I have a Cobalt RAQ4 sat in front of me, which I either need to reinstall with its native OS or stick something else on it. I don;t have any particular purpose in mind for it, although as it has two network ports I'm thinking of using it as a gateway/firewall.
Suggestions for an OS/distro?
On Fri, Mar 31, 2006 at 12:59:01PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
Suggestions for an OS/distro?
Debian :)
Thanks Adam PS, I think that the Raq4 is now EOL and not supported so you will need to look at other distros anyway.
Adam Bower wrote:
On Fri, Mar 31, 2006 at 12:59:01PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
Suggestions for an OS/distro?
Debian :)
For some reason I thought that the Raq4 wasn't x86 based, which was why I asked, but I see now that it is x86 and any distro ought to work. In which case Debian looks like a good place to start - thanks.
PS, I think that the Raq4 is now EOL and not supported so you will need to look at other distros anyway.
If it weren't EOL it wouldn't be sat on my desk :-)
On Tue, Apr 04, 2006 at 01:45:39PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
For some reason I thought that the Raq4 wasn't x86 based, which was why I asked, but I see now that it is x86 and any distro ought to work. In which case Debian looks like a good place to start - thanks.
Even if it wasn't x86 based I'm sure that Debian runs on the older (mips?) based Raqs, failing that there's always NetBSD :)
Thanks Adam
On Tue, Apr 04, 2006 at 02:21:35PM +0100, Adam Bower wrote:
On Tue, Apr 04, 2006 at 01:45:39PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
For some reason I thought that the Raq4 wasn't x86 based, which was why I asked, but I see now that it is x86 and any distro ought to work. In which case Debian looks like a good place to start - thanks.
Even if it wasn't x86 based I'm sure that Debian runs on the older (mips?) based Raqs, failing that there's always NetBSD :)
FWICR, yes, it does... I think James Ray (Mark's younger brother) was running the older Raqs on Debian.
Cheers,
On Tue, 2006-04-04 at 13:45 +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
For some reason I thought that the Raq4 wasn't x86 based, which was why I asked, but I see now that it is x86 and any distro ought to work. In which case Debian looks like a good place to start - thanks.
The reason you were thinking this was that the older ones were Mips based.
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
The reason you were thinking this was that the older ones were Mips based.
It's not just me being daft then!
Does anyone here have any quick pointers to how I do a complete network install on a PC? I have had a look around and found some information which generally starts above my level.
At the moment I'm thinking of putting something like IPCop on the box, as it has two network ports and would be a good basic appliance for that job (handling DHCP etc for the rest of the network); I can use the spare disk space as a squid proxy and make other routine jobs a bit easier (like caching my .deb and .rpm packages for a start). But I don't think it should really make much different what distro I use.
I know I need to set up a TFTP server but the whole concept of booting over the network is something I've never really got my head around. (It's something it'll do me good to learn, too.)
On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 16:22 +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
Does anyone here have any quick pointers to how I do a complete network install on a PC? I have had a look around and found some information which generally starts above my level.
Normally PXE/tftp booting would be the way to go. There are a couple of good Debianplanet pages on doing this. Alternatively there is this page which is a bit Red Hat specific but close enough
http://linux-sxs.org/internet_serving/pxeboot.html
But you will need to check that the Raq network hardware supports network boot and you will need to set up a network source for the packages (even though you are booting from network it won't be clever enough to pull the packages over the same method)
Also you have another problem...Raq's are headless so you have no direct way to "drive" the installer...you'll either need to script the installation and feed that script to the installer (some disro's support this) or configure the installer to use a serial console and then drive it from another machine using gtkterm (or similar)..The debian installer supports this....In fact I am told that if there is no local graphics capability then it defaults to the first serial port.
However that is all a bit of a hassle for one machine...So I'd try and do it the way I did it when I found myself in a similar situation setting up my media server (A recycled Nas appliance box, also headless and CD/Floppyless)
I put the disk in another machine (this may be a lot more difficult for you because I think Raq's are SCSI and you will therefore need to make sure that as well as the modules for your "installation machine" SCSI controllers you are loading the modules needed for the Raq4 )
Perform the most basic installation you can. Enable the serial console and check it works
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/index.html
Move the drive over to the other machine and reboot...finish setting up the Raq's hardware etc.
As I say that worked for me...but with IDE drives and very generic controllers...How it will work on SCSI I have no idea.
Mark Rogers wrote:
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
The reason you were thinking this was that the older ones were Mips based.
It's not just me being daft then!
Does anyone here have any quick pointers to how I do a complete network install on a PC? I have had a look around and found some information which generally starts above my level.
At the moment I'm thinking of putting something like IPCop on the box, as it has two network ports and would be a good basic appliance for that job (handling DHCP etc for the rest of the network); I can use the spare disk space as a squid proxy and make other routine jobs a bit easier (like caching my .deb and .rpm packages for a start). But I don't think it should really make much different what distro I use.
I know I need to set up a TFTP server but the whole concept of booting over the network is something I've never really got my head around. (It's something it'll do me good to learn, too.)
Mark,
You may want to look at the Strongbolt server, which is a Raq server with Centos installed. http://www.osoffice.co.uk/strongbolt_server_appliances.html I've never dealt with them but they may be able to give you some tips.
I've been using Centos for a while and would like to get my hands on a Raq when I spotted a couple of adds on E-bay.
If you have any luck with this please let me know.
Best Regards EAP
On Sat, 2006-04-08 at 12:10 +0200, Ewan Parsons wrote:
You may want to look at the Strongbolt server, which is a Raq server with Centos installed. http://www.osoffice.co.uk/strongbolt_server_appliances.html I've never dealt with them but they may be able to give you some tips.
I am glad you pointed that page out..Looks to be pretty important to upgrade the ROM before putting on a different OS. Not sure why you have to have a Rom that supports "2.4 kernels and ext3" as the Rom shouldn't know or care about this...but they seem to think you can kill the Raq if you don't upgrade so it's probably best to do it.
I've been using Centos for a while and would like to get my hands on a Raq when I spotted a couple of adds on E-bay.
If you have any luck with this please let me know.
Best Regards EAP
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