[cobalt-developers] Re: Install Red Hat

[Chris Adams <cmadams@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Once upon a time, Tim Hockin <thockin@xxxxxxx> said:
> Jody Sanders wrote:
> > Is there a way of installing Red Hat 7.1 on a RaQ4? I've tried taking out
> > the drive, installing RH7.1 and putting it back in, but the cobalt hangs on
> > 'loading kernel' and reboots.
> 
> RedHat likes to ship their distribution with a glibc that DOES NOT work on
> K6 processors.  YOu need to update glibc before it will work.

Utter BS.  Red Hat Linux as shipped will work on anything 386 and up.
You do however need to make sure that if you remove the hard drive to do
the install you stick it in a similar type system (in other words, an
AMD K6 based system).  The Red Hat Linux installer will install a kernel
and C library (and some other things sometimes) optimized for the system
on which it is being installed.  So, if you stick that hard drive in a
Pentium III, you'll get a PIII kernel and glibc (and some other packages
too).  Here is a command that will list the packages that WON'T work on
a RaQ and will need replacing (command goes all on one line of course):

rpm -qa --queryformat '%{arch} %{name}-%{version}-%{release}.%{arch}.rpm\n' | egrep -v '^(noarch|i386) ' | cut -d' ' -f2-

You'll need to go into your CDROM and get the i386 version of the listed
packages from RedHat/RPMS and install them.  IIRC you'll need to use the
--replacepkgs option to RPM, like:

rpm -ivh --replacepkgs glibc-2.2.4-19.i386.rpm

You could even do (again, all on one line, and from the RedHat/RPMS
directory on your CD):

rpm -qa --queryformat '%{arch} %{name}-%{version}-%{release}.i386.rpm\n' | egrep -v '^(noarch|i386) %' | cut -d' ' -f2- | xargs rpm -ivh --replacepkgs

That _should_ find all the necessary packages and replace them.

Another problem is the fact that a RaQ does not boot like a PC.  There
is no BIOS on a RaQ to load LILO like there is on a PC.  Instead, the
RaQ reads the first partition (hda1) filesystem directly and loads
vmlinux.gz from the root of that filesystem.  So, hda1 needs a file (or
symlink) at the top of that filesystem called vmlinux.gz that points at
a kernel.  IIRC, the default partitioning scheme will make a /boot
partition as hda1 and put a kernel in the top level of that filesystem,
so that should be okay.

A third problem is that proper support for Cobalt x86 based RaQs was not
in the standard kernel until recently IIRC (RaQs don't have a normal PC
BIOS, so some things work differently WRT how things are set up when the
kernel starts).  I don't know if the Red Hat Linux 7.1 kernel includes
the necessary bits or not.  You should probably use RHL 7.2 now anyway
since it is out (I think it should have all the support needed).

Now, I haven't actually _tried_ any of this, so you are on your own. :-)
-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams@xxxxxxxxxx>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.