C H A P T E R 2 - Sun(TM) Installation Assistant CD

C H A P T E R 2

Sun

Installation Assistant CD

The Sun trademark Installation Assistant CD helps you to install a supported Linux operating system (OS). It provides a set of Sun-supported drivers that have been tested for quality assurance.

By using the Sun Installation Assistant CD, you can install the operating system, the appropriate drivers and additional software on your system. The Assistant eliminates the need to create a Drivers Update diskette.

Note - The Sun Installation Assistant CD does not automate the OS installation process. You will still need to follow the procedures provided in Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6.

The Sun Installation Assistant performs the following tasks.

Identifies the hardware on your system.

Installs the operating system.

Identifies and installs drivers and platform-specific software.

Note - The use of the Sun Installation Assistant CD is optional. It is provided as a convenience to the user.

Using the Sun Installation Assistant

Note - At Step 10, you will proceed to Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5 or Chapter 6, depending on the supported Linux distribution that you are installing. Once the installation is complete, you will return to the Sun Installation Assistant screen.

To use the Sun Installation Assistant:

1. Insert the Sun Installation Assistant CD into the server's CD-ROM/DVDdrive.

2. Reboot the server.

Once the server has rebooted, the Sun Installation Assistant launches. This may take a few minutes.

The first screen that appears is the Software License Agreement screen.

3. Read through the terms of the agreement.

Note - You must scroll to the bottom of the license-text window to make active the Accept radio button.

If you agree, select the Accept radio button and click Next to continue. (The Next button becomes active only when you select the Accept radio button.) The Welcome screen now appears, with an introduction to the Assistant.

If you do not agree, select the Decline radio button and click Exit to close the Sun Installation Assistant. The system then prompts you to reboot the server.

4. On the Welcome screen, click Next.

The Assistant now identifies the hardware in which it is installed and scans for any SCSI devices, as the following example shows:

Identifying hardware... identified as Sun Fire V20z.

Scanning for SCSI devices... done.

5. The server ejects the Sun Installation Assistant CD and the screen displays a list of supported Linux distributions. This list of distributions is specific to your server hardware.

Note - This list is just a sample. Refer to the Sun Fire V20z and Sun Fire V40z Servers Release Notes (819-1771) for a complete list of supported Linux distributions.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 WS

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 ES

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 AS

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 WS - 64bit

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 AS - 64bit

SUSE Linux 9.0 - 64bit

6. Insert Disc 1 for one of the supported distributions.

7. Click Next.

8. The Assistant identifies the Linux distribution, as the following example shows:

Identifying distribution... identified as SUSE Linux 9.0 - 64bit

9. To start the installer for this distribution, click Next.

The same installer screens for a manual installation of your distribution, through a GUI, now appear.

Note - If you are installing SUSE SLES 8 Service Pack 3 - 64bit, you begin with the Service Pack 3 CD. The system will then prompt you to insert the SUSE SLES 8 CD-1.

Insert this CD and click Next.

10. Proceed through the installer screens.

11. After the installation is complete, the Sun Installation Assistant reappears and automatically installs the correct drivers and additional software for your distribution.

The assistant installs only those RPMs for your specific OS kernel.

Note - This operation replaces the steps for manually upgrading the drivers for your server, as outlined in the sections "Upgrading SCSI and Network Drivers" in the following chapters.

12. The final screen identifies additional software that is installed, as the following example shows.

The SUSE Linux Pro 9.0 - 64bit installation has completed.

Installing Sun Fire V20z drivers... completed.

The installation has completed.

Note - If you provide an unsupported media, you will see an error message. See Error Messages.

13. To boot the newly installed OS, click Reboot.

Error Messages

You may encounter a number of straightforward error messages such as the following example: "You have inserted Disc 3 but the system requires Disc 2. Please insert Disc 2."

However, if you provide an unsupported media, you will see the following message:

"The media you have provided is not a release that is supported by Sun Microsystems, Inc. on this platform.  You cannot use the Sun Installation Assistant to install this product and associated software."

Choose one of the following options.

To install a supported product, click Back and then insert the appropriate media.

To install this unsupported product, click Exit to exit the Sun Installation Assistant and reboot the system. You can now install the unsupported product as you normally would.

Log File

A log file of the Sun Installation Assistant is written to the /root directory of the newly installed system.

To review this log file, refer to the file /root/SunInstallationAssistant.log.