Firstly, I'm still new to all the technical of OS. But I'm learning. Hence I am starting to explore Unix via Solaris 10.

Today, I backed up all my files and formatted my computer.

I only have one physical hard drive of about 250GB. So unpartitioned all my exisiting drives and start my whole computer afresh.

First OS to install was Windows XP Pro. That was easy enough.

Next I installed Solaris 10. I didn't think I have much problem. Though the standard default interactive installation graphics was odd. The screen shot from the sun.com installation guide was nothing like I had. The colours were distorted when I installed.

In terms of partitioning my hard drive for the two OS. I let the windows did its partition and gave 50GB. And likewise for Solaris, again 50GB.

That is what I did. I hope I am on the right track so far.

I have some questions with using dual OS and also with using Solaris.

Firstly I would like to create a setup where on booting, windows should be the default boot after x seconds count down. I have tried to google this... All that I could understand so far is adjusting the boot.ini file. I am hesitant in doing so as I am not confident with technicality. I suppose I would like clarification on this so I know exactly what to do.

Can someone explain the file system type, I hear about NTFS and FAT32. And apparently FAT32 is compatible with most OS, how NTFS isn't compatible for Unix? I am not sure.

Having said that, how do I create different drives such that both OS can share such drive with minimal conflict in accessing and modifying the contain in it?

Lastly, it's a general question, how do I use solaris or set it up such that it has similar functionality like I do in windows?

For example, when I stick a USB key in, windows auto detects it or I can find it in Window Explorer? But I have problems accessing or finding the newly plugged in USB key?

1. I suggest as you installed Solaris second, let it install Grub to select between Windows and Solaris, then configure grub to do the timeouts etc.

2. As far as I know "pcfs" does not support FAT32 or NTFS. I've just set up a Win2k/Solaris9 box and used a 512Mb FAT16 partition to share files. So I have an entry in /etc/vfstab which says

I also stick to 8.3 filenames in this partition to avoid confusion.

3. I tried the boot.ini and captured and tweaked the Solaris boot sector but had no success with it.

4. Solaris has an auto mounter for CDs etc, I've never tried USB keys with Solaris. Again, the file format on the USB drive would have to be one that Solaris recognizes.

Try this for USB drives...

Using USB Mass Storage Devices

Okay... I have no idea how to use GRUB. Need to google on that. Any hints though?

You have totally lost me there. So sorry that I am noob still.

Okay, by the sound of that, I guess when you install Solaris, GRUB probably takes over the booting options and adjusting GRUB would be the way to go.

Yeah I am reading on this... What does mount mean in this context? Does that mean installing the driver and having it recognise the device?

Yes grub is a bootloader. Should be able to configure it to get the options you want.

A raw disk has a load of bytes on it. Partitions (or slices) are subdivisions of that space. A filesystem lives normally in a partition(or slice). A disk can have one single partition. A filesystem must be of some format and use a driver/handler.

In order to use a disk it has to be brought online, this is called "mounting" and basically identifies the type of filesystem, where the bytes for it are, what driver to use and where it should appear in the global file system (the mountpoint). When you want to take a disk offline it must be dismounted, hence "umount". A volume should be dismounted cleanly to make sure all buffers are flushed and files are closed. (see "sync").

"/etc/vfstab" is a file on Solaris which lists your volumes so the system can automatically mount them.

I have read on USB mounting and so forth. However, I still feel reluctant in taking action as I am still unfamiliar with it and not confident.

Just to help you understand. I have always been a windows user. Unix is totally new to me. I mean I don't even fully how windows OS operate on lower level. Like I know that the c:\windows folder hold the system's settings. c:\program hold software you install. c:\document obvious holds documents you created from MS word, excel etc...

That pretty much sums up my OS ability and understanding...

If anything I am after better and more detailed explanation. For example this guide: Solaris 10 Installation is the type of material that is helpful to me. It explains the procedure slowly in plain english, I feel much more comfortable following this guide.

I also tried to look around the site (from the above guide) to see if it gives other guides to solaris. However, the installation guide is all that I could find.

Here is my plan and progress so far. I have successfully installed Win XP Pro and Solaris 10 11/06.

In terms of Win XP, I have no problem using it, navigating through it, installation of other programs, running Java etc...

However, Solaris 10, the unix OS... I am so lost... My goal for it so far is to:

detect and use USB drive
connect to a router network system
get familiar with using applications in Solaris, e.g. running *.exe file. (I try doubling such files and nothing happens... I'm puzzled and scared :S)
using internet
understanding the file system

So it's just the basic usage and necessity of using a computer.

If anything could explain help me out by explanation or linking me to a very good source for newb, much is appreciated.