openMosix Files

$Id: README-openmosix-kernel.txt,v 1.3 2003/11/23 00:19:52 mcaserta Exp $


-- DOCUMENT INDEX --

A. INSTALLING ON RPM-BASED SYSTEMS (RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, ecc)
   A1. CONTENT OF THE RPMS
   A2. INSTALLING THE RPMS

B. INSTALLING ON DEBIAN

C. MANUAL INSTALLATION


-- DOCUMENT CONTENT --

A. INSTALLING ON RPM-BASED SYSTEMS (RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, ecc)

A1. CONTENT OF THE RPMS

The openmosix-kernel.rpms are built from vanilla kernel-sources with
the openMosix kernel-patch applied. The different .config-files used
to configure the kernels are very similar to the ones used by RedHat
in the kernels that come with their distributions. Thus, if your
machine works with a RedHat kernel, it should work with the
openMosix-kernel. However, since all the RedHat kernel-patches are not
included, some config-options that didn't compile have been removed.

All of the .rpms except i386 are built both with and without support
for SMP (more than one processor), and with optimisation for different
processors. The scheme is consistent with that of RedHat's kernels,
and looks like this:

All kernels named "openmosix-kernel-smp" : Support for SMP included.
All kernels named "openmosix-kernel"     : Support for SMP not included.

Kernels named i386   : Will work on any Intel compatible processor.
Kernels named i686   : Optimised for Pentium-Pro/Celeron/Pentium-II
Kernels named athlon : Optimised for AMD Athlon/Duron/K7

If you're unsure (and don't need support for SMP), go with the
i386-kernel. The i686 will also work fine for newer pentium
processors.



A2. INSTALLING THE RPMS

When installing the kernel (rpm -Uvh openmosix-kernel.rpm), a script
in the .rpm will try to add the new kernel to your boot-loader
(through new-kernel-pkg). If you're using RedHat-7.2 or newer with the
grub boot-loader, this will work automatically.

Otherwise, you will have to add the new kernel to lilo.conf
yourself. For you convenience, the rpm creates a softlink named
/boot/vmlinuz-openmosix that always points to the new
openMosix-kernel. Thus, you don't have to edit lilo.conf each time you
upgrade the openMosix-kernel. A softlink /boot/initrd-openmosix.img is
also created, pointing to the new openMosix-initrd. Put it in your
lilo.conf if you need some of the modules in order to boot (might as
well put it there anyway).

On AMD machines with older versions of rpm, you might have to add the
option --ignorearch in order to install the athlon.rpm, as the AMD
announces itself as an Intel (uname -m).

The .rpms have been reported to work with both RedHat 7.3/8/9, SuSE
and Mandrake.



B. INSTALLING ON DEBIAN

On Debian/sid you can install the openMosix tools, the openMosix Kernel
Patch, or both.  To install the openMosix tools just:

# apt-get install openmosix

To install the openMosix kernel patch run:

# apt-get install kernel-patch-openmosix

To build a kernel with the openMosix Kernel Patch from Debian you'll
need a clean Linux tree (not the kernel-source-2.4.22, yet anyway) and
you'll need make-kpkg.  You can then run:
 
# make-kpkg --added-patches=openmosix --config menuconfig kernel_image
        
That should build a kernel-image .deb file in the parent directory (..).



C. MANUAL INSTALLATION

If you prefer to roll your own kernel, you need to download the
openMosix patch from http://sourceforge.net/projects/openmosix. The
patch is named e.g. openMosix-2.4.20-2.bz2, which means that it should
be applied to the 2.4.20 kernel. Download the right kernel from
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/.

Unpack the kernel:
       tar xjvf linux-2.4.20.tar.bz2
Apply the openMosix patch
      cd linux-2.4.20
      bzcat ../openMosix-2.4.20-2.bz2 | patch -p1

Alternatively, you could just install the openmosix-kernel-source
package, which places an already patched kernel-tree under
/usr/src/. The config-files used to create the different RPMS can then
be found inside the kernel-tree in a subdirectory named configs.

Then, configure and compile as you like, install the kernel and add it
to your boot-loader.


Mirko Caserta (mirko@mcaserta.com)
Stephen Frost (sfrost@debian.org)
Martin Høy (martin.hoy@pvv.ntnu.no)