User talk:Engelsman

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(added the bulk of the installing 2.6 kernel story)
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<p>'''A little background:'''
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__TOC__
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I started using Unix V7 on a PDP-11/70 back in 1983, even modifying some existing kernel drivers for the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Ring Cambridge Ring] local area network. After that I dabbled in system administration of various Sun and Apollo systems until 1991, and HP boxes up until 2000, but my main task has always been application software development, nothing on the hardware or kernel side. Since 2000 we've had dedicated system administrators at work. We had switched from NCD X-terminals over to Linux desktops (first RedHat, but then Lunar) and I realized that what little I knew had become well out of date. I installed RedHat on an old 90MHz PC at home more than five years ago, but without a LAN or modem connection it was too difficult to keep up to date, I lost interest, and that died. Since then I've had an itch to develop a spiffy [http://www.fltk.org FLTK] user interace for some old command line tools using Cygwin/Mingw on a WinXP laptop (with modem) but the machine is (a) painfully slow, and (b) painfully Windows. The time had come to get some new hardware, install an operating system that doesn't thwart you at every turn, and set up a programming environment of my own choice.
+
−
</p>
+
  
−
<p>'''Why Lunar?''' Well, my desktop at work is running Lunar - and it has been very stable - and so I could always ask the sysadmin if I got really stuck. Sofar I've been trying to work it out for myself.
+
<p>I have moved the original contents of this page elsewhere, reformatting and updating on the way.
 +
However, I have provided so many references to this page in the
 +
[http://forums.lunar-linux.org Lunar Forums] that I can't remove it completely, and so I leave a skeleton to show the way, just like Billy Bones in Treasure Island.
 
</p>
 
</p>
  
−
<p>'''Basic Installation for Newbies:''' well, believe it or not, the [http://wiki.lunar-linux.org/index.php/Lunar_Linux:Installation Installation] guide is actually fairly good! However, while waiting for the connection to the ISP to be set up, I downloded the Lunar ISO at work and burned it onto CD. I installed Lunar 1.5.0, 1.5.1rc1 and 1.5.1, each one a bit better than the last, and the guide made more sense to me every time. So, if you are new to Lunar, just give it a try, make the mistakes, reformat the partitions and try again! There are a couple of points that might help other people:
+
<p>Please follow the appropriate link to the updated page.
−
* I used the partitions mentioned in the guide, albeit bigger, which are really intended for server systems, whereas desktop systems could use a simpler system as described in the [http://wiki.lunar-linux.org/index.php/Lunar_Linux:FAQ#So_how_should_I_partition_my_disk.3F FAQ]. Make a note of the partitions and sizes so that you can enter the info quickly when you re-install.
+
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* Unless you are really sure that you want to override the default values, don't. Play with the simplest system you can to start with - you can always configure something extra later.
+
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* The 'Install a pre-compiled kernel' step happens so quickly, and without any real feedback, that I didn't believe that it had actually done anything. I then made the mistake of compiling the kernel(s) again myself, and it's completely unnecessary and wastes time.
+
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* Install the 'normal' and 'safe'pre-compiled kernels - they are packed with more basic drivers than most people will need, so you have a good chance of getting a basic system up and running.
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* Accept the default, and let the installation set up Lilo for you.
+
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* Set up the simplest networking that you can. Luckily I had already been able to set up the ISP to ethernet router, and the ethernet to wifi router, by using the web browser on the WinXP laptop. YMMV, but the driver for the standard wired network card (3Com) was already included in the pre-compiled kernels  and worked as soon as I rebooted, but the additional wifi network card (Atheros-based) took me a lot more work, but more on that later.
+
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* Set a root password! You are just about to go live on the Internet and you have no idea what is and isn't set up yet!
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* Reboot, and good luck.
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</p>
 
</p>
  
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<p>'''lfirsttime for Newbies:''' if everything has gone according to plan and your system has rebooted successfully, when you login as root you will be advised to run 'man  lfirsttime' for more information. This manual page describes the next steps you will need to help turn your newly hatched system into a fully feathered juvenile. Again, 'man lfirsttime' is faily good, but there are a couple of extra points that might help other people:
+
==A Newbie's experience installing, and upgrading, Lunar Linux 1.5.1==
−
* If you haven't already got your networking up and running, you can still poke around on the file system and see where the basic things live, but there won't be much else you can do. Run 'lnet' again. If still no joy, then I'm afraid I'm not knowledgable enough to help you. Try asking on the [http://forums.lunar-linux.org/ Installing Lunar] forum.
+
<p>I started using Unix V7 on a PDP-11/70 back in 1983, even modifying some existing kernel drivers for the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Ring Cambridge Ring] local area network. After that I dabbled in system administration of various Sun and Apollo systems until 1991, and HP boxes up until 2000, but my main task has always been application software development, nothing on the hardware or kernel side. Since 2000 we've had dedicated system administrators at work. We had switched from NCD X-terminals over to Linux desktops (first RedHat, but then Lunar) and I realized that what little I knew had become well out of date. I installed RedHat on an old 90MHz PC at home more than five years ago, but without a LAN or modem connection it was too difficult to keep up to date, I lost interest, and that died. Since then I've had an itch to develop a spiffy [http://www.fltk.org FLTK] user interace for some old command line tools using Cygwin/Mingw on a WinXP laptop (with modem) but the machine is (a) painfully slow, and (b) painfully Windows. The time had come to get some new hardware, install an operating system that doesn't thwart you at every turn, and set up a programming environment of my own choice.
−
* Check out the manual pages for 'lin', 'lvu', 'lrm' and 'lunar'
+
[[User Reports:Engelsman|Read more]]...
−
* Check out the manual pages for 'lin', 'lvu', 'lrm' and 'lunar' again. This is not a typo!
+
−
* If you are like me, you will still not have picked up on the '-r' or '--reconfigure' options to 'lin' and it turns out that this is a bit of a crucial option. If you are like me, you will be cautious, and will run 'lin --deps' on every module to see what else needs to be built. This will ask about installing optional modules, and even though this is just a 'dummy run' this configuration information is saved away and you won't be asked again when you come to do the real installation. Unless you use 'lin -r' that is...
+
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* Again, unless you are really sure you want to override the default configuration settings, don't! Get the system working first, and then add in the bells and whistles. I was bitten by selecting the optional 'lunaric-sound' module, but for some unknown reason I was temporarily blocked from downloading it, but as I hadn't remembered about 'lin -r' I was stuck for quite a while.
+
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* Once you've reached the bottom of 'man lfirsttime', you should have updated the moonbase, downloaded the basic tools, and run 'lunar update'. You will have updated quite a few files.
+
−
* You should have updated 'wget' as this is used to download modules. Unfortunately, it doesn't really know how to download module sources from CVS repositories, and if the module doesn't have CVS as one of its dependencies, the download will fail. (I had problems with the 'madwifi-cvs' module for this very reason). Run 'lin cvs' now, and save yourself potential grief later.
+
 
</p>
 
</p>
  
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<p>'''Get into good habits now:''' as noted above, every time you install a new module you are adding new commands and dozens, if not hundreds, of files to your system. Therefore, until the point where you set up 'cron' to do it for you, you will also need to:
+
==Installing Lunar Linux 1.6.0 (coming soon, maybe)==
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* Run 'updatedb' so that you can use 'locate' to find configuration files easily.
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<p>In April 2006, the
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* Run 'makewhatis' so that you can run 'apropos' or 'man -k' to find the commands that you want
+
[http://www.lunar-linux.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=39&Itemid=2 Lunar-1.6.0-i686 ISO] was released,
 +
but I don't have enough spare time to look at installing it. Not just yet anyway.
 
</p>
 
</p>
  
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<p>'''Setting up X:''' I've been using window-based user interfaces since the [http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/acd/sus/perq_pr/p006.htm ICL Perq] in 1983 and it was obvious that the next stage meant setting up a windowing system so that I could (a) make use of more than just the basic 80x25 console terminal, and (b) have access to manual pages, etc. while building or configuring additional modules. Therefore use 'lin' to install 'XOrg', 'XOrg-basic-fonts' and 'XOrg-extra-fonts'. Note that not all documentation available at http://xorg.freedesktop.org is available in these downloads.
+
==Installing Lunar Linux 1.6.4 (Lacus Autumni)==
−
* However, to make life easier when using the Lunar tools, you might also want to edit your .Xdefaults file or the global /etc/X11/app-defaults/XTerm to set:
+
<p>Lunar Linux 1.6.4 (Lacus Autumni) was [http://foo-projects.org/pipermail/lunar/2008-December/008144.html announced] in December 2008, and installation and update was initially pretty smooth and uneventful. But as 2009 rolled on, and new versions of certain key modules were rolled out and were out of step with each other, upgrading from the 1.6.4 ISO became difficult. Here's the [http://foo-projects.org/pipermail/lunar-dev/2009-September/006906.html Update Workaround HOWTO] that I put together in September. This is no longer required! Soon after this, other key module releases brought harmony again, and these instructions became obsolete.</p>
−
** XTerm*loginShell: true (to allow tab-completion of command and module names)
+
<p>In February 2010, with the 2.6.32.8 kernel, updating udev from 141 to 151 caught me out. I don't remember the exact wording, but udev-151 requires that SYSFS_DEPRECATED is disabled in the kernel configuration. Finding SYSFS_DEPRECATED_V2 in the kernel didn't take long, but it took a lot longer to track down that GFS_FS also needed to be disabled...</p>
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** XTerm*reverseVideo: true (to allow the Lunar tools menus to be more readable)
+
<p>Also in February 2010, installed 1.6.4 on a new Acer-AX5810 box with NVIDIA GeForce G210 card. This obviously requires the some kernel settings, and to install the NVIDIA module. All well and good, but after every kernel update and reboot you need to '''lrm NVIDIA''', and then '''lin -rc NVIDIA''' again otherwise it won't install properly. This has bitten me several times after a '''lunar update'''...</p>
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** XTerm*scrollBar: true
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* Reboot
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* Login and run 'startx'. This should bring up a basic window manager 'twm' that will at least allow you to do things in parallel.
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−
</p>
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<p>'''xfce and firefox:''' at this point I wanted something a bit more up to date. Why 'xfce'? Well, we have 'kde' on the boxes at work, mainly so that the non-computer people at least have a chance of finding a command to do what somewhere in the menu hierarchy. But I wanted something a bit more minimalist. After all, I have complete control of what I'm installing on this box, and part of the reason for doing it is to learn more about the tools in the process.   The other thing that was becoming more important, was access to the various READMEs, HOWTOs and project home pages so that I could learn what I needed next. I had been using the browser on the WinXP laptop, but wasn't exactly convenient, and it wasn't possible to cut and paste between machines. Hence 'firefox'. As far as I remember, a simple 'lin xfce' and 'lin firefox' installed everything without any problem at all, and I'm now using 'firefox' to edit this page. In order to read the tech specs of my wifi card I also downloaded the Adobe Acrobat reader. It installed OK, but in an out-of-the-$PATH directory. I still haven't configured 'firefox' so that it automatically uses 'acroread' when I open a PDF link, so at the moment I have to save the link to disk and then call 'acroread' manually. But not a big deal at the moment.
+
==Installing Lunar Linux 1.6.5 (Mare Ingenii)==
−
</p>
+
After corruption of the superblock on my /boot partition on an HP Pavilion t3190(?), I decided to installed the 1.6.5-beta1 ISO. The initial installation and update went without problem. XOrg7 appeared to install OK, but when I ran 'startx' the console went blank. Searching the web, and asking on #lunar revealed that I needed the i915 driver for my Intel graphics card, with an entry in /etc/modules for 'i915 modeset=1'. Close, but no cigar! That's when my troubles started, with the console going into powersave mode on reboot. After much trial and error, I discovered that the kernel requires:
  
−
<p>'''Newbie's guide to installing the 2.6 kernel:''' the boot sequence of the pre-compiled 2.4.31-normal kernel had already identified my wifi card as using the Atheros chipset, and this was confirmed by running 'lspci', but obviously, try as I might, I couldn't get 'lnet' to do anything with it. After searching Google and asking in the [http://forums.lunar-linux.org/ Lunar forum] it was clear that I would need to install the 'madwifi-cvs' module, but before I could do that I would need to install the 2.6 kernel. There is an [http://wiki.lunar-linux.org/index.php/Installation:Kernel_2.6._HowTo Installing 2.6 HOWTO] but this skimmed over the important part as far as I was concerned. After a bit more time on Google I came across a reasonable 2.4 kernel tutorial on the [http://www.linuxchix.org LinuxChix] web site - but of course I can't find the exact link now - and also the draft of the update of the Linux-Kernel-HOWTO which is now called the [http://www.digitalhermit.com/linux/Kernel-Build-HOWTO.html Kernel Rebuld Guide]. This guide tells you that you will need certain modules already installed in order to build a 2.6 kernel. Most of these were already installed, and more recent than the version required. However there were a few which were missing, and they have quite a few dependencies on other modules that you therefore have to install as well. I had errors when I tried to install them:
+
  CONFIG_DRM_I915=m
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* module-init-tools failed to install a manual page that you would like to consult later
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  CONFIG_DRM_I915_KMS=y
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* docbook* modules wouldn't install when I used the obvious leaf-first reported dependency order, but in fact, if you install 'docbook-profile' first then everything is supposed to work properly. I don't know how someone new to 'docbook' is supposed to guess this though.
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  CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE=m
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* isdn4k-utils failed to install properly because of a missing dependency on 'linuxdoc-tools' and then a problem with a Makefile.am
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* pcmcia-cs may have failed to install everything, but I don't remember now.
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</p>
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<p>I spent a while trying to work out what the problems actually were, but in the end I couldn't resolve all of them. Therefore I decided to proceed with the 2.6 kernel build anyway to see how far I would get. Again it took me some trial and error before I finally got there:
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The first would imply having i915 in /etc/modules, but in fact it is trumped by the second, and you don't need the i915 module at all. But the KMS line also enables ACPI in the kernel, which causes the console blanking. To solve that problem, you do need to have fbcon in /etc/modules. Or to disable the powersave mode settings while you configure all of this, you need a lilo.conf entry such as the following
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* a lot of the documentation talks about 'oldconfig', 'menuconfig' and 'xconfig' as though they are separate modules that you need to install before you can configure your new kernel. It took me a while to realize that they are 'make' targets and are handled within the kernel build process. Doh!
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* 'lin linux-2.6' downloaded the sources and then called 'make oldconfig' during the build process. This is a clever script that extracts details of your current kernel configuration. Unfortunately there are one or two places where it needs user input, but the automated build process couldn't get that user input and started to loop. I had to interrupt it.
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* luckily the 2.6 kernel sources had been unpacked in /usr/src/linux-2.6.12.4 - YMMV - so I attempted to run 'make oldconfig' manually. I obviously answered something incorrectly, because after running the full make, and then the following:
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** cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage  /boot/2.6.12.4-mine
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** cp .config /boot/config-2.6.12.4-mine
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** cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.12.4-mine
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** adding the 2.6.12.4-mine entry to /etc/lilo.conf
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** /sbin/lilo -V
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** shutdown -r now
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<br>
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the new kernel failed to boot at all. So, what to do now? Eventually, after much experimentation, I extracted the current kernel configuration from /boot/config-2.4.31-normal.gz and ran 'lin -r linux-2.6' but this time saying that I did want to reconfigure the kernel, and that I wanted to use 'menuconfig'. The build process chugged away, and then up came the 'menuconfig' screen. I selected the 'Load alternative configuration' option at the bottom of the first menu, and loaded the existing 2.4 configuration. The first time I did this I got some errors about missing options, but after saving the new configuration file and repeating a couple of times it all worked. I was able to reboot with the 2.6 kernel!
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−
</p>
+
  
 +
  image = /boot/2.6.32.9-i686
 +
    label = 2.6.32.9-acpi
 +
    append="acpi=off"
  
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<p>To be continued...
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At a certain point, there was an update to the linux-2.6 module that took it from 2.6.33.4 to 2.6.34.1, which I duly installed on my new test box, only to find that I couldn't reboot. The previous kernels had identified the disk as /dev/sda, but the new kernel decided it was /dev/sdb instead. This could be overcome by adding 'root=/dev/sdb3' on the lilo boot line, but then gave problems with /etc/fstab. To cut a long story short, I rebooted to the old kernel and changed /dev/fstab to use UUID instead. To find/create the UUIDs:
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</p>
+
 
 +
  tune2fs -l /dev/sda1
 +
  swapoff -a          # I'm lazy
 +
  mkswap /dev/sda2    # mkswap creates with UUID by default
 +
  swapon -a
 +
  tune2fs -l /dev/sda3
 +
 
 +
I even updated /etc/lilo.conf to add an 'append="root=/dev/sdb3"' for the 2.6.34.1 entry, and I could reboot, *and* mount the file systems.
 +
 
 +
Soon after this the 1.6.5-rc1 ISO was released, and as this was a test box anyway, with nothing really installed on it except for gnome test system that was inconsistent and didn't work, I wiped the system and re-installed from scratch.
 +
 
 +
===1.6.5 Installation Times===
 +
 
 +
Just out of curiosity, and for information to others, I decided to time how long it took to install a "minimal" desktop system from scratch
 +
on a relatively new system and a 9-year-old relic. I have two 5-year-old boxes I might add in the future.
 +
 
 +
It's clear that you probably don't want to install Lunar on really old hardware, unless you have a lot of patience, or can use <code>distcc</code>.
 +
 
 +
 
 +
{| border="1"
 +
! System
 +
! CPUs*bogomips [1]
 +
! RAM
 +
! Disk [2]
 +
! Install
 +
! lin gcc...
 +
! lin linux-2.6
 +
! lunar update
 +
! lin XOrg7
 +
! lin xfce4
 +
! TOTAL
 +
|- align="center"
 +
| Acer AX5810
 +
| 4 * 4988
 +
| 6 Gb
 +
| 1681 / 129 MB/s
 +
| 0h11
 +
| 1h01
 +
| 0h12
 +
| 0h20
 +
| 0h23
 +
| 0h14
 +
! 2h21
 +
|- align="center"
 +
| Vaio FX401
 +
| 1 * 1600
 +
| 512Mb
 +
| 179 / 17 MB/s
 +
| 0h18
 +
| 11h26
 +
| 3h37
 +
| 2h44
 +
| 3h12
 +
| 2h15
 +
! 23h32
 +
|}
 +
 
 +
# <code>grep bogomips /proc/cpuinfo</code>
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# <code>hdparm -t -T /dev/sdX</code>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
The basic procedure:
 +
* install from the ISO, and take the pre-compiled kernel, and reboot
 +
* run <code>lin moonbase</code>
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* run <code>lunar</code> and set number of parallel makes to 4 in ''Options / Optimize Architecture''
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* do the <code>lin gcc glibc gcc bash coreutils tar wget</code> dance from <code>man lfirsttime</code>
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* use <code>lin linux-2.6</code> to explicitly build a new kernel, and reboot
 +
* run <code>lunar update</code> to rebuild any outdated parts of the core system
 +
* run <code>lin XOrg7</code> to build X
 +
* run <code>lin xfce4</code> to build Xfce4
 +
 
 +
After the first reboot I primed the system by copying sources from /var/spool/lunar on another up-to-date machine to avoid download delays and glitches.
 +
 
 +
When asked questions about optional depends, etc. I simply hit return to accept the default values. I did not reconfigure the kernel. I used <code>lin --deps</code> for the XOrg7 and xfce4 builds to pre-answer the questions before kicking off the real builds so I could leave them unattended without adding delays for prompts to timeout.
 +
 
 +
NOTE: this procedure is for timing purposes only, I still have to go back and install the correct drivers for X, etc.
 +
 
 +
'''To be continued...'''

Latest revision as of 00:18, 19 September 2010

Contents


I have moved the original contents of this page elsewhere, reformatting and updating on the way. However, I have provided so many references to this page in the Lunar Forums that I can't remove it completely, and so I leave a skeleton to show the way, just like Billy Bones in Treasure Island.

Please follow the appropriate link to the updated page.

A Newbie's experience installing, and upgrading, Lunar Linux 1.5.1

I started using Unix V7 on a PDP-11/70 back in 1983, even modifying some existing kernel drivers for the Cambridge Ring local area network. After that I dabbled in system administration of various Sun and Apollo systems until 1991, and HP boxes up until 2000, but my main task has always been application software development, nothing on the hardware or kernel side. Since 2000 we've had dedicated system administrators at work. We had switched from NCD X-terminals over to Linux desktops (first RedHat, but then Lunar) and I realized that what little I knew had become well out of date. I installed RedHat on an old 90MHz PC at home more than five years ago, but without a LAN or modem connection it was too difficult to keep up to date, I lost interest, and that died. Since then I've had an itch to develop a spiffy FLTK user interace for some old command line tools using Cygwin/Mingw on a WinXP laptop (with modem) but the machine is (a) painfully slow, and (b) painfully Windows. The time had come to get some new hardware, install an operating system that doesn't thwart you at every turn, and set up a programming environment of my own choice. Read more...

Installing Lunar Linux 1.6.0 (coming soon, maybe)

In April 2006, the Lunar-1.6.0-i686 ISO was released, but I don't have enough spare time to look at installing it. Not just yet anyway.

Installing Lunar Linux 1.6.4 (Lacus Autumni)

Lunar Linux 1.6.4 (Lacus Autumni) was announced in December 2008, and installation and update was initially pretty smooth and uneventful. But as 2009 rolled on, and new versions of certain key modules were rolled out and were out of step with each other, upgrading from the 1.6.4 ISO became difficult. Here's the Update Workaround HOWTO that I put together in September. This is no longer required! Soon after this, other key module releases brought harmony again, and these instructions became obsolete.

In February 2010, with the 2.6.32.8 kernel, updating udev from 141 to 151 caught me out. I don't remember the exact wording, but udev-151 requires that SYSFS_DEPRECATED is disabled in the kernel configuration. Finding SYSFS_DEPRECATED_V2 in the kernel didn't take long, but it took a lot longer to track down that GFS_FS also needed to be disabled...

Also in February 2010, installed 1.6.4 on a new Acer-AX5810 box with NVIDIA GeForce G210 card. This obviously requires the some kernel settings, and to install the NVIDIA module. All well and good, but after every kernel update and reboot you need to lrm NVIDIA, and then lin -rc NVIDIA again otherwise it won't install properly. This has bitten me several times after a lunar update...

Installing Lunar Linux 1.6.5 (Mare Ingenii)

After corruption of the superblock on my /boot partition on an HP Pavilion t3190(?), I decided to installed the 1.6.5-beta1 ISO. The initial installation and update went without problem. XOrg7 appeared to install OK, but when I ran 'startx' the console went blank. Searching the web, and asking on #lunar revealed that I needed the i915 driver for my Intel graphics card, with an entry in /etc/modules for 'i915 modeset=1'. Close, but no cigar! That's when my troubles started, with the console going into powersave mode on reboot. After much trial and error, I discovered that the kernel requires: 

 CONFIG_DRM_I915=m
 CONFIG_DRM_I915_KMS=y
 CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE=m

The first would imply having i915 in /etc/modules, but in fact it is trumped by the second, and you don't need the i915 module at all. But the KMS line also enables ACPI in the kernel, which causes the console blanking. To solve that problem, you do need to have fbcon in /etc/modules. Or to disable the powersave mode settings while you configure all of this, you need a lilo.conf entry such as the following 

 image = /boot/2.6.32.9-i686
   label = 2.6.32.9-acpi
   append="acpi=off"

At a certain point, there was an update to the linux-2.6 module that took it from 2.6.33.4 to 2.6.34.1, which I duly installed on my new test box, only to find that I couldn't reboot. The previous kernels had identified the disk as /dev/sda, but the new kernel decided it was /dev/sdb instead. This could be overcome by adding 'root=/dev/sdb3' on the lilo boot line, but then gave problems with /etc/fstab. To cut a long story short, I rebooted to the old kernel and changed /dev/fstab to use UUID instead. To find/create the UUIDs: 

 tune2fs -l /dev/sda1
 swapoff -a          # I'm lazy
 mkswap /dev/sda2    # mkswap creates with UUID by default
 swapon -a
 tune2fs -l /dev/sda3

I even updated /etc/lilo.conf to add an 'append="root=/dev/sdb3"' for the 2.6.34.1 entry, and I could reboot, *and* mount the file systems.

Soon after this the 1.6.5-rc1 ISO was released, and as this was a test box anyway, with nothing really installed on it except for gnome test system that was inconsistent and didn't work, I wiped the system and re-installed from scratch.

1.6.5 Installation Times

Just out of curiosity, and for information to others, I decided to time how long it took to install a "minimal" desktop system from scratch on a relatively new system and a 9-year-old relic. I have two 5-year-old boxes I might add in the future.

It's clear that you probably don't want to install Lunar on really old hardware, unless you have a lot of patience, or can use distcc.


System CPUs*bogomips [1] RAM Disk [2] Install lin gcc... lin linux-2.6 lunar update lin XOrg7 lin xfce4 TOTAL
Acer AX5810 4 * 4988 6 Gb 1681 / 129 MB/s 0h11 1h01 0h12 0h20 0h23 0h14 2h21
Vaio FX401 1 * 1600 512Mb 179 / 17 MB/s 0h18 11h26 3h37 2h44 3h12 2h15 23h32
  1. grep bogomips /proc/cpuinfo
  2. hdparm -t -T /dev/sdX


The basic procedure:

  • install from the ISO, and take the pre-compiled kernel, and reboot
  • run lin moonbase
  • run lunar and set number of parallel makes to 4 in Options / Optimize Architecture
  • do the lin gcc glibc gcc bash coreutils tar wget dance from man lfirsttime
  • use lin linux-2.6 to explicitly build a new kernel, and reboot
  • run lunar update to rebuild any outdated parts of the core system
  • run lin XOrg7 to build X
  • run lin xfce4 to build Xfce4

After the first reboot I primed the system by copying sources from /var/spool/lunar on another up-to-date machine to avoid download delays and glitches.

When asked questions about optional depends, etc. I simply hit return to accept the default values. I did not reconfigure the kernel. I used lin --deps for the XOrg7 and xfce4 builds to pre-answer the questions before kicking off the real builds so I could leave them unattended without adding delays for prompts to timeout.

NOTE: this procedure is for timing purposes only, I still have to go back and install the correct drivers for X, etc.

To be continued...

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