
RedHat 5.1 Installation with Initio Controllers

While these procedures are easy, you should thoroughly read and understand all the steps before you begin. You will also need to know what packages you wish to install in RedHat and of course what devices you have in your system.

For this installation we are assuming you have the mount point for the system set to drive sda1.  If you are going to use a different partition you will have to adjust the commands and pointers accordingly.

The RedHat installation will require you to write 3 disk images to floppy disks.  Two of these images are supplied by Initio (install.img and boot.img) in this package. The third image is the Root image on the RedHat CD in the /dosutils/autoboot directory called initrd.img. You may also want to copy the boot.img to a dos formatted floppy for use later. You can use rawrite, found on the RedHat CD in the /dosutils directory to write these images to floppy.

The process of writing the disk images to disk is very straight forward.  Copy all three images to a temp directory. Copy the rawrite.exe file to the same directory. Have three blank floppy disks on hand.  Put one floppy in drive A: and execute the rawrite utility with the following command: 

 rawrite -f install.img -d A:		<----- This will write the Install disk 								(label it Install)
 rawrite -f boot.img -d A:		<----- This will write the Boot disk 
							(label it Boot)
 rawrite -f initrd.img -d A:		<----- This will write the Root disk 
							(label it Root)

You will now have 3 disks, Install, Boot and Root.
Insert the Install disk in the floppy disk and reboot the machine. (Watch the boot screens to make sure all your devices are listed correctly, if they are not listed you will not be able to access them). This will start the RedHat installation, you will be prompted to insert the Root disk and then after that you will be prompted to insert the RedHat CD.  Follow the system prompts to complete the RedHat installation with whatever packages you wish to install.

At the completion of installation you will be prompted to remove the disks and reboot the machine, instead insert the Boot floppy in drive A: and reboot.  

Your options here are: 1) Boot RedHat from the floppy disk, in which case you are done. 2) copy the kernel image to the hard drive so no boot disk will be necessary. If you wish to have the system boot from the hard drive the following steps will need to be done.

Locate the boot.img file from this package, copy the image to a floppy disk.  Boot the system into RedHat using the Boot disk, login as Root. Change directory to the /boot directory on the hard drive.



Mount the floppy drive with the following command:  mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt
View the directory of the floppy with the following command:  ls /mnt
Copy the kernel image with the command:  cp /mnt/boot.img /boot

Verify that the boot.img file is in the /boot directory. If all is okay all you have to do is edit the /etc/lilo.conf file and your setup will be finished. In editing the /etc/lilo.conf file you will need to add the Initio kernel you copied to the hard drive. To do this with pico (you may use any editor) you would be in the /boot directory of the hard drive (you just copied the boot.img file here right?).

Enter the command:   pico /etc/lilo.conf    (you can use vi if you want)
You will see the following:

	boot=/dev/sda
 	map=/boot/map
 	install=/boot/boot.b
 	prompt
 	timeout=50
 	image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.0.34-0.6
  		label=linux
  		root=/dev/sda1
  		read-only

You will need to add the following lines:

 	image=/boot/boot.img
  		label=initio
  		root=/dev/sda1
  		read-only

When you are done the lilo.conf file should look like this:

 	boot=/dev/sda
 	map=/boot/map
	install=/boot/boot.b
 	prompt
 	timeout=50
 	image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.0.34-0.6
  		label=linux
  		root=/dev/sda1
  		read-only
 	image=/boot/boot.img
  		label=initio
  		root=/dev/sda1
  		read-only

Okay, so now you want to writeout the file, press Ctrl-O then exit pico with Ctrl-X.  The last item now is to update 
the lilo.conf in the system with the command:

	 lilo -C /etc/lilo.conf

Congratulations, you have completed the RedHat v5.1 installation with the Initio drivers. Now when you reboot, you 
will be presented with the prompt    lilo:  All you have to do is type initio and hit enter.
