how does solaris name its disk partitions?

i want to install solaris on my box to try it out,

the partition i have for it is /dev/sda6 under linux,

but solaris uses differnt drive names,

waht would sda6 become under solaris?

Solaris uses a predictive and descriptive scheme to name disks and partitions.
It can be split in controller, target is SCSI/USB, disk number and partition or slice number.
Unfortunately, this won't work.
sda6 can't be but an extended partition while Solaris requires a primary partition (one of sda1 to sda4 in your case).

great, all of those are taken! though if i moove the stuff on sda1 to sda6 i coyudl use sda1

provided i do that, what should i choose on the installation menu to get it instlled there?

Something like "c0t0d0p1".

As you aren't familiar with the Solaris installer, I would strongly suggest you to backup any important data in your disk. A mistake in your answers may wipe your disk ...

dasy2k1,

I have no idea how to dual boot Linux and Solaris, but here is some important information regarding how Solaris handles partitions.


c0t0d0s0
Controller 0 Target 0 disk 0 slice 0

This is the first slice (read partition) on the drive

c0t0d0s2
This is the whole disk, not a partition. Very important to know.

So taking that you have a single IDE drive on your primary IDE controller on your Primary channel ...

c0: the first controller
t0: the 1st target (slave on the first controller is t1)
d0: disk number ALWAYS 0 for IDE
s0->7: The slice or partition, 2 is ALWAYS reserved for the entire disk
0: is usually assigned to the ROOT partition
1: is usually the SWAP partition
2: IS the entire disk
3: is usually /var
4: (can't remember for the life of me)
5: is /opt or optional software
6: is usually /usr
7: is usually /export/home

And if you are using SCSI ...


c0: the first controller
t?: boot disks are t0
non-boot disks are t1->t3
tape devices are t4 & t5
CDROMs are t6
"next in line" is t7
d0: disk number; quite often d0 with SCSI devices, but not always
s0->7: The slice or partition, 2 is ALWAYS reserved for the entire disk
0: is usually assigned to the ROOT partition
1: is usually the SWAP partition
2: IS the entire disk
3: is usually /var
4: (can't remember for the life of me)
5: is /opt or optional software
6: is usually /usr
7: is usually /export/home


As far as which controller is deemed the 1st controller, that is up to the hardware architecture, read dependent on the motherboard.


Hope this helps, or at least make you scratch your head for a while.

Also suns document sight and BIG ADMIN are great sites. (docs.sun.com & sun.com/bigadmin)

HTH,

so the first partition on my sata HDD is likly to be

c1t0d0s0

and my CD rom (on the master IDE (i only have one channel)
is likly to be

c0t0d0s2 ?

No, bru information is only correct with SPARC hardware where the internal disks do not have to comply with the PC MBR partitioning model. SPARC disks do not have an MBR nor a primary partition table with four entries. The remaining partitioning in slices is still valid with x86 (s0, s1, s2 and so on). The difference is s2 doesn't represent the whole disk but only the whole Solaris partition minus the label.

Your first internal SATA disk partition is likely to be c0d0p1, and your CD drive may be something like c1t0d0p0.