HP Integrity BL860c Server Blade Linux Installation white paper

Using CD/DVD Media
Follow the steps described in “Using an External USB DVD Device” (page 8) or “Using iLO 2
Virtual Media” (page 8) to make the Linux distribution media available using external USB or
vMedia respectively.
Using a Local Hard Disk Partition
Copy the Linux distribution ISO images to a local hard disk partition that will not be modified
by the installation process.
Using a Network Repository
Installing from the network requires the creation of a network repository. Both RHEL4U4 and
SLES10 provide instructions for creating network installation repositories. For details, see the
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide for the x86, Itanium™, and AMD64 Architectures or the
SUSE Linux 10 Reference Guide.
Installation Considerations
The following sections describe additional installation considerations.
Disk Partitioning
The HPIEFPL Smart Setup utility should be used to update the system and I/O card firmware,
and properly partition the hard disk with EFI boot and support tools partitions. In addition, the
HPIEFPL Smart Setup utility prompts for the support tools media for installation into the EFI
support tools partition.
IMPORTANT: During the Linux installation, ensure that you do not destroy these partitions.
When installing RHEL4U4, select the delete Linux partitions option when you are asked for
the disks upon which Linux will be installed.
Development Packages
Periodically it becomes necessary for HP to provide modified versions of drivers for HP hardware
to improve functionality, preferences, or resolves newly discovered issues. Kernel drivers are
very specific to the kernel running on the system so these drivers must be rebuilt if a new kernel
is introduced to the system. For example, after a security maintenance update to the system. It
is often more feasible to enable you to build the appropriate driver kernel module for their
environment. For this reason, HP distributes drivers in source form. The following kernel
development packages from the OS distribution are needed to successfully build kernel drivers:
RHEL4U4 Package Bundle: Development Tools
SLES10
C/C++ Compiler and Tools (from Filter→Patterns)
kernel-source-* package
kernel-syms-* package
NOTE: Any BL860c server blade enclosures containing the Ethernet Pass-Thru Interconnect
Module must include these packages to be able to build the needed tg3 network driver for
continued network connectivity post-installation.
Installing Linux
This section describes how to install Linux on the BL860c server blade. It contains the following
tasks:
• “Booting Linux on the BL860c Server Blade” (page 10)
• “Selecting and Installing the Linux Distribution” (page 13)
• “Updating the tg3 Driver” (page 15)
Installing Linux 9