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Mandrake 7.2 Installation

 Email Brian Bilbrey Email Brian Bilbrey

Installing Mandrake 7.2 on Gryphon the Acer Travelmate 600 TER. PIII 600 SpeedStep, 192M, 12G... again.

Starting out... /home/bilbrey /etc and /usr/local backed up to another machine. I'll preserve /home anyway, but best to be safe, if I hose the machine during an install...

ROUND ONE

Reboot Gryphon, type in the BIOS boot password... Press to install or upgrade. Done it. Loads and initializes. GUI installer starts up. Using the touchpad. We'll add the USB mouse after install.

Don't format /home - preserve the data for the installing system.

**** Side note. Starting with an expert install, "Complete" means about 2.5G of software - all the packages on the two CD-Roms, even conflicting packages like Sendmail and Postfix, both MTAs, and you only need one, unlike say, editors. **** 1200MB, both CD-Roms (Install and, with 5 minutes to go, Extras) in about 17 minutes. The single largest dependency is speed of CD drive, second is Processor speed, third, HD speed. SCSI HW flies, compared to IDE stuff.

How do you want to connect to the internet?
Configure local network

This is a sticker for many people. The network card has not yet been brought up. If you're doing Static IP, then fill in the blanks, and DON'T select Automatic IP. OTOH, if you click on the Auto IP (bootp/dhcp) star, then it doesn't matter whether or not you've filled anything in - it'll get over-ridden when the DHCP server is queried.

I do static IP, so choose 192.168.1.9 / 255.255.255.0, then OK. In the next dialog,
Hostname: gryphon.orbdesigns.com
DNS Server: (the primary nameserver given me by Speakeasy - I am not doing internal DNS right now)
Gateway: 192.168.1.1 (the Linksys router)

***ALWAYS create a real user. Don't work as root when you don't have to. Exploration is best done with low permissions. *** {Done} at the next user creation dialog - Only me at this time.

This installation type auto-installs Xfree86 3.3.6 and the Mach64 accelerated server (driver for my built in video card). I select 1024x768 @ 70Hz.

Avoid the "I can setup your computer to automatically log on one user..." There goes the security. Leave the "Default User" field blank, and click OK.

Installation is complete. System ejects Extra CDR, and reboots.

BIOS PW, then Lilo or Grub comes on, "...OS Chooser". Take the default - Linux. During the boot process, kernel boot messages appear on screen, then Kudzu (hardware detect & config utility comes on - installs the UHCI usb hub (builtin) and CD-RW drive. Now I have a login screen. Let's join the local Windows workgroup (I am not on a domain, here).

Login as bilbrey (well, your local non-root user, instead, unless you're really weird). Now, a couple of things to know about Unix/Linux participating in a SMB network. Unix PW by itself doesn't convey to the SMB side of things. We'll start by using SWAT, the Samba Web Administration Tool. Should be running by default.... Let's see. Nope, apparently not. So, open DrakConf (Icon on the desktop, or K..Configuration..Other..DrakConf

Enter the root user password to gain the authority necessary to run these programs effectively. Good only for programs invoked from within the DrakConf application. Gone once you close the app.

Hmmm. Note that the time is wrong - It assumed that I had the system clock at Local, when I run this box on GMT.

Select Startup Services. Mmmm. No SMB, no Swat. Does this installation INSTALL Samba??? Pop open a terminal window and type in rpm -qa | grep smb ... Nothing. That makes our job harder. Sigh.

The problem here is that when you install less than everything, you can't know, with this type of install, what you're missing out on. I think I'll reinstall from scratch, one more time. I know, I know, but it's faster this way... you'll see... DON'T POWER CYCLE the box though - we still have good data on the home partition. Logout, then reboot from the login screen, with the Install CDR in place. Let's do this one all over again. Different choices, different results.

ROUND TWO

BIOS password- Done. From the initial prompt - Enter to Install.

Language: Ingles.
License: Accept.

"Please, choose one of the following classes of installation:"
  Recommended, Customized or Expert.

I *always* take expert. There are reasonable defaults for most things, and I get more choices - we'll look at each. Of course, I select Expert, and get the "Are you *really* sure?" box. Offers me another chance at customized. Feh. Wimps. EXPERT! I said.

"What is your system used for?"
  Workstation, Server, or Development.

I like the Workstation choice here. Server comes up with a different set of defaults that make sense for a direct net connected box that is serving for real. Development is ... Workstation with... something different? More development software perhaps. Ah, well, Workstation it is.

Configures PCMCIA and looks for SCSI drives... then Do you have any SCSI interfaces? Yes, No, See Hardware Info. The last choice is interesting, if you want to know what hardware is detected out of the gate... I think this question is for SCSI hardware that evades autodetection (I've heard of such). Here, I say no, even though the CD-RW drive end up being run as an emulated SCSI device. No actual SCSI interface, then just say NO!

Please choose the type of your mouse. Several selections here. I could plug in the USB mouse, and configure it here, but I'd rather not (for the moment). The touchpad is of type Standard, which is highlighted. I choose OK. Then I pick US Keyboard from the next dialog, and OK.

You can choose other languages that will be available after install. This is multi-purpose. English (though out of sight, use the slider to confirm) is the sole default. Each addition adds the available system help (manual and info pages) plus localization data (perhaps) for the selected languages. If you choose all, then you'll get an additional 30 or 40 M of files loaded. Choose your native language, others only if you're planning on learning a second language via Linux technical documentation (sick, sick, sick).

Next, for me, "Some hardware on your computer needs "proprietary" drivers to work. You can find some information about them at: www.linmodems.org." This refers to the WinModem from Lucent that's built into this laptop. I don't know if I could get it to work, I haven't ever tried. OK to acknowledge the dialog.

Miscellaneous questions:

Use hard drive optimizations: Mostly enables DMA. OK on most recent hardware. If you've run DMA under Windows on the hardware, then it'll be fine. If you're not sure, then you can NOT select this. It defaults to off (the little star is gray).

Choose Security Level. High and Paranoid for servers, Medium for internal LANs where you don't trust your co-workers, Low for internal LANs (you are behind a firewall, aren't you?), finally Poor and Welcome to Crackers. I generally choose Medium.

Precise RAM size... Some MOBO /BIOS configurations apparently mis-detect the amount. Put in the right bit, please.

z20010108.html

Removable media automounting. *** Supermount (recommended and default) - allows the system to automount and autodemount media, say, CDROMs. Very handy. People are used to being able to push the button and have the CD eject. Doesn't happen if the CD is hard mounted. Supermount saves me grief.

Clean /tmp at each boot. I say no, because I sometimes store stuff in tmp. It's my responsibility to keep /tmp clean. Defaults to off, I leave it that way.

Enable multi-profiles. Not sure here. Never used them. Maybe could replicate what I do with script files to change my network configuration depending on which net I am hooked to (home or office). Default Off - I'll leave it off, this time, too.

The next dialog really deserves a title. This is DiskDrake - the Mandrake partitioning tool in Expert mode. There are lots and lots and lots of possiblities here, some of which can get an unsuspecting alien killed. Oh, wait, that's Doug Adams' description of San Francisco... OK.

But there are lots of choices. Two are very common. First is to use the pre-existing partitions, as is, same size and just give each one a mount point. The second common path is to click on the button called Clear All, then on the button marked AutoAllocate. That also works, though it doesn't set things up the way *I* like. For me, here, I'll just use the partitions I set up from the last run, above. For each partition, I select it from the GUI bar graph at the top of the window, then choose the mount point button, and type in the location in the file system for the partition. /, /usr, swap and /home for me.

After setting all the mount points, I choose Done. This brings up "Choose the partitions you want to format." I'll format all but /home. A gray * next to the mount point indicates no formatting. Select OK, then the Bad Blocks dialog appears. There's really only one time to say yes to this - on the first load of a new disk - then do the bad blocks check on all partitions, and bring a good book - a 40G IDE drive will take the better part of half an hour to check. Defaults to none selected, and I let that ride. The installer formats the partitions, building a filesystem on each.

Now the CD List comes up. I have both disks, so leave the "CD 2 Extension CD" selected, then OK. This next bit can be confusing - there are three stages to choosing packages, the second of which seems moronic to me. But anyway, first is

Package group selection.

As you float the cursor over each possibility, a popup roughly describes the option. All of these are selected by default. I put a "NO" next to each thing I disable, and why. At the bottom of the dialog, the Individual Package Selection star is lit. You really don't need this, but we'll look anyway. The advantage of individual package selection is the ability to go through in fine detail and strip out functionality and programs you don't need. So now I choose OK.

Now the installation size by percentage box appears. I really, really can't see the point in this - it's only significant if you've undersized your / or /usr partitions, and then this doesn't start out at 100%, telling you there isn't enough space for what you've selected. Mmmm. If this is less than 100%, then one of your partitions is too small. If it's at 100%, then leave it alone and progress to the next dialog - Individual package selection.

When I am going through, pruning packages at this step, I expand the tree, and turn on the automatic dependencies. This allows me to remove whole swaths of functionality at one time, if I desire. On the other hand, if I've taken out too much, and add something back, then the auto dependency will also re-select those items needed to support my selection. I like this tool, though I won't use it ... this time. Then I select INSTALL.

1233 Packages, about 2.5G, starts out saying 25 minutes to install, it'll end up someplace around 33 to 38 minutes. Actual elapsed time, once things are done, is 44 minutes. Next we configure networking, almost exactly as above, except that a dialog is shown about the NIC. In the hostname dialog, there's an additional field: Gateway Device. This is the interface to the outer world. In a multi-NIC router box, this would be your external NIC. For any single NIC system, the device is eth0 ( for a LAN connected box, the choices are different for dialup). Also you can configure proxies for http and ftp after the host dialog box.

After the Timezone selection, I am asked "Is your hardware clock set to GMT?" I answer yes. In truth, you should do this, and set your CMOS clock to GMT (UTC) unless you're dual booting with an OS like windows, that really wants local time from the Hardware.

Choose which services should be started at boot time. This is a much longer list, and I won't show them all here - Tooltip like descriptions come up when you float the cursor over each selection. I'll share my choices with you (as with the listing, they're in alphabetical order, rather than functionally grouped). For each, I show what the default was. I've turned each item below on, and all others off:

I run these 18, out of a list of more than 80. I don't have to do security updates or audits on services that don't run. I could get by without the autofs, acpid, apmd, sound and swat, easily, in a memory-constrained situation. Anyway, those are my keepers, to begin with. These are started at every boot. And no, this list somehow isn't complete, there are other things to disable, in a later edition.

I select the CUPS printing system, then configure it to print to the Canon BJC-2000 over on Grinch. OK. That didn't work, but then, it hasn't before, either. More on printing later...

Along with setting the root password, do accept the Shadow file and MD5 passwords. Together, they create a much more secure environment. Don't use NIS unless you ... well, unless you do, eh. Add a real "normal" user, too, as above. It's just not safe to run in root all the time. Too many ways to screw up.

Creating a custom boot disk is a good idea if you have a floppy drive. Gryphon doesn't, but you should. I do for all my tower boxen. Then, I choose LILO for my boot loader, and accept all the defaults, except that I also enable Compact, which makes for faster booting. I just choose Done from the list of boot entries.

In the X configuration section, I choose XFree 3.3.6 with HW acceleration. I happen to know that XFree 4.0.1 doesn't like this box. I take the pre-selected monitor type, as before. There is also a generic LCD 1024x768 selection above, but this choice works well... Then I change to 32bit color, since the card can handle it. I do not, however, test the configuration. If the Test dialog says "Warning: Testing this graphic card may freeze your computer", believe it. And your install won't complete correctly. If it doesn't boot to GUI properly after install, that can be fixed faster than reinstalling again. Then I say "YES", do start X upon booting. I want to go straight to GUI mode, don't pass go, don't collect 200 dollars.

Again, ignore the default user feature, please. It saves you having to login, as though you were running Win98 on a standalone box, but why have a secure OS, then leave the front door unlocked. Click OK without filling in a user name. Then, NO, I don't want to generate an auto-install floppy for replication (though that's a handy feature for most admins building multiple boxes.

Reboot and let's try this one again... Ha. It's up and running. More on this topic tomorrow. TTFN.



All Content Copyright © 1999-2001 Brian P. Bilbrey.