DCA scan does not complete ; shows 100%, and says Please Wait. Special Scan of only 1 item, such as Keyboard or Floppy Disk. Same thing for diskettes, furnished and generated from Sun patch files (111307 for boot.bin + 3others, copied onto diskette, via dd.exe, from 110930-5. Same for Install and Software CD's. Probably something in the Packard Bell that doesn't respond to whatever Test instruction is being sent. Some info about the machine :
Packard Bell NEC P170107002, bought March 2000.
Board: MS6168, System Serial Number: K115600045
600 megahertz Intel Pentium III, Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends, Inc. V2.9 12/10/99
{ Windows 98 SE (build 4.10.2222) }

Any help will be appreciated.

Most likely a hardware conflict, have you checked your hardware to see if any is fully supported and will be recognized?

Certainly my machine is not on the list. Packard Bell (Austrailia) support told me they never tried to validate it. Same behavior by Solaris DCA with Samsung V20. Hard to believe that "Hang" is the way Sun informs me that it doesn't recognize a device. If they are still back there with respect to user friendliness, I am sure that learning their software can wait.

I AM looking for some encouragement to try again from Sun regarding the 9 or 10 release, but they seem to be confused, rather publically, about the value of the investment in an Intel release.

Thanks for your comment.

There are some machines that are just not able to, such as my Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop. I tried the 2/02 version of Solaris 8 with that, which was supposed to support Pentium 4, but I had no luck and finally gave up.

Solaris is making headway again with x86 architecture, but their main forte still remains their own hardware. What they are beginning to do now, is to couple both of these and come up with Sun LX and V6*x boxes, which are Sun built boxes with Intel processors in them.

But honestly, could we de-evolve any further? The UltraSparc processors (while a little more expensive) are 64-bit processors, why should they spend any time working backwards on 32-bit processors? I say its time to dump the whole 32-bit architecture and move on. Lets go Itanium, please keep up with the world!

Just my 2 cents ... ok maybe it was more like 4 cents.

Good points. Thanks. But I won't think about other equipment while such uncertainty persists about what I'm getting into (for how many other sets of conditions is "hang" a legitimate expression of information for these people ??)

Could you point me to the list of portables validated for Solaris 9 ?
Thanks.

Not sure what uncertainty you are referring to. Their software is near flawless on their own hardware. I have had systems run for months and have heard of machines running for years with no unscheduled downtime. (scheduled downtime for patching & upgrades, etc...)

In case you haven't noticed, there is no software that is "perfect". Windows crashes, Linux crashes, AIX, HP-UX, SCO, Solaris, ... The list goes on and on, this is further complicated by x86 systems being so made with the cheapest parts available. Intel/AMD boxes are _not_ manufactured to avoid 'hangs'.

If you are looking for that perfection, then go drop a couple million $$ on a mainframe. But then you have to worry about the programs that you run on there 'hanging' due to sloppy programmers.

In answer to the portables question, I assume you mean laptop. In that case have a look at the HCL on Sun's website, that will give you a list. There are ways to make other laptops work, you just have to make it work. Some (specifically mine) aren't worth the headache to get Solaris loaded.