Installation

Create installation media: bootnet.img

Decided to do an FTP-based installation and this way get all the updates. To do this went to a mirror of ftp.redhat.com to get the appropriate bootable floppy-image:

site-mirror : http://www.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.redhat.com file : /pub/redhat/redhat-7.1-en/os/i386/images/bootnet.img

and used the command

dd if=bootnet.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k

to create a suitable bootable floppy. Rebooted from this floppy.

Boot from floppy --- installation beginnings

Chose "expert" mode so we can specify everything possible --- in particular the partioning of the disk. Proceeded as follows:

1. Driver disk? No.
2. Chose english language for installation.
3. Keyboard: UK.
4. Installation method: FTP.
5. Do NOT use DHCP.
6. IP address: 130.88.100.77
7. Gateway: 130.88.100.250
8. Netmask: 255.255.0.0
9. DNS: 130.88.119.67 (also 120.67)
10. FTP site: www.mirror.ac.uk
11. Directory: /sites/ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/redhat-7.1-en/os/i386/

Then wait for a while...to get

    loaded ais7xxx SCSI driver 

Choose custom --- NOT upgrade. (Do you really trust upgrades? Experience suggests they are not the most reliable of things). And manually partition --- the default partioning gives just three: /boot, / and the swap-partition; this lacks flexibility. At the very least one would want /home to be separate, e.g., so it can be mounted elsewhere.

Chose Disk Druid (rather than fdisk, but either is fine). Here is a summary of the devices and partions:

    Partition                                   Format?

    /hda/boot  15M                              Y
    /hda/      4000M                            Y
    /hda/tmp   750M  (no scratch in linux)      Y
    /hda/var   150M                             Y
    /hda/home  1000M                            Y

    hda swap   256M                             Y

    /sda/mnt/scsia1  1364M                      N
    /sda/mnt/scsia2  1364M                      N
    /sda/mnt/scsia3  1364M                      N

1. /tmp is used as scratch space in Linux (cf. /scratch on Solaris) so needs to be sizable;
2. /var needs to be separate as otherwise it could fill the "system" partition and prevent any process which needs to write anything to disk starting;
3. /home should be separate obviously, e.g., to mount via nfs on another machine.

I chose to install the boot-loader in the MBR (rather than at the start of the "system" partiton as this machine is to be one OS only.

Security, Services, Passwords and Firewall

I chose "no firewall" as I wanted full control of what security settings and software are chosen --- see the section below!

Password-related stuff:

    shadow : yes
    MD5    : yes

    kerberos : no

    nis : no
    ldap: no

Mouse

I have a Logitech 3-button serial mouse connected to COM 1, so I chose:

    generic three button mouse
    serial
    no emulation reqd [for third button]
    /dev/ttyS0 (COM 1)

Packages

  printer support N
  x window support Y
  gnome Y
  kde N
  mail/www/news Y
  dos/windows connectivity N
  graphics manipulation Y
  games N
  multimedia support Y
  laptop support N
  networked workstation Y
  dialup workstation N
  new server N
  nfs server N
  samba server N
  ipx connectivity Y
  ftp server N
  sql server N
  web server Y
  dns server N
  network management N
  authoring/publishing Y
  emacs Y
  development Y
  kernel development Y
  utilities N

XFree86

XFree86 automatically probed and found my Intel i810 graphics card (on motherboard) correctly. Note that this graphics card shares/uses 1Mb of the system RAM --- Linux Kernels running on some machines do not correctly determine this:

• RedHat 6.2 on an Intel i810-based machine with 128Mb RAM needs to be told that 127 exist (kernel parameters: mem=127M) else it detects only 64Mb;
• RedHat 7.1 detects the full 128 but does not realise that 1Mb is shared so the system eventually crashes and or multiple seg-faults occur. (See memory-related problems below.)

Problems, Problems: Installation Programme Lockup

During the next stage, formatting the partitions, the installation programme locked up --- all went dead with no disk activity. Starting from scratch: same problem.

The most recent success I had was with SuSE 7.0, so after a hard-reboot I booted from the SuSE 7.0 CD and used YAST (not YAST 2) to format the partitions, then went back to the RedHat 7.1 FTP installation and the installation programme fell over during the package download/installation stage...

Brainwave

RedHat 6.2 (with 2.2 kernel) needed to be booted with "mem=127M" else it picked up only 64M of RAM (out of 128 --- with 1 shared, leaving only 127 system RAM). So tried the installation programme with

expert mem="127M"

and all was fine! (expert boots the "expert" installation programme which itself is a Linux kernel.)

Boot Params

Conclusion: RedHat 7.1 (2.4 kernel) thinks it has 128M RAM, but doesn't get that 1Mb is shared on my Intel 810 motherboard and the thing falls over (as you'd expect).

So, during the installation procedure, when asked for boot/kernel special parameters, put

mem=127M

and this appears in /etc/lilo.conf (the line append="mem=127M").