4 Installation Questions

Contents of this section

4.1 Do I need swap space?

Yes! If you have 8M of RAM, you must enable at least 8M of swap during the install of RHCL. If you have more RAM, you should still enable swap, though it isn't mandatory.

4.2 How do I do a network install of Red Hat 2.x?

Get the RedHat-HOWTO from the docs directory of any official RedHat Mirror. It will tell you all you need to know.

4.3 How do I run the install program again?

Reboot your machine using the two disks that you made for the installation. You will most likely need to completely reinstall your system.

4.4 Why am I missing some programs?

Try doing a 'df' at the shell prompt. If you have "/" or "/usr" showing up as 100% used, chances are your partition was too small for the entire install. Unfortunately, this does not result in any type of error messages unless you are watching closely (which most people don't when the thing tells you it is going to take 2 hours to install :-). You will most likely need to reinstall and do one of two things: a) make your root or "/usr" partition larger or b) install fewer packages. If the express install filled up your system and you can NOT make your partition bigger, you will need to do a Step-by-Step install and choose a fairly minimal setup -OR- don't let the Express Install choose your packages for you.

4.5 Do I need to reinstall if I didn't get a LILO prompt?

Not necessarily. You should be able to use the boot disk that you made for the install to boot to your root partition on the hard drive. Insert the disk, reboot the machine, and at the boot prompt, type:

linux ramdisk=0 root=/dev/xxxx where xxxx is the hard drive and partition number. If you installed to the first partition of your first IDE drive, this would be hda1. If you installed to the third partition on your second drive, this would be hdb3. The second partition of your second SCSI drive would be sdb2.

If you don't remember, try what you think might work. The worst that will happen is a kernel panic or the machine will hang. In either case, reboot and try another partition.

Once you get it booted, you need to edit /etc/lilo.conf and then run 'lilo'. For more info on how to do that properly, you need to mount your CDROM with redhat on it and install the howto-1995.05.21-bin.rpp (though the actual filename may differ due to newer versions) from the rpps directory on the CD. You can then read the LILO-HOWTO in "/usr/doc" on how to write a proper lilo.conf.

An example lilo.conf to boot linux and DOS is below:


        boot=/dev/sda
        map=/boot/map
        install=/boot/boot.b
        prompt
        timeout=50

        image=/vmlinuz
                        label=linux
                        root=/dev/sdb2
                        read-only
                        append = "boot_verbose=0"
        other=/dev/sda1
                        label = dos

You may also need a line in the "other" section with "table = /dev/hda" or whatever drive your DOS partition is on. The only lines from above that should change if you boot linux and DOS are "boot", "root", and "other". Some of what is there is optional, like the append and what YOU actually label the dos partition (some people prefer msdos).

One caveat: Make sure the "boot" line points to your first IDE drive, OR your first SCSI drive IF AND ONLY IF you only have NO IDE drives. That is the only way the machine has to know where to find it. You need to also be sure that the partition in the "boot" line is marked "Active" by either the DOS fdisk, or the linux fdisk (or cfdisk). Here are the "rules" of where "/" must live:

  1. If you have 2 IDE drives, your root partition MUST live on one of them, NO MATTER WHAT. This also includes any IDE CDROM drives on your PRIMARY controller. If you have one IDE hard drive, and one IDE CDROM on the PRIMARY controller, you must install your root partition on the IDE hard drive.
  2. If you have 1 IDE drive and SCSI drives, your root partition MUST live on the IDE drive or the SCSI drive THAT IS AT ID 0. No other ID's will work.
  3. If you have SCSI only, your root partition MUST live on a drive at ID 0 or ID 1. No other ID's will work.

These rules are non negotiable.

BUT I WANT DOS TO BOOT BY DEFAULT!!!

Easy. Just change the above /etc/lilo.conf to:


                boot=/dev/sda
                map=/boot/map
                install=/boot/boot.b
                prompt
                timeout=50

                other=/dev/sda1
                        label = dos
                image=/vmlinuz
                        label=linux
                        root=/dev/sdb2
                        read-only
                        append = "boot_verbose=0"

and then run `lilo` after saving the file.

4.6 How do I mount my CDROM?

If you installed from CD, you should be able to do:

mount /mnt/cdrom

If you get an error that says the mount point does not exist, do:

mkdir /mnt/cdrom

If you did an install via NFS: You need to know what type of CD ROM you have. The best way is to watch the boot messages as you reboot, or look at /var/adm/messages (more /var/adm/messages). You most likely have an IDE CD ROM that will show up as /dev/hdc or /dev/hdd, or you have a Sound Blaster type that is /dev/sbpcd, or you have a SCSI that is /dev/scd0.

In any case, you can do the following:

mount -t iso9660 /dev/xxxx /mnt/cdrom

and substitute xxxx for YOUR device. You can then: cd /mnt/cdrom and then: ls and you will be looking at the contents of the CD ROM.

4.7 Why does my Trident 9400 show up as an 8900?

XFree86 3.1.2 currently doesn't support the advanced features of the 9400. The timing for the release of the 9400 was just bad for the release dates of 3.1.1, so they weren't able to add the support in. Now that the card is pretty popular and a new release is expected soon of XFree86, we expect to see direct support in the next version of XFree86. For now, you can run resolutions all the way to 1024x768 at 60 hz. If you have trouble using Xconfigurator to set it up, you will probably find that xf86config will do the job (it just doesn't look as nice doing it :-)

4.8 Why does linux only see part of my RAM?

There are a couple things that could be wrong. On some 386's, you need to compile your kernel with "Limit memory to 16M?" enabled. Some AMI BIOS motherboards have a memory option to split memory into two segments. I'm not sure what the option is called, but it has something to do with "linear". You'll find it in your BIOS setup. You may need to specify the amount of memory to the kernel at boot time from lilo. To try this, type: linux mem=32M at the lilo prompt. If that works, you can add that line to the append in your /etc/lilo.conf and rerun lilo. The example from above would be:


                append = "boot_verbose=0 mem=32M"

Don't forget to run `lilo` after editing the file.

4.9 How do I install to my DOS partition?

You can't. The Mothers Day release and 2.0 does NOT support UMSDOS installs. If you have one drive that has one big DOS partition with free space you want to use, you have two options. One is to backup all your DOS data somehow and then repartition the drive into smaller partitions and then restore the DOS data back to a DOS partition. You then have a free partition for linux. The second choice is to use fips. fips is a program that will let you change your partition size of a DOS partition without harming the data on it. It is STRONGLY suggested that you backup your data before using fips. Red Hat Software makes no warranties or claims as to the suitability of using fips for this purpose nor does Red Hat guarantee that data will remain unharmed. I haven't heard of anyone having a bad experience with fips, but I won't guarantee it either.

4.10 What does the boot disk message really mean?

Okay, there are a lot of questions on this, so I'll go into it in better detail.

Line 1:  Our name and the version you have.
Line 3-4: short description of what to do.

The rest of the message is for lilo parameters.  These
should only be used if you have a Sony CDU31 or 33 -OR-
if you are having problems with the auto detection of other
hardware.

Be sure that for every parameter you enter that has commas that
you do NOT put a space after the comma.  The only spaces
on the command line should be after 'linux' and between 
multiple parameters (ie: mcd=0x340,11 bmouse=5).

Line 6:  This line is almost NEVER necessary and should be used
only as a last resort.  If your hard drives are not being
recognized or giving odd errors, you can try these parameters.
If your first hard drive acting up, you would enter:
        linux hda=xxx,xxx,xxx
where the 'xxx' is your parameters from BIOS.
Line 7:  Use this if your Mitsumi CDROM does not get recognized
properly.  An example:  linux mcd=0x340,11
Line 8:  This line is required for the sony cdu31a or 33a.  
Use "cdu31a" for BOTH the 31 and the 33 (ie. do NOT use 
"cdu33a" as a parameter on the command line).
An example:  linux cdu31a=0x340,0
Line 9:  If you have an Aztech CD268, try:
        linux aztcd=0x340
(or whatever your port is).
Line 10:  If your ethernet card is not recognized, you can
try to use these parameters.  For an ethernet card on
base address 0x340 and irq 10, enter:
        linux ether=10,0x340
Line 11:  If your bus mouse isn't recognized, try this parameter.
Line 12:  For an old Seagate ST0x controller, use this parameter.
Line 13:  For a Future Domain TMC-8xx controller, use this.
Line 14:  For a trantor T128, use this line.
Line 15:  For an NCR-5380, use this line.  For a card at 0x330
and IRQ 11 and DMA 5, you would use:
        linux ncr5380=0x330,11,5
Line 16:  Use this line for an Adaptec 1505, 1510, 1515, 1520,
and 1522 (and Sound Blaster SCSI).  The reconnect and parity
are optional.  For a CDROM hooked to ID 1 an a controller
with base address of 0x330 and IRQ 11 you would use:
        linux aha152x=0x330,11,1,reconnect,parity
(you can try it without the last two)
Line 17:  Use this if you are having problems with an Adaptec
1542 (rare).
Line 18:  Use this if you are having trouble with a Buslogic
controller (also rare).
Line 19:  Use this for Pro Audio Spectrums and Pro Audio Studio
cards that aren't recognized.
Line 20:  Use this if you have the "normal" Sound Blaster CD
interface and it doesn't work.  This is the regular ole run
of the mill Sound Blaster type that controls the Panasonic
56x drives, Matsushta Kotobuki drives, TEAC CD55A, and a 
few others.  If you have a Sound Blaster with something
like the Panasonic connected using base address 0x240, you
would use:
        linux sbpcd=0x240,SoundBlaster
Line 21:  If you have an IDE (ATAPI compliant) CDROM that is
not getting recognized by the auto probe, you can use this
parameter to tell it where to look.  Normally, if you have
IDE hard drives, they take up the first available drive
letters.  If you had 2 IDE hard drives, your CDROM would be 
hdc.  If you had one IDE hard drive, it would be hdb.  It's 
usually okay to just try them all.  You would use:
        linux hdb=cdrom
if you had one IDE hard drive.
Line 22: A reminder that you must put a "0x" in front of
all Hex values (such as base addresses).
Line 23: Instructions on what to enter.

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