Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Chapter 8

Additional Software Included

Sun Installation Assistant

The Sun Installation Assistant software on CD-ROM is included in the ship-kit with every Sun Fire X4600
server. Sun Installation Assistant is a Linux installation utility that reduces the complexity of installing supported
Linux distributions on new hardware. A newly released platform seldom has a certified set of drivers already in
a current Linux distribution. Typically, an administrator will be required to generate driver disks for each of the
supported Linux distributions that he or she plans to install. Additionally, Linux distributions do not contain
support for non-platform drivers such as the Service Processor.
A complete Linux installation on a Sun Fire X4600 server can be easily performed using the Sun Installation
Assistant CD-ROM. Insatallation can be done either locally or remotely using the remote KVMS features
provided by ILOM and the ILOM Remote Console.
Once the system has been booted from the media or image, a boot kernel is loaded and probes the platform
configuration. Upon recognition that the server is a supported platform, a list of the currently supported Linux
distributions is displayed and the user is prompted to insert Disk 1 of the supported Linux distribution of his or
her choice. Disk 1 can be either a physical CD-ROM disk or an ILOM Remote Console redirected iso disk
image. The Linux distribution installation continues as usual until completion. Following installation completion,
the certified platform and device drivers are installed and the installation is completed without necessitating
cumbersome driver installation procedures. The Sun Installation Assistant manages the software installation of:
•Supported Linux operating systems
•Platform-specific software
•Diagnostic and fault management software
•Add-on components such as the JES middleware stack
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