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Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 Installation Guidelines
Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 Installation Guidelines
The easiest method of installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 in a virtual machine is to use the standard Red Hat distribution CD. The notes below describe an installation using the standard distribution CD; however, installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 via the boot floppy/network method is supported as well.
Before installing the operating system, be sure that you have already created and configured a new virtual machine.
Note: You should not run the X server that is installed when you set up Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1. Instead, to get an accelerated SVGA X server running inside the virtual machine, you should install the VMware Tools package immediately after installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1.
Installation Steps
Installation Steps
Verify the virtual machine’s devices are set up as you expect before starting the installation. For example, if you would like networking software to be installed during the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 installation process, be sure the virtual machine’s Ethernet adapter is enabled and configured.
Insert the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive on the ESX Server computer and power on the virtual machine.
You need to install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 using the text mode installer, which you may choose when you first boot the installer. At the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 CD boot prompt, you are offered a number of choices, including the following:
To install or upgrade Red Hat Linux ... in graphical mode ...
To install or upgrade ... in text mode, type: text ...
...
Use the function keys listed below ...
To choose the text mode installer, type text and press Enter.
Follow the installation steps as you would for a physical machine. Be sure to make the choices outlined in the following steps.
In the Mouse Selection screen, choose Generic – 3 Button Mouse (PS/2) and select the Emulate 3 Buttons option for three-button mouse support in the virtual machine. If you have a wheel mouse, you may choose Generic Wheel Mouse (PS/2).
Choose the language and keyboard, then in the Installation Type screen, choose either Advanced Server or Custom for the installation type.
In the Package Group Selection screen, choose Software Development and Select individual packages.
In the Individual Package Selection screen, use the arrow keys to move down to System Environment/Kernel and press Enter. Be sure that kernel-smp is deselected (no asterisk between the brackets).
Allow automatic partitioning of the disk to occur in the Automatic Partitioning screen or partition the virtual disk manually if you do not want to use the Red Hat defaults.
You may see a warning that says:
The partition table on device sda was unreadable. To create new partitions, it must be initialized, causing the loss of ALL DATA on the drive.
Would you like to initialize this drive?
This does not mean that anything is wrong with the hard drive on your physical computer. It simply means that the virtual hard drive in your virtual machine needs to be partitioned and formatted. Select the Yes button and press Enter. Also note that sda appears in the message as the device name if the virtual disk in question is a SCSI disk; if the virtual disk is an IDE drive, hda appears in the message as the device name instead.
If your computer is connected to a LAN that provides DHCP support, then in the Network Configuration screen, you may select the Use bootp/dhcp option. If you prefer, you may also set the networking parameters manually.
In the Video Card Configuration screen, choose Skip X Configuration.
This completes basic installation of the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 guest operating system.
VMware Tools
Be sure to install VMware Tools in your guest operating system. Do not start the X server in the guest operating system until you install VMware Tools.
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