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Installing Solaris 10 as a 32-Bit guest operating system on a 64-Bit host machine

Details

I have a 64-bit host machine with a processor that does not support 64-bit guests. When I try to install Solaris 10 as a 32-bit guest operating system, an error displays, indicating that I do not have a supported 64-bit processor. How can I install Solaris 10 as a 32-bit guest operating system?

Solution

When the Solaris 10 guest detects the host processor's 64-bit capability during installation, it attempts to enter longmode. The VMware product then displays an error message indicating that you do not have a supported 64-bit processor.

You are able to work around this problem by suppressing the longmode feature by adding the following line to the guest virtual machine's configuration (.vmx) file:

monitor_control.disable_longmode = 1

Note: Once you have successfully installed the guest operating system, remove the line from the configuration file, as the configuration may later cause guest application issues.

To force Solaris 10 to boot in 32-bit mode on a 64-bit host, execute the following command from a command line prompt within the guest:

eeprom boot-file=kernel/unix

Note: This command requires superuser privileges.

Note: If you upgrade the guest operating system (for example, from Solaris 10 Upgrade-1 to Solaris 10 Upgrade-2), you need to re-execute the eeprom command because the entry is automatically removed on upgrade.

The Sun Web site provides more information on this issue. See: docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/817-1985/6mhm8o5nb?a=view.

Keywords

1975; ws550

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