Because of the earlier mentioned bug, we have to copy the installation files to the hard disk, and contiune installation from there. To be able to copy any files to the harddisk, it has to be partitioned so Linux can read it. You should now know how much hard disk space you have, so you can figure out how much space you'll have for the install files.
Some of the 7248s came with only one 1GB disk. This is not much, as you have to copy the CD files down to it, and that's something about 600MB alone. Besides, you need a swap disk, 128MB should do, and you need a boot partition on something between 2 and 20MB. On a 1GB disk, you'll have about 250MB left for the system. That's not enough. What you'll have to do in this case is to make a very small swapdisk, say 28MB. There, 100Megs freed. I would not advice installing Linux to a system with less than 500MB free, so we still need 150MB. We have to make the partition for the CD files smaller, to, say 450 MB, and then be very careful on what installation files (rpm files) to copy to the hard disk. There. You have 500MB for the system. It should do for a start. Later on, you can delete the installation partition
(What I'm actually saying here: Go out and by a new scsi disk. An old used 800MB should do, a new king-size one would do even better. Remember that you'll never get enough disk space.)
If you have more disk space than one 1GB disk, there should not be any problems. Just go on.
Be shure that you are in a root shell. (Se chapter 5, last paragraphs.)
Insert the utils floppy, and issue the following commands:
mkdir /mnt/floppy
mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/mnt/floppy
You are now ready to partition the hard drive(s)
issue the command:
/mnt/floppy/cfdisk /dev/sda
This should start the cfdisk program. (If you like the
traditional fdisk program instead, it's included on the utils
floppy too.) Usage of cfdisk is quite easy, and I've written
a short intro on how to use cfdisk in
appendix D.
Partition your harddisk(s) with cfdisk (or fdisk, if you
prefer), according to this rules:
You should write down what partitions to use to the installation files, and what to use for the system for later use.
To partition another harddisk, type
/mnt/floppy/cfdisk /dev/sdx
where 'x' is a harddisk letter, like 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', etc.
mke2fs /dev/sdxy
where x is the hardisk letter, and y is the
partition number.
mke2fs /dev/sdb1
Now, you should insert the linuxppc-1999 CD-ROM into the
CD-DRIVE. Do so, and issue the command:
mount -t auto -o ro /dev/scd0 /mnt/cdrom
Hold it right there! I now what you think. Why can't I just
continue the installation now that I've mounted the CD? This is
because the installer insists on doing the mounting itself,
and the mount command it uses is buggy, or at least
inappropriate for the 7248-100. Thanks to Thomas M. Nymand for
sorting this out.
Continue with this commands to copy all the files from the CD to the hard drive.
mkdir /mnt/install
mount /dev/sdxy /mnt/install (and use the x and y as in mke2fs a minute ago)
cp -R -v /mnt/cdrom /mnt/install
This might take some time, maybe as much as 20 minutes.
Remember: If you have limited disk space, you should ommit the -R parameter, and copy files manually, only selecting the files you need for the installation. What packages, you say? Thomas M. Nymand has suggest to copy everything except the following:
Remember that you can install any package you want after you have finished the base installation, so have no hard feelings for taking away example Qt and KDE...
After the copying, continue with:
cd /
umount /mnt/cdrom
umount /mnt/install
umount /mnt/floppy
You are now ready to continue the usual installation. Type
exit
to return to the RedHat installation program.