Using SPARC architecture-

Dual Boot

DESCRIPTION:
Can I have dual boot for Solaris 7 and 8 on one system with a single hard
disk?
SOLUTION:
The dual boot facility with two different OS's on single disk is
possible if Solaris is installed in following manner. (In this example we
have used Solaris 7 and Solaris 8.)
We need to have a single disk with a large capacity of 4gb or 8gb.
We will configure the dual boot in two parts:
Part-I
This gives steps to install Solaris 7 and Solaris 8 on one common disk
on different partitions.
Part-II
This gives steps to set nvalias commands to set appropriate devaliases
to boot with Solaris 7 and Solaris 8.
Part-I
Steps to install Solaris 7 and Solaris 8 on single disk.

Start with the boot cdrom with the Solaris 7 CD.

Select the customize option for installation.

During disk partitioning, select the manual partition option.

In partitioning you may select slice-0 for Solaris 7.

You may choose size as 2gb. Load everything in one partition. Leave the
remaining
space on the disk unutilized.

Select slice-1 as swap which may be used as common to both OS's (Solaris 7 and
Solaris 8).


Be sure to select slice-0, onto which you will copy everything (root, usr
etc).
Complete the installation.

Boot with the Solaris 8 CD.

Again select customize and manual disk partitioning.

Here you will see slice-0 and swap already present. Select slice-4 and
partition it with another 2gb.

Select the preserve data for other slices option. Again load everything
on slice-4 for Solaris 8. Complete the installation.


Part-II
Steps to set the proper device setting with the
nvalias command at the OK prompt.
This example uses an Ultra[tm]-5 system with IDE driveid 3.
Solaris 7 is installed on partition 0 and Solaris 8 on partition
4.

Come to the OK prompt by hitting STOP-A or CTRL-Break.
OK show-disks
This will list all the disk attached to system.
OK show-disks
a) /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/cdrom
b) /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/disk
c) /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ebus@1/fdthree@14,3023f0
q) NO SELECTION
Enter Selection, q to quit: b
/pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/disk has been selected.
Type ^Y ( Control-Y ) to insert it at the command line.
For example, OK nvalias sol7 ^Y
for creating devalias
sol7 for /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/disk@0,0:a
OK
To set nvalias to boot with Solaris 8, use following steps at the
OK prompt:
OK nvalaias sol8 /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/disk0,0:d
Since we have installed Solaris 8 on partition number 4 of disk0 (that is,
partition d) we have mentioned disk0,0:d
If we type devalias at the OK prompt, we must see following strings
OK devalias
sol7 /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/disk@0,0:a
sol8 /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/disk@0,0:d
To boot with Solaris 8, type
OK boot sol8
To boot with Solaris 7, type
OK boot sol7