You can do a minimal server install using the always awesome text installer in
Solaris Express or Solaris 10 (keep in mind that Solaris Express IS a variant
of OpenSolaris, although you have to sign up with Sun to download it).
When you do a text install, there's a menu that lets you choose which packages
you want and which packages you don't want. Here's a picture of what it looks
like:
http://adamncopeland.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/picture-2.png
I have no idea why this awesome, value-added text install feature that I really
love is missing from Indiana 2009.xx. The new Caiman install is only good for
desktop users who want a "one-click" turnkey desktop OS installation that
doesn't ask them any complicated questions, but it is totally worthless in a
server or data center environment where you want to just enter in the IP
Address, root password, and select the packages you want, and then go work on
something else while the OS is installing and then have the box come up with a
static IP address and SSH running after the reboot.
Solaris Express has most of the same cool features that OpenSolaris has (except
for IPS), so a minimal text install of Solaris Express might be just what you
are looking for. The ability to boot up something like a Netra server and
install it entirely in text mode using a console cable command line (similar to
the console cable you use to configure a CISCO router) is one of the things
that makes Solaris 10 REALLY cool and possibly the best data center operating
system out there.
Some other cool features Solaris 10 has that Indiana doesn't have are the
ability to use a "flash archive" to back up and restore an entire system using
"flarcreate" (see link below for details):
http://www.cuddletech.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=245
and you can also do "sparse root zones" in Solaris 10, which is another
advantage I've found using it over Indiana. Give SXCE and Solaris 10 a try and
you'll see why so many sysadmins absolutely rave about how good it is (Indiana
has been ok as a desktop OS for me, but I don't trust it at all on servers,
especially given the fact that you can't deploy new zones if the IPS repository
goes down).
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This message posted from opensolaris.org
