How to install desktop GUI in solaris 11 (x86) By Devan

How to install desktop GUI in solaris 11 (x86)

When you install the new Solaris 11 x86 box in your production environment or in LAB environment under VMware workstation, you would not find the GUI desktop as you would have got for connecting Solaris 10 x86 server. The Solaris 11 does not come bundled with the desktop GUI package by default, so you will have to install the desktop GUI package from the IPS repository. Check out the post to create a repository. Please note that this requires a reboot of the system

I have a local IPS repository created in my LAB environment. The package to be installed from the repository is

root@geeklab:~# pkg info -r solaris-desktop
          Name: group/system/solaris-desktop
       Summary: Oracle Solaris Desktop
   Description: Provides an Oracle Solaris desktop environment
      Category: Meta Packages/Group Packages
         State: Not installed
     Publisher: solaris
       Version: 0.5.11
 Build Release: 5.11
        Branch: 0.175.1.0.0.24.3
Packaging Date: September 19, 2012 06:53:17 PM
          Size: 5.46 kB
          FMRI: pkg://solaris/group/system/solaris-desktop@0.5.11,5.11-0.175.1.0.0.24.3:20120919T185317Z

Let us now install the package on the machine.

oot@geeklab:~# pkg install solaris-desktop
           Packages to install: 369
       Create boot environment:  No
Create backup boot environment: Yes
            Services to change:  14
........

The install by default creates a backup Boot environment, so that you can roll back any time to a state before installing the desktop package. After the install, just reboot the system to login into the Desktop GUI.

root@geeklab:~# shutdown -i6 -g0 -y