Utilize OpenSolaris beadm to test unstable bits

If you need to test an dev kernel binarie. Try the following best practice.

One thing you can do is to use beadm(1M) to create one or more alternate boot  environments (BE). This way you can keep 2009.06 but also experiment with the newer
bits in the dev tree.

There are various ways to do this... This is what I usually do to ensure that the stock bits remained absolutely unchanged. What we'll do it to create a tree of cloned disk images..

Create a backup up os2009.06 in case you mess something up. Then, create a branch for the development release. You may have to update some packages to be able to upgrade to newer releases, so we'll do that in the branch.

 beadm create os2009.06-backup
 beadm create dev-branch
 beadm activate dev-branch
 reboot

One you've rebooted, re-target (the dev-branch) from the release
repo to the development repo. Then upgrade the pkg package.

  beadm list
  pkg set-authority -O http://pkg.opensolaris.org/dev opensolaris.org
  pkg install SUNWipkg

Now lets create a build specific BE.  NOTE: b116 doesn't exist in
the repo as of today, but should shortly. ("pkg search entire" for a
list of builds).

From the dev-branch, create a b116 BE.

 beadm create snv116
 beadm mount snv116 /mnt
 pkg -R /mnt refresh
 pkg -R /mnt install entire@0.5.11-0.116
 bootadm update-archive -R /mnt
 beadm umount snv116
 beadm activate snv116
 reboot