JDS/Quicksilver Installation Guide

This guide assumes that you've already specified a network installation from the GRUB screen.

1. The PC will now load the kernel and begin the boot process. This may take up to 10 minutes, depending upon the speed of the system.

Once the PC has finished booting it will start the X server and load the YaST2 installation program to walk you through the installation of the Mercury OS. Read the initial Terms and Conditions window and Accept or Cancel as you see fit.

2. Select your preferred language.

3. Select either StarOffice or StarSuite.

4. YaST2 will now analyze your hard disk and depending on whether it finds any existing Linux installations, will offer the choice of a new installation or an upgrade. This guide only covers new installations.

5. The current installation settings will be displayed by category. Settings within each category may be edited by selecting the category, which is displayed as a blue hyperlink. Many of these settings will depend upon your personal preference and system hardware.

Mode

"New Installation" is recommended.

Keyboard layout

Selecting this option will take you to a list of keyboard types where you are able to select your keyboard type and verify the functionality.

Select the keyboard layout that's appropriate to your keyboard.

Mouse

Selecting this option will take you to a list of mouse types. Once selected, the mouse can be tested by clicking the Test button.

Partitioning

Partitioning is an essential part of the installation and one that is important to get right from the start. The variety of hardware combined with the diversity of opinions on the subject make it impossible to draw any hard and fast rules. However we will provide the following recommended guidelines.

As a general rule, the partition table recommended by YaST2 is unsuitable for our requirements so a replacement partition table must be created. The following steps provide a quick walk through of the process.

Select Partitioning, select the Create custom partition setup radio button and click Next. Select _Custom partitioning -- for experts and click Next to launch the Expert Partitioner. Select the device that refers to the disk you wish to install Mercury on (usually /dev/hda) and click Delete to erase all partitions on that disk.

Click Create to create a new partition and select the Primary radio button.

In the window that pops up, set the Start cylinder to 0, the End to +5GB and the _Mount point to /

This assumes that you want the rest of the partitions to be extended. If this is not the case, follow the directions above to create more primary partitions. Remember that you can have up to 3 primary and l extended partition.

Click Create to create a new partition and select the Extended radio button.

The popup window should contain all the correct settings (the start cylinder should be one more than the end cylinder of hdal and the end should be the same as the end cylinder for / dev/hda). By creating an extended partition that covers the remainder of the disk we are forcing all other partitions to be created within that extended partition.

Click Create to create a new partition. Select Swap from the pull-down menu under the Format radio button.

Specify the size of the swap partition using the "+" syntax in the End field. For example, if we have a system with 256MB RAM, we would have 512MB of swap, which is expressed as +512M.

Click Create to create a new partition. Select ext3 from the pull-down menu under the Format radio button. Specify the mount point as /export.

Specify the size of the /export partition using the "+" syntax in the End field. For example, if you want to make it l GB, you would specify +l GB.

Click Create to create a new partition. Select the vfat from the pull-down menu under the Format radio button. Specify the mount point as /Shared

Specify the size of the /Shared partition using the "+" syntax in the End field. For example, if you want to make it l GB, you would specify +1 GB.

Click Next to save the partition table and return to the Installation Settings screen.

Software

The default Mercury software selection is intended to provide most of the functionality required from a desktop client however it will be necessary to add some packages in order to gain the maximum benefit of Sun's internal iWork tools.

To modify the package selection, select Software then click the Detailed selection... button. The YaST2 package manager will display the commonly selected packages by selections. Select Package Groups from the Filter: pulldown menu. This will list every package that's available within Mercury. The following table lists the packages that should be installed.

Click on Accept when you are satisfied with your package selection and are ready to continue.

Booting

Selecting this option will take you to a screen where you may change the bootloader options. The default configuration is sufficient in most cases.

Time zone

Selecting this option allows you to set the system's timezone. Select the timezone which is appropriate for your system, select the hardware clock's timezone (usually local time) and click Accept.

Language

Selecting this option allows you to set the system's language.

This is your last chance to back out before your disk is permanently erased!

6. Click Accept to finish configuring the installation and begin installing the system. A green box will appear, informing you that the system is ready to install. Clicking Yes, install will begin the installation process. You can now remove CD] from the CD-ROM drive.

7. YaST2 will want to reboot your PC once the first CD has finished installing. Press OK . Your PC will boot and continue the installation process. At this point you simply watch the installation proceed.

8. YaST2 has now finished the package installation phase and will move into the system configuration phase of the Mercury installation. Point a browser at http://<IP Address>/ and click on JDS Installation link.