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4. Installing Openlinux 3.1.1

Installing Openlinux was not very difficult. It would have been easier if I had a standard floppy (not USB), but it worked with the USB floppy and
my SCSI CDROM attached to my Adaptec SlimSCSI AHA-1480 host adapter.
I think there are other installation options (i.e. NFS, network install, PLIP install) but I have not tried any of them yet.
For example I have tested the Suse 7.3 boot disk and it recognize directly my SCSI CDROM with the AHA-1480 host adapter.
For that reason I have installed Suse 7.3 in another partition just for test (but that is another history...)
 

4.1 Preparing the system

I decided to install Caldera Openlinux 3.1.1 on my system because I prefer this distribution.

The first thing I did was download the iso images of Caldera Openlinux 3.1.1 and create the CD-ROMs.

Where to find the iso images ?

http://uiarchive.uiuc.edu/mirrors/ftp/ftp.iso.caldera.com/pub/OpenLinux/3.1.1/Workstation/(USA)
http://planetmirror.com/pub/caldera/OpenLinux/3.1.1/ (Australia) ftp://ftp.kando.hu/pub/CDROM-Images/caldera/OpenLinux/3.1.1/ (Hungary)
ftp.linuxberg.com/pub/ISO/Caldera/3.1.1 (All the ISOs together: Server,)

Because the PCMCIA stuff is not included on the original Openlinux 3.1.1 kernel, and during installation process the PCMCIA disk is not recognized from the USB floppy,
I have to think about another method of installation.
I thought about creating a kernel with SCSI and PCMCIA included but it is too large to fit on a single disk I choose the option of booting from the HD.
Another possibility I have thought was to copy the CDROM to a partition created on the HD and boot with the normal installation disk from the USB floppy.
If you do not have a floppy the easier way I can think of is a NFS installation.

4.2 Preparing to boot the installation

For preparing the stuff I moved to my desktop system. On an already running linux system I inserted the PCMCIA stuff on the actual "installation stuff".
(Special thanks to Marcus Meissner from the Caldera mail list).

1.- Create a temporary directory: /boot/install/
2.- From the CD, copy: /col/launch/linux/vmlinuz /col/launch/linux/initrd.gz into this directory.
3.- zcat /boot/install/initrd.gz | dd of=/dev/ram2 bs=1k
4.- mkdir /mnt/tmp
5.- mount /dev/ram2 /mnt/tmp
6.- Insert pcmcia floppy or loopback mounted image:
    6.1.- mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
OR
    6.2.- mount -o loop /col/launch/floppy/pcmcia.144 /mnt/floppy
7.- cp -a /mnt/floppy /mnt/tmp
8.- umount /mnt/tmp
9.- dd if=/dev/ram2 bs=1k | gzip --best >/boot/install/initrd.gz Now you would have a new "initrd.gz". You can get it already built from here.

I created a directory called c:\install for Linux-related things. Here's a list of the files you'll need:

  1. vzmlinuz
  2. initrd.gz (the new one)
  3. loadlin.exe

4.3 Repartitioning the disk

The Evo N400c is delivered with one large FAT32 partition taking up all of the hard disk. This will not do for Linux and is probably not such a great idea for any O/S.

To actually repartition the hard disk, you need a special tool. I happened to have purchased a copy of System Commander (which is a great program, by the way),
so I used that, but FIPS 2.0 would probably work, too. Whatever you use should support FAT32 and allow you to nondestructively resize a partition.

I used System Commander partition tool and redid the disk entirely. I resized the original FAT32 partition down to 1024MB, created a second 1024MB FAT32 partition,
then created a third 125MB linux partition (for /boot). Next, I created a Linux swap partition. Finally, I split the remaining space into several Linux ext2fs partitions and
some free space.

4.4 Installing Col 3.1.1

Just go to your "c:\install" directory from DOS mode and type: "loadlin vmlinuz initrd=initrd.gz vga=274 quiet nosmp noapic". It will boot Linux, and put you in a
step-by-step menu for installing Openlinux 3.1.1 Mount the desired partitions at and set up the swap partition and you're almost there.

I use LILO myself (installed on the root partition) but Col 3.1.1 default boot loader is GRUB. I use System Commander to handle all my operating systems
(MSDOS6.22, Win98, Openlinux 3.1.1, Suse 7.3, etc...).

During installation most of the hardware was recognized, I only have to set up some modules at boot time for sound, Network card and USB
 
 

4.5 Building a new kernel

I did not need to customize the kernel because most of the hardware was working fine with the default kernel.

I'll talk about setting up sound and APM in later sections.

4.6 Configuring for dual-booting

I have set up System Commander menu so I can boot to all the different OS I have installed: Win98, MSDOS 6.22, Col 3.1.1 and Suse 7.3


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