Linux Install

Install Checklist

• Know your hardware!
• if you are dual booting, check the Windows Device Manager

• HCL
• *This is the key to success*
• Make sure your hardware is supported particularly:
• network card, graphics controller, disk, motherboard, BIOS
• Minimum Requirements
• Linux will run on with very little RAM (16MB) and disk space (a floppy)
• don't install X Windows
• minimize package installation
• Choose Custom installation requiring 350 MB for minimum installation
• Maximum supported CPU and Memory
• kernel supports 32 CPUs
• 4 CPUs scale linearly
• i386, i586 kernels: 1 GB RAM
• i686 and athlon kernels: 4 GB
• special kernel called bigmem support 64GB
• Disk Partitions
• File System Types
• Network Requirements
• Do you get you IP address dynamically? DHCP or fixed
• Netmask: masks network part from host part of IP number
• Gateway: route to Internet
• Name Servers: hostname/IP resolution
• Network Configuration

Troubleshooting

• hardware compatibility
• driver configuration
• BIOS

IDE Disks

• Maximum of two drives (disks and/or CD-ROMs) per IDE controller
• one master, one slave
• check documentation for proper jumper settings
• Example from http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/tva/tvajum.htm

• /boot must reside on either drive 1 or 2 on the first IDE controller
• if one of those drives is the CD-ROM, /boot must be on the other
• Disk drives larger than 8 GB
• Limitation of older BIOS
• BIOS can't access data stored beyond the 1023 cylinder
• Disk drivers larger than 32 GB
• Limitation of older BIOS
• drive will lock up at boot time if capacity > 33.8
• Workaround exists
• upgrade BIOS if you can or,
• fool BIOS into thinking the drive is only 32GB
• IBM provides a disk utility

Network Cards

• Check the HCL
• Go to vendor web page for driver if not found in Unix/Linux distribution
• Problem could be configuration -- resource conflict
• You can customize your network card configuration inside the configuration file /etc/modules.conf
• add an options line after the network card alias

alias eth0 3c503
options 3c503 irq=5 io=0x300

Graphics Controller

• If the driver is not available for your card
• try a similar card
• choose most basic resolution settings
• 8-bit or 16-bit color depth 640x480 or 800x600 resolution
• May need to rebuild XFree86
• not trivial!

Hardware Resources

• dmesg and /var/log/dmesg
• the kernel detects hardware during the boot process
• you see these messages scroll off your screen
• the command /bin/dmesg retrieves the contents of the kernel buffer where these messages are stored
• they are also written to the log file /var/log/dmesg
• The /proc filesystem
• a special filesytem implemented internally by the kernel
• lives in memory only
• provides a snap-shot of the system
• /proc/iomem, /proc/ioports, /proc/interrupts, /proc/irq/*, /proc/net/*, /proc/ide/*

# cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 92636534 XT-PIC timer
1: 62869 XT-PIC keyboard
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
5: 2631 XT-PIC soundblaster
8: 1 XT-PIC rtc
11: 1752903 XT-PIC sym53c8xx, usb-ohci, eth0
12: 537322 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse
14: 207 XT-PIC ide0
NMI: 0
ERR: 0

• Graphical tool for looking at current system hardware
• hwbrowser

Installation Methods

• CD-ROM
• purchase box set from RedHat
• download ISO from RedHat mirror site
• create bootable CD from ISO image
• BIOS must have CD-ROM in boot order
• Floppy
• local boot disk: boot.img
• no network access, must have ISO on disk or CD
• net boot disk: bootnet.img
• can install via FTP, NFS, HTTP

RedHat's README file found in the top level

• from DOS or Windows
• navigate to dosutils on your RedHat CD
• insert blank formatted diskette into floppy drive
• use rawrite command to write the image file to the floppy


C:\> d:
D:\> cd \dosutils
D:\dosutils> rawrite
Enter disk image source file name: ..\images\boot.img
Enter target diskette drive: a:
Please insert a formatted diskette into drive A: and
press --ENTER-- :
[Enter]

D:\dosutils>
 

• from Linux or Unix
• navigate to images on your RedHat CD
• insert blank formatted diskette into floppy drive

# dd if=boot.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k

• Diagnostic messages displayed on virtual consoles
• Move between virtual consoles with certain keystokes

Console	Keystrokes	Contents
1	[Ctrl] - [Alt] - [F1]	installation dialog
2	[Ctrl] - [Alt] - [F2]	shell prompt
3	[Ctrl] - [Alt] - [F3]	install log (messages from installation program)
4	[Ctrl] - [Alt] - [F4]	system-related messages
5	[Ctrl] - [Alt] - [F5]	other messages
7	[Ctrl] - [Alt] - [F7]	X graphical display

For additional details, RedHat provides an excellent HOWTO for installation