Solaris as a guest OS on a Windows host.

On my Acer Aspire 8920 laptop my onboard ethernet card is not supported due to non existing drivers. Next to that, for some reason the Citrix ICA client doesnt work under the newer SXCE builds.Virtual box to the rescue.

On my Windows Vista based laptop I have the following specs:

• 2048MB RAM
• Dual Core T5750
• 1x SATA 300GB
• NVidia GFX card with a maximum resolution of 1920×1080

I installed VirtualBox. After this I created a new virtual machine with the following specs:

• 1024MB RAM
• A virtual disk of 16GB
• 128MB of Video Memory

in this virtual machine I installed OpenSolaris. Thanks to the emulated/virtualized hardware being supported by the OpenSolaris kernel I now have ethernet working in Opensolaris and due to the internal NAT routing done by the VirtualBox software between the virtual NIC and the physical NIC, I now am able to access the network over ethernet within Opensolaris. Just configure the virtual NIC in Opensolaris to use DHCP.

After the installation is completed, don’t forget to install the “Guest Tools”. These tools will enable you to run JDS in a higher resolution than 1024×768 (I am running it at 1920×1080).

With these systems booted up I start a browser in the Windows Vista environment, from this browser I access the Citrix published applications. From within the Opensolaris environment I run SSH/compilers and other tools I use during my work day.

Both the host operating system and the guest operating system are running responsive and without huge slow downs comparing with running them native on the laptop. Swiching off Opensolaris guest OS when you want to use Citrix is not necessary.