I'm trying to install CentOS-5.5 on my new HP micro-server,
which has no CD drive.
I've set up cobbler and cobbler-web on my old server,
and can access cobbler-web from my laptop.
I have 3 queries about the installation.
1. Is there any advantage is using the 64-bit CentOS
rather than 32-bit?
2. The CentOS OS seems to be available in 7 or 8 CDs.
(I tried downloading the DVD ISO with ktorrent,
but this was a complete failure.
It started OK, but then created literally thousands of links
to one file, which brought my server down,
and left it in a state which was quite hard to clean up.)
But how exactly do I "cobbler import" these?
I see that for Fedora on my laptop I ran
sudo cobbler import --path=/mnt/dvd --name=F14-i386
3. Is there actually a way of converting the 7 or 8 CD ISOs
into a DVD ISO?
I saw instructions that suggested concatenating them,
and then running rsync against a DVD ISO, at
<http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2011-January/104448.html>.
I tried the site recommended, but could not access the DVD ISO.
In fact, if I could access a DVD ISO, couldn't I download it directly?
So what would be the point of this exercise?
--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 03:49:21PM +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote:> I'm trying to install CentOS-5.5 on my new HP micro-server, which has > no CD drive. > > I've set up cobbler and cobbler-web on my old server, and can access > cobbler-web from my laptop. > > I have 3 queries about the installation. > > 1. Is there any advantage is using the 64-bit CentOS rather than > 32-bit? > > 2. The CentOS OS seems to be available in 7 or 8 CDs. (I tried > downloading the DVD ISO with ktorrent, but this was a complete > failure. It started OK, but then created literally thousands of > links to one file, which brought my server down, and left it in a > state which was quite hard to clean up.) > > But how exactly do I "cobbler import" these? I see that for Fedora > on my laptop I ran > sudo cobbler import --path=/mnt/dvd --name=F14-i386 > > 3. Is there actually a way of converting the 7 or 8 CD ISOs into a > DVD ISO? I saw instructions that suggested concatenating them, and > then running rsync against a DVD ISO, at > <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2011-January/104448.html>. > I tried the site recommended, but could not access the DVD ISO. > > In fact, if I could access a DVD ISO, couldn't I download it > directly? So what would be the point of this exercise?Why not use the netinstall ISO rather than download everything? Recreating a DVD image from the ISO's _is_ possible, but honestly, not worth the work, IMHO. Perhaps the LiveCD ISO would be an option as well (I belive you can install from it). x86_64 is useful if you're going to have a lot of memory or large file systems. Ray
Timothy Murphy wrote:> I'm trying to install CentOS-5.5 on my new HP micro-server, > which has no CD drive. > > I've set up cobbler and cobbler-web on my old server, > and can access cobbler-web from my laptop. > > I have 3 queries about the installation. > > 1. Is there any advantage is using the 64-bit CentOS > rather than 32-bit?If it runs 64 bit, you should use 64 bit. Unless you also have half the cylinders on your car disabled, and.... <g>> > 2. The CentOS OS seems to be available in 7 or 8 CDs. > (I tried downloading the DVD ISO with ktorrent, > but this was a complete failure. > It started OK, but then created literally thousands of links > to one file, which brought my server down, > and left it in a state which was quite hard to clean up.)Dunno. Last time I brought down the DVD iso, I had no trouble just doing a straight d/l, no torrent.><snip cobbler question>> 3. Is there actually a way of converting the 7 or 8 CD ISOs > into a DVD ISO? > I saw instructions that suggested concatenating them, > and then running rsync against a DVD ISO, at > <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2011-January/104448.html>. > I tried the site recommended, but could not access the DVD ISO.Mount the CD isos using loopback (mount -o loop), and copy. <snip> mark
On 3/28/2011 9:49 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:> I'm trying to install CentOS-5.5 on my new HP micro-server, > which has no CD drive. > > I've set up cobbler and cobbler-web on my old server, > and can access cobbler-web from my laptop. > > I have 3 queries about the installation. > > 1. Is there any advantage is using the 64-bit CentOS > rather than 32-bit? > > 2. The CentOS OS seems to be available in 7 or 8 CDs. > (I tried downloading the DVD ISO with ktorrent, > but this was a complete failure. > It started OK, but then created literally thousands of links > to one file, which brought my server down, > and left it in a state which was quite hard to clean up.) > > But how exactly do I "cobbler import" these? > I see that for Fedora on my laptop I ran > sudo cobbler import --path=/mnt/dvd --name=F14-i386 > > 3. Is there actually a way of converting the 7 or 8 CD ISOs > into a DVD ISO?Cobbler is kind of overkill for a single install. If you can drop the CD iso images under an NFS export, boot from USB and do an nfs install you'll be done before you'd have cobbler set up. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
On 28/03/11 16:49, Timothy Murphy wrote:> I'm trying to install CentOS-5.5 on my new HP micro-server, > which has no CD drive. > > I've set up cobbler and cobbler-web on my old server, > and can access cobbler-web from my laptop. > > I have 3 queries about the installation. > > 1. Is there any advantage is using the 64-bit CentOS > rather than 32-bit?Yes, there are advantages to use 64-bit instead of 32-bit. But it also depends on how much memory you have. If you have more that 4GB RAM, you should really not depend on 32-bit at all. This is a hardware limit on the CPU level. However, Intel did enable some hacks to make it possible to use more than 4GB RAM on the IA32 based CPUs. Those are mostly known as PAE enabled kernels. But few kernel developer really likes PAE. Another limitation is that 32-bit applications have limited memory available compared to a 64-bit application. PAE might even slow down the kernel. Don't go PAE if you can go 64-bit. There are really no good reasons why not to use 64-bit today. There are quite few software packages which is not ready for 64 bit nowadays, and those should rather be fixed than to keep users back on 32 bit. If you for some reason need to run 32-bit user stack, it is even possible to install and a 64 bit kernel on a 100% 32-bit user space. And a running 32-bit applications in a 64-bit setup is possible, as long as you have the 32-bit glibc and other needed support libraries installed. However, 32-bit applications have the same memory limitation when running. For some brief PAE discussion, see here: <http://www.held.org.il/blog/2008/07/pae-whats-that-and-how-bad-for-performance/> <http://kerneltrap.org/node/3816> <http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-general-1/32-bit-os-and-4gb-memory-limit-707762/> Having all this said, RHEL supports up to 16GB with PAE on 32bit, thus CentOS will do the same. However, if can avoid it and install 64-bit, I recommend you to do that instead. PAE is really dying, and you'll likely have more issues with PAE than 64-bit in the long run. kind regards, David Sommerseth
Am 28.03.2011 um 16:49 schrieb Timothy Murphy:> I'm trying to install CentOS-5.5 on my new HP micro-server, > which has no CD drive. > > I've set up cobbler and cobbler-web on my old server, > and can access cobbler-web from my laptop. > > I have 3 queries about the installation. > > 1. Is there any advantage is using the 64-bit CentOS > rather than 32-bit? >I'd use 32bit if you are sure you are never going to use more than 2GB RAM. Ever.> 2. The CentOS OS seems to be available in 7 or 8 CDs. > (I tried downloading the DVD ISO with ktorrent, > but this was a complete failure.I don't know what you did, but when I downloaded the torrent, it created only a handful of files. The DVD ISOs are available on my local mirror, so they should be elsewhere, too.> It started OK, but then created literally thousands of links > to one file, which brought my server down, > and left it in a state which was quite hard to clean up.) > > But how exactly do I "cobbler import" these? > I see that for Fedora on my laptop I ran > sudo cobbler import --path=/mnt/dvd --name=F14-i386Download the DVDs and import them.
Timothy Murphy wrote:> I'm trying to install CentOS-5.5 on my new HP micro-server, > which has no CD drive. > > I've set up cobbler and cobbler-web on my old server, > and can access cobbler-web from my laptop.Just to end the story. Having found the DVD ISO with the help of this newsgroup, I installed CentOS-5.5 on my HP micro-server using cobbler, with no trouble at all. But I was surprised to find that this had deleted the partitioning which I had carefully installed with Fedora Live CD on a USB stick, and assigned the whole disk to LVM. I looked on the web to see how I could modify ks.cfg to make a partition of my own choice, but decided after a brief study that life is too short to spend on the intricacies of kickstart. So I have given up cobbler, and will try the netinstall CD next, installing it on a USB stick. If that doesn't work I shall put the CentOS Live CD on a stick, and install that on the hard disk. -- Timothy Murphy e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland