Solaris

Hi there,

I am new to this operating system, so would like to ask for directions on how to go about doing Solaris 10 dual boot with freeBSD on a virtual machine (virtualbox).

Do you have to partition the disk to allow for another OS to occupy? Like in windows? I tried doing this but failed terribly.

Any useful advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

The simpler would be to give different disks to each OS. Otherwise, you definitely need to partition the disk with two primary partitions. The tricky part will be who writes the MBR and what is called from there. I would install freeBSD first telling it to install its boot loader on its own partition, then install Solaris and finally add a chainload entry in Solaris grub menu.

I have tried using two different disk to install each os respectively on the virtualbox. But i have no idea how to dual boot them? Any ideas?

However, the requirement was that i have to install solaris on one disk first and then the freeBSD on another. Then edit the solaris grub so that it adds to the boot menu.

That's indeed the safest way to go.
If FreeBSD is installed using a GPT and not an fdisk partition table, you'll need to install a third boot loader (GRUB2) on a second partition to be created on the Solaris 10 disk.

With two different virtual hard disk, is it possible for dual boot? If yes, how?

From what i infer from your replies, is that there are two different ways to go about doing this. Either you create two disk and then dual boot it, which i don't know how, or You create a second partition from the solaris 10 disk where the FreeBSD will be installed. Am i on the right track?

And if i am needed to create a second partition, am i able to do it on the solaris 10 installation process to manage the disk partition just like in windows?

Hopefully.
That depends on the boot loader used.
Yes.
Yes.

Is there any particular reason you want to have a VM that dual-boots, instead of just creating separate VMs for each OS?