[ug-bosug] reg Solaris Build 70 installation issues

Sun Sep 23 09:25:45 PDT 2007

Sivasubramanian Muthusamy wrote:
> Dear Moinack,
>
> Thank you for the detailed technical insight into the problem.
>
> I have not assumed that it is a technically easy task. It is indeed
> complex and would require a large team of technical experts to work on
> it for weeks, perhaps months.
>   

   Not - that - complex either unless one is looking at code 
modifications in the kernel
   to strip down functionality for fitting in embedded devices. That is 
a different ball
   game.

> But what is the maximum that can be QUICKLY shedded or stripped from
> the lowest available footprint ?  For instance if one Solaris expert
> examines the list of packages in the most recent Belenix or any other
> sub 1 GB flavor and strips the MOST OBVIOUS unnecessary packages
> leaving the essential components of the GUI and the essential browser
> components, how small can it IMMDIATELY and EFFORTLESSLY get ?
>
> If it can come down to 400 - 600 MB, it is still fine. I am thinking
> of a proof of concept prototype, and would proceed on the belief that
> it it can effortlessly get down to 400 - 600 MB, it can get down to
> sub 128 MB with concerted efforts, coordinated and funded research.
>   

   Sub-400 footprint is not too difficult to achieve. Others have 
already tried that per the
   links sent out earlier. What I was thinking of was something similar 
to FreeNAS
   http://www.freenas.org/ . This will require compression on the disk 
to further reduce
   the footprint.

> I have two boards, one with a more 'powerful' processor of 500 MHz, an
> AMD Geode dubbed Geode 800 (this one with a generous DDR II ?  1 GB
> Ram) , and another a more demanding 333 MHz Geode processor board with
> a DDR I 256 MB ram. On both these boards the hard drives are generous,
> the 500 MHz board has a 40 GB hard disk, entirely unused, but for this
> purpose we will set aside a 512 MB partition or use a 512 MB USD drive
> as a hard disk. And on the 333 Mhz board a 512 MB USB can be used as
> hard drive. I hope both these boards can take a 400 - 600 MB foot
> print, lower if it can get lower effortlessly.
>   

   Solaris can boot on the AMD Geode. You might want to consider booting 
off a
   Compact Flash rather than a harddisk to save power.

> Ethernet has to work, Wifi has to work, and if Wifi can't work
> immediately with the present level of work done on WiFi, it is stil
> Ok, for a proof of concept, we can take it forward further after
> initial success on this level, on these boards.
>
> The concept of the device in question is an Internet Access handheld,
> possibly with a 8.5" LCD screen, running solaris ( ultimately ) on 128
> MB Ram and 128 HDD, accessing internet by wire and by wifi, with a
> browser with graphic componnets such as Flash / Active X. I understand
> that Active X is not supported by Solaris, we will come to that later.
> Good Audio is needed, so we may have to think of Open Sound.
>
> WiFi is under development, Wi Fi can wait till the project moves on to
> the next level of research.
>   

   Wifi will work if you use one of the supported chipsets like Intel 
PRO/Wireless.
   http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/laptop/wireless/

   It should be possible to support ActiveX using Wine and the Crossover 
Plugin,
   though I have not tried it. Wine does work on Solaris however:
   http://freshmeat.net/projects/crossover/

Regards,
Moinak.

> Thank you Moinak, for being interactive.
>
> Sivasubramanian Muthusamy.
>
>
> On 9/23/07, Moinak Ghosh <Moinak.Ghosh at sun.com> wrote:
>   
>> Sivasubramanian Muthusamy wrote:
>>     
>>> Dear Moinak,
>>>
>>> That was a good guess that I did not understand what this is all about.
>>>
>>> I thought that you have arrived at a version of Solaris that is
>>> stripped down from the 3.5 GB+ install size down to 70 MB.
>>>
>>> There was an earlier post on this subject with a valuable response
>>> from Ananth Shrinivas that led to
>>> http://blogs.sun.com/szhou/entry/build_a_minimal_solaris_image and
>>> http://solaristhings.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-small-can-you-make-open-solaris.html
>>> . I thought that Solaris 70 is a work in that direction.
>>>
>>> If Solaris 70 is not exactly that, then I am looking for a minimal,
>>> bare minimal, stripped down version of solaris with just the basic
>>> files needed to boot the GUI to have a minimal browser running.
>>>
>>> Apart from the response from Ananth Shrinivas I have some more leads
>>> on this, and am ready with two minimal boards and some interesting
>>> hardware to try a minimal installation. Can I ask installation help
>>> from Open Solaris ?
>>>
>>>       
>>    What you are looking at requires quite a bit of work. The
>>    OS image must be configured to exactly handle one piece
>>    of controlled hardware. It will only contain drivers specific
>>    to that hardware. You will also need to tune to your use
>>    case. If for example one is building a storage box then it
>>    will need to have all the storage and networking related
>>    software: ZFS, NFS, iSCSI, Samba, Rsync etc.
>>    If you want GUI then you need Xorg. However just Xorg
>>    alone in it's entirety is about 170MB. So you will have to
>>    strip the Xorg setup as well. Remove all headers, docs,
>>    drivers. Have only the video driver for the video card
>>    you are using. Remove all unused libraries - depends on
>>    what apps you want to run on your minimal system.
>>
>>    And all these cannot only be tackled by reducing the
>>    number of packages installed. Some of the tuning needs
>>    to go down to sub-package granularity. Essentially you
>>    will have to deal with understanding the purpose of
>>    individual files and deciding whether you need them
>>    or not.
>>
>>    There is a plan to prepare a minimal image of BeleniX
>>    which can be tailored to fit vaious needs. For eg. the
>>    Storage/NAS thing I just mentioned. It is possible to
>>    prepare very minimal GUI desktop experience, but
>>    needs a predetermined video card and controlled set
>>    of apps.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Moinak.
>>
>>     
>>> Thank you.
>>> Sivasubramanian Muthusamy.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 9/22/07, Moinak Ghosh <Moinak.Ghosh at sun.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Sivasubramanian Muthusamy wrote:
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>> Dear Shivakumar,
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you for this response. This will help me get started.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>>    Siva, are you expecting a version of OpenSolaris that uses
>>>>    70MB of space after installation or runs in 70MB of RAM ?
>>>>
>>>>    By 70MB, I indicated that the install process will block up
>>>>    70MB of RAM and use some more for running the processes.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Moinak.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>> Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
>>>>>
>>>>> On 9/21/07, S h i v <shivakumar.gn at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>>>> On 9/21/07, Sivasubramanian Muthusamy <shiva.madras at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>> Dear Moinak Ghosh,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I am attempting to install a small foot print solaris on a AMD Geode
>>>>>>> 700 board as also on a phone. Could you please tell me when this 70 MB
>>>>>>> foot print solaris experss is expected?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>               
>>>>>> As per Moinak's mail above the first beta is expected sometime in Oct
>>>>>> "It will be possible to do this once a Slim Install beta release is available,
>>>>>> sometime in Oct...."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The second release will be in March.
>>>>>> http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/caiman/Slim_Install
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Also see
>>>>>> http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/caiman/Slim_Install/uiroadmap
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The below thread provides some details as to what goes into each of
>>>>>> these 2 releases
>>>>>> http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=38317&tstart=0
>>>>>>
>>>>>> regards
>>>>>> Shiv
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
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>>>>         
>>     
>
>
>   