CRUX Install

[Tsarevich]

Hi all,

I am new to this biscuit sounding CRUX distribution and need a few guides on installation. First of all, please introduce me to basic use of ViM. It is required while making the fstabs and stuff.

Next, please tell me how long will it take to compile the kernel of CRUX which one manually has to? Is 1 hour safe to say?

Best Regards,
Usama

[Tsarevich]

I am posting my fstab in Ubuntu here. Please translate it into CRUX's fstab (sda to hda) and remove the UUID stuff please.

# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
# /dev/sda8
UUID=5699b544-f68c-4b62-b98f-502584c6ff4d /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /dev/sda1
UUID=786B-C5BE  /media/sda1     vfat    defaults,utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0       1
# /dev/sda5
UUID=C0EB-F85E  /media/sda5     vfat    defaults,utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0       1
# /dev/sda7
UUID=A4FD-8079  /media/sda7     vfat    defaults,utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0       1
# /dev/sda3
UUID=07ea4d4b-211f-4f8e-8e08-9f924b41fafc none            swap    sw              0       0
# /dev/sda6
UUID=3f74ff33-801b-405b-bef2-59dc7508abe6 none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/scd0       /media/cdrom   udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec 0       0
/dev/fd0        /media/floppy  auto    rw,user,noauto,exec 0       0

There's one more partition which I have tried to import into my fstab but all efforts up to no avail. That problematic one is /dev/sda9 and an ext3. Please help meh.

[oz]

Check the CRUX Installation Handbook for good instructions on getting it installed, up and running:

CRUX Handbook

For using vim, run vimtutor from the command line for a quick but very beneficial tutorial.

The speed at which the source code will compile will depend upon the speed of your machine. I think it will likely take more than one hour. It's been too long since I last installed CRUX so I don't remember exactly how long it took on my own machine, but it was more than one hour.

Dapper Dan is currently running CRUX so maybe he'll reply with more info.

[oz]

For the partitioning thing, just change each sda to hda if that's what you want, and then edit out the UUID entries.

[Dapper Dan]

If you follow the CRUX handbook, compiling is not hard and won't take that long. I just compiled the 2.6.24.1 kernel last night and it took under an hour. When you get done editing your fstab, post it here and let's look it over.

[oz]

Oops... I failed to notice that we were talking about compiling the kernel only. My remarks above about it being longer than one hour are for compiling all the code for the complete system. That said, I still don't remember how it took, even for the kernel alone.

[Tsarevich]

Very useful! Any idea on compilig the kernel on this:

Intel PIII (i686)
256 MB RAM
451 MHz
GenuineIntel Processor

???

/* static file systems */

As far as the guidebook are concerned, there's a much better tutorial as well on the Documentation page. But no clue about creating an fstab. I want to remove the UUID stuff as I am not sure of the UUID info of /dev/sda9.

/* boot loader */
I am using GRUB for Ubuntu and Freespire and XP and I want to include CRUX within it. HOWTO? Can we copy LILO's parameters into GRUB's menu.lst and translate it?


That was a long post. Sorry and thanks for all your precious information!

[Dapper Dan]

I use Ubuntu's grub boot loader for CRUX as well. You just need to tell the menu.lst where CRUX is. Remember that with grub, partition count starts with 0 instead of 1. So if you need to tell grub that CRUX is at /dev/hda5, you would tell it to boot (hd0,4). Mine is on /dev/hda7 so it looks like this in my menu.lst.

title           Crux 2.3
root            (hd0,8)
kernel          (hd0,8)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24.1
quiet

Once you get Internet going you'll then be able to download and install packages to complete your system. My advise is to stay away from trying to build Gnome. I've tried twice and could never get it built where it was fully functional. KDE installs like a breeze. I've not tried XFCE with CRUX. I always use IceWM which installs with no problems. I think the default window manager since CRUX 2.3 is blackbox.

CRUX is not a distro to get up and running in a day. It takes a lot of time patience and hard work. You'll learn much in the process and when done, will be left with a rock solid and scorchingly fast distro.

[Tsarevich]

All distros require patience! That was useful info. Isn't IceWM the default desktop? Does it have OO.org? Please tell me how to remove the UUID stuff.

[Dapper Dan]

All distros require patience!

Some require more than others. You'll will need a lot more with CRUX.

Isn't IceWM the default desktop?

No, Blackbox is as of 2.3

Does it have OO.org?

IceWM and Blackbox are just window managers and that's all they do. Open Office is easily installed using prt-get. You'd first go as root:

ports -u

Then:

prt-get depinst openoffice

Please tell me how to remove the UUID stuff.

My Ubuntu Gusty has that too. According to this page:

UUID stands for Universally Unique Identifier and is a mechanism to give each filesystem a unique identifier. It is designed so that collisions are unlikely. All Linux filesystems (including swap) support UUID. FAT and NTFS filesystems don't support UUID, but are still listed in by-uuid with a unique identifier.

It's part of udev as I understand it. It's okay to have it there.