How to do an HTTP Install

[Derick Centeno]

Hey Mark!

How ya doin'?

One of the TSS engineers (Tim Renner) recommended a procedure which is 
clear and direct.  I had tried to look up details on the web regarding 
this but the plethora of information which was imprecise was 
astonishing.  Anyway there is one limitation with this method, you 
definitely will be better off with a Broadband ISP connection so that 
the transmission between TSS servers and your computer occurs within a 
reasonable amount of time as the installation process proceeds.  Other 
than that if the hard drive (HD) has been prepared such that partition 
has been formatted by the Apple Disk Utility as Free Space (as 
recommended in the standard installation instructions manual) then you 
should be ready.  The instructions follow:

At the Bootloader Prompt type install askmethod.  In other words:

boot:install askmethod

The next line which appears will be a query for the server and the 
directory to refer to on that server.  For instance this will appear:

server:

Although you can type in any one of the ydl mirrors posted here:

http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/resources/downloads.shtml

As an example he chose the following:

server: mirror.mcs.anl.gov

A pause before we continue.  Note that there is no http, ftp or other 
prefix or suffix to use.  After you press the Enter/Return key, the 
system will
respond with:

dir:

At this point, the system is waiting for the directory on that server to 
refer to and get data from.  Another pause at this point for clarification.
One of the available mirrors at that link (the TSS downloads page) is 
http://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/yellowdog.
If you click on that link from within your browser you'll see that the 
first line of that webpage is

Index of /yellowdog

and further down is a list of directories of which one is releases.  Now 
within releases choose yellowdog-4.1; then you'll notice the directory 
en, choose to go into that, then choose os and then you'll see what's 
available there.  The purpose of this minor side-track is to help you 
understand the next command sequence so that should you choose another 
mirror you will be enabled to make the correct sequence of choices 
because you will hopefully understand how that server's directories for 
YDL are organized.

Returning to where we left off the next response is as follows:

dir: yellowdog/releases/yellowdog-4.1/en/os/

That's it for getting this procedure moving into proceeding as a 
standard installation of YDL.

Now to the problem of getting to that point so that you can begin the 
process.  It is clear that the standard YDL CDs won't work on your drives.
One work around to consider is to download the iso's of YDL from any one 
of the mirrors.  Now the above exercise of accessing the mirrors via 
your browser is repeated but for a different purpose.

The idea will be that you download the iso's and burn then onto new CDs 
which your OWC installed drive can use and recognize.  As OWC provided 
the drive to you, they should know which CDRs or CDRWs that drive 
likes.  Be sure to get the details, it might be restricted to using one 
kind of manufacture or make.  Find out.  Once that is done however and 
you acquire those particular media; the process of burning with OS X 
will be the same as burning anything else.  Refer to this page here:

http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/support/solutions/ydl_general/iso_burn-osx.shtml

Other detail to consider:

Let's use the same mirror as above for simplicity.  We are downloading 
iso's from this server, how do we get them?  If you notice, the same 
page where the releases directory appears (before you enter it) is the 
same page where there exists the directory containing the iso's!  It is 
listed simply as iso/, so from within your browser just click and go 
into iso/!  Within that directory are listed all the iso's for various 
versions of YDL, you are only interested in the iso's for 4.1 and so 
these are listed last within this directory. 

Now for the really important stuff.  In that same directory is a file 
called md5sum.  You need to open it and make a note somewhere of the 
md5sum values for each 4.1 iso file.  Each value is different make sure 
you copy them accurately.  Since you are using OS X you can quickly 
select the md5sum values associated with each particular 4.1 iso file by 
highlighting it as a group and copy it.  Then open the Stickies app, 
create a new Note and Paste that information into that note.  Those 
md5sum values are the values which were determined by TSS to identify 
that the download you made is exactly the same as the originals on their 
servers and the various mirrors.  It is a reference or standard against 
you can compare.  I engaged a discussion regarding using md5sum 
elsewhere; the link to it is provided here:

http://www.mail-archive.com/yellowdog-newbie@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/msg01249.html

I may have omitted in passing that one begins to download the iso from 
the mirror by clicking upon that file.  Once all the .iso's are 
downloaded to your hard drive within a particular directory, then one 
should run the md5sum test from within that same directory executed from 
within the Terminal.  The Terminal is found within the Utilities 
directory of OS X.  Once the md5sum values match exactly you can then 
proceed to burn those isos.  Once those isos have been burned onto CDs 
those CDs should be easily readable by that OWC drive.  Once that 
happens you should then also be able to boot from those CDs as they 
should be compatible to that drive.

Downloading each iso and burning each CD takes up quite a bit of time.  
And one has not even begun the installation process!  More time!

One solution to this is to just download one iso, the iso for the 1st CD 
and make sure that the md5sum checks for that.  Once that occurs, then 
boot from that 1st CD and then begin the http install procedure we 
discussed earlier.

Good Luck... you've got my sincerest hopes and best wishes for a 
successful installation.

Derick.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mark Christal wrote:
> I purchased the cadillac of YDL distros with installation support, but 
> haven't been able to get YDL installed because the combo drive on my  
> G4 Powerbook was faulty and the replacement drive I purchased from 
> Other World Computer is not fully Mac compatible so that I can't boot 
> up on the YDL install disk.  YDL installation support suggest I do an 
> "HTTP Install" and promised that information on how to do that can be 
> found on the YDL lists.  However, I can't find discussion that 
> explains how to do that in a way I can understand, so if anyone knows 
> if and how I can do this, please respond.
>
> I am starting with a full set of the YDL installation disks and my G4 
> Powerbook fully prepared to proceed with a dual-boot setup:  I have OS 
> X on one partion, and half the drive( ~14 GB) partioned as "Free 
> space."  I can connect to the Internet via DSL or WiFi and I have a G5 
> Power Mac I can network to. Now what?
>
>   --Mark Christal
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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