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We're all familiar with the traditional interactive installation methods, but there are other installation techniques for OpenSolaris, such as Caiman and AI (Automated Installer).

Volker A. Brandt, an IT consultant specialising in Solaris system and infrastructure development based in Germany, goes through the pros and cons of both techniques, their key benefits and differences in his presentation on oracle.com.

In a nutshell, Caiman is an interactive, simple-to-use, streamlined graphical installer for OpenSolaris on x86 systems. The installer is actually a Gnome/GTK application running from a live CD-ROM. One of the good things about Caiman is that it integrates a live CD experience, i.e you can run the desktop off the CD and get the rest from an IPS repository. It's a nice "try before you install" capability.

Automated Installer, or AI, essentially performs “hands-free” network installations of OpenSolaris. AI lets you install OpenSolaris onto x86 systems or SPARC systems in a network. The installations can differ in architecture, packages installed, disk capacity and other parameters. The minimal configuration necessary to use the automated installer is to have one system as the install server and one client on which to install.

If you're interested to learn more about Caiman and AI for OpenSolaris, watch Volker A. Brandt's excellent presentation on oracle.com:

http://blogs.sun.com/video/entry/alligator_meets_terminator_caiman_and