There is an ISO auto installer available!!!!

We strongly recommend that you use the ISO rather than follow this tutorial, the ISO installs Centos 4 and a 2.6 kernel rather than Centos 3 and a 2.4 kernel.

There are many additional modules and packages that are available to enhance BlueQuartz. However, most of these will only work with Centos 4

This page has been left here for prosperity.

Please see more details of the Strongbolt installation disk here

Do you have an Intel ROM? well it is possible to flash it using the right flashtool. The
ROM flashtool that is available on Tim Hockin's website is reported to successfully flash the ROM :)

ALSO: if you choose to flash the ROM using a serial console (recommended) this will also successfully flash the
Intel ROM (tested successfully several times). Please look here for more details here

Be sure to look at the pre-install ROM checklist here

Advanced users can see an advanced ROM flashing method here

Step 1 - Base Install

Install centos 3.6 on an old i386 with the absolute minimum amount of packages. Do not install a boot loader.

When prompted for to make partitions, we recommend the following partition scheme:

A root partition "/" (of 1500 - 2000 MB)
A var partition "/var" (of 1500 - 2000MB)
A swap partition (the same as your physical RAM i.e.: 512mb)
A home partition "/home" (remaining space)

If you choose to install RAID, now would be a good time to set it up. I prefer to have the 2 drives plugged in at this stage, and configure raid using disk druid.

Upon completion of this, PUT DISK1 BACK IN AND REBOOT

Step 2 - Getting ready for the RaQ

Boot the old i386 into Linux rescue, using centos 3.6 disk1

Whilst in rescue mode, chroot to the installed root.

#chroot /mnt/sysimage

Remove the previously installed modules.

# rm /etc/modules.conf

Make a temporary CDROM mounting drive:
# mkdir /mnt/tmp
# mount the CDROM using:
# mount /dev/hdd /mnt/tmp
# cd /mnt/tmp/RedHat/RPMS

Replace the i686 C Libraries with i386 ones.
# rpm -i --force glibc-*.i386.rpm
# rm -Rf /lib/i686

Now the same for OpenSSL
# rpm -i --force openssl-*.i386.rpm

You can put the files that you need for this stage on a USB stick, or download them. Centos install disk 'Linux rescue' does recognise most USB storage.
Alternatively you could enable the network and download the files you need from: http://www.osoffice.co.uk/linux/strongbolt-centos3/

Unmount the CDROM and mount the USB stick.
# cd ~
# umount /mnt/tmp
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/tmp
# cd /mnt/tmp

Install the panel LCD programs available here
# rpm -i panel*.rpm

Get your kernel installed, I have one available.
If you choose to use the kernel I built it is available here..

Copy the kernel over
mv vmlinux.bz2 /boot/

Get the kernel modules in place. I have a tar.gz file here

Make the directory for the kernel modules:
#mkdir /lib/modules/2.4.25

Extract the modules.tar.gz /lib/modules/2.4.25/
tar -xvzf modules.tar.gz -C /lib/modules/2.4.25/

Take out the virtual consoles
# vi /etc/inittab

you can remove or comment out the following lines:

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6

Make the LCD device file. The correct way is:
mknod /dev/lcd c 10 156

Make the locks directory for LCD panel

#mkdir /etc/locks

You have now finished with this stage. You can power down the pc, and take the drives out.

Step 3 - Booting the New operating system.

Put the drives in the raq, and connect your null modem cable.
upon boot, let kudzu configure devices. Kudzu will also add the correct parameters to make your serial console work.

kudzu will prompt you to configure your network details. If you put in the wrong details, you can change them by editing the following file.

The network config file

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

This file should contain something like this :

DEVICE=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=static
IPADDR=192.168.0.5
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.0.1
Restart the network:

If you have had to edit this file, be sure to restart network services.

#service network restart

Yum needs to have the GPG key installed in order to update. I prefer to update things before installing BlueQuartz. If you get an error, this usually means that you have configured your network incorrectly.

#rpm -import http://mirror.centos.org/centos-3/3.6/os/i386/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-3

#yum -y update

Remove un-needed services

#chkconfig --del cups
#chkconfig --del isdn
#chkconfig --del pcmcia
#chkconfig --del kudzu

Step 4 - Installing BlueQuartz

BlueQuartz requires several RPMS to be installed before it can install;

#yum install php bind-chroot openssh telnet-server expect net-snmp perl-DB_File ntp perl-URI

Its worth having a look at the BlueQuartz website http://bluequartz.org/

Also, check to see whether or not there is an updated version of BQ, then download the setup files.

#wget http://bluequartz.org/pub/BlueQuartz/5100R/CentOS3/tgz/BlueQuartz-5100R-CentOS3-i386-2006011501.tar.gz
or if the bq servers are a bit slow, try our mirror:
# wget http://www.osoffice.co.uk/linux/strongbolt-centos3/BlueQuartz-5100R-CentOS3-i386-2006011501.tar.gz
#tar -xvzf BlueQuartz-5100R-CentOS3-i386-2006011501.tar.gz
#cd BlueQuartz-5100R-CentOS3-i386-2006011501
#./install.sh

Enjoy your new Strongbolt server

Please share your user experience and join the forum! I am sure that you will find it beneficial!

http://www.osoffice.co.uk/forum/

Additional setup Notes:

Step 5

Remove modules that cause chatter in the logs.
#echo 'alias char-major-10-224 off' >> /etc/modules.conf
#echo 'alias char-major-4 off' >> /etc/modules.conf
#echo 'alias char-major-6 off' >> /etc/modules.conf
#echo 'alias hid off' >> /etc/modules.conf
#echo 'alias keybdev off' >> /etc/modules.conf
#echo 'alias mousedev off' >> /etc/modules.conf

#yum install mysql-server mysql php-mysql squirrelmail
#service mysqld start
#chkconfig --add mysqld
#chkconfig --levels 345 mysqld on
#cd /home
#wget http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/phpmyadmin/phpMyAdmin-2.7.0-pl2.tar.gz
#tar -xvzf phpMyAdmin-2.7.0-pl2.tar.gz
#mv phpMyAdmin-2.7.0-pl2 phpmyadmin
#echo 'Alias /phpmyadmin /home/phpmyadmin' > /etc/httpd/conf.d/phpmyadmin.conf

Create the PHPMyAdmin config file:

vi /home/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php

PHPMyAdmin has changed, for older versions, use this:

<?php
$cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri_DisableWarning'] = TRUE;
$cfg['PmaNoRelation_DisableWarning'] = FALSE;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = localhost;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['port'] = '';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['socket'] = '';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type'] = 'tcp';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['compress'] = FALSE;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['controluser'] = '';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['controlpass'] = '';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'cookie';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = '';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = '';
$cfg['blowfish_secret'] = 'insertsecrethere';
?>

For newer versions use this:

<?php
$i = 0;
$i++;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'localhost';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension'] = 'mysql';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type'] = 'tcp';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['compress'] = false;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'cookie';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = '';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = '';
$cfg['blowfish_secret'] = 'osoffice';
?>