Installing RedHat-Athena is easy; detailed instructions appear in
``Installing RedHat-Athena Linux on MITnet.'' If you are running Slackware, any other non-RedHat-based
distribution,
or an old version of RedHat (older than 2.0), you will have to wipe
out your old installation and install RedHat from scratch. Before
doing so, you should back up important files lest you lose them. These
include the contents of /etc and any personal files you may have
on your machine. This procedure can be a nuisance, especially if you
have made a lot of random customizations to your machine, but SIPB
strongly recommends it anyway, particularly if you have not installed
the Linux-Athena software; again, RedHat is the only distribution SIPB
supports.
Before installing, you should know your complete hardware configuration, as you will be asked for it. If you cannot determine this, here are some tips for identifying unknown hardware: A really cheap network card is likely an NE2000. If you don't know what kind of video card you have, a program called SuperProbe may tell you.
We should also warn you that new hardware may not be supported; as a general rule, if the DOS or Windows version of the driver is still being debugged, the device probably will not work with Linux; if your hardware is not listed, this may be why. You may be able to use a driver for simpler versions of your hardware; for instance, the generic VGA X server works with almost all video cards.
If you are using ``vanilla'' RedHat 4.0.0, you can upgrade to
RedHat-Athena very easily. Just su to or log in as root, and
type the following commands:
mkdir -p /sipb-nfs/redhat
If you are using RedHat 3.0.3 you can upgrade just as easily; follow
the above instructions with 3.0.3 substituted for 4.0.0. If you
are using RedHat 2.x, you need to upgrade to RedHat 4.0.0\
first, but this is fairly easy to do.
mount sipb-nfs:/redhat /sipb-nfs/redhat
rpm -ivh /sipb-nfs/redhat/4.0.0/i386/RedHat/sets/Athena/*
Just install RedHat-Athena per ``Installing RedHat-Athena Linux on MITnet,'' with one exception: when you
are asked whether to install or upgrade, choose ``upgrade.''