more easy merging from hampton branch

1 files changed, 201 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/anaconda-release-notes.txt b/docs/anaconda-release-notes.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..5ace02bce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/anaconda-release-notes.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,201 @@
+Anaconda Release Notes 
+----------------------
+
+Last update: Mar 26 2002
+
+
+Contents
+
+ - Overview
+ - Install mechanism summary
+ - Patching/updating installer
+ - Invocation options
+ - Troubleshooting
+ - More info
+
+
+Overview
+--------
+
+   Anaconda is the name of the install program used by Red Hat Linux.
+It is python-based with some custom modules written in C.  Being
+written in a scripting language makes development quicker, and it is
+easier to distribute updates in a non-binary form.  The anaconda
+installer works on a wide variety of Linux-based computing
+architectures (ia32, Itanium, Alpha, S/390, PowerPC), and is designed to make
+it easy to add platforms.
+
+   The first stage of the installer is a loader program written in C.
+This program is responsible for loading all the kernel modules
+required to mount the second stage of the installer, which has a
+fairly complete Linux runtime environment.  The loader is designed to
+be small to fit within the constraints of bootable media (floppies are
+small by modern standards).  Once the loader has mounted the second
+stage image, the python installer is started up, and optionally, a
+graphical X Windows based environment.
+
+   The loader can install from local media (harddrive or CDROM), or
+from a network source, via FTP, HTTP, or NFS.  The installer can pull
+updates for bugs or features via several sources as well. Finally, the
+installer has an auto-install mechanism called kickstart that allows
+installs to be scripted.  The script can even be pulls from an HTTP
+source that can create kickstart configurations dynamically based on
+the machine which is requesting the script.  This allows endless
+possibilities in automating large sets of servers.
+
+   This document's purpose is to go over technical details that will
+make using and customizing the installer, and the distribution, much
+easier.  The anaconda installer arguably is one of the most flexible
+and powerful installers available, and hopefully this document will
+allow users to take advantage of this potential.
+
+Install Mechanism Summary
+-------------------------
+
+   The document 'install-methods.txt', which is distributed with the
+anaconda package, goes over the various ways the installer can be
+used.  Essentially, the installer needs to access the contents of the
+CD images distributed with the product.  The installer can either work
+with the CD images one at a time, or else from a single directory (the
+install 'tree') which has the contents of all the CD images copied
+into it.  The later is useful if you are customizing the packages in
+the distribution.  The first stage of the installation process (the
+'loader') is responsible for getting the system to the point it can
+access the installation source, whether CD image or installation tree based.
+
+   For CDROM-based installs the loader detects the presence of a CD in a
+drive in the system with a distribution on it and jumps straight to the 
+second stage.  For other interactive (non-kickstart) installation methods the 
+user is prompted for the installation source.  For kickstart-based installs
+the installation source is specified in the kickstart file, and the user is
+not required to be present unless necessary information is missing from the
+kickstart script.
+
+   For NFS-based installs the installer mounts the directory specified
+and looks for a set of ISO images, or an installation tree.  If
+present then a filesystem image is loopback-mounted and the second
+stage installer is run from this image.  For FTP and HTTP installs a
+smaller (no graphical install options) second stage image is
+downloaded into memory, mounted, and the second stage installer run
+from this.  On harddrive based installs a similar small second stage
+image is put into memory and the second stage installer run from it.
+This is necessary because for partitioning to suceed the installer can
+not have partitions on the harddrive mounted in order for the kernel
+to be able to acknowledge partition table changes.
+
+   The bootable installation images are as follow:
+
+       boot.img     - boot image containing kernel modules for installing
+                      on most systems from a CDROM or harddrive.
+
+       bootnet.img  - boot iamge containing kernel modules for
+                      installing on most systems from a network source.
+
+       pcmcia.img   - boot image for installing on PCMCIA based systems 
+                      from a local or network source.  
+		      Requires pcmciadd.img driver disk.
+
+   The supplemental driver disk images are:
+
+       drvblock.img - block device drivers (for example, SCSI controllers).
+
+       drvnet.img   - extra network device drivers.
+
+       oldcdrom.img - device drivers for non-SCSI, non-ATAPI cdroms.
+
+
+Patching The Installer
+----------------------
+
+   At times there are bugfixes or feature enhancements available for
+the installer.  These are typically replacement python source files
+which override the versions distributed with the release.  Python has
+a mechanism similar to the command line shell search path for
+executables.  The installer can be updated by putting patched files in
+a location earlier in the search path Python uses to find modules.
+The 'install-methods.txt' document describes all the various ways the
+installer can be told where to find the updating source files.
+Typcially this is done from an 'update disk', which is a floppy with
+an ext2 filesytem on it.  The updated python source files are put in
+the main directory of the floppy.  The installer is invoked with an
+'updates' option from the boot command line, and the user is prompted
+to insert the update disk. The files are copied off into a ramdisk
+location which Python has been instructed to look at first of modules.
+For NFS installes, any files in the directory 'RHupdates' under the
+directory mounted in the loader will also be used before the source
+files shipped in the release.  If one is customizing the distribution
+and the installer then installing over NFS is the fastest way to work.
+
+    The installer will also use an 'updates.img' file to get patched
+source files. This is particularly useful for FTP and HTTP based installs.
+When the second stage image is retrieved from the server, a download of
+the updates.img is also attempted.  This file must be an ext2 filesystem image.
+It is mounted loopback, then the contents are copied to the ramdisk location
+that Python is setup to look at for module updates.  This update image will
+also work with all the other installation mechanisms, although the exact
+location where it is expected does vary.  The 'install-methods.txt' file
+has the details on this.
+
+Invocation Options
+------------------
+    The documentation file 'command-line.txt' has a quick summary of all the
+command line options anaconda accepts.
+
+Troubleshooting
+---------------
+
+- Cannot get graphical installer working
+
+    On some video hardware (laptops in particular) the graphical
+    installer will not work.  The installer attempts to run at
+    800x600, and some hardware does not work in this mode, or the
+    output looks poor when scaled to this mode.  This can be worked
+    around by specifying the 'vga=xxx' option on the command line when
+    booting the installer.  Here 'xxx' is the VESA mode number for the
+    video mode which will work on your hardware, and can be one of the
+    following:
+
+
+        | 640x480  800x600  1024x768 1280x1024  <-Resolution
+    ----+-------------------------------------
+    256 |    769      771      773      775
+    32k |    784      787      790      793   
+    64k |    785      788      791	794   
+    16M |    786      789      792	795   
+     ^
+     |
+     Number of colors
+
+    Find the row with the number of colors and the column with the resolution
+    and then use the number at the intersection. For example, to run at
+    1024x768 with 64k colors, use 'vga=791'
+
+    Alternately, you can specify "resolution=<mode>", where mode is:
+
+         640x480
+	 800x600
+	 1024x768
+	 1152x864
+	 1280x1024
+	 1400x1050
+	 1600x1200
+
+    and the installer will start up in graphical mode in the resolution
+    specified.
+
+
+
+More Info
+---------
+
+   For more info, goto the kickstart-list and anaconda-devel mailing lists
+hosted by Red Hat.  You can find these at:
+
+
+ anaconda-devel-list - 
+        https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/anaconda-devel-list
+
+ kickstart-list -
+        https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list
+
+<end of document>