HOW TO INSTALL SKOLELINUX WITHOUT USING AUTOPARTKIT --------------------------------------------------- Author: Finn-Arne Johansen faj@bzz.no This Document is released under the GNU General Public License, version 2. On Debian GNU/Linux systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in `/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL'. $Id: install_without_autopartkit.txt,v 1.3 2004/07/31 21:55:40 finnarne Exp $ Disclaimer ---------- The Author takes no responsibility whatsoever if folowing this howto breaks your existing installation, your leg, burns down your house, or make you loose your jobb Introduction ----------- This HOWTO is based on the work done at the BzzWare AS, to have a Skolelinux installation on a machine were there already exist other installation, both of GNU Linux and propriatary OS The target Audience for this HOWTO should have some experience with GNU Linux and should know the basics of partitions and mountpoint. Partitions ---------- The Machine were this installation was performed, already had one Debian Sarge installation, one Windows 2000, one Windows XP, and one Skolelinux standalone installation. The Standalone installation was sacrificed and instead a Combined server (Main+LTSP) was performed instead. the partition schema is as follows root@fajx300:~# sfdisk -uM -l Disk /dev/hda: 7296 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track Units = mebibytes of 1048576 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0 Device Boot Start End MiB #blocks Id System /dev/hda1 0+ 478- 479- 489951 83 Linux /dev/hda2 * 478+ 5247- 4770- 4883760 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/hda3 5247+ 10017- 4770- 4883760 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/hda4 10017+ 57231- 47215- 48347617+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/hda5 10017+ 14786- 4770- 4883728+ 83 Linux /dev/hda6 14786+ 57231- 42446- 43463826 8e Linux LVM /dev/hda1 is the Debian Sarge root partition /dev/hda2 is for Win2k /dev/hda3 is for WinXP /dev/hda5 was the old standalone instllation /dev/hda6 is LVM, with swap, /usr /home, /var and other partitions for the Debian Sarge installation First stage of installation --------------------------- Boot of the CD, enter "expert" on the "boot:" prompt Choose your language, country and keyboard to your preferences. Detect and mount CD. My CDROM is USB based, so I needed to choose usbstorage (automatically detected) I do not need PCCard services on my laptop Load installation components eject load cdrom load installer lvm-cfg Choose Skolelinux Profile: For this excersize i choose Main and Thin-client-server Remember that you either need a Main server on your network, or you may install a standalone Detect Hardware I choose ide-detect, generic and ide-disk, but I guess you can go with the default, which loads a lot of modules, and i think generates a lot of questions LVM usage: If you want to use LVM partitions you have to switch to the second Console: Alt+F2 modprobe lvm-mod vgscan vgchange -ay Alt+F1 to get back again Partition a Harddrive You are sent to a cfdisk session, were you may create partitions if you want to, But I did not need to. I think you have to reboot if you have already loaded the lvm-module, and prepared to use LVM Configure and Mount I choose my /dev/hda5 for root, and nothing else. After installation is done i find that there is used 1.7G, and I have 2.8G left on a 5G partition. I think you should prepare at least 2560MB on that partition. you may look at the files under /etc/autopartkit when you have booted from the CD to see how much space you actually need. Use Ext2 for filesystem for the root partition, since Skolelinux 1.0 will convert ext2 into ext3 later. make a note on how you did setup your partitions, you need it later. Install Base system Continue with installation, but when you get to the point were the installation ask you which kernel to install, you need to do some work on the second console Select Kernel Since you are doing things manually, you need to create your /etc/fstab on the target Switch to the second console again (Alt+F2) then I did: echo "/dev/hda5 / ext2 defaults 0 1 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 none /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0 /dev/cdrom /cdrom iso9660 noauto,users,ro 0 0" >> /target/etc/fstab Remember once again to use ext2, and not ext3 for the filesystems. Switch back to "kernel select" with Alt+F1 install the only availible kernel "kernel-image-2.4.26-1-386" Finish installation The installer will try to install Grub, but if you like me, dont want to destroy your carefully crafted Grub setup, then do install grub on the same partition as you are installing on (for me that means /dev/hda5) when done, please reboot If you did not install grub on the Master Boot Record (/dev/hda), then you may have to to some magic to boot from your new instalation when Your old grub menu show up, please press "C" to do a command line grub boot. I have to enter the following on the grub-prompt: root (hd0,4) kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 ro initrd /initrd.img boot Your milage may vary