PXE Install
Now that I got the hardware working, I had to install the systems with a properly configured operating system. The problem is this system has neither floppy or CDROM drive. It does, however, have PXE network cards. I boot the system onto a Debian Sarge nfs root partition. Here is a summary af what I did after that:
- Load the ide-detect module to find the ATA drives. Partition the drives, don’t forget swap.
- Use mkswap to prepare your swap partition, and mkfs to make the file systems.
- Mount all the partitions someplace like they will be mounted, I used /mnt. Mounting /proc files system can be useful too.
- Use Debian’s debootstrap command to install packages where you mounted the partitions.
- Use the chroot command and change to where you just installed the packages.
- Edit the /etc/hosts file, /proc/mounts is a good start. Don’t forget swap.
- Edit and create other files: /etc/apt/sources.list, /etc/hosts, /etc/kernel-img.conf, /etc/network/interfaces, /etc/hostname.
- Use apt-get and install a kernel, I installed resolvconf too and put resolver configuration in the /etc/network/interfaces file.
- Install GRUB, create the /boot/grub directory. Run the update-grub command.
- Follow directions in the
Installation
section of the GRUB manual, to install GRUB on the boot drive. - Use passwd to set the root password.
- Reboot, make sure you are not booting PXE though.
After it comes up, set the time zone. Continue to configure normally.
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