Installing Linux on the BeBox

This guide is an update of the original guide to installing LinuxPPC on a BeBox. This guide has been updated for a BeBox running BeOS R3, and the current version of LinuxPPC (2.0.3x).

System Requirements

The following is the minimal system required to run Linux for the BeBox. You must have at least what is here, and possibly exactly what is here as Linux may or may not know how to deal with non #9 GXE64 vid cards.

You will almost certainly want a network card or modem, though those are not required for setup or running Linux.

*: Note that you can use the same disk as your BeOS install if you partitioned that disk in an intel partition format when you setup BeOS, but I wouldn't advise it as the setup program will wipe all current partitions of the disk -- you'll loose your BeOS partition and data!

Preparing to Install

First things first, please BACKUP YOUR BeOS DISKS AND DATA NOW! If during the linux install it blows up and destroys your disk it's all your fault.

Now, go to http://ftp.linuxppc.org/ftp/linuxppc/linux-2.0.32 and download the following files:

Once you've downloaded all of those, uncompress the be_boot_disk.gz, and now put all those files onto labeled floppys with the following command:
% dd if= of=/dev/disk/floppy/raw bs=36b
MAKE SURE YOU LABEL THESE DISKS! It will save you time and frustriation later. At this point, assuming you have backed up your data and have the spare hard disk ready, it's time to install.

Installing LinuxPPC

With the 2.0.32 kernel and install disks, I had a wonderful experience with the Install_Notes suggestion of ./crdisk-net once the system is booted, so I will use that method.

First, put the 'be boot disk' in your BeBox's floppy drive, and reboot the machine. It should see this disk and begin reading off of it. After a few seconds, it should give something like this:

BeBox Linux/PPC bootstrap - 10/14/96 Insert Linux BOOT floppy:
Now put in the FD_SETUP floppy and press Return to continue the boot process. The boot program will load linux off the disk, display some debugging info you can ignore, then begin uncompressing Linux. It'll put a '*' on screen as it proceeds, and after a short time will begin a normal Linux boot sequence.

After a few moments, Linux will hang with

gfp called nonatomically from interrupt 9002f6ac
on the screen. This IS OK. Linux is allocating ramdisks and copying the installation filesystem into them, and it takes a few seconds (~10).

Now linux should go through a lot of boot up messages that will fly by. Don't worry about reading them all, you can't. After a few moments, linux will present you with a '# ' prompt and a flashing cursor under it. Congradulations, you're now running linux. To begin the install to your hard disk, type './crdisk-net' without the quotes.

Linux will now present you with a menu-based installer. Use the arrow keys to move around menus and return to select the option.

The first menu asks you for your installation method. I'm taking you through a floppy install, so choose the "Floppy" method. Linux will now ask you for some configuration information, such as your machine's IP address, hostname, netmask, etc, etc. If you don't know what you should input for these values, use the following:

IP Address
192.168.1.1
Netmask
255.255.255.0
Broadcast
192.168.1.255
Network
192.168.1.0
Hostname
Pick a name for your computer, or accept the default
After you get through that, it'll start asking you about what disk to put everything on. Here's where you want to make use of those boot messages. Luckily Linux will let you scroll back to see them by pressing shift-pageup and shift-pagedown. Scroll back up and look through the messages identifying the disk drives, and find the one you want to install to. It is probably something like sda, sdb, hda, or hdb. Give it whatever device you want to install on.

Next linux will ask you some questions about partitions on the drive, just take the default answers unless you know enough about linux to feel confident changing them yourself.

Now Linux will drop you into a program called 'cfdisk' this program is a nice graphical front end to the MS-DOS/Linux program 'fdisk'.

From this point on, the regular RedHat install guides should get you throught the rest of the install. I haven't had time to finish this, but I watned to publish what I've gotten done so far. Updates/completion is unlikely due to me having an actually application for the BeOS to write.

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