Installation How To VistA/GT.M coLinux

deprecated, at least for now, in favor of QEMU
c.f. Using the VistA Appliance



Quickstart coLinux

 * 1. The coLinux Wiki has adequate instructions. I will try to guide GT.M/VistA users to the most straight-forward route to a successful installation. There are many alternative Configurations possible, some more problematic than others.


 * 2. CoLinux is delivered as a self-installing executable. We can either:
 * a. Download coLinux-stable from sourceforge.
 * (The current version as of this writing is 0.6.2-linux-2.6.10 found at: http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=302431 )
 * or: (better)
 * b. Obtain a more recent snapshot of the current testing version from the coLinux wiki itself at http://www.colinux.org/snapshots/  I am working with the snapshot of version 0.6.3-pre13.
 * Note: this gets us stable-coLinux-20050524.exe which produces a specially patched kernel-2.6.11.


 * 3. The coLinux install can be anywhere on our XP machine. I have chosen to keep everything under C:\vfc\colinux . I will bold "C:\vfc\colinux"  wherever a substitution should be made to use some other root directory.
 * Run the colinux.exe to get this installation dialog:


 * I suggest selecting all four of these components unless this is not a virgin install. This saves some manual labor and potential confusion.
 * [[Image:Destination_folder.jpg|left|C:\vfc\coLinux]]


 * Everything goes into our chosen directory:




 * The next decision point is whether to download a root filesystem image.
 * I use the debian default:



   root=/dev/cobd0  

4.With this much done, we should be able to boot coLinux.

I start inside the Command Prompt because it helps with debugging. We go to our colinux directory:

C:\>cd c:\vfc\colinux

C:\vfc\colinux>colinux-daemon.exe –c default.colinux.xml

Hang on! Here comes debian!



a.Root’s password is “root” b.#df –h shows the partition /dev/codb0 is 14% used with 827Meg available. c.Debian linux is all there and running. d.#halt or #reboot exits the system. 5.Now we can make a colinux.default.bat file to boot the system. There is an option to use an nt console: Colinux-demon.exe –c default.colinux.xml –t nt

6.Networking: Now this is a whole special topic all its own. It is complex because the host XP operating system must own all the hardware devices. The hardware network interface is shared via a virtual connection from a phony NIC owned by coLinux. There are a couple of methods for accomplishing the link. In the end we should have a connection from within Linux that reaches the Internet via this virtual link.

Lots more to be added here :-)


Network_configure



With the network interface up and running we have much nicer interface using putty. And it works from anywhere on our LAN, of course.

--gra'pa Z 08:36, 26 Aug 2005 (CDT)