Novice Experience Installing Linux SLS on TP755CX

[Ivo Welch <ivo@next.lbs.lon.ac.uk>]

I am an experienced NeXTStep user.  I have just installed SLS Linux for the  
first time.  Here is some description/advice to others who are planning to do  
the same:

[1] I grabbed the SLS distribution from a mirror to sunsite.unc.edu, and  
read the Linux-Installation-Howto by Matt Welsh (no relation).  I copied the  
files using a parallel port transfer under DOS to install from hard disk.  (I  
only wish NeXTStep had this one, too.)

[2] Creating boot and root disks was straightforward, and worked (I used the  
scsi.gz boot disk).  Than, once logged on as root, I started "setup."  As I  
found out, the Linux setup program is very finicky.  First, it did not mount  
the DOS partition for me.  So, I had to handmount the DOS partition (after  
the boot, accomplished by "/bin/mount /dev/hda1 /somewhere").  Then, I had to  
run "setup" again.  setup is finicky about specifying (source) filenames.   
Make sure that there are not one-too-many slashes in the combination of the  
directory and the mountpoint.  Specifying "/somewhere/" and "/sls/" for  
example fails.

[3] The basic SLS installation was rather straightforward.  I had a crash on  
basic installation, but think I was done already  (although I do not have  
tset, so perhaps I am still missing some).  Restarting setup for other  
packages, I wish it had not asked me for the system font, because I liked the  
standard one, and it was not clear which one it was.  Somehow, I also had to  
twice install LILO before it worked.  Don't know why.

[4] I then booted, and Linux either complained that it was read-only or that  
it was read-write but wanted to be read-only at first.  I figured out that  
this was because I was missing an /etc/fstab entry.  Here it mine now:

	/dev/hda2 / ext2 rw 0 1
	/dev/hda1 /dosd msdos rw 2 3
	/proc /proc proc defaults

(The last line is necessary for top and ps to work.  I don't know why, and I  
do not care.)

[5] Now, I moved loadlin to the DOS partition, and unpacked it.  It took me  
a while to figure out that I also needed to copy the linux kernel from the  
linux partition to the DOS partition.  (A bit strange to have a Linux kernel  
on a DOS disk, I think, but that is what it took.)  Unfortunately, I screwed  
up on the disk naming convention (need to use /dev/hda2 of course), so  
Loadlin was waiting forever for a UMSDOS partition.  Once I rebooted, I fixed  
this, and loadlin worked.

[6] It also took me a while to figure out that I did not want to give a vga=  
argument to loadlin.  It only screwed me up.  By the way, I never managed to  
get the console into 100*33 mode (or any mode other than 80*25).  This is a  
pity.

[7] Now, I tried to follow Jeff Friedl's (excellent) instructions on how to  
get X up.  BUT---the latest SLS distribution does not come with the latest X.  
 So, I first needed to download this one, too, from sun-site.  Installation  
comes in elf and a.out format.  Eventually I figured out that I needed the  
"a.out" format, because SLS is still built on it (on elf format, the elf-X  
looks for a missing libm.so).  So, I build this X again.  The build itself  
was straightforward untarring and replacing all files in /usr/X11R6 with my  
new files.  (Note: one needs to untar staff both in common and in a.out.)

[8] I killed the gpm program to get control of my mouse back, and started X.  
 It came up.  Great!  So, I logged out, started DOS, changed mode "ps2  
mode3x on", and ran loadlin.  After login, X still ran, and all it took was  
to figure out how to make the numerical pad work.  It took first a  
Shift-NumLk, and then a ctrl-alt-minus (on the ; key) and a ctrl-alt-plus (on  
the / key) let me switch to 800*600 resolution.

Now, please do not ask me for anything else---as I stated, I am a novice  
myself.  This however may help some of you doing the same thing.

Good luck,

/ivo