SIPB Installer for Athena Linux

May 9, 2001

The SIPB installer for I/S Athena-Linux is at last ready for production use. This installer allows you to install the same Athena-Linux as is running on cluster workstations on any intel x86 based computer supported by Red Hat Linux. Like a cluster workstation, or a private Athena workstation installed by hotline, a workstation installed with the SIPB installer should be capable of taking updates automatically, and should be fully supported by Information Systems.

The one-sheet guide to installing is available in DVI, PostScript, and Adobe PDF.

If you have installed, or are interested in installing Athena-Linux, please subscribe yourself to linux-announce by running, at the athena% prompt,

blanche linux-announce -a $USER

You'll hear about future changes to the installer, as well as other issues that may come up.

Bugs in the installer can be reported to linux-dev@mit.edu. There is unfortunately still a known problem with some revisions of the 3com 3c905b and 3c905c ethernet cards; they fail to auto-detect correctly with the standard floppy, and the installer fails to find the network. We'll send an announcement to linux-announce if and when a fix becomes available.

For general help regarding linux and the installer, you can write to linux-help@mit.edu. This is a public list whose members are volunteers who often have helpful suggestions.

For maintenance problems with a Linux-Athena workstation, please consult the Private Athena Workstation: Owner's Guide. Other I/S resources such as Athena Consulting are also available to you.

If you are buying a computer, and are thinking of running Linux on it, you can buy a machine just like the cluster ones, or you can look at the list of PCs that MIT recommends for Windows users. See http://web.mit.edu/is/desktop/saws_configs.html for the cluster configuration, and http://web.mit.edu/is/desktop/pcadmin.html for the MIT recommended hardware. Any of the listed configurations will work fine with our installer. If you buy a machine of the cluster configuration, you will be able to use the Information Systems maintained installer, which you can find in the bootkit locker on Athena.