Obtain a CD. The CD is bootable, but if your BIOS will not boot the CDROM drive, you can also use the boot-assist floppy by inserting both at the same time and resetting the computer. The floppy will even search for a PCMCIA CDROM, so if you have a laptop with no CDROM, you should be able borrow/use a PCMCIA CDROM drive and use the floppy.
Testing whether Sidious Linux supports your hardware is easy, since everything is either auto-detected . . . or not supported. You can test everything by booting (and running from) the CD, or by net-booting. This never involves your computer's hard drive. You should test that each of the following are supported:
mpg123 /Samples/buggles.mp3 # OR
xmms &
(Right click on the song title in the main window to get an option
to turn off the annoying "autoscroll")
If your sound card is not a PCI sound card, you can try to force detection of ISA sound cards by running soundstart, but be warned that this locks up some computers. It's better to get a (cheap) PCI sound card for your machine.
aviplay /Samples/405.avi
To run Sidious Linux from the network, you need a supported Ethernet card. The recommended card is the 3COM Etherlink III. An intel EtherExpress PRO or DEC tulip should work also (with a different boot floppy.)
Obtain a boot floppy. You can make your own by dumping an etherboot image from the CDROM to an unformatted floppy using dd on Unix or rawrite or DiskWrite from DOS or Windows. Whenever you boot from this floppy, your machine should boot Linux from the Sidious NFS-root server. Floppy images are available in the /tftpboot/ directory. The file ``etherboot-507-intel-3com.fd0'' handles most intel and 3com network cards.
For full network privileges at CFHT, your MAC address must be added to the DHCP configuration, and your PC must be in the netgroups that have permission to access home directories. The default configuration is enough to use your computer as an X-Terminal if you are connected to the CFHT network.
Use one of the methods above to boot into Sidious (the easiest is usually to boot the CD.)
fdisk /dev/hda
And choose a partition for Linux. Set the type (` t' command) to 83 (Linux). Then use the ` w' command to rewrite your partition table. If you have no space for Linux, you must either install another drive, shrink your Windows partition using a program like FIPS, or overwrite a Windows partition. (Such procedures are outside the scope of these instructions.)
mkfs.xfs /dev/hdaN
If mkfs.xfs refuses to format the partition, read what it says and follow the directions.
[root@cdboot:~/] # dma on Turning DMA on for all IDE drives [root@cdboot:~/] # _
If DMA appears to cause no problems on your machine (which is usually the case), after installation you will want to use reconfig to make this the default when rebooting from the harddrive. (In general, you should run reconfig after rebooting to customize all settings anyway.) Un-selecting ``Advanced Configuration Options'' on the first page of ``reconfig'' also forces DMA, so if you have problems with DMA on your machine, you must select ``[*] Advanced Configuration Options''.
cd /
./install-sidious /dev/hdaN
The install-sidious script just runs rsync-sidious, which you can use later to upgrade the system. The default installation will take a little over 1 GB of disk space. For a smaller installation, you can pass rsync-sidious options to install-sidious. For example:
cd /
./install-sidious --base --nodoc --notex /dev/hdaN
would install with no C compiler, no documentation, and no LaTeX. Run rsync-sidious without any options to see more information. Later, you can run rsync-sidious with different options to add packages. (Don't use install-sidious for anything but the first installation.)
mount LABEL=SidiousRoot /mnt
chroot /mnt
mount -t devfs devfs /dev
From now on, commands and files relative to "/" are those on the hard drive, and not the CDROM (until you log out of the shell.)
![[*]](cross_ref_motif.gif)
if you need dual-boot.
This can also be done later.
# lilo
Added sidious *
# reboot
Do not reboot if lilo had any errors. If any occur, it does not update the boot sector.
The defaults settings in the file /etc/lilo.conf will install a boot loader in the master boot record (MBR) of your first harddrive (/dev/hda). Since Windows does not use the MBR, its bootloader will be left in a partition if Windows is also present. It can then be ``chain-loaded'' by the example ``other='' entry in /etc/lilo.conf.
Some computer BIOS versions do not seem to recognize the boot-sector created by running the default ``lilo'' with Sidious. If ``lilo'' appeared to work, but then when you eject the CDROM a message such as ``No operating system'' or other general boot failure occurs, there is a workaround:
cdboot# mount LABEL=SidiousRoot /mnt
cdboot# chroot /mnt
cdboot# mount -t devfs devfs /dev
cdboot# xemacs /etc/lilo.conf
Search for the line:
install=/boot/boot-menu.band delete the characters ``-menu'' so that it reads
install=/boot/boot.bSave the file.
cdboot# lilo21
Added sidious *
cdboot# reboot
This alternate version of lilo is known to be necessary for HP-DE100C entertainment centers. Other computer BIOS versions may also have a problem with the default boot-menu.b lilo.
To install Sidious on hardware RAID, the appropriate raid driver (aacraid, 3w-xxxx, ...) must be loaded and then installation is the same as on a normal IDE drive, except the device names are /dev/sd*.
To install Sidious on IDE drives with software RAID1 (mirroring), follow this procedure. First, there are several things to note:
This example shows how to stripe two 200 GB disks together to create an 8 GB RAID-1 root, and 380 GB RAID-0 scratch space plus some swap. The disks are both IDE master, /dev/hda and /dev/hdc.
Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 24792 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 1 1000 8032468+ fd Linux raid autodetect /dev/hda2 1001 24500 188763750 fd Linux raid autodetect /dev/hda3 24501 24792 2345490 82 Linux swap
Format /dev/hdc in exactly the same way.
[root@cdboot:~/] # dma on [root@cdboot:~/] # mkswap /dev/hda3 [root@cdboot:~/] # mkswap /dev/hdc3 [root@cdboot:~/] # swapon /dev/hda3 [root@cdboot:~/] # swapon /dev/hdc3
UNcheck the ``Advanced options'' so that DMA and other things are set to the default high-performance state.
Go to the ``Encapsulated files, raidtab'' option. For the current example, the raidtab looks like this:
# Root filesystem, RAID-1 on /dev/hda1 and /dev/hdc1
raiddev /dev/md0
raid-level 1
nr-raid-disks 2
nr-spare-disks 0
chunk-size 32
persistent-superblock 1
device /dev/hda1
raid-disk 0
device /dev/hdc1
raid-disk 1
# /local/data/, RAID-0 on /dev/hda2 and /dev/hdc2
raiddev /dev/md1
raid-level 0
nr-raid-disks 2
nr-spare-disks 0
chunk-size 32
persistent-superblock 1
device /dev/hda2
raid-disk 0
device /dev/hdc2
raid-disk 1
\end{verbose}
If you wanted a /local/data of half the size, with mirrored RAID-1
just like the root, simply change raid-level to ``1'' in the /dev/md1
entry. You could also choose to make /dev/hda1 + hdc1 larger and
not have a second raiddev entry.
Next go to ``Encapsulated files, fstab'' and add an entry so /local/data
is mounted at boot:
\begin{verbatim}
/dev/md1 /local/data auto defaults 0 0
Exit ``reconfig'' for now, say ``Yes'' to save changes (and expect it to fail and save a copy in /var/sidious.config instead) and say ``Yes'' to apply changes.
[root@cdboot:~/] # modprobe raid1 [root@cdboot:~/] # modprobe raid0 [root@cdboot:~/] # mkraid /dev/md0 [root@cdboot:~/] # mkraid /dev/md1 [root@cdboot:~/] # cat /proc/mdstat
/proc/mdstat should show that any RAID-1's are now performing a ``resync''. Some people perfer to wait until that is finished before beginning with the installation. In theory, it should not matter.
[root@cdboot:~/] # mkfs.xfs /dev/md0 [root@cdboot:~/] # mkfs.xfs /dev/md1 [root@cdboot:~/] # cd / [root@cdboot:/] # ./install-sidious /dev/md0
[root@cdboot:/] # mount /dev/md0 /mnt [root@cdboot:/] # cp -fa /var/sidious.config /mnt/etc/sidious.config [root@cdboot:/] # chroot /mnt [root@cdboot:/] # mount -t devfs devfs /dev [root@cdboot:/] # zile /etc/lilo.conf ... Change default = to "default = sidious-md0" and uncomment the entry like this: image = /boot/kernel-2.4.26-smp4 label = sidious-smp root = /dev/md0 append = "init=/etc/initrc" [root@cdboot:/] # lilo [root@cdboot:/] # exit [root@cdboot:/] # umount /mnt/dev [root@cdboot:/] # umount /mnt [root@cdboot:/] # reboot
The extra steps after running lilo help ensure that the RAID is cleanly shut down. If not, a ``resync'' will have to start all over when the disk is mounted again.
If the partition tables are identical, you may also copy the first 512 byte of /dev/hda to /dev/hdc. Doing so will make it possible to still boot if /dev/hda dies completely. If the BIOS cannot boot from /dev/hdc, you might have to unplug /dev/hda so /dev/hdc becomes the first harddrive. CAUTION: Don't copy the boot sector if you partitioned the disks slightly differently!
You need access to the Sidious8 source tree to build a pre-configured self-installing binary to write to the flash disk. Standard images have been prepared for I-Openers and can be re-configured after booting.
The easiest way to get Sidious8 onto a flash disk may depend on the particular device.