end of the article.

Installing Solaris 2.6

First of all, we have configured 86Box as follows:

We’ve configured a virtual machine to run with:

• Machine type: [1996] Socket 7 (Dual Voltage)
• Machine: [SiS 5571] MSI MS-5146
• CPU: Intel Pentium 100/66
• Memory: 32 MB
• Video: [ISA16] Circus Logic GD5434
• Keyboard: AT Keyboard
• Mouse: PS/2 Mouse
• Sound card: [ISA16] Sound Blaster 16 PnP
• Floppy disk controller: Internal device
• Hard disk controller 1: Internal device
• New hard disk: Solaris26.vhd
  • C/H/S: 1054/16/63
  • Size: 518 MB
  • Bus: IDE
  • Channel: 0:0
• Floppy drive 1: 3.5″ 1.44M
• CD-ROM drive 1: ATAPI (0:1) MATSHITA CD-ROM CR-588 LS15 (32x)

Once everything is configured as above, we can now start the virtual machine. Once it starts, immediately assign the floppy image you’ve downloaded to the floppy disk controller like this: (note that we have only tested the MU3 version, not the FCS version.)

Then, insert the Solaris 2.6 (x86) root CD-ROM to the CD-ROM reader.

Afterwards, go to the BIOS setup, and let the BIOS automatically detect the hard disk configuration, along with CD-ROM. If you’ve set everything up properly, you should be able to see both the HDD and the CD-ROM drives.

Afterwards, save the BIOS changes to the CMOS and let it boot from the floppy. If everything works OK, you should be able to see the below screens.

When the virtual machine finally shows you the Solaris Device Configuration Assistant, press F2, and let Solaris automatically configure the device drivers for all virtual PC parts, including the graphics card and the mouse, which are needed for the X11 window system.

Once the scan is complete, you should be able to see all hardware installed on the virtual machine.

Press F2, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you select one of the drives (CD-ROM or HDD) to boot to the Solaris kernel. Since this is a clean install, we want to boot to the Solaris kernel from the root CD-ROM.

Choose CD by highlighting it and pressing ENTER. Afterwards, press F2, and the Solaris kernel should boot up.

After the kernel boots up, you should be prompted for locale selection. Since we are going to install Solaris in plain ASCII, press 0, and then strike the ENTER key.

Once done, you should be taken to the full-screen installation screen that says “The Solaris Installation Program” in its red banner.

Press F2, and you’ll be taken to the kdmconfig program that allows you to set up the X11 server.

Since we want to configure the GUI, press F2, and you’ll be taken to a screen that allows you to review the settings that this program detected.

Unfortunately, the Graphics Device and the Monitor Type entries were wrong, because they indicated “Unknown.” As a result, we need to modify them so that they point to the correct configuration. Make sure that you’ve selected a graphics card that is supported by the X11 server on your virtual machine. For instance, we’ve selected the Cirrus Logic GD5434 graphics card (4 MB) because it’s supported with Solaris 2.6.

After that, press ENTER on the correct graphics card entry, and press F2.

Next, you’ll have to configure the monitor as a multi-sync monitor that handles up to 1024×768 resolution.

Afterwards, leave the screen size selection as it is, which is 17 inches.

Press F2, and you’ll be provided with resolution and color options. For instance, we have selected 16-bit colors with 800×600 resolution, like below.

After that, you should be taken back to a screen that shows you the selected configuration for the X11 server that the Solaris installation program will start.

This time, press F2 on the “No changes needed” option, and you’ll be asked to confirm that you want to install Solaris with the GUI after the test completes.

Press F2, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you’ll be able to see the colors and answer the question whether the display works correctly or not.

As soon as you select Yes, you’ll be taken to the GUI version of the Solaris installation program.

When you press Continue, you’ll be prompted to choose a host name for the new Solaris installation. Then, it lets you confirm your host name.

Afterwards, you’ll be taken to the time zone selection screen. Choose your time zone that matches your country the closest, then confirm the changes.

After that, the Solaris installation program will initialize some system services prior to you being able to select the software group. Since our hard disk is 518 MB, we’ll have to choose the default configuration, which is “End User System Support” that takes up only 353 MB as recommended.

Press Continue, and you’ll be taken to a screen that lets you select a disk. Since this is a clean install, and the virtual machine has a single disk, we press Continue after reviewing the disk list. Make sure that the disk gets listed as “c0d0 (boot disk) 509 MB” or something similar, and that the Total Selected value exceeds the Required value.

After that, you’ll need to take care of partitioning. Luckily, Solaris offers an option to automatically partition the disk, which is great for those new to the system. This abstracts away the hard work needed to manually partition the disks.

After the partitioning stage, it’s time for the actual installation to begin. The next screen lets you review the settings before the installation starts. In case you’ve made a mistake, you can press the Change button. Otherwise, press the Begin Installation button.

Afterwards, the installation program asks you if you want to automatically reboot when installation is complete. This is useful if you want to make final modifications to the system before the first boot after the installation completes.

After that, the installation process begins, and then the system gets automatically rebooted.

As soon as “rebooting…” text gets printed, immediately eject the Solaris boot floppy.

Then, let the Solaris system boot.

Wait a few minutes, and Solaris will prompt you to select a root password for the first time.

Solaris may prompt you to review the X11 server configuration with this screen, so you may see this warning on your screen. In case this happens, just press F2 until the X server starts.

After the X11 server starts, you should see the graphical login screen.

Write “root” as the user name, and write the root password you’ve just set. You’ll be prompted to choose whether to use CDE or OpenWindows.

Afterwards, the CDE desktop will open, since we have selected it as the default desktop environment.

If you want to change the X11 server resolution any time, log out from CDE or OpenWindows, then press Options > Console Login, then, log in as root and execute kdmconfig. Just enter the same parameters (graphics card, monitor type), but choose another resolution. After that, execute exit to log out from the console shell.

We have confirmed that the uname command reveals something interesting. It’s actually SunOS with the kernel version of 5.6, built against i86pc.

How did we obtain the boot images?

Generally, the boot images are unavailable on the internet publicly due to how old Solaris 2.6 is. However, we have done a cursory search, and found a newsgroup mail entry that told the user to navigate to a site where they can download a raw image file of the Device Configuration Assistant for a specific Solaris version.

Upon further inspection of the http://soldc.sun.com/support/drivers/dca_diskettes/ link with the Wayback Machine, we have seen some interesting links that point to two bootable floppy disk images for Solaris 2.6, indicated with the URL alone.

When we fetched the URL list from the Wayback Machine, we saw the following links:

• http://soldc.sun.com:80/support/drivers/dca_diskettes/2.6/S26_MU3.3
• http://soldc.sun.com:80/support/drivers/dca_diskettes/2.6/S26_FCS.3

They led to the bootable images by URL, exactly what we want. However, they were archived as HTML text, so we can see garbled characters that represent the binary file being treated as text. When we used the Inspect Element tool against the text, we saw a raw URL that points to the file.

Then, we’ve manually downloaded the corresponding files using the curl command from the PowerShell command prompt.

This way, after we verified that the downloaded floppy images work, we’ve made the floppy images available here.

Solaris 7.0 (x86) tested with 86Box with [1996] Socket 7 (Dual Voltage).

#Solaris #Retrocomputing #Computers #TechNews #TechUpdates #Solaris7 #tech

https://officialaptivi.wordpress.com/2026/02/27/solaris-7-0-x86-on-86box-with-socket-7-1996/

Solaris 7.0 (x86) on 86Box with Socket 7 [1996]

After a very long time due to our focus on Nitrocid 0.2.0 with the Aptivi rebranding efforts, we’ve come up with something very intriguing for today and tomorrow! As we have evaluated choices, we have chosen Solaris 7.0 (x86 version) as the test subject for today.

Solaris 7.0 was released on November 1998 as SunOS 2.7 with SVR4 as the base, which makes it compatible with UNIX System V 4.0. This version was the first to provide 64-bit support for UltraSPARC machines. As of today, you can obtain bootable files from here.

First of all, we have configured 86Box as follows:

We’ve configured a virtual machine to run with:

• Machine type: [1996] Socket 7 (Dual Voltage)
• Machine: [SiS 5571] MSI MS-5146
• CPU: Intel Pentium 100/66
• Memory: 32 MB
• Video: [ISA16] Circus Logic GD5434
• Keyboard: AT Keyboard
• Mouse: PS/2 Mouse
• Sound card: [ISA16] Sound Blaster 16
• Floppy disk controller: Internal device
• Hard disk controller 1: [ISA16] PC/AT IDE Controller
• New hard disk: Solaris7.vhd
  • C/H/S: 1054/16/63
  • Size: 518 MB
  • Bus: IDE
  • Channel: 0:0
• Floppy drive 1: 3.5″ 1.44M
• CD-ROM drive 1: ATAPI (0:1) MATSHITA CD-ROM CR-588 LS15 (32x)

Once everything is configured as above, we can now start the virtual machine. Once it starts, immediately assign the floppy image you’ve downloaded to the floppy disk controller like this:

Then, insert the Solaris 7.0 (x86) root CD-ROM to the CD-ROM reader.

Afterwards, go to the BIOS setup, and let the BIOS automatically detect the hard disk configuration, along with CD-ROM. If you’ve set everything up properly, you should be able to see both the HDD and the CD-ROM drives.

Afterwards, save the BIOS changes to the CMOS and let it boot from the floppy. If everything works OK, you should be able to see the below screens.

When the virtual machine finally shows you the Solaris Device Configuration Assistant, press F2, and let Solaris automatically configure the device drivers for all virtual PC parts, including the graphics card and the mouse, which are needed for the X11 window system.

Once the scan is complete, you should be able to see all hardware installed on the virtual machine.

Press F2, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you select one of the drives (CD-ROM or HDD) to boot to the Solaris kernel. Since this is a clean install, we want to boot to the Solaris kernel from the root CD-ROM.

Choose CD by highlighting it and pressing ENTER. Afterwards, press F2, and the Solaris kernel should boot up.

After the kernel boots up, you should be prompted for language selection. Since we want this installation to be in English, press 0, and then strike the ENTER key.

Afterwards, you’ll be asked for the keyboard layout. If you intend to use any other layout, write down the number that corresponds to your keyboard. Otherwise, press ENTER to assume that it’s a US ASCII keyboard.

Once done, you should be taken to the full-screen installation screen that says “The Solaris Installation Program” in its red banner.

Press F2, and you’ll be taken to the kdmconfig program that allows you to set up the X11 server.

Since we want to configure the GUI, press F2, and you’ll be taken to a screen that allows you to review the settings that this program detected.

Unfortunately, the Graphics Device and the Monitor Type entries were wrong, because they indicated “Unknown.” As a result, we need to modify them so that they point to the correct configuration. Make sure that you’ve selected a graphics card that is supported by the X11 server on your virtual machine. For instance, we’ve selected the Cirrus Logic GD5434 graphics card (4 MB) because it’s supported with Solaris 7.0.

After that, press ENTER on the correct graphics card entry, and press F2.

Next, you’ll have to configure the monitor as a multi-sync monitor that handles up to 1024×768 resolution.

Afterwards, leave the screen size selection as it is, which is 17 inches.

Press F2, and you’ll be provided with resolution and color options. For instance, we have selected 16-bit colors with 640×480 resolution, like below.

After that, you should be taken back to a screen that shows you the selected configuration for the X11 server that the Solaris installation program will start.

This time, press F2 on the “No changes needed” option, and you’ll be asked to confirm that you want to install Solaris with the GUI after the test completes.

Press F2, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you’ll be able to see the colors and answer the question whether the display works correctly or not.

As soon as you select Yes, you’ll be taken to the GUI version of the Solaris installation program.

When you press Continue, you’ll be prompted to choose a host name for the new Solaris installation. Then, it lets you confirm your host name.

Afterwards, you’ll be taken to the time zone selection screen. Choose your time zone that matches your country the closest, then confirm the changes.

After that, the Solaris installation program will initialize some system services prior to you being able to select the software group. Since our hard disk is 518 MB, we’ll have to choose the default configuration, which is “End User System Support” that takes up only 353 MB as recommended.

Press Continue, and you’ll be taken to a screen that lets you select a disk. Since this is a clean install, and the virtual machine has a single disk, we press Continue after reviewing the disk list. Make sure that the disk gets listed as “c0d0 (boot disk) 509 MB” or something similar, and that the Total Selected value exceeds the Required value.

After that, you’ll need to take care of partitioning. Luckily, Solaris offers an option to automatically partition the disk, which is great for those new to the system. This abstracts away the hard work needed to manually partition the disks.

After the partitioning stage, it’s time for the actual installation to begin. The next screen lets you review the settings before the installation starts. In case you’ve made a mistake, you can press the Change button. Otherwise, press the Begin Installation button.

Afterwards, the installation program asks you if you want to automatically reboot when installation is complete. This is useful if you want to make final modifications to the system before the first boot after the installation completes.

After that, the installation process begins, and then the system gets automatically rebooted.

As soon as “rebooting…” text gets printed, immediately eject the Solaris boot floppy.

Then, let the Solaris system boot.

Wait a few minutes, and Solaris will prompt you to select a root password for the first time.

Solaris may prompt you to review the X11 server configuration with this screen, so you may see this warning on your screen. In case this happens, just press F2 until the X server starts.

After the X11 server starts, you should see the graphical login screen.

Write “root” as the user name, and write the root password you’ve just set. Afterwards, the CDE desktop will open.

If you want to change the X11 server resolution any time, log out from CDE or OpenWindows, then press Options > Console Login, then, log in as root and execute kdmconfig. Just enter the same parameters (graphics card, monitor type), but choose another resolution. After that, execute exit to log out from the console shell. For example, we’ve chosen 800×600, and the result is this:

Next up, we’ll demonstrate the oldest Linux distribution that contains the X11 server. Are you excited?

#Solaris aficionados: I remember a repo back in the #Solaris7 and #Solaris8 days from which I could download and install #GNU versions of common utilities. (Solaris tar in particular I remember being quite hobbled.) Was it pkgadd I used to fetch the binaries?

Does any such repo still exist for GNU tools from that era? Or perhaps there are instructions to allow me to host my own?

#vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #unix #workstation