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All,

I am in the process of creating a DEV box for hosting my projects and I am wanting to install Solaris 11.1 onto a Lenovo Desktop PC .

PC Details:

Lenovo M92p Thinkcentre 3227
Intel Core i5 3rd Gen
4Gb Ram
500gb HDD (MBR Partition)

Technical Specs

http://support.lenovo.com/en_GB/product-and-parts/detail.page?DocID=PD024409

Currently the system has a OEM version of Windows 7 installed on it.

I downloaded the latest Live image of Solaris from Oracle and burned it using Windows burn utility.

I then boot the DVD using UEFI mode and the GRUB menu displays all the various options to start the Solaris install process.

enter image description here

No matter which option I choose the install hangs on the black screen saying the OS version and the Copyright notice.

The text cursor is not blinking (has it crashed?)

I found this screenshot which shows what I get (note screenshot is from VM)

enter image description here

Things I have done:

  • Flashed the BIOS to latest version
  • Tried booting solaris from a live usb
  • Reburned the solaris iso image
  • Waited an hour to see if it progresses, still same screen
  • Booted DVD using Legacy mode

Things I am going to do:

  • Use a different ISO burner utility
  • Test if Linux can boot from PC

Any ideas?

fixer1234
  • 28,064
tomaytotomato
  • 561

2 Answers2

4

From Lenovo UEFI Bug Only Likes Windows and RHEL :

It looks like Lenovo only knows of Windows and RHEL where their Thinkcentre M92p desktop is concerned. While investigating UEFI boot issues, Matthew Garrett found the PC's firmware actually checks the descriptive string for the operating system, and will prevent unlisted operating systems from booting.

Garrett writes:

Every UEFI boot entry has a descriptive string. This is used by the firmware when it's presenting a menu to users - instead of "Hard drive 0" and "USB drive 3", the firmware can list "Windows Boot Manager" and "Fedora Linux". There's no reason at all for the firmware to be parsing these strings. ... there is a function that compares the descriptive string against "Windows Boot Manager" and appears to return an error if it doesn't match. What's stranger is that it also checks for "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" and lets that one work as well. ... This is, obviously, bizarre. A vendor appears to have actually written additional code to check whether an OS claims to be Windows before it'll let it boot. Someone then presumably tested booting RHEL on it and discovered that it didn't work. Rather than take out that check, they then addded another check to let RHEL boot as well.

So it looks like Lenovo will not let you install Solaris on this model.
You may be obliged to install it in a VM.

harrymc
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0

I am using oios openindiana on a Z170 HD3P from new. Initial install was uneventful and the operating system was almost fully functional. However I then installed windows 10 on a parellel disk and updated the bios to F20. It now stops as discribed. However running on Vb works well from USB. I have tried to install via VB but it only recognises EFI partitions to upload to.I have not tried reloading the firmware F20 or data migration cloning of disks.

robert jones
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