7. Install the system

7.1. The LinuxPPC-2000 Q4 installer

So, now we're actually getting somewhere! At least, so it looks. This looks really cool, doesn't it? Press the right mouse button on the background on the screen. What a cute little menu! Notice that you can change the colors of the screen with the Styles option. This is the first installation program I've ever seen with changeable colors :-) Note that you can move the windows on the screen around by clicking and dragging on the blue top or right borders. To bring a window to the front, try clicking on it. Select xterm on the Blackbox (background) menu. This will bring up a command line terminal window which we will use to start some programs that can do what the installation program can't.

Behold! There are even two (!) installation programs. Unfortunately, they don't work. In the xterm window, kill the installation programs. We have to do some more hand-work.

killall install_helper

7.2. Partition the harddisk(s)

The first thing to do is to partition the hard disk(s). Since we have brutally killed the installation program, THERE IS REALLY NO WAY TO DO THIS. I have framed you all the time. Just shut down the machine and have a beer. Then visit some friends.

Just kidding.

In the xterm window, issue the command

fdisk /dev/sda

This will start the good old fdisk program. Note: This program will wipe away anything on the disks in the machine. If there are something on the disks that you want to protect, exit the program by hitting Q and press Enter. If you like a menu driven program, we'll start using cfdisk in a minute. For an overview on the fdisk commands, hit ?. To view the present partition scheme, hit P. If there are lots of unknown AIX information there, hit D, and select 1, D again and 2, and continue all the way up to 5 to be sure all old AIX partitions are wiped away. Write the changes to the disk by hitting W, and quit the program by hitting Q. If there are no AIX partitions on the disks, just quit with the Q command. If you have more than one harddisk in the machine, use the commands fdisk /dev/sdb for the second harddisk, fdisk /dev/sdc for third and so on, and repeat the steps from the first disk.

You could of course use fdisk to make the new partitions too, but I prefer a more user friendly solution. At the shell prompt, type

cfdisk /dev/sda

To start the cfdisk program on the first harddisk. Change to sdb and sdc, and so on for more harddisks. Basic usage of cfdisk is outside the scope of this document, but I have written a little starter. You can read it in the Section 15.

You should have at least these partitions:

• A boot partition. It should be the first primary partition on one of the SCSI drives, preferably the first (this naming the partition to sda1). It must have type PReP boot (type 41), and must be large enough to hold a compressed Linux kernel image (zImage). Something like 5-10MB should do.

• A swap partition. It can be either a primary or a logical partition on any drive. Any size will do, but a guide may be twice the size of you physical RAM. I have 64MB RAM, so I have a swap partition on 128MB. Remember: This is only a guide.

• A system root partition. It can be either a primary or a logical partition, and it should be big enough to hold the main parts of the installation. You should write down the device (disk and partition number, like sda5, for example) for your system's root partition. You will need it later. The easy way is just to use the rest of the harddisk space for this. If you have several harddisks, big drives or special requirements on safety and other things, you should consider to make own partitions for /home, /usr, /usr/local, and other parts of the system. Details on this is outside the scope of this document, but there is a good discussion on this in the Linux Partition HOWTO.

7.3. Mount the partitions

So, we have some nice partitions. Let's use them. We have to make filesystems on them, and then mount them to our existing installation filesystem to be able to copy any files to them. Now, I HOPE you have written down what partitions to use where. First mount the root partition:

mkdir /mnt/install mke2fs /dev/sdxy mount /dev/sdxy /mnt/install

Of course, x and y are disk and partition number, as you have written down. I use sda5 for my root partition, so I use the commands 'mke2fs /dev/sda5' and 'mount /dev/sda5'.

  If you have more partitions, mount them in the same way. I have a 1GB partition at sdb1 which I want to use for the /usr system. So I write this:

mkdir /install/usr mke2fs /dev/sdb1 mount /dev/sdb1 /install/usr

You may have other partitions and also other mount points, like /usr, /tmp, /home, /var and other stuff. But I guess you've got the point now.

7.4. Select and install packages

You have now cleared the first stage, and get 250 bonus points. Congratulations. If the installation program had worked, you had got no points at all, so be happy. The next stage is to install packages. Here we can finally use some semi-automatic programs. In the xterm window, type this:

xupgrade --install --debug --path_to_root /mnt/install

A new window will pop up. Select packages after your own will. What packages should I select, you say. Oh, please! I have no idea how you're going to use the machine :-). Press Install. Aaah. There it goes! After some minutes (not to say hours, it feels like that, doesn't it?) the install will be complete.

7.5. Make a root password and exit

Before we finalize the installation, it's a cool thing to have a root password. Enter your new installation, and make a funny, not-easy-to-guess password like this:

chroot /mnt/install passwd (You will be prompted for the new password twice)

You are still inside the freshly installed system (the chroot command does that magic). Now, let's fix some other stuff while we're at it. The mouse and the keyboard are not right. Same goes for the timezone. If you are an experienced user you may want to add even more configuration at this point.

rm -f /dev/mouse ln -s /dev/psaux /dev/mouse kbdconf timeconfig

Next, you may find that the /dev/cdrom link is not working properly, it points to itself. It should point to /dev/scd0, so let's fix this. Issue these commands:

rm -f /dev/cdrom ln -s /dev/scd0 /dev/cdrom

You should now be able to mount the cdrom using /dev/cdrom. Thanks to Thomas M. Nymand for this tip.

Now, you should be all ready. Issue the command

exit

to exit the installed system and return to the intallation system.

Finally, shutdown the system, remove the CD and floppy disk, and take a break.

reboot