Installing a RedHat System

Overview

The RedHat Installer simplifies the process of partitioning, formatting installing and configuring the Linux RedHat/PPC distribution.

No previously installed Linux is required, the installation is started from Amiga DOS by booting a kernel with the Linux/APUS ram disk image as the root filesystem.

The RedHat Installer has been used to install from a hard disk partition to other partitions on the same drive. Christophe Decanini reports that CDROM, FTP and NFS work.

Note: See the section called Software With Known Problems for a list of applications that are known to fail.

Requirements

• A kernel.

• The latest Linux/APUS RedHat Installer ram disk image (usually named apus-rh-ramdiskimageYYMMDD.gz in the RedHat 'install' directory at SunSITE Denmark).

• RPMs, base files and README.installer. Available on the Linux RedHat/PPC CD-ROM or from ftp.linuxppc.org and mirrors.

  The base files required are comps.pmac, hdlist, skeleton.cgz and uglist.

• A few moments spent reading this docment, especially the Problems at the end of this section.

What is an RPM?

RPM is the acronym for RedHat Package Manager. This is a standalone program that installs software on to a Linux system. Files intended for use by RPM have the extension .rpm. The RedHat Installer has a library version of the RedHat Package Manager in the install ramdisk.image.

Hard Disks

The RedHat Installer can partition and format hard disks, but depending on which install method you use you might need to partition your hard disk first with HDToolBox. On a single drive system, an AFFS Amiga DOS partition is needed to hold the RPMs in addition to the required Linux and swap partitions. On a system with two or more drives, or when using the other install methods the installer can do the partitioning and formatting of the drive(s).

On the AFFS drive or partition a directory RedHat with subdirectories RPMS and base should be created. The base directory should hold the comps.pmac, hdlist, skeleton.cgz and uglist files. The RPMS directory is the place for the collected RPMs.

The suggested RedHat minimum system is about 25MB of RPMs which needs about 70MB of Linux disk space.

Components "comps" file and RPMS

Read the README.installer for info on the comps.pmac file format. Basically there are two types of line; separator lines and RPM prefix lines. Separator lines start with a digit or the word 'end' and divide the RPMs into groups, RPM prefix lines are partial RPM names. An indented RPM prefix line implies that the RPM specified by the preceding non-indented line is required. If the comps.pmac file has entries for RPMs that don't exist in the RPMS directory the installer complains about them but will work, but to avoid saying OK to many warnings edit the comps.pmac file to include only the RPMs you have.

The long filenames of some RPMs are chopped at the Amiga 32 character limit but this is not a problem since RPM will scan the packages for their full name.

Installing

Copy the apus-rh-ramdiskimageYYMMDD.gz to RAM: and boot specifying:

	    -r ram:apus-rh-ramdiskimageYYMMDD.gz root=/dev/ram	  

in addition to the usual --apus, -k, and -m options as required.

I use (all on one line) :

	    boothack --apus -v -d -m memfile -k ram:vmlinux -r ram:apus-rh-ramdiskimageYYMMDD.gz root=/dev/ram 	  

If all goes well a window asking if you have a color monitor will appear.

(Respond to the windows with CR to enter, SPACE to toggle on/off and TAB to move between buttons, cursor arrows to move up and down lists.)

Now comes a succession of windows guiding you through the installation. Reply to these to suit your system. Choose install at the install/upgrade window. Eventually you should get to the window asking what packages to install. Select what you require or the "everything" option at end of the list.

After the Package install finishes there may be much disk activity as the RPM database is created.

A few more windows, networking timezone and root password.

Finally an "OK to reboot" screen should appear but wait till the disk activity stops before rebooting.

During the the install, CTRL-Z brings a shell up, entering exit returns you to the installer. ALT-F1 to ALT-F4 select installer, a shell, installer log and kernel log virtual consoles. To get F11 to F20 use SHFT-F1 etc.

Required RPMS

To create a list of the suggested required RPMs for a minimum system, take the RPM prefixes in the '1 *beforeskel*' and the '1 Base' sections of the comps.pmac file and expand them into the full RPM name as contained in the RPMS directory.

Problems

Flashing console problem. The current CD (as at 27-Oct-98) writes an /etc/inittab that attempts to start X at the default run level of 3 rather than run level 5. As kernels from 2.1.120 to the 981026 release have problems with X on some hardware, the result is alternating flashes of login screens and blank X screens. The same thing also happens if the default run level is set to 5 and the information in the XF68Config file is incorrect. To avoid this, either get a 981031 or newer kernel, or fix the installation: when the installation finishes don't respond to the "Congratulations" window but hit ALT-F2 and edit /mnt/etc/inittab. All that needs to be done to /mnt/etc/inittab is to swap the comment '#' char on the last two lines of the file. To run any of the newly installed editors you need to specify a full path, the installed system is on /mnt. Now hit ALT-F1 and confirm the "Congratulations" window. Thanks to Kolbjørn Barmen for suggesting this approach. If you have already installed the X components and are seeing the flashing console, you need to login and edit /etc/inittab and make the above change.

<From Douglas Valentine> As it can be difficult to login through the flashing (although it can be done) it is easier to boot in single user mode to fix the problem. To do this add the parameter "single" to the end of your normal boothack parameters and boot Linux as normal. Linux will then boot in single user mode, which is a special maintenance mode, instead of booting up and displaying a login prompt, it will come to a prompt: sh-2.0.3# Now type pico /etc/inittab and make the change explained above, save the changes and then restart Linux as normal (remember to remove the "single" parameter again).

The first version of the installer was incorrectly named apus-rh-ramdisk.image130698.gz, should have been called apus-rh-ramdisk.image980613.gz.

NOTE: apus-rh-ramdisk.image981003 requires the comps file to be named comps.pmac, for earlier versions of the installer, rename comps.pmac to comps.

If you have a 4.2 CD February 98 use apus-rh-ramdisk.image130698.gz, if you have the 5.0 CD or try the other install methods use apus-rh-ramdisk.image981003. The 130698 installer has problems with the 'noarch' files in the 5.0 distribution.

Three of the RPMs on the 4.2 CD have errors when installing. dailyscript-3.1-2.ppc.rpm writes a message over the progress screen, latex2html-96.1.revh-4.ppc.rpm and xmahjongg-2.0-1A.ppc.rpm fail with install script failed.

I have yet to do a full install from the 5.0 CD. Installing the suggested base was free of errors.

Some users have a reported a 'missing kernel error' when attempting to install from downloaded RPMs. The installer tries to put a kernel into the /boot directory. There is no reason to do this as the kernels available on linuxppc.org are not Linux/APUS kernels. To avoid this edit the comps.pmac file and remove the two (4.2) or three (5.0) lines kernel-prep, kernel-pmac, kernel-pmac-modules.

Comments, feedback about success or failure most welcome, I read the Linux/APUS list daily.