1.  Hardware Requirements

Introduction

Before we start, we first list what hardware requirements you need to successfully install Gentoo on your box.

Hardware Requirements

A list of supported hardware can be found on the PA Team website. You may find additional information about your box in the Parisc-Linux Hardware Database and the processor list on www.openpa.net.

If you don't know which version of PA-RISC your box is using, please check the links above to find out whether you're using version 1.1 or 2.0. You will need this information later on.

1.  The Gentoo Installation CDs

Introduction

The Gentoo Installation CDs are bootable CDs which contain a self-sustained Gentoo environment. They allow you to boot Linux from the CD. During the boot process your hardware is detected and the appropriate drivers are loaded. They are maintained by Gentoo developers.

All Installation CDs allow you to boot, set up networking, initialize your partitions and start installing Gentoo from the Internet.

Gentoo's Minimal Installation CD

The Minimal Installation CD is called ${min-cd-name} and takes up around ${min-cd-size} MB of diskspace. You can use this Installation CD to install Gentoo, but only with a working Internet connection.

The Stage3 Tarball

A stage3 tarball is an archive containing a minimal Gentoo environment, suitable to continue the Gentoo installation using the instructions in this manual. Previously, the Gentoo Handbook described the installation using one of three stage tarballs. While Gentoo still offers stage1 and stage2 tarballs, the official installation method uses the stage3 tarball. If you are interested in performing a Gentoo installation using a stage1 or stage2 tarball, please read the Gentoo FAQ on How do I Install Gentoo Using a Stage1 or Stage2 Tarball?

1.  Download, Burn and Boot a Gentoo Installation CD

Downloading and Burning the Installation CD

You have chosen to use a Gentoo Installation CD. We'll first start by downloading and burning the chosen Installation CD. We previously discussed the several available Installation CDs, but where can you find them?

You can download any of the Installation CDs from one of our mirrors. The Installation CDs are located in the releases/hppa/2008.0/installcd/ directory.

Inside that directory you'll find ISO files. Those are full CD images which you can write on a CD-R.

In case you wonder if your downloaded file is corrupted or not, you can check its SHA-2 checksum and compare it with the SHA-2 checksum we provide (such as ${min-cd-name}.DIGESTS). You can check the SHA-2 checksum with the sha512sum tool under Linux/Unix or File Checksum Tool for Windows.

Another way to check the validity of the downloaded file is to use GnuPG to verify the cryptographic signature that we provide (the file ending with .asc). Download the signature file and obtain the public keys whose key ids can be found on the release engineering project site.

(... Substitute the key ids with those mentioned on the release engineering site ...)
$ gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys 96D8BF6D 2D182910 17072058

Now verify the signature:

(Verify the cryptographic signature)
$ gpg --verify <downloaded iso.DIGESTS.asc>
(Verify the checksum)
$ sha1sum -c <downloaded iso.DIGESTS.asc>

To burn the downloaded ISO(s), you have to select raw-burning. How you do this is highly program-dependent. We will discuss cdrecord and K3B here; more information can be found in our Gentoo FAQ.

• With cdrecord, you simply type cdrecord dev=/dev/hdc <downloaded iso file> (replace /dev/hdc with your CD-RW drive's device path).
• With K3B, select Tools > Burn CD Image. Then you can locate your ISO file within the 'Image to Burn' area. Finally click Start.

Booting the Installation CD

Boot your HPPA system. During the boot process, you will see a message similar to the following:

Searching for Potential Boot Devices.
To terminate search, press and hold the ESCAPE key.

When this message appears, press and hold the Esc-key until an option menu appears. This can take a while, be patient. By default, you should enter the BOOT_ADMIN console. If you receive an option menu, choose Enter Boot Administration mode to enter the BOOT_ADMIN console. You should now have an '>' prompt.

Put the Gentoo Installation CD in the CD-ROM. If you do not know the SCSI ID of your CD-ROM drive, your PA-RISC station will search for it when you issue the search command.

> search
Searching for Devices with Bootable Media.
To terminate search, please press and hold the ESCAPE key.

Your PA-RISC station will now display all the available boot media. This is an example result of this command:

Device Selection      Device Path             Device Type and Utilities
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

P0                    scsi.5.0                TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-3301TA
                                                  IPL
P1                    scsi.2.0                COMPAQ ST32550N
                                                  IPL
P2                    lan.0010a7-06d1b6.3.6   server
                                                  IPL

To boot from a CD-ROM you need the accompanying Device Path. For instance, if we want to boot from the TOSHIBA CD-ROM in the above example, we would need to type the following command:

> boot scsi.5.0 ipl

Trying scsi.5.0

The ipl keyword (Initial Program Loader) tells palo (the PA-RISC boot LOader) to enter interactive mode. This will allow you to change, for example, the kernel boot parameters.

When the boot is successful, palo will start in interactive mode:

Boot path initialized.
Attempting to load IPL.


HARD Booted.
palo ipl 1.5 root@hope Sat Apr 23 18:06:47 CEST 2005

Boot image contains:
    0/vmlinux32 6241293 bytes @ 0x3904000
    0/vmlinux64 8352719 bytes @ 0x3ef8000
    0/ramdisk 1007589 bytes @ 0x105800

Information: No console specified on kernel command line. This is normal.
PALO will choose the console currently used by firmware (serial).Current command line:
0/vmlinux initrd=initrd TERM=linux root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc cdroot looptype=squashfs loop=/livecd.squashfs hda=scsi console=ttyS0
 0: 0/vmlinux
 1: initrd=initrd
 2: TERM=linux
 3: root=/dev/ram0
 4: init=/linuxrc
 5: cdroot
 6: looptype=squashfs
 7: loop=/livecd.squashfs
 8: hda=scsi
 9: console=ttyS0

<#>    edit the numbered field
'b'    boot with this command line
'r'    restore command line
'l'    list dir

These parameters are suitable for most situations.

If you need extra features you must add the appropriate keyword(s) to the end of the command line. To add a keyword, edit the last field, add a space and type your keyword. The only implemented keywords as of now are cdcache which tells the Installation CD to load itself into RAM, allowing you to unmount the CD, and noload=module1[,module2[,...]] which allows you to explicitly disable loading of particular modules.

(or 'b' to boot with this command line)? 9
console=ttyS0 hdb=scsi

Now that you have tweaked your kernel boot params, boot it.

(or 'b' to boot with this command line)? b

You should have a root ("#") prompt on the current console and can also switch to other consoles by pressing Alt-F2, Alt-F3 and Alt-F4. Get back to the one you started on by pressing Alt-F1.

Now continue with Extra Hardware Configuration.

Extra Hardware Configuration

When the Installation CD boots, it tries to detect all your hardware devices and loads the appropriate kernel modules to support your hardware. In the vast majority of cases, it does a very good job. However, in some cases it may not auto-load the kernel modules you need. If the PCI auto-detection missed some of your system's hardware, you will have to load the appropriate kernel modules manually.

In the next example we try to load the 8139too module (support for certain kinds of network interfaces):

# modprobe 8139too

Optional: User Accounts

If you plan on giving other people access to your installation environment or you want to chat using irssi without root privileges (for security reasons), you need to create the necessary user accounts and change the root password.

To change the root password, use the passwd utility:

# passwd
New password: (Enter your new password)
Re-enter password: (Re-enter your password)

To create a user account, we first enter their credentials, followed by its password. We use useradd and passwd for these tasks. In the next example, we create a user called "john".

# useradd -m -G users john
# passwd john
New password: (Enter john's password)
Re-enter password: (Re-enter john's password)

You can change your user id from root to the newly created user by using su:

# su - john

Optional: Viewing Documentation while Installing

If you want to view the Gentoo Handbook during the installation, make sure you have created a user account (see Optional: User Accounts). Then press Alt-F2 to go to a new terminal.

You can view the handbook using links, once you have completed the Configuring your Network chapter (otherwise you won't be able to go on the Internet to view the document):

# links http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/${online-book}

You can go back to your original terminal by pressing Alt-F1.

Optional: Starting the SSH Daemon

If you want to allow other users to access your computer during the Gentoo installation (perhaps because those users are going to help you install Gentoo, or even do it for you), you need to create a user account for them and perhaps even provide them with your root password (only do that if you fully trust that user).

To fire up the SSH daemon, execute the following command:

# /etc/init.d/sshd start

To be able to use sshd, you first need to set up your networking. Continue with the chapter on (Configuring your Network).