I think JVM always takes always contiguous chunks of memory equivalent to the -Xms. If the configured value is not available, then the JVM initialization fails.
In the above perspective, how to find amount of contiguous chunk of physical memory available on Solaris platform.
The JVM does not require a contiguous area of physical memory. What it uses is virtual memory.
As the addressable space shouldn't be scattered when you start the JVM, the limit for the -Xms option only depends on the virtual memory size available for your process. Up to 4 GB minus the area allocated for non heap memory (stacks, native, etc ...) for a 32 bit JVM and only limited by your system available virtual memory size (swap -s) on a 64-bit JVM.
