Table of Contents
This section describes new boot features in this Solaris release. For a complete listing of new Solaris features and a description of Solaris releases, see What’s New in Solaris Express .
For information about new features for shutting down and booting a system in the Solaris 10 release, see the following references:
SMF and Booting
Support for 64-Bit Computing
Systems Booting From PXE, CD, or DVD Now Boot Automatically
Solaris Express 3/06: In this Solaris release, the GRUB failsafe interaction has changed. Previously, if you booted the failsafe archive, you were prompted to automatically update the boot archives, regardless of whether any boot archives were out-of-date. Starting with the Solaris Express 3/06 release, the system only prompts you to update the boot archives if out-of-date boot archives are detected. For an example of the GRUB failsafe interaction in the current Solaris release, see How to Boot the Failsafe Archive for Recovery Purposes.
Solaris Express 6/05: The open source GRand Unified
Bootloader (GRUB) has been adopted as the default boot loader on x86 based
systems. GRUB is responsible for loading a boot archive into the system's
memory. A boot archive is a collection of critical files that is needed during
system startup before the root (/) file system is mounted.
The boot archive is used to boot the Solaris OS. You can find more information
about GRUB at
.
See also the
grub
(
5
)
man
page.
GRUB based booting is not available on SPARC based systems in this Solaris release.
The most notable change is the replacement of the Solaris Device Configuration Assistant with the GRUB menu. The GRUB menu is displayed when you boot an x86 based system. This menu facilitates the boot, you can select which OS instance to boot. If you do not make a selection, the default OS instance is booted.
GRUB Based Booting provides the following improvements:
Faster boot times
Installation capability from USB CD and DVD drives
Ability to boot from USB storage devices
Simplified DHCP setup for PXE boot (no vendor-specific options)
Elimination of all realmode drivers
In addition, two new administrative commands have been added to assist you in managing system bootability.
bootadm – Rebuilds the boot_archive
installgrub – Installs the GRUB boot blocks
For more information, see the bootadm ( 1M ) and the installgrub ( 1M ) man pages. For overview, task, and reference information, see Chapter 11, GRUB Based Booting (Tasks).
For installation information, see the Solaris Express Installation Guide: Network-Based Installations and the Solaris Express Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations .