Image of monks gathering on the steps of the main hall in the Tashilhunpo Monastery is courtesy of Alison Whitear Travel Photography.

In his update of Brian Leonard's original Taking Your First Steps With Oracle Solaris, Glynn Foster walks you through the most basic steps required to get a version of Oracle Solaris 11 operational:

• Installing Solaris (VirtualBox, bare metal, or multi-boot)
• Managing users (root role, sudo command)
• Managing services with SMF (svcs and svcadm)
• Connecting to the network (with SMF or manually via dladm and ipadm)
• Figuring out the directory structure
• Updating software (with the IPS GUI or the pkg command)
• Managing package repositories
• Creating and managing additional boot environments

One of the things you'll have to consider as you install Solaris 11 on an x86 system is whether Solaris has the proper drivers for the devices on your system. In the section titled "Installing On Bare Metal as a Standalone System," Glynn shows you how to use the Device Driver utility that's included with the Graphical Installer.

However, if you want to get that information before you start installing Solaris 11 on your x86 system, you can consult the x86 Device List that's part of the Oracle Solaris Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). Here's how:

1. Open the Device List.
2. Scroll down to the table.
3. Open the "Select Release" pull-down menu and pick "Solaris 11 11/11."
4. Move over to the "Select Device Type" pull-down menu, and pick the device type. Or "All."

The table will list all the devices of that type that are supported by Solaris 11, including PCI ID and vendor.

In the coming days the Solaris Hardware Compatibility List will be updated with more Solaris 11 content. Stay tuned.

- Rick Ramsey
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