Getting it right on Linux

[raygg]

I have Linux admin training from a few yrs ago but have not used Linux for several years. So I bought myself a used 64bit Dell gx620 ultra small form (no OS incl) box to get back up to speed.

When I received the box I found it has a male VGA plug and my KB box extensions have a male VGA plug, so I need a female-female adapter. It also has only USB plugs for peripherals such as keybd, mouse, printer etc, so my PS/1 plug extensions from my KB box will not work either until I get femalePS1/male USB adapters for USB.

I am awaiting delivery of the necessary adapters I ordered from amazon for the VGA, kbd and mouse plugs.

In the meantime is there a way I can get this puppy loaded with an OS using an OSI CD created from a download after I plug the ethernet cable into it for my home network?

I cannot think of a way I can get to the box to load an OS installation CD or DVD w/o direct mouse and kbd over a software interface such as putty. I think I would have to use putty or a similar connection from another workstation. I have both windows and linux on my other PCs on my home net.

 

[Annihilannic]

Male VGA port?? How unusual! Does it not look like this one?

You could boot from a Linux live CD like Knoppix (something that sets up the network interfaces using DHCP) and try tomanually create a bootable environment on the machine. It might be easiest to clone or restore an existing installation from another machine onto it rather than attempt an install under those conditions. What flavour of Linux are you planning to install?

Clonezilla is worth a look.

Annihilannic.
[small]tgmlify - code syntax highlighting for your tek-tips posts[/small]

 

[raygg]

Probably centos since it is a RH clone and I plan to put an oracle 11G db on it.

 

[BadBigBen]

There is a Live CD for CentOS, but it is only 32bit...

so with that in mind, I would wait until you get the ordered stuff, or temporarily hook up an USB keyboard...

btw. why the USB to PS/1 (typo there? you do mean PS/2...) adapter? why not use a USB HUB and USB Mouse and Keyboards, instead?



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[raygg]

I meant KVM, not KB switch, and PS/2 not PS/1.

Q Why not use a USB HUB and USB Mouse and Keyboards, instead?
A Actually I could do that temporarily - but long term I want to use the KVM switch so I can run 4 pc's off one kbd/mse/mon and the KVM extension cords are ps/2 - much cheaper to get the adapters than replace the extension cords. Good idea.

Here's another problem - I just started to look at the centos website for downloads (it refers you to mirror sites) and I am totally confused about what to download - they list 20 or 30 files for each version. They also mention keys which I take to mean software keys and I do not understand it because of the variety of choices I have no idea which to download. Not sure what to download and what not to.

 

[Annihilannic]

Which version? 6.0?

I'd normally just get the DVD ISOs, i.e. CentOS-6.0-x86_64-bin-DVD1.iso and CentOS-6.0-x86_64-bin-DVD2.iso. In your case you'd probably want the Live CD or DVD too, e.g. CentOS-6.0-x86_64-LiveCD.iso.

Should need any keys or anything...?

Annihilannic.
[small]tgmlify - code syntax highlighting for your tek-tips posts[/small]

 

[raygg]

what does the "Live CD" mean? I downloaded the 1thru 8 CD ISO files and put the first one in the CD drive and the message I get is it cannot boot. The HD is empty. I guess I have to format the HD first. Any suggestions for a howto link?

I think I would like to install either virtualbox or vmware fisrt. Any suggestions which is better for Oracle to run on on linux?

I neede some step by step howto's - and I have seen references to grub for setup. I do noit know how that fits into the installation mix for a blank hd.

 

[Annihilannic]

A Live CD is a bootable, usable OS-on-a-CD, rather than just an installation CD. There are many different types of them, mostly designed for a particular task such as rescuing systems or allowing you to work on someone else's computer without touching their hard drive. Of course any changes that you make while it is running are lost on reboot unless you have another writable medium (e.g. USB stick) to save them on.

For the cannot boot... you need to get into the BIOS on the system somehow to change the boot order so that it boots from the CD rather than the HDD; then the installation programme will look after the "formatting", creation of filesystems, etc.

Which flavour of VirtualBox or VMWare are you talking about? For VMware I believe you need the non-free versions (i.e. "ESX") to run as a dedicated hypervisor (i.e. not under another host OS). Not sure with VirtualBox... I only run them under another OS normally. In theory VirtualBox should be the better choice since it's now owned by Oracle too... but I don't think it makes much difference.

If you are considering running virtual machines... why are you using so much hardware; just whack a lot of RAM in your main box and run VMs on that instead? Saves power, space, cables, adapters, etc...

Annihilannic.
[small]tgmlify - code syntax highlighting for your tek-tips posts[/small]

 

[BadBigBen]

1. you should not need VMWare or VirtualBox at all to install Oracle 11g...

see the installation guides for Linux:

http://www.oracle.com/pls/db111/portal.portal_db?selected=11

2. I do not remember why the heck I mentioned the LiveCD, maybe for testing... or my mind was in a state of confusion (too many open tabs)...

3. you should only need [/b]CentOS-6.0-x86_64-bin-DVD1.iso[/b], burn it with to a DVD, to get started... CentOS-6.0-x86_64-bin-DVD2.iso is supplementary...

Download from:

http://linux.mirrors.es.net/centos/6.0/isos/x86_64/

(the above is an American Server with good download speed)...

in case you do not know:

How can I write (burn) ISO files to CD or DVD?

http://www.petri.co.il/how_to_write_iso_files_to_cd.htm

4. then follow Annihilannic instructions as to the BIOS and the BOOT ORDER, to make sure that the DVD/CD is set as first boot device... insert the DVD/CD's you made and boot from them and begin installing...




Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[Annihilannic]

We were barking up the Live CD tree when it looked like there would be no keyboard or visuals; i.e. something that would get a DHCP address and give him network access. So you're not going crazy.

I assume the VMware/VirtualBox requirement is less a requisite and more a nice-to-have for the snapshotting/rollback capabilities?

Annihilannic.
[small]tgmlify - code syntax highlighting for your tek-tips posts[/small]

 

[lgarner]

Yes, Virtualbox requires another host OS to be installed. I'd look at VMware ESXi or Citrix Xenserver for bare-metal virtualization. As you suggest, there are some nice features to virtualization even for a single host.

 

[raygg]

I installed XenServer and thought that the next step of installing an OSI CD I created after downloading the LiveCD from CentOS would be fairly simpole - like the install for a Windows OS wihout a virtual environment. Have done that many times. However it is not - I am getting the understanding that I have to allocate linux folders, read in the OSI disk and then run it from there buut am not sure this is the procedure. Would appreciate being directed to simple clear doc that dexcribes the process of loading the first OS onto XSvr from the OSI CD.

THe other little surprise I had was that I found a post somewhere that suggested the bios for the speicifc box you have determines whether you can load more than one or more or any VM OS onto Xenserver - any truth to this?

 

[IPGuru]

If you can boot form the dcd/dvd then installing cent os is no more complicated that installing windows & usually far quicker (especially when you add in the time for installing all those drivers & applications on a windowz box that are already there in most Linux distros)

if you are installing on to a Virtual machine then I would not bother burning the ISO but just tell the Virtual machine to mount it as a cd drive & it can run straight from the file.

Mundus vult decipi decipiatur ergo.