Since our goal is NOT to create a self-installing and graphical installation you need some basic Unix knowledge to install dRock. For example you should know how to partionize a hard-disk, create a filesystem and after the installation, how to configure the usual things and XFree ... via the standard text files supplied by the applications. Since ROCK Linux uses the DevFS (Device Filesystem) - you should heared about it - or motivated to get into it's details ;-)!
Again: For the following text Unix basics are needed!
On the boot prompt of an install-medium LILO asks you what to do. You can hit enter to boot the Linux kernel - or you can enter memtest to run the SGI Memtest86 to check if your system is stable enough to pass this test ;-)
Ok you hit enter and the Linux kernel booted. A text containing an overview of the installation steps is displayed as short reminder. You are asked if you would like to probe all kernel modules found on the install-image. Normally you can select "yes" - except you experienced problems during this procedure or you know what you do. - Currently only SCSI modules are available - but we might add network onces in the future.
The next question asks which terminals should be initialized. Here is pressing enter to get the virtual terminals vc/1 to vc/6 in most cases ok, too.
Now you have a full-featured rescue-style linux system using the busybox tools running.
You can now configure the paritions and create the needed filesystems using the normal Linux tools like fdisk, cfdisk, mkfs.ext2, mkreiserfs, mkswap, ...
You have to mount the target paritions to /trg (or also /trg/boot, /trg/home if you want them to be seperated paritions).
In the dRock Menu-Installer you can select the packages read the package infos and execute the installation which extracts the package .tar.bz2 files.
After some coffee you are asked to run the setup scripts. If you want to install other CDs the best is to say "no" and run this setup only after the last CD.
In the setup scripts the fstab is generated, the keymapping, timezone, grub, lilo, the root password gets configured and other stuff like ssh, gpm, ... can optionally be configured.
At the end a list of the main config-files is listed. You might take a look if all got set up correct.
Normally in ROCK Linux you would now compile a custom kernel. In dRock we are moving to a "works for most poeple" kernel. So compiling a new kernel is normally not needed - especially since most modules are compiled, too. - But you should check if the kernel has all compiled in you need to boot! For example the kernel has nearly no SCSI adapter suport compiled in. For a system with SCSI root disk you need to build a custom kernel with build-in SCSI support. Framebuffer devices are another area where you need to compile a custom kernel.
For info about various configuration task please visit the documentation page.
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