SUMMARY: Solaris on an 80x86 portable

From: Jerry Sweet (jsweet@irvine.com)
Date: Fri Mar 18 1994 - 16:19:32 CST


>From my original (possibly mis-directed) post to comp.unix.solaris,
here's the information I've obtained so far about what's needed to put
Solaris on a laptop. Thanks to these individuals for answering my
questions:

David G Hough at validgh <dgh@validgh.com>
Antony Halim <aha@kaiwan.com>

First, for current info on general x86 compatibility questions, one
may send an e-mail message to this address:

        IHV Hardware Compatibility <x86-hwconfig@cypress.west.sun.com>

A canned message on the subject is returned.
(IHV probably stands for Independent Hardware Vendor.)

The following information relevant to known working laptop
configurations was obtained from the IHV list:

  Compaq LTE Lite 4/25C Laptop*
  Compaq LTE Lite 4/33C Laptop*
  Toshiba T4400C Laptop*
  Toshiba T4600C Laptop*
  
  * Laptop systems require the following:
  
          (1) a minimum of 12Mb of memory, preferably 20Mb
          (2) a minimum of 180Mb of disk
          (3) a docking bay must be used for the installation
          (4) Use [Toshiba] 4400c PMI file for 4600C

My comments:

Memory and disk requirements are within expected norms.

The requirement for a docking bay is neither understandable nor
explained. Perhaps what's really meant is that a larger hard disk is
required, or that a CD-ROM drive or tape drive is required. Too bad
there's neither an explanation nor a pointer to other material for
further information.

For those who, like me, don't understand all the vagaries of ISA PC
configuration, "PMI file" apparently refers to a configuration file
for the video interface.

It was reported that Solaris can be installed on NEC Versa notebooks,
and experience indicates that it works on ALR Ranger M laptops as
well, at least with old Interactive/Solaris.

However, the aforementioned configurations are still too ridiculously
high-priced. So I'm starting to think in terms of Linux now, not
Solaris. There's apparently far too much overhead involved in putting
Solaris on a laptop (maintainably).

The only reason I considered Solaris was because of WABI, and the
relative popularity of Solaris. But I'm thinking economy here. I'd
really prefer to put some flavor of UNIX on a Macintosh portable, but
I don't think that A/UX runs on the portables, and I don't know of any
third-party UNIX implementations for Macintoshes.



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