Installing

Installing

1.5 Installing

1.5.1 Booting the MILO Diskette

(If your Alpha system doesn't support MILO, please skip to Section 1.5.2.)

Please Note: If your Alpha system supports MILO, but uses the newer AlphaBIOS instead of the ARC console, please turn to Section 2.5.2 for information on booting MILO.

Before you can boot your MILO diskette, you'll need to add a new boot selection to your ARC console. You can add a new boot selection for your MILO diskette by following these steps:

From the boot menu, select ``Supplementary menu''.
From the supplementary menu, select ``Set up the system''.
From the boot selections menu, select ``Add a boot selection''.
Select ``Floppy Disk 0''.
Enter ``\linload.exe'' as the osloader directory and name after erasing any default information.
Indicate that the operating system is in the same partition as the osloader by entering ``yes''.
Enter ``\'' as the operating system root directory after erasing any default information.
Give the boot selection a meaningful name. ``Linux'' is a nice name.
Indicate that you do not want to initialize the debugger at boot time by entering ``no''.
From the boot selection menu, select ``Change a boot selection option''. Pick the boot selection you just created.
Using the arrow keys, select ``OSLOADFILENAME'', and enter ``\milo''. Press [Enter].
Using the arrow keys, select ``OSLOADOPTIONS'', and erase any information that may be there. Press [Enter]
Press [Esc] to leave the ``Change a boot selection option'' menu.
Select ``Setup Menu''. Select ``Supplementary menu, and save changes''.
Return to the boot menu.

At the end of this process, your boot selection should look something like this one (Not counting differences in boot selection name and disk identification strings:

LOADIDENTIFIER =Linux
SYSTEMPARTITION=multi(0)disk(0)fdisk(0)
OSLOADER=multi(0)disk(0)fdisk(0)\linload.exe
OSLOADERPARTITION=multi(0)disk(0)fdisk(0)   
OSLOADFILENAME=\milo
OSLOADOPTIONS=

At this point your Alpha system has been set to boot MILO from diskette.

1.5.2 Booting the Kernel Diskette

Now it's time to get things started. We need to start by booting from the kernel diskette you've created. How this is done depends on your Alpha system.

1.5.2.1 Booting the Kernel Diskette Using MILO

If it supports MILO, insert your MILO diskette, and boot from that. At the MILO> prompt, insert your kernel diskette, and enter the following boot command:

MILO> boot floppy

MILO should then read the Linux kernel from your boot disk and start running it.

1.5.2.2 Booting the Kernel Diskette Using SRM

If a MILO image does not exist for your specific system, you can use SRM to boot your machine. Please ensure that have chosen the appropriate kernel disk image. For example, if you have an an Avanti board, use the SRM-specific avanti-s image rather than the avanti image. If you are using a floppy to boot, the command line should look like this:

boot dva0 -fi avanti-s.gz -fl "root=/dev/fd0 loadramdisk=1"

If you are trying to install directly from CD, you should use a command that looks something like this:

boot dka1 -fi kernels/avanti-s.gz -fl "root=/dev/scd0"

We recommend using diskettes for the installation whenever possible. Generally this is the safest method for recovery in case the installation fails.

1.5.3 Starting the Installation

After the kernel boots, it prompts for a ramdisk. Remove the kernel diskette, insert the ramdisk diskette, and press [Enter]. After the ramdisk is done loading, you should see the first installation screen.

1.5.4 Issues Specific to Red Hat Linux/Alpha

Before you return to the installation, you should know about some differences between Red Hat Linux/Intel and its Alpha counterpart. Let's review them:

1.5.4.1 Disk Partitioning

Red Hat Linux/Alpha supports two varieties of hard drive partitioning:

Standard fdisk-style partitioning: this has the usual oddities (such as extended partitions) and is done in the same way as on Intel platforms (using Linux fdisk). This is the partitioning style you must use if you are using the ARC or AlphaBIOS console.

BSD-style disklabelling: When using aboot to boot Red Hat Linux from the SRM console, (for instance, as you would to share a disk with Digital Unix), you must use BSD-style disklabels. aboot does not understand DOS-style partition tables as MILO does, and therefore a slightly different installation path is necessary. This includes using fdisk in disklabel editing mode to create a disklabel on the disk. There are 3 things to keep in mind when using disklabels on an Alpha:

Please Note: If any drives on your system have BSD-style disk labels, you will not be able to use Disk Druid to set up partitions. In this case, you will need to use fdisk for partitioning.

1.5.4.2 Creating a MILO Partition

If your system supports MILO, you should allocate a small (no more than 2 MB) partition to it. The partition type must be DOS. This is where you will copy MILO and linload.exe to after the installation completes.

1.5.4.3 XFree86 and TGA

If you have an Alpha with a TGA card and you choose to install XFree86, the installation program prompts you to choose a video card. Choose Unlisted Server, and the installation program will display a list of available servers. Choose the TGA server.

1.5.5 Finishing Up

After the installation is finished and your system is fully configured, you will be asked to reset your computer. This indicates that your system has been successfully installed.

1.5.5.1 Configuring MILO

In order to boot your newly installed system, you'll need to use your MILO diskette. To boot Red Hat Linux/Alpha from MILO, you must use the boot command. The command differs slightly depending on where your root partition is. For example, if your root partition is the second partition on your first SCSI hard drive, you would boot as follows:

boot sda2:vmlinux.gz root=/dev/sda2

However, if your root partition is the third partition on your second IDE drive, you would use this command:

boot hdb3:vmlinux.gz root=/dev/hdb3

Boot your Alpha system (using the appropriate root partition name for your system, of course). Once Red Hat Linux/Alpha has finished booting, login, and issue the following command:

dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/dev/sda1 bs=1440k

This will copy MILO (along with linload.exe) to the small MILO partition you created during installation.

Finally, you need to create a boot selection that will look for MILO on your MILO partition.

Please Note: If your Alpha system uses the newer AlphaBIOS instead of the ARC console, please turn to Section 2.5.2 for further information.

Shutdown your Alpha system, and perform the following steps from the ARC console:

From the boot menu, select ``Supplementary menu''.
From the supplementary menu, select ``Set up the system''.
From the boot selections menu, select ``Add a boot selection''.
Select the line that describes your MILO partition, if shown. If it's not there, select ``New System Partition''.
Enter the device attributes (ie, SCSI/IDE, bus number, etc.) that describes your MILO partition.
Enter ``\linload.exe'' as the osloader directory and name after erasing any default information.
Indicate that the operating system is in the same partition as the osloader by entering ``yes''.
Enter ``\'' as the operating system root directory after erasing any default information.
Give the boot selection a meaningful name. ``Linux'' is a nice name.
Indicate that you do not want to initialize the debugger at boot time by entering ``no''.
From the boot selection menu, select ``Change a boot selection option''. Pick the boot selection you just created.
Using the arrow keys, select ``OSLOADFILENAME'', and enter ``\milo''. Press [Enter].
Using the arrow keys, select ``OSLOADOPTIONS'', and erase any information that may be there. Alternatively, if you would like to have MILO automatically boot your Red Hat Linux/Alpha system, you can enter the boot command that you used to boot Red Hat Linux/Alpha from the MILO floppy. In either case, Press [Enter] when done.
Press [Esc] to leave the ``Change a boot selection option'' menu.
Select ``Setup Menu''. Select ``Supplementary menu, and save changes''.
Return to the boot menu.

Here's a sample boot selection:

LOADIDENTIFIER =Linux
SYSTEMPARTITION=scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)
OSLOADER=scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\linload.exe
OSLOADERPARTITION=scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)   
OSLOADFILENAME=\milo
OSLOADOPTIONS=boot sda2:vmlinux.gz root=/dev/sda2

Note that in this case we are using the OSLOADOPTIONS line to automatically direct MILO to boot our kernel.

At this point, reboot your system, the boot selection you just created. Once the login: prompt appears, log in as root, and continue with the post-installation tasks outlined in the Red Hat Linux Installation Guide.