1. Installed disks but do not define a RAID in the controllers bios
2. Boot Debian Sarge installer disk, loading 2.6 kernel via linux26 command
3. Partition creation
   • Manually edit partition table
   • Create one partition on each disk for sway, I did not add these to the RAID so this can be defined as swap. The sum total will be available to the OS
   • Create one partition for /boot, define as RAID.
   • Create one (or more) partition(s) to fill the remainder of the disk, define as RAID
4. Create RAID md devices
   • Create a md device for /boot partitions
   • Format with filesystem of choice
   • Mount as /boot
   • Set bootable flag
5. Create additional md devices with remaining partitions
   • Having only one partition to deal with I formatted ext3 and defined a mount point of /
6. Continue with installation after writing the partition table to disk

I prefer to run testing as I’ve only twice had issues and only one of those was fatal. Had my Linux skills been better at the time I might have been able to recover but that was many years ago. After the initial reboot I start to answer questions and cancel out of one. This will provide the installer menu which will allow me to select multiple APT repositories. After selecting the repositories I’ll skip past the software selection screen to just give a bare bones installation. At this point the /etc/apt/sources.list file can be edited for the distribution of choice, apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade and away ya go.

First, install gcc

yum install gcc

Install kernel header files

yum install kernel-devel

Check it matches the running kernel

uname -r; rpm -q kernel-devel

If the two do not match, upgrade and reboot

yum -y upgrade kernel kernel-devel

Locate the kernel headers

echo /usr/src/kernels/$(uname -r)-$(uname -p)/include

Select ‘Install VMWare Tools’ from the console. Mount the virtual CDROM if it’s not automounted. Copy VMware Tools from the mount

cp /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-5.5.1-19175.tar.gz /tmp/

Unpack VMware Tools to a temporary directory

cd /tmp/

tar zxvf VMwareTools-5.5.1-19175.tar.gz

cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib/

./vmware-install.pl

When prompted with “Do you want to run vmware-config-tools.pl?”, answer no. Backup the original vmware-config-tools.pl

cp /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl.org

Get a patch for VMware Tools

cd /tmp/ wget http://platan.vc.cvut.cz/ftp/pub/vmware/vmware-tools-any-update2.tar.gz

tar zxvf vmware-tools-any-update2.tar.gz

cd vmware-tools-any-update2/

./runme.pl

Again, when prompted “Do you want to run vmware-config-tools.pl?”, answer yes.

Create a symlink to the VMware mouse driver

ln -s /usr/lib/vmware-tools/configurator/XOrg/6.8.x/vmmouse_drv.o /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input/

Change xorg mouse setting

vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Change “mouse” to “vmmouse” in Section “InputDevice” if necessary
Done, restart X

Onward, the installation of Fedora Core failed to recognize the VMware virtual SCSI disk. Solution is as follows:
1) At the warning prompt select “Add Additional Drivers”
2) A dialog will appears that will list the current devices, select “Add Device”
3) Select “BusLogic MultiMaster SCSI” Driver
4) Continue on to a successfull Fedora Core VM installation

I just reinstalled Debian Sarge on my workstation. I had some things in mind that kind of necessitated a full reinstall including repartitioning my drives. I did a net install and then immediately upgraded to Etch. Prior to upgrading all was working well but afterwards X Windows would no longer come up. The error was a “preinit failed for input device” on the mouse.

The solution, when I finally found it, was to modprobe and then insert into /etc/modules psmouse and mousedev. This fixed the problem completely and as a perk I even have a functional mouse wheel on my Logitech mouse.

Now, I often don’t install X Windows on some of my Debian boxen but I’ve got a plan for this one. I’m going to start by installating VMWare Workstation and an XP machine on that. Once I’m comfortable I may move to VMWare Server (the free version of what used to be VMWare GSX server). That’s a whole nother story though.