[tlug] Speaking of things that make you feel stupid...

[Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com>]

Scott, enjoyed your post on the difficulties of Linux... it is always
good to see that I am not the only one who feels that I am the biggest
moron in the world when things don't work in Linux!

And speaking of me feeling like a moron:

I have this Sun Enterprise 4500 server. Really nice, really big. I bet
it would be a very reliable and wonderful machine if I could but install
Solaris on the buggering thing!

So my question is, to those who know Solaris better than I, does
anything appear strange or wrong about my yarikata?

The box has a Solaris kernel which fails to boot on some hard drive or
other (the result of a failed installation). What I want to do is
reinstall Solaris 8 from scratch--new partitioning scheme and the whole
nine yards. So I:

1) Pop the Solaris 8 Install CD in (the latest revision of Solaris 8
from Sun's website)
2) Bring the system to the OK prompt
3) OK> boot cdrom (at which point the system boots off the install CD)
4) Select English language, then wait as the stuff is copied over into
my swap partition, after which it reboots into an X install wizard
5) I tell the installer that I am not connected to a network, and walk
through all of those steps. I am told to wait while the system is
configured, then:

Up pops the Web Install "Kiosk" or whatever the hell Sun it. A warning
box appears, blank except for the OK button, which does nothing when
clicked. I can still sod about in the Kiosk bit as much as I want
(though I cannot really accomplish anything), and even get a terminal. 

According to documentation that I read, I should be prompted for the
Solaris Software CD 1 or something at this point, or rather, before this
point.

According to something else that I read God knows where on the web, the
Install disk is not even necessary. So I tried once booting off the
Software 1 disk. This pulled up the installer that I expected--allowing
me to play with the partition table, etc, and install all the different
chunks of the OS. However, I am not sure if it installed a kernel or
not, because when I try to boot, it just freezes somewhere in the
process after loading the kernel image.

In short, I am really lost. Any ideas?


-- 
Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com>

Computer Science Undergrad
"No segfault, no problem!"