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6.1.2 Operating System
6.1.2.1 Kernel
The kernel is loaded, /vmunix (SunOS 4.X) or /kernel/unix (SunOS 5.0-5.4) or /unix (SGI), and control passes to the operating system. Solaris 2.5 and above (SunOS 5.5+) has both a generic, platform-independent part (/kernel/genunix) and a core, or platform-specific part (/platform/'uname -m'/kernel/unix) of the kernel. These are combined to form the running kernel.
When the kernel starts it outputs information about its size and history, probes the bus to confirm the devices, those that it can't contact are ignored, it identifies the root, swap, and dump devices, starts up programs to manage physical memory and flush the kernel memory buffers, and then it invokes /sbin/init.
Unix System Administration - 8 AUG 1996
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