Updated: July 28, 1999
The Red Hat install program does not know anything about Visual Workstations.
This document does.
Follow it closely
If you followed the previous instructions precisely and have nicely not futzed with the machine at all the screen now has a nasty looking box saying: "Failed to start system: Unable to load bootfile". Click "Continue"
If you do NOT see this message just press the reset button and hit ESC to get you to the "WELCOME" screen of 6 buttons.
Insert Floppy #1 now.
Recall that we had left "Linux RX" the Default
Within a couple dozen seconds the penguin reappears in the upper left corner with some grotty kernel boot gunk.
Floppy #3 is the "rescue.img" floppy. Please insert it in the floppy drive now.
Press the Enter key and you'll instantly see "RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0".
Wait for the floppy drive light to go out (30-ish seconds).
A classic single user prompt is now on your screen. Type "mount" and/or "ls" and revel in the Unixification of your Visual Workstation!
You are running now in a ramdisk root.
For some reason neither Backspace nor Delete do the right thing. Neither does ^H -- ^U kills a whole line. But, don't worry, we're moving on to a slightly friendlier environment.
Did you remember what disk and partition you appointed '/'?
You'll see "bash# ".
You're now running on the real root file system -- just FYI.
And NOW the ^H does work as the delete key.
WARNING: You are now running as super-user and have all powers necessary to destroy your system.
Finally... last floppy.
You should see the tar image we asked you to put on this disk back in the pre-install instructions.
Extract everything from that tar image:
(GNU tar has gzip built-in -- the z option -- for those of you used to IRIX).
Verify that it's correct:
Compare to this.
To not conflict with the Red Hat /boot directory I temporarily mount the boot partition here as "/b". (You don't actually have to have this permanently mounted).
If you are using an existing FAT partition -- especially one that is used to boot any other OS on your machine -- SKIP these four steps and go on to the "mkdir".
Here is where you remember the boot partition.
This assumes slavish adherence to the instructions in that you're still cd'ed to /tmp/f4 and have the contents of the tarball in the current directory.
cp la2210.vw /
This is really just temporary until you grab the Visual Workstation Linux kernel patch and build a proper kernel in a later step.
cp fb.modes /etc/fb.modes
If you have a regular CRT monitor pick the ".crt" file. If you have a 1600SW flat panel pick the ".fp" file.
mknod /dev/hidbp-mse-0 c 10 32
Human Interface Device, Boot Protocol... it's a USB thing. This is how the mouse appears to the X server.
You'll see the same dev name in this XF86Config. It MUST MATCH EXACTLY for X to start. Those are 2 single dashes ('-') and a zero ('0').
For optimum neatness and best results:
You're now back to just the '#' prompt.
And hit ESC when the PROM comes up
Make something up. "Red Hat 6.0 + Linux 2.2.10" or some such.
arclx.exe
Here is where you remember 1) your Linux system/root partition, and 2) the mapping between hdXY type names and multi(i)disk(j) type names and 3) the name of the generic kernel.
For example, if your root partition is hda2 (an IDE disk) and the kernel is called "/la2210.vw" type this:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)/la2210.vw
Or, if your root partition is sda2 (a SCSI disk) and the kernel is called "/la2210.vw" type this:
multi(2)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)/la2210.vw
(Yes, that "multi(2)" stuff is wierd).
Flip through the choices until you see the one you just copied arclx.exe into. (/dev/hda1 is known as "IDE 0 Disk 0 Partition 1" and /dev/sda1 is known as "SCSI 2 Disk 0 Partition 1")
The Partition number is _physical_ numbering, not the logical/extended names. The first partition on the disk is '1', the next is '2', etc.
Don't worry about it
This must match the disk/partition from OSLoadFilename (making the wild leaping assumption that you put your kernel in the root file system)
FOR EXAMPLE, if your root partition is hda2 then type:
root=/dev/hda2
NOTE: YOUR ROOT PARTITION MAY BE DIFFERENT!
Also, the kernel does NOT automatically probe for the amount of RAM installed in your system. It defaults to 128MB. If you have more than 128MB you can use the "mem=xxxM" option here on the OSLoadOptions line to make use of all of your memory... mem=512M if you have 512MB, etc.
The Hardware Inventory "button" on the "6 button" boot firmware menu will report the amount of RAM in your system.
Make this your default.
Save&Exit
Bonk on Start System
You'll see a nice blue box (not to be confused with "blue screen" :-) yakking about ARC boot this and that and some partitions and kernel file name that should be numbingly familiar to you by now.
Then, you'll see that little penguin and the grotty boot stuff...
Eventually, you'll see "Red Hat Linux release 6.0 (Hedwig)" and a login prompt.
Well... login!
... as root ... remembering the root password. NOTE: See the known bugs list before you run around willy nilly hacking /etc/passwd directly or using passwd to change passwds.
To do anything moderately visual you install and setup some X stuff.
If your Red Hat 6.0 CD isn't already in the CD drive get it in there now.
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
This presumes /dev/cdrom is a symlink to the right place (most likely /dev/hdc on a factory-fresh system).
Remember when we selected the "Mono" X server just to get through the install procedure? We remove that now.
rpm -e XFree86-Mono
rm /etc/X11/X
rpm -i /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/XFree86-FBDev-3.3.3.1-49.i386.rpm
ln -s ../../usr/X11R6/bin/XF86_FBDev /etc/X11/X
cp /etc/X11/XF86Config.vw /etc/X11/XF86Config
(We copied the XF86Config file from the floppy to this indirect holding name just to make sure nothing "smart" trashes it for us)
startx
The screen will clear and repaint and you'll get that "wonderful" "X".
If you had selected GNOME way back during Red Hat install you'll eventually see that footprint thing.
Point and click with the USB mouse. Aim maybe for the tty icon and make sure the USB kbd types the right stuff.
If you DO NOT see the X and instead see some teensy green text on black background this means that X server startup failed. You're simply staring at the virtual terminal running on a differently dimensioned framebuffer. Type "clear" very carefully and you'll see less green crawly stuff, etc. If you configure the network and run startx over from an rlogin session you'll more clearly see the complaint from startx. Here are the most common reasons startx fails:
MUST be a "HIDBP" mouse... NOT a "wheel mouse" and NOT a PS/2 mouse for the PS/2 port on the USB kbd.
You've succeeded!
One more step if you really are so inclined: building a kernel from source.