Install SL6.0 on non PAE system

This is quick guide to install Scientific Linux 6.0 through the Fedora 13 netinst image:

REQUIREMENTS:
-Fedora 13 netinst iso [Fedora 14 DVD, Fedora 15 DVD & netinst don't work]
-working internet connection

1. Put the iso on a bootable media (burn it on a cd or put it on an usb stick (> 256 MiB)[Fedora guide: 3.2.2. Making Fedora USB Media in UNIX, Linux, and Similar Operating Systems].
2. Boot and start the Fedora 13 installer. Just follow the instructions until the 'Package Group Selection'.

3. In the 'Package Group Selection' deselect all Fedora repositories and 'add additional software repositories' for Scientific Linux: ftp-or-http-mirror-of-your-choice/scientific/6.0/i386/os/

4. ...and the epel-kernel-nonpae repository: http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/lkundrak/kernel-nonpae/epel-6/i386/.
BEWARE: The nonpae kernel is not up-to-date. If you want an updated kernel, you have to build it yourself from srpm.
5. Unfortunately you can't choose from any of the defined software sets. The 'Graphical Desktop' will always be installed. So you should consider to 'customize now'. Make sure the only activated repositories are the Scientific Linux 6.0 and the non PAE kernel repositories.
I'm not completly sure about this, but do NOT include the Scientific Linux 6.0 Updates repository or else the non pae kernel won't get installed (since there is a newer version) and you'll end up with a non bootable system.

6. Scientific Linux 6.0 will be installed.

7. You probably want to change the GRUB menu entry from Fedora to Scientific Linux.
8. After your first boot into Scientific Linux 6.0 - before updating the system, you have to exclude the kernel from the updates repository. Just login as root in a terminal and add 'exclude=kernel*' to the [sl-security] in /etc/yum.repos.d/sl-updates.repo.
(I also did this for the sl-repo in /etc/yum.repos.d/sl.repo, but I guess this is not necessary).
9. Have fun with Scientific Linux 6.0 !


There is also a way to use the SL install dvd (together with the Fedora 13 netinst image on an usb stick), but I haven't figured out how to get it working, yet. And you'll still need an internet connection to get the non PAE kernel.

Please report your results.

Thanks for posting

Hopefully this can be tested on a non-PAE system.
That way we know 100% for sure it works.

Hi,

this method works.

Had a few time some message about package error, if yo click retry, works anyway though.

All that trouble because RH did want to ship one package more ;(

Many thanks.

LK

Will this work for 6.1, as well, or will they even replace the pae-only-kernel on the install media? Are there any plans of further support for the nonpae-kernel (more recent versions/updates)?

I didn't expect support from Red Hat I was just wondering, whether the guys who uploaded the nonpae repo to Fedora People will update their repository in the future. SL 6.1 will have a newer kernel version. So I guess, it won't install with this outdated one.

By the way: How often is the kernel in SL updated in general? If I build my own kernel from source, will I have to rebuild it every few months from the most recent sources to contain compatibility with the most recent updates in the official repository?

And how does building your own kernel _without pae_ work?

In general this procedure should also work with SL6.1 although I've not checked this, yet. But I think without an updated kernel, and there probably won't be an update on this repo (as there are no updates for 6), it won't work.

There are plans to release a nonpae kernel in ELRepo soon (more information in the bug report) and perhaps even an EL install media. Maybe this will be the mainline kernel (so we'll have SL with Linux 3.0) instead the Red Hat kernel. As long as it is maintained it should be okay. If there won't be a install media we should try to create a netinst iso ourselves.

There seems to be, at least, one update each month (take a look at the dates in the update repository). This is, in theory, manageable (as a user). But it took me over 2 hours to build the default Red Hat Kernel with an Athlon 64 X2 5400+ (dual core with 2.8 GHz). With a newer system it should be a lot faster - if you're building it on your nonpae system (which is a single core and slower [I've a Pentium M with 1.7 GHz]) it'll take it's time (though I've not tested this).

There should be no compatibility issues with an older kernel (I've even used the Fedora 14 kernel with almost no issues). But an update means bug and security fixes which are always preferable.

Creating your own nonpae kernel is not too difficult: You just download the kernel SRPM for the current kernel. Change some configs and the spec file and use rpmbuild to create your packages (more information in the Fedora wiki or in this topic). If you have access to a more powerful pc with another (Red Hat based) distribution you can use 'mock' to build for Scientific Linux (that's how I used my Athlon desktop to build the kernel).

If you want to build your own kernel I'll post the changes you have to make (I used the existing nonpae sources and compared them with the stock kernel sources).

Just wanted to thank cr7ish for the forum contribution. I've been on the road

I apologize for the triple post, but otherwise it got to cluttered.

Usually*, always the same config files and the spec file have to be edited. I assume the source rpm is already 'installed' and everything is correctly extracted in the rpmbuild directory. Just replace the red parts in each file with their corresponding green parts.

1.) In the SOURCES directory:
config-i686
# CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G is not set
CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G=y
CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G=y
# CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G is not set

config-i686-rhel
CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G=y
...
# CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G is not set
# CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G is not set
...
CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G=y

config-x86-generic-rhel
CONFIG_X86_PAE=y
# CONFIG_X86_PAE is not set

2.) In the SPEC directory:
kernel.spec
Add to line 19 (after the blue marked paragraph, so you'll kernel is identified as a custom - nonpae kernel):
# Polite request for people who spin their own kernel rpms:
# please modify the "buildid" define in a way that identifies
# that the kernel isn't the stock distribution kernel, for example,
# by setting the define to ".local" or ".bz123456"
#
# % define buildid .local
%define buildid .nonpae

3.) Build the nonpae kernel with rpmbuild and add the following options: --without kabichk --without fips --with firmware. If you want to save time and space you can disable the build of the debug packages with --without debug --without debuginfo. With those two options it took me about 50 minutes instead 130 to build the kernel (Athlon 64 X2 5400+).

I created patches which make these changes easier (open the links and save the text in a textfile. #2 and #4 must have the same names):
#1) kernel-spec.add-nonpae-patch.patch
#2) kernel.nonpae-config.patch

Patch #1 has to be applied manually to the kernel.spec (copy it into the SPEC directory and apply it (patch -i kernel-spec.add-nonpae-patch.patch). It adds the buildid line and patch #2 (as Patch1000) to the spec file.
Patch #2 has to be saved in the SOURCES folder. This way the configuration will be edited automatically while building the kernel with rpmbuild.

In general this should work whith every kernel update (the spec file probably won't be changed too much). I created these patchtes for the .131.4.1 kernel but they also work for the .131.6.1 and .71.7.1 kernels (if there is an offset it should be detected and corrected).

*: Unfortunately the current kernel (.131.6.1) has a 'nonpae' bug (bugreport) which means you'll need two more patches to build it:
#3) kernel-spec.add-xen-patch.patch
#4) kernel.xen-cpuid-base.patch

Again apply Patch #3 manually to the (already nonpae patched) kernel.spec and save Patch #4 into the SOURCES folder. This should be fixed with the next kernel update.



The ELRepo mainline kernel (which will include a NONPAE version) is on its way, too. The maintainer (Alan Bartlett) has already distributed the sixth release candidate to some testers and waits for their feedback. Take a look at the mailinglist for more information.

Unfortunately from my testing this doesn't work on VIA Antaur (VIA C3) systems, but presumably for reasons other than just the nonpae kernel.

The Fedora 13 netinstall cd wont even boot, however Fedora 12 and SL 5.6/5.7(5rolling) both work fine, leading me to believe that the C3 processor lacks some instructions that the newer kernels require - but someone please feel free to correct me on that!

But, a good howto all the same.

Early VIA C3s lack the CMOVE command and therefore need a kernel built for i586, not i686.

So you are saying SL5.7 works fine out of the box with the VIA C3?

That would be great news, I have an old C3 based box that would need an upgrade to a more modern distro.

Can you check on your C3 if the following command produces any output?

I can't confirm you 100% but the only significant difference between the C7 (which is running SL6.1 without problems) and the C3 is that the C3 does not support SSE2, SSE3, or the SSE3 extensions. It is possible (likely?) that all those distros were rolled with instructions for SSEs 2 and higher.

Addendum

Make that "two significant differences"

Yeah, it did absolutely work fine out of the box with an SL 5.7 netinstall. But it does have 'cmov' listed in the flags.

Ok, then it's a later C3 than the one I have, mine only has the following flags (and ONLY works with kernels built for i586 or older):

For those who don't want to compile their own nonpae kernels, the elrepo-kernel repository at http://elrepo.org/linux/kernel/el6 has kernel-ml-nonpae rpms that work with SL6.1. I have an SL6.1 system with kernel-ml-NONPAE-2.6.39-4.1 running on a thinkpad x31 laptop. New releases of the elrepo kernels seem to be appearing pretty regularly. I installed my system by starting with the instructions at the beginning of this thread, and then upgraded to 6.1 and the elrepo kernel. It looks likely that the instructions could be adapted to install from the 6.1 and elrepo repositories directly, but I haven't tried it.

It would be good to have an installer disk for 6.n releases with nonpae kernels. I tried to make one with revisor, but failed because revisor doesn't recognise the kernel-ml-nonpae rpms as kernel packages and complains that you need to include a kernel. Does anyone know a way around that? Or another way to make such an installer disk?

Has somebody tested installing using the following version of SLC6 and subsequently switching to the elrepo-kernel repo?
http://linux.web.cern.ch/linux/scientific6/nonpae.shtml

I will definitely give this a test run if nobody else does before mid of february (unfortunately, I'm too busy until then).

QUOTE (tuxor @ Jan 20 2013, 03:28 PM)

Has somebody tested installing using the following version of SLC6 and subsequently switching to the elrepo-kernel repo? http://linux.web.cern.ch/linux/scientific6/nonpae.shtml I will definitely give this a test run if nobody else does before mid of february (unfortunately, I'm too busy until then).

I've successfully installed a 6.3 system from Urs Beyerle's nonpae live dvd at
http://www.livecd.ethz.ch/download/testing/63/i386/SL-63-i386-2012-09-19-LiveDVD-NONPAE.iso

That is I ran the live system from the dvd and clicked on "install to disk" and got what looked like a standard SL 6.3 (except for the kernel, of course). I don't know what the difference would be between that system and the one from CERN.