Friday, November 25, 2005
OpenSolaris on a Sony TR1A
Getting Solaris to work on a x86 machine has always been a challenge for me. I have never had any luck with just any machine I tried. So imagine my suprise when I tried to install it on my Sony TR1A and for the most part it worked. The TR1 is an ultra-portable sub-notebook. It is not the typical laptop setup. I couldn't even get plain Windows working on it without using Sony's install app.
Plain Solaris Express installed without issue and the Ethernet worked right away. Next was to build OpenSolaris. This thing is no speed demon being designed for portability but did manage to do a build in half the time of Sun Blade 100 which was just under 5 hours.
The Memory stick just worked. When I plugged in a memory stick it just showed up on the desktop. I could not believe how easy it was.
Next was audio, I used Jürgen Keil's AC97 drivers from http://www.tools.deSolariss/audio/ The only issue I still have to fix is the volume, it isexrtemlyy low.
The wireless drivers were just recently released from Sun: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/laptop/wireless/ipw/
They work just fine, however the wifi config tool from OpenSolaris is giving me some issues with essid that aren't broadcasted but it is still in beta.
The next thing I will need to work on is the display. It works at 1024x768 but I need to get to 1280x768. Some people have some hacks on Linux that I am going to try with OpenSolaris.
Plain Solaris Express installed without issue and the Ethernet worked right away. Next was to build OpenSolaris. This thing is no speed demon being designed for portability but did manage to do a build in half the time of Sun Blade 100 which was just under 5 hours.
The Memory stick just worked. When I plugged in a memory stick it just showed up on the desktop. I could not believe how easy it was.
Next was audio, I used Jürgen Keil's AC97 drivers from http://www.tools.deSolariss/audio/ The only issue I still have to fix is the volume, it isexrtemlyy low.
The wireless drivers were just recently released from Sun: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/laptop/wireless/ipw/
They work just fine, however the wifi config tool from OpenSolaris is giving me some issues with essid that aren't broadcasted but it is still in beta.
The next thing I will need to work on is the display. It works at 1024x768 but I need to get to 1280x768. Some people have some hacks on Linux that I am going to try with OpenSolaris.
