Installing the Computerbank Distro over a network using a Knoppix CD

Written by John Simpson in Mar 2006
Updated by Xin Huang in 30 Mar 2006
Updated August 2006

Supporting equipments: You need a computer with all components fitted including a CDROM drive, a network card and a Knoppix installation CD.

(1) Turn on the computer and go into the BIOS mode immediately. Note: Different computers may have different short-cut key(s) to force a computer to go into the BIOS mode during the power on procedure.

(2) Put the Knoppix CD into the CDROM Drive and adjust the corresponding option in the BIOS to force the computer to boot up from CDROM drive. And then restart the computer.

(3) Wait until the computer reaches the Knoppix Boot Screen. At the boot prompt, type "knoppix 2". This will start the Knoppix OS in commandline mode.

You now need to partition and format the HDD using the cfdisk program.

(4) Type 'cfdisk'. Note: If you find that the HDD has partitions already, highlight them and delete them. You can either use the 'd' key or you can navigate with the Arrow Keys to Delete.

(5) You then need to create partitions.
The procedure is this:
To create the Swap Space,
Type 'n'.
Make it a 'Primary' Partition.
Then type in '150mb' for the size.
And put it at the 'beginning' of the Drive.
You then type in 't' and select type = 82. You can do this by simply pressing Enter twice. This will designate the partition as a Linux Swap Space.

(6) For the second partition we follow the same procedure.
Select the Free Space line by using the arrow keys.

The type 'n' to create a new partitioin
Make it a 'Primary' Partition
Next just press Enter to select the remaining space on the drive.
Then you select the large partition, and type the 'b' key to make the partition bootable.

You should end up with this if using a 10 GB HDD.

    hda1 NC Primary Linux Swap 157.41
    hda2 Boot Primary Linux 8297.80

Obviously the above second line will have a different amount depending on the size  of the HDD you use.

(7) You now need to write the partition to the HDD.

You do this by typing 'SHIFT + w' at the same time.

(8) Type 'q' to exit CFdisk.

(9) You then have to format the HDD.
You do this by typing "mkreiserfs /dev/hda2"

You also need to activate swap, do this by typing: "mkswap /dev/hda1"

(10) Now you need to make a Mount Point for the Drive.
Type "cd /" to take you to the root of the filesystem.
Make a directory to mount the hda2 by typing "mkdir /new".
Then mount the drive on the mountpoint by typing "mount /dev/hda2    /new".

(11) Now you need to change directory by typing "cd /new".

(12) You now need to get the file from our server by typing:

"wget http://omnidimensional/scratch/distro.tar.gz".

Note: If you fail in this command, try to type 'pump' and then type 'ifconfig' to make sure that the network is properly installed.

(13) Once the file is transfered, you need to untar it by typing:
"tar -xzvf distro.tar.gz".

(14) Now that you have the files on the HDD. You need to add a few folders that aren't put in the tar file by typing the following 4 commands separately:

mkdir /new/tmp
mkdir /new/proc
mkdir /new/sys
chmod 777 /new/tmp

(15) You now need to load the LILO boot loader to enable the system to start.

First move the /boot folder on the base system by typing:
"mv  /boot /boot.old".
Then make a link from the HDD to the /boot folder by typing:
"ln -s  /new/boot /boot".

(16) Now you run lilo to install the bootloader by typing:
"lilo -C /new/etc/lilo.conf".

(17) You can now reboot the machine and hopefully you have a functioning computer. Type: reboot

Note: If you need to change video driver, type the following command to start doing it: vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf