At Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:31:38 -0500 (CDT) CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org wrote:

Greetings all-

I'm currently working with CentOS 5.x (various version 5.0 - 5.5) attempting to run it on a system based on the AMD Geode LX CPU. There are known issues with this CPU running Centos 5, specifically those listed here:

http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=2552

The kernel and system run fine on the Geode LX, but the installer detects the CPU as i586. Since there is no i586 kernel package available, the installer dies. I've attempted the workaround here:

http://lists.baseurl.org/pipermail/yum-devel/2009-August/005767.html

It basically tells anaconda the CPU arch is i686. I extracted the stage2.img, updated the specified files, then recreated the squashfs image. But, it still does not work. Apparently this works on Fedora...

Is the processor an i686 or is in in fact an i586? That is, is the installer really confused?

So, does anyone have any thoughts on getting CentOS 5.x to install on a Geode LX?

This was posted to the CentOS list back in March of 2009:

-------- As a follow-up, I found the documentation I wrote how to install CentOS without any installer:

# First, setup your disks to your liking. You can use whatever you want here, # RAID, LVM, etc... Remember your disk configuration because you'll need it # to configure grub, menu.lst and fstab. Using RAID, LVM, or others will require # more configuration than this guide covers. To keep it simple I'm using a # single disk. An example:

$ fdisk /dev/sda $ mount /dev/sda3 /target $ mkdir /target/boot $ mount /dev/sda1 /target/boot

# Depending on the host OS you're using, you may need to initialize the rpm db # on the host OS $ rpm --initdb

# Use the following command to install the packages. I'll be addressing this # command as $rpm.

$ rpm --root /target -i

# Use your shell's tab completion to complete the package filenames. I # deliberatly left out the versions so these instructions apply to a wide range # of versions

# Let's install some basics $rpm setup basesystem filesystem

# Install bash first, this is needed for post-install scripts $rpm bash glibc glibc-common termcap libgcc tzdata mktemp libtermcap

# Install some dependencies (this is mainly to keep the next command smaller) $rpm grep pcre libstdc++ info ncurses zlib gawk sed ethtool

# Install the bulk of the system $rpm coreutils libselinux libacl libattr pam audit-libs cracklib-dicts \ cracklib libsepol mcstrans libcap chkconfig python db4 openssl readline \ bzip2-libs gdbm findutils krb5-libs initscripts util-linux popt udev MAKEDEV \ centos-release shadow-utils keyutils-libs iproute sysfsutils SysVinit \ net-tools module-init-tools e2fsprogs e2fsprogs-libs glib2 mingetty \ device-mapper sysklogd psmisc centos-release-notes procps libsysfs iputils

# Install package manager $rpm rpm beecrypt elfutils-libelf rpm-libs sqlite

# Install YUM $rpm yum python-elementtree rpm-python yum-metadata-parser python-sqlite \ expat libxml2 python-urlgrabber m2crypto python-iniparse

# You may also want to install your favorite editor $rpm nano

# This provides /root with some defaults, like color highlighting on `ls` $rpm rootfiles

# Right now you have system which you can chroot to, so we can start setting up # the basics

# Mount directories for chroot operation $ mount --bind /dev /target/dev $ mount -t proc none /target/proc $ mount -t sysfs none /target/sysfs $ chroot /target

# This constructs /etc/shadow $ pwconv

# Configure fstab $ nano -w /etc/fstab

# Installing the kernel. Do this back outside the chroot in the host OS system $ exit $rpm kernel mkinitrd cpio device-mapper-multipath dmraid gzip kpartx lvm2 nash \ tar less device-mapper-event

# Install the bootloader, grub. $rpm grub diffutils redhat-logos

# Let's chroot again to configure our bootloader $ chroot /target

# We start by configuring the bootloader. Open /boot/grub/menu.lst, and put the # following there

<<<MENU.LST timeout 5 default 0

# (0) CentOS title CentOS root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.el5 root=/dev/sda3 ro initrd /initrd-2.6.18-92.el5.img

...

...

# If this command gives an error, you can safely ignore this because it's not # of importance. What is important is that grub-install copied the right files # to /boot/grub that we need for booting. $ /sbin/grub-install /dev/sda

# Manually install grub if the previous step failed. - means type it in the grub # shell $ grub $- root (hd0,0) $- setup (hd0)

# Optional packages # You may want to install passwd so you can set passwords ;-) $rpm passwd libuser openldap cyrus-sasl-lib

# These are used to set the keyboard language (loadkeys) $rpm kbd usermode

# ** Right now you should have a bootable system! Here are some tips to help you # through your 1st boot ***

# Most of the system configuration happens in /etc/sysconfig. See

/usr/share/doc/initscripts

for full documentation.

Some quick post-install tips: * Configure your keyboard in /etc/sysconfig/keyboard using the KEYTABLE variable

* Configure networking Take a look at /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts. See ifcfg-lo for an example.

# This recreates the RPM database. If the host OS you used has a different # version of db, rpm will complain with # rpmdb: unable to lock mutex: Invalid argument $ rpmdb --rebuilddb ------------

This is basically a quick-and-dirty way to cross-install CentOS without using the installer at all.

You might be able to actually do this if you can manage to get a LiveCD to boot up and run, so long as you have a second DVD-ROM drive or can get the networking up and running.

Tim Nelson Systems/Network Support Rockbochs Inc. (218)727-4332 x105 _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos