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Installing OpenSolaris - Indiana Developer Preview! Indiana is a Live CD distribution, based on the OpenSolaris source code, which tries to make the installation experience easier, to modernize the look and feel of OpenSolaris on the desktop, and to introduce a network-based package management system into Solaris. It will also have the capability for developers to create their own customized distribution. The following are some of the most important features of the Indiana project:

· Single CD download, with LiveCD 'try before you install' capabilities
· Caiman installer, with significantly improved installation experience
· ZFS as the default filesystem
· Image packaging system, with capabilities to pull packages from network repositories
· GNU utilities in the default $PATH
· bash as the default shell
· GNOME 2.20 desktop environment

The first official release will be available in Spring 2008. Until then, here are installation instructions:

Download the ISO image from here, burn it with your favorite CD/DVD burning software, reboot your PC and boot from the CD/DVD-ROM device. Hit enter when GRUB appears:

Wait for the CD to load...

Choose the desired keyboard layout (default is US English) and wait for the GNOME desktop to appear:

Double click the Install OpenSolaris icon and hit the Next button when the installation wizard appears:

Select "Use the whole disk" option on the next screen. Remember that this will ERASE the whole hard drive! You have been warned!.

Select your time zone, date and time:

Now, you can input a root (System Administrator) password and create a user account for yourself:

Review your installation settings and hit the Install button to install OpenSolaris:

Wait for the installation process to finish and reboot your computer! The system will restart and you'll see the OpenSolaris log-in prompt in a few seconds, enter the username and password you have created earlier and enjoy a nice and fast Solaris operating system.

By: Marius Nestor, Linux Editor