INSTALL: V7/x86


OVERVIEW

Installing V7/x86 is a two-step process:

    *  Create an fdisk-style partition for V7/x86 on the hard disk.

    *  Download the V7/x86 CD image and burn it onto a CD; then
       boot and use the menu-based ``install'' program.

The remainder of this document simply expands on this process and
deals with some alternatives.

NOTE: You can also try out V7/x86 without actually installing it.
See the README document for more information.


HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

V7/x86 needs a PC system with --

    *  An 80486, P5 or P6 class CPU

    *  At least 16M of RAM

    *  An ATA (IDE) hard drive with 146M or more of free space

    *  An ATAPI CDROM drive (for the installation)

If you have an old, spare PC, this may well be suitable.

NOTE: ATA and ATAPI drives are PC ``standard equipment'': SCSI
peripherals are not presently supported.  Currently the assumption
is that hard drives are attached to the first, and CD drives to the
second, of the usual two PC disk controllers.


CREATING A DISK PARTITION

The install utility expects to install to a predefined fdisk-style
hard disk partition.  The V7/x86 partition type is 0x72 (114 decimal).
The partition should be at least 297000 sectors (146M) in size, and
around 300M is probably ample.

It should be possible to create the partition using any fdisk-compatible
utility that allows you to specify the partition type.  For instance,
FreeBSD and Solaris both have suitable utilities actually called
``fdisk''.

Alternatively, you can create the partition from within V7/x86
itself.  Boot from the CD, and press ``Q'' to quit from the install
utility to the command line.  The command is ``ptdisk''.  You can
do a

    man ptdisk

to get usage information.

IMPORTANT: If you do create the partition within V7/x86, be sure
to reboot before proceeding with the installation, to ensure that
the hard disk driver has read the changed partition table.


INSTALLING FROM CD

Download the .iso CD image file, uncompress it, and burn it onto a
CD.  Then boot the target machine and, if all goes well, you should
find yourself in the ``install'' program.

Once there, you need select only source and target drives, and the
system should be installed on the prepared disk partition.


TAKING IT FROM HERE

Once the installation completes successfully, it should be possible
to remove the CD, reset the machine and boot into V7/x86 itself.

You can log in as "guest" (no password) and then use the su(1)
command to become root (password "password").

NOTE: If the hard disk has multiple fdisk partitions, and there is
no boot manager installed, you may have to flag the V7/x86 partition
as active or bootable using an fdisk-compatible utility.


Robert Nordier
www.nordier.com