This chapter describes the software installation tools that you use to install a new version of the operating system, and to install optional software products that you received from Silicon Graphics. To install products from other vendors, please see the software installation instructions that accompany those products.
You can install software from
a CD-ROM drive that's connected either to your system or to another Silicon Graphics system on your network
a remote directory on another Silicon Graphics system or any system that supports bootp and tftp
Only the administrator can install or remove software if there is a password on the administrator (root) account.
Silicon Graphics ships two software installation tools:
Inst is a command-line tool for installing new versions of the operating system. This tool works when the system is running a small version of the operating system (the miniroot) to minimize the possibility of installation errors. You can also use this tool to install optional products that do not require miniroot installation, but Silicon Graphics recommends using the graphical Software Manager.
Software Manager is a graphical tool for installing optional products. This tool works only when the system is up and running; you start it by choosing “Software Manager” from the System toolchest.
Note: Software Manager is available on systems running IRIX release 5.3 and greater.
For more information on installing optional products, see the Software Manager online help, or choose “Online Books” from the Help toolchest, and see Chapter 4 of the online Personal System Administration Guide.
For information on installing a new version of the operating system software, see the next section in this chapter. For detailed information on using Inst, see the online Software Installation Administrator's Guide.
The administrator can install a new version of the IRIX operating system and any optional software by following these steps:
Make a full system backup. For more information, select “Online Books” from the Help toolchest and search for “Backing Up and Restoring Files” in the online Personal System Administration Guide.
If you do not have a CD drive connected directly to your system, find a CD drive on your network.
Choose “Disk Drives” from the Search For rollover menu in the Find toolchest.
In the Search window, choose “Type” from the Match menu, and choose “CD-ROM” from the menu button next to whose type is. See the online help in the Search window for details.
Click the Search button to find the drive.
When the drive's icon appears, it is labeled systemname:cdrom. systemname is the name of the system to which the drive is connected.
Note: If the search does not find a device that you know is available, choose “Online Books” from the Help toolchest and see “Troubleshooting Network Errors” in the online Personal System Administration Guide. Contact the administrator of the system to which the drive is connected, and make sure remote installations are allowed from that CD drive. For more information, select “Online Books” from the Help toolchest and search for “Allowing Remote Users to Install Software From Your CD Drive” in the online Personal System Administration Guide.
Insert the operating system CD into the drive you are going to use.
Check the full pathname of the drive.
If you're using a drive that's connected to your own system, double-click the drive's icon. The title bar shows the full pathname (for example, /CDROM); write down the pathname, because you will need it in step 7.
If you're using a remote drive, double-click its icon. A window appears in which the field labeled “Open Remote Directory” shows the full pathname of the CDROM directory (for example, /CDROM). Write down the full name, then click the Cancel button to close this window.
Read and, if you like, print all or part of the online release notes.
If you're using a drive that's connected to your own system, double-click the drive's icon, then, in the directory view window that appears, double-click the CDgrelnotes icon to view the release notes. To print all or part of the release notes, choose “Print” from the File menu.
If you're using a remote drive, double-click its icon. In the Open Remote Directory window, click the OK button, then, in the directory view window that appears, double-click the CDgrelnotes icon to view the release notes. To print all or part of the release notes, choose “Print” from the File menu.
Shut down the system, restart it, and start the software installation tool.
Choose “System Shutdown” from the System toolchest.
When you see the dialog box that says Are you sure you want to shut down the system right now, click the OK button.
You see a dialogue box that says System is Shutting Down.
When you see a dialogue box or message that says Okay to power off, click the Restart button in the dialogue box, or press any key.
When you see a dialogue box or message that says Starting up the system, click the Stop for Maintenance button, or press <Esc>.
Click the icon labeled Install System Software.
Specify the location of the new software to install.
If the CD is in a drive connected to your system, click the Local CD-ROM icon. When the notifier appears asking you to insert the CD, insert the CD in the drive, and click Continue.
If the CD is in a drive that's connected to another system on the network, click the Remote Directory icon. When a notifier appears asking you for the remote hostname, type the system's name, a colon (:), the full pathname of the CD (which you found in step 4), and add dist to the end. For example, to access a CDROM on the system mars, enter:
mars:/CDROM/dist
When the notifier appears asking you to insert the CD, insert the CD in the drive and click Continue.
Note: If you see error messages after you specify the location, see “System Cannot Find the New Software”.
When the system finds the software, it takes several minutes to copy the software installation tools onto your system. The system is ready to install software when you see the Inst menu:
1. from [source] 2. list [keywords] [names] 3. go 4. install [keywords] [names] 5. remove [keywords] [names] 6. keep [keywords] [names] 7. step [keywords] [names] 8. view [args] 9. conflicts [choice...] 10. help [topic] 11. admin 12. quit Inst>
Install all or some of the subsystems that make up the operating system and optional software.
To install all of the default subsystems, enter:
go
To install all optional and required subsystems that are available on the CD, enter:
install all
go
Note: Usually you do not want to install all subsystems, because they occupy a very large amount of disk space. See the online release notes for product sizes. To select only required subsystems or to select all required subsystems plus some optional subsystems, see “Choosing Subsystems to Install or Remove”.
If you see an error message that says the system cannot find the software, see “System Cannot Find the New Software”. If you see any other messages, see “System Cannot Complete an Installation”.
During the installation, you see several progress report messages. The installation is complete when you see this message:
Installation and removals were successful 1. Continue with the session 2. Quit now Please enter a choice [1]:
If you see any other messages, see “System Cannot Complete an Installation”.
To quit Inst, go to the next step.
To install optional software from another CD, press <Enter>. You may see several messages as Inst rebuilds its internal data files. Manually eject the CD from your CD-ROM drive by pushing the eject button; insert the next CD in the drive, then enter:
from /CDROM/dist
Go back to step 7 to install the software.
When all the software is installed, quit Inst by entering:
2
You may see several messages as Inst communicates your changes to the operating system, and configures the new kernel.
During its exit procedure, Inst may “requickstart” your machine. This process synchronizes the libraries and executables on your machine. This process can take up to 20 minutes. During this time you may see these messages:
Building one time quickstart database.
Requickstarting necessary files.
Automatically reconfiguring the operating system.The software is successfully installed and your system is ready to restart when you see this message:
Ready to restart the system. Restart? [y, n]
Type y then press <Enter>.
If you see a different message or question, see “System Reports Errors After an Installation”.
The system starts up as usual.
When the login window appears, log in to your own account.
See your release notes by choosing “release notes” from the Help toolchest, then by choosing products from the Products menu.
The release notes for each product list the directories where applications are stored on your disk so you can drag icons onto your desktop or onto a particular page of the Icon Catalog. The release notes also cover new features and known problems with the product.
When you are running Inst, you can see all the subsystems that make up the products and check whether they have been selected for installation by entering:
list
You see one or more screens of information.
To see the next screen, press the spacebar.
To stop the listing, press q; you see the Inst> prompt.
To see the Inst menu again, press ?.
To see online help, enter: help
| Note: The remainder of this chapter contains detailed examples of Inst listings and commands that apply to only the IRIX 5.3 version of Inst.If you are running an earlier or later version of Inst, please use the online help that is available by entering help at the Inst> prompt. |
list displays a key to the listing, followed by the list of available subsystems. The first three columns of the listing show
Whether the available (usually newer) version of a subsystem is selected for installation (i) or is not selected (k).
Note: If you have a version of a subsystem already installed and you would like to remove it while other software is being installed, enter remove <subsystem> at the Inst> prompt. Whether the available software is a new product that has never been installed (N), or is an upgrade to (U), is the same version as (S), or is an older version of (D) a product that is already installed. If no character appears in this column, the product has been available for installation before, but has never been installed; it is considered a "Not Installed" product.
Here are some samples of the first three columns of subsystem listings:
| i U nfs.sw.nis |
| |
| k S pfa.sw.lib |
| |
| k D insight.sw.client |
| |
| i N dmedia_tools.sw.soundtools |
| |
| systour.sw.eoe |
|
The other columns of the listing give the following information:
The name of the subsystem.
If the subsystem is required for system operation (r), is selected as a default subsystem by the manufacturer (d), and/or must be installed when the system is running the miniroot (b).
Note: Most software that is required for system operation must be installed from the miniroot, as well as some optional products. The steps in “Installing a New Version of the Operating System Software” detail a miniroot installation. How much additional disk space the subsystem will occupy (Space is measure in blocks, where 1 KB = 2 blocks.) A positive number such as +100 shows that it will take an additional 50 KB, while a negative number such as -60 shows that the new version of the subsystem is smaller than the old version and will free 30 KB.
A brief description of the subsystem.
At the end of the listing, Inst shows whether you have enough disk space to install all the subsystems that are selected for installation, including temporary overhead needed for the installation process. For more information on the products and subsystems, see the product's release notes.
You can change which subsystems are selected for installation in these ways:
To select a subsystem for installation, enter:
install subsystem
For example, when a new version of a product is available and you have an older version installed, list shows you this information:
U dmedia_tools.sw.soundtools U dmedia_tools.sw.movietools U dmedia_tools.data.prosonus
To select one subsystem for installation, enter:
install dmedia_tools.sw.soundtools
To select all subsystems of the product for installation, enter:
install dmedia_tools
list then shows this information:
i U dmedia_tools.sw.soundtools i U dmedia_tools.sw.movietools i D U dmedia_tools.data.prosonus
To prevent a new subsystem or a different version of an existing subsystem from being installed, enter:
keep subsystem
For example, when a large, new subsystem that you do not want to install is selected for installation, list shows this information:
i N dmedia_tools.data.prosonus
To prevent Inst from installing it, enter:
keep dmedia_tools.data.prosonus
list then shows this information:
N dmedia_tools.data.prosonus
To remove a subsystem that is currently installed, and to prevent a new version from being installed in its place, enter:
remove <subsystem>
For example, when a subsystem is already installed and a newer version is available, list shows this information:
i U dmedia_tools.data.prosonus
To remove the current version and prevent Inst from installing the new version, enter:
remove dmedia_tools.data.prosonus
list then shows this information:
U dmedia_tools.data.prosonus
When you have made your choices, start the installation. At the Inst> prompt, enter:
go
This section covers the three most common problems that may arise during software installation. See the section that describes the problem you have encountered:
For comprehensive troubleshooting information, see the online Software Installation Administrator's Guide.
The system cannot find the software when
There is no CD in a drive that you specified.
The remote CD drive that you specified is not enabled for remote software installation. Contact the administrator of the system to which the drive is connected, and make sure remote installations are allowed from that CD drive. For more information, select “Online Books” from the Help toolchest and search for “Allowing Remote Users to Install Software From Your CD Drive” in the online Personal System Administration Guide.
Your system cannot contact the system on the network that has the software. Select “Online Books” from the Help toolchest and search for “Troubleshooting General Network Errors” in the online Personal System Administration Guide.
You entered an incorrect directory name.
This typically happens when you are installing from a remote CD drive, and the drive is not accessible from (is not mounted at) the /CDROM directory. Choose “Disk Drives” from the Find toolchest to find the drive, insert the CD into the drive, then double-click it to see the directory from which you can access it.
Also, be sure to complete the full pathname with dist, which is the name of the directory on the CD in which the software is stored. For example, the full pathname for new software on a CD whose pathname is /drives/cdrom on a system named mars typically is mars:/drives/cdrom/dist.
Typically the system cannot complete an installation if
There is not enough disk space to install all the products you selected for installation. In this case, you could
Select fewer subsystems to install (see “Choosing Subsystems to Install or Remove”).
Remove subsystems that are already installed (see “Choosing Subsystems to Install or Remove”).
Quit Inst and remove or archive files or directories if your system is up and running (that is, if it is not doing a miniroot installation such as installing new system software), For more information, select “Online Books” from the Help toolchest, and see “Freeing Up Disk Space” in the online Personal System Administration Guide.
You need to install companion or prerequisite subsystems, or you have chosen to remove subsystems that are prerequisites for subsystems that are already installed or are selected for installation. In this case, you may see this error message:
ERROR: Conflicts must be resolved.
After this message, Inst lists each subsystem that is causing a conflict, and presents options for resolving the conflict. Read the description of each conflict and its resolution options, then choose an option using these guidelines:
When you have selected an optional product that is incompatible with the rest of the operating system, do not install it.
When you have selected incompatible products, choose to install the newer version of a product.
When the system is missing a prerequisite product or subsystem, choose to install the prerequisite.
Each option is numbered; for example, option 1 for the first conflict is numbered 1a; option 2 for the same conflict is 1b. You can choose only one option per conflict. (For more information, or if your system is not running the IRIX 5.3 release, enter help conflicts.) To choose option 1a, at the Inst> prompt enter:
conflicts 1a
If you have several conflicts, you can enter your choices all at once. For example, to choose 1a, 2b, and 3b, enter
conflicts 1a 2b 3b
When all conflicts are resolved, you see this message:
No conflicts
To resume the installation, enter
go
If the system reports errors after an installation is complete, read the error message carefully, and follow its instructions. The message suggests that you type help <topic> for online instructions.
 | Warning: If the errors occur after you install new system software, do not turn off the system or press the Reset button. This could result in a system that cannot restart. |
If you cannot solve the problem using the online help, contact your local support organization.