8.8. Other Operating Systems

Solaris is the only other operating system that has a module for managing disks and partitions, however there are several differences between Linux and Solaris:

• Every Solaris disk has exactly 8 partitions, some of which may have no extent if they are not being used. Partitions never need to be created or deleted and there are no extended or logical partitions.

• When editing a Solaris partition, its extents can be changed without needing to delete and recreate it. This will, however, almost certainly result in the loss of data on the partition.

• Every partition has a type that indicates what it is used for. The root type is usually for the root directory filesystem, the swap type is for virtual memory, the usr type is for other filesystems, and the unassigned type is for empty partitions.

• Each partition has two flags—Mountable and Writable—which indicate whether it can be mounted or written to, respectively.

• The only filesystem supported on Solaris partitions is ufs—the native UNIX filesystem type.

• Partition labeling is not supported on Solaris.

• When editing the module access control, there is no Can view non-editable disks? option.

The RAID and LVM modules explained below are not available on Solaris or any other operating system.