Solaris Operating
System for x86 Installation Check Tool
This tool detects whether your x86 system is able to run the
Solaris Operating System (OS).
If the system on which you want to run the Solaris OS is already shown on the
Solaris OS Hardware
Compatibility Lists (HCL), then you do not need to use this tool.
Two versions of Installation Check Tool are available:
Solaris Operating System for x86 Installation Check Tool supports the
Solaris 10 OS
Solaris Operating System for x86 Installation Check Tool performs the following
two functions:
Reports whether your x86 system can install the Solaris 10 5/08 OS. The
Installation Check Tool loads the Solaris 10 5/08 kernel and looks for a hard
disk on your system.
Reports whether Solaris drivers are available for the devices the tool
detects on your x86 system. This information helps you to determine whether the
Solaris 10 5/08 OS is likely to run on your system.
Installation Check Tool produces a table that shows whether a Solaris driver is
available for each device the tool detects. The table tells you whether the
driver is built in to the Solaris OS or whether a third-party driver is
available.
NOTE: Sun does not warrant the behavior of any third-party driver.
Installation Check Tool gives you an option to copy this driver report to a
floppy disk or to USB storage. Solaris Operating System for x86 Installation
Check Tool displays a message if your system is suitable for installing the
Solaris 10 5/08 OS.
Installation Check Tool is updated periodically to include the knowledge of new
drivers in the driver database that the tool uses. Drivers that are integrated
into the Solaris OS and third-party drivers that are known to work with the
Solaris OS are included in these updates. Check this web page periodically to
make sure you are using the most current release of Installation Check Tool.
The tool also displays a message to remind you to check for a new release.
Use the CD that you burned with the install_check.1.4.iso file to boot
the x86 system that you want to check.
Installation Check Tool first loads the Solaris 10 5/08 kernel. Then the tool
generates a report that shows the major PCI components in the system and
whether Solaris drivers exist for these devices.
This report package is written to a tar file that is compressed with
gzip(1).
You have the option to copy this report file to a floppy disk or to USB storage.
The report package includes the following files:
A text file that shows the same information as the screen output.
An HTML report file that shows the full content of the report. No
abbreviations are used.
The output of prtconf -pv, prtdiag, and
prtconf -v.
The following is an example of the text information that is displayed on your
monitor:
================================================================================
Generating reports...
Vendor Device: Type Name Solaris Driver: 32BIT 64BIT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ATI Technologies V Radeon IGP 330M/340M/350M Y Y
ALi Corporation M M5451 PCI AC-Link Controller Audio De... N N
ALi Corporation O M5457 AC'97 Modem Controller N N
O2 Micro, Inc. O OZ601/6912/711E0 CardBus/SmartCardBus... Y Y
VIA Technologies U VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller Y Y
VIA Technologies U USB 2.0 Y Y
Texas Instruments F TSB43AB21 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller ... Y Y
ALi Corporation S M5229 IDE Y Y
National Semicon.. N DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller T-1 T-1
Driver Notes:
Y - Solaris Driver Found; T - Third Party Driver; N - No Solaris Driver
Device Types:
V - Video; N - Network; S - Storage; M - Multimedia; U - USB; F - Firewire;
O - Other;
Third Party Driver Legend:
T-1 sfe http://homepage2.nifty.com/mrym3/taiyodo/eng/
Notes:
1. This system is likely to install Solaris 10 5/08. Check the list
above for driver availability for identified devices.
2. This tool is updated frequently to include additional device support.
Please check the following web site to ensure you are using the most current
version of this tool: http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/hcts/install_check.html
Copy reports to Floppy or USB or Reboot? [f/u/r]
================================================================================
If the system includes two devices that require a third-party driver, the
driver for the second such device is labeled “T-2” in the driver
column of the table and in the Third Party Driver Legend.
If a report such as the example shown above is displayed on your screen, and if
you do not receive any warning message that no disk is found, then the
Solaris 10 5/08 OS can be installed on this system.
The next step is to check whether drivers exist for other on-board devices,
such as network devices, video devices, and audio devices.
While booting from an Installation Check Tool CD, a memory error message was displayed. What does this mean?
What if I do not see a report like the one shown above?
I specified to copy the report to USB, and I am sure I have a Solaris partition on the USB disk, but the copy failed. What happened?
If a device is marked “N” for “No Solaris Driver”, can this device still work with the Solaris 10 5/08 OS?
Where can I get more information about third-party drivers?
While loading the Solaris 10 5/08 kernel, the following message was displayed. What does this mean?
What if the report says "No hard disks found"?
The Installation Check Tool reports that my video card is supported by the vgatext driver. However, I cannot perform a graphical install with the Solaris release in question. Even if I have installed Solaris in console mode, the graphic interface does not appear. Has the Installation Check Tool reported incorrect data?
How can I run Installation Check Tool on a headless system?
While booting from an Installation Check Tool CD, the following
message was displayed. What does this mean?
Error 28: Selected item cannot fit into memory.
You should burn a new Installation Check Tool CD. Content on this CD cannot be read successfully by this CDROM. This message probably means that the Installation Check Tool CD was not burned correctly.
What if I do not see a report like the one shown above?
A report similar to the report shown in the example above should be displayed approximately one minute after you boot your system from the Installation Check Tool CD. If your system hangs and does not display the question about copying the report, then your system might have encountered a problem in the Solaris 10 5/08 OS or your system might not be able to run the Solaris 10 5/08 OS.
To determine whether you have encountered a problem in the Solaris 10 5/08 OS that has a known solution or workaround, check one of the following resources:
I specified to copy the report to USB, and I am sure I have a Solaris partition on the USB disk, but the copy failed. What happened?
Installation Check Tool only copies reports to slice 0 for Solaris partitions on the USB disk. If your USB disk does not have a UFS file system on slice 0, the following error message is displayed:
No FAT or UFS filesystem found on USB device.
If a device is marked "N" for "No Solaris Driver", can this device still work with the Solaris 10 5/08 OS?
A device marked “N” might still work if one of the following situations is true:
A third-party driver exists for this device, but that third-party driver is not yet included in the Installation Check Tool database. Check this web page periodically to make sure you are using the most current release of Installation Check Tool.
The device is supported unofficially by a driver that is included in the Installation Check Tool database. For example, the iprb driver is known to work on most Intel 100M network controllers, but only a few of these network controllers are officially supported.
Your device is revision 9 of Marvell MV88SX6041 4-port SATA II PCI-X controller or Marvell MV88SX6041 8-port SATA II PCI-X controller. The marvell88sx driver that is included in the Solaris 10 5/08 release works for these devices.
Where can I get more information about third-party drivers?
NOTE: Sun does not warrant the behavior of any third-party driver.
While loading the Solaris 10 5/08 kernel, the following message was displayed. What does this mean?
NOTICE: Failed to initialize inband hotplug controller
You can ignore this message. The system continues to boot normally. This message is displayed because the hardware or BIOS reports the slot as hotplug capable, but the platform has no hotplug support. If you believe the platform does support hotplugging, then you can contact Solaris Operating System on x86 Support.
What if the report says "No hard disks found"?
If the report says "No hard disks found", your system might not be able to run the Solaris 10 5/08 OS. This problem could have one of the following causes:
A hard disk is correctly connected to your system but Installation Check Tool did not recognize it. Check whether a third-party driver is available for the controller that is connected to the disk. If a third-party driver exists for this controller, apply the driver according to the instructions for that driver.
The disk is a SATA disk. Change the BIOS to make the SATA controller work in legacy/compatible mode.
The Installation Check Tool reports that my video card is supported by the vgatext driver. However, I cannot perform a graphical install with the Solaris release in question. Even if I have installed Solaris in console mode, the graphic interface does not appear. Has the Installation Check Tool reported incorrect data?
Installation Check Tool detects both kernel and Xorg video drivers for each video device. The following is an example html report that shows the detected video drivers:
Vendor Name
Device Name
Device Type
32-bit Driver
64-bit Driver
Driver Name
Driver Availability
Matrox Graphics, Inc.
MGA G400/G450
Video
Y
Y
Kernel video driver: vgatext; Xorg video driver: mga
Solaris 10 5/08 image
In this report, the video device has a kernel video driver named vgatext and a Xorg video driver named mga.
However, not all devices have both types of video drivers. Some video devices are only supported by kernel video drivers as shown in the following html report:
Vendor Name
Device Name
Device Type
32-bit Driver
64-bit Driver
Driver Name
Driver Availability
nVidia Corporation
NV5 [RIVA TNT2/TNT2 Pro]
Video
Y
Y
vgatext
Solaris 10 5/08 image
In this report, the video device has only a kernel video driver named vgatext, which means that a dedicated Xorg video driver is not available for the video device.
In such a scenario, the video device may or may not work with the Solaris OS by default. The vgatext driver is a kernel video driver, which is only responsible for providing console video support. Some form of Xorg video driver (generic or dedicated) is required to provide graphic interface support.
For a video device that does not have a dedicated Xorg driver, you can try to attach the vesa driver, which is a generic Xorg video driver on the device. For more information on vesa driver, type man vesa.
How can I run Installation Check Tool on a headless system?
To redirect the output of Installation Check Tool to a console port, follow these steps:
Boot the system from your Solaris Express Installation Check Tool CD.
When you see the grub menu and the product name "Solaris Operating System for x86 Installation Check Tool 1.4", press the character "e" twice to edit this menu item.
If you have general questions or suggestions about the Installation Check
Tool, send email to
install-check-feedback@sun.com.
If you want to suggest particular drivers that should be integrated into the
Solaris OS, send email to
driver-request@sun.com.
See Solaris for x86 Device Support
for the latest list of devices that are supported by the Solaris OS on x86
platforms.
If you have problems installing the Solaris 10 5/08 OS after Installation Check
Tool reported that you should be able to install it, send email to
install-check-feedback@sun.com
and include the following information:
Describe the problem in detail. For example, describe the installation step
where the failure occurs and include any messages that are displayed on the
monitor.
Attach the report generated by Installation Check Tool.
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