Topic: install on partitions

[Tony]

Hello there...
I've downloaded the last distro and wanted to install it on my pc but have a question.
The first thing the distro ask me is where to install it. I can't give him partitions, it wants the complete disk.

The disk i want it to install on is divided into several partitions. Some contain data I can not loose and are to big to 'just burn or backup'.
Is there a way to let e-smith know wich partitions it can take?

TIA

[Dan Brown]

http://edocs.mitel.com/6000_SME_Server/smeserveruserguide/English/installingsoft.html

[Tony]

I guess that's a no??!!...


crap....
So the only thing I can do is take those hd's out, put on a new one,,,install ....putting the old one back and copie everything to the proper partitions....

[Dave]

Agreed a really serious flaw in the installation of SME.

I'm thinking of running SME but want to try it first. To do this I need to be able to bung it in it's own partition. I don't want it messing with the other discs/partitions in this machine.

I know of at least one other person who got as far in the install process as the warning that all discs would be clobbered and aborted. I doubt he will look at it again, shades of M$ "We know best how *you* want to use *your* machine".

By all means have an option to take all of the discs but there really does need to be an install to these partition(s) only option as well.

Cheers
Dave.

[Kees Blokland]

I guess the your main problem is that you don't quite grasp what the e-smith box is all about.

To say that a motorcycle has a serious design flaw because it can not fly is suggesting that maybe you don't understand the purpose of the motorcycle.
And yes I would agree that a motorcycle make a pretty crap airplane.

As much as a floppy makes a lousy harddisk, a network card can't produce video etc etc..

have fun...

[Dave]

> I guess the your main problem is that you don't quite grasp what the
> e-smith box is all about.

Oh I think I have it's a stable and secure server and/or gateway that can be put away in a broom cupbroard and forgotten about. Which is the primary reason for wanting to try it out.

I could build the same sort of thing from a Linux distro, indeed I have SuSE box doing similar things already but that carries an awful lot of "junk" that I don't need and isn't free.

A broadband, always on, internet connection is likely to arrive here before the year end, I want to be prepared for that. In the mean time I hope to use SME with dial-on-demand ISDN, though the dox are rather vague about ISDN. I also want to see if the box I want to use has enough umph, it's below the minimum spec (P133, 48M RAM, 1Gig disc, passive ISDN card). The SuSE box is a 486DX2/66 which is fast enough for my needs so I'm not really sure why the SME min spec is so high, unless the newer kernels have started to become bloatware.

Cheers
Dave.

PS. I've dug about on the CDR and found a few interesting things that if tweaked might enable what I want. ie. Install to it's own partition with lilo in that partition not the MBR, I'll report back.

[Kees Blokland]

Sorry to sound a bit ....

you write:

>In the mean time I hope to use SME with dial-on-demand ISDN, though the dox are rather vague about ISDN. I also want to see if the box I want to use has enough umph, it's below the minimum spec (P133, 48M RAM, 1Gig disc, passive ISDN card). The SuSE box is a 486DX2/66 which is fast enough for my needs so

>I'm not really sure why the SME min spec is so high, unless the newer kernels have started to become bloatware.


.. it all depends what you want to do with it. If you use it as a fileserver server etc, you need a bit more than when you only want to use it as a dialup server..

ISDN works fine, out of the cd, with all cards supported by suse (certainly that I know off). No problems at all, BUT if you use ISDN (or modem for that matter) on a dialup connection, the hardware you propose is a bit on the lean side.
I used to run an 75mhz 32mb system as my net-connected box. The 'problem' is not the normal performance of the system, but the fact that everytime a dialup occurs, quite a few things happen, which takes time. In fact it would take a lot of time. And all this time you are waiting.(5-10 sec on a P75 and slow disc..)
My solution at the time was to take a 486/33 and create a seperate floppy based router. Since the e-smith knew only about the default gateway (the router) it never had to restart anything and all was well. The 486 did have no problem bringing up the line and in under 1 second. ( one click, it's there type of stuff).

So, for testing you might get by, for halfway serious stuff, you need more horses.

.. and the multi partition stuff?
.. it's a commerical box, with one thing in mind: be a server, what else should it be? It's not designed or intended to be a playbox, as you have pointed out yourself, you can use suse/anyotherdistro for that.

[Dave]

> Sorry to sound a bit ....

No problem.  B-)

> .. it all depends what you want to do with it.

Basically only a dialup server, but it will also need to log the weather station and generate the webpages for that as well.

> I used to run an 75mhz 32mb system as my net-connected box.

> In fact it would take a lot of time. And all this time you are waiting.(5-10
> sec on a P75 and slow disc..)

Well a P133 is nearly double the speed and it has a SCSI II disc not IDE and a fair bit more memory. We shall see, I'm willing to try and track down more memory for it.

> .. and the multi partition stuff?
> .. it's a commerical box, with one thing in mind: be a server, what else > should it be? It's not designed or intended to be a playbox, as you
> have pointed out yourself, you can use suse/anyotherdistro for that.

Ultimately it won't be a playbox the current linux box just sits in a cormer and gets on with it anyway. But before I commit I want to play a) to see if the hardware is up to it b) if I like "the e-smith way". I want to be able to play without losing the machine from it's current use. The other person I mentioned also wants to play *to see what it's like*. This fdisk/format every partition, on every disc, is a very arrogant attitude and is big barrier to any sort of "try before you buy" approach.

Would you buy a motorcycle when all you've been able to see is the outside of the delivery crate and some slightly self contradictory spec sheets? Oh and one of the conditions of sale is that *all* other motorcycles you own are taken away first.

Cheers
Dave.

[Dave]

It *can* be done, install SME only to some partitions.

This won't work if you're trying to preserve another linux installation, it will only work with other OS's on non-linux partitions. (Mine was OS/2 on HPFS and a small FAT partition).

You will need to be able to edit a file on the CD. I was working from the ISO image, but couldn't edit the file in that burnt image, no surprise. So you need to copy the contents of the CD to your HD make the simple edits and burn everything back. You need a CD burner and about 320Meg of free space just for the CD contents, actual required disc space will be more depending on how much your burner software needs whilst burning the files back.

You also need to be able to create and format linux ext2 and swap partitions on your HD. I happened to have a copy of Partition Magic SE v6.0 kicking around and used that booted from it's "rescue" discs. I did format the partitions but don't know if that was really required. I had tried an install by just making free space but that wouldn't boot, OS/2s Boot Manager complained that the partition wasn't formated...

Edit the file /images/kickstart/install.cfg and change:

zerombr yes -> zerombr no
clearpart --all -> clearpart --linux
lilo --location mbr --linear -> lilo --location partition --linear

Boot to SME, I used the boot floppy method as the target machine doesn't boot from CD. Do the install following the prompts etc. and reboot. I ended up at a login prompt not the configuration console. Login as root with the password "default" and run these two commands:

/sbin/e-smith/signal-event post-install
/sbin/e-smith/signal-event reboot.

(Stolen from the workaround for the similar problem on the Linux Format cover disc. I figured that I didn't need to install the Perl RPM mentioned in that as I was working from a genuine ISO image.).

You should then come back into the configuration and can proceed with that as per normal.

Note what you do or what your machines do is your problem not mine. Editing the install.cfg as indicated isn't supported by e-smith.  Take a full backup of the partitions you wish to keep just in case.

Cheers
Dave.