ULTRIX-32 Advanced Installation Guide

This document, the "ULTRIX-32 Advanced Installation Guide" (Order No. AA-ME86A-TE), is a technical manual published by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1987 and 1988. It is intended for experienced ULTRIX or UNIX users who wish to customize their ULTRIX-32 operating system installation beyond the basic default setup.

The guide details how to perform an "advanced installation" which allows users to:

1. Tailor Disk Partition Layout: Choose existing or default disk partition layouts, and allocate specific file systems (like /usr, swap areas, crash dump space, /usr/var, and /usr/users) to desired disk partitions. This provides flexibility for disk space utilization and potential performance improvements.
2. Select Software Subsets: Install only the necessary software components (subsets) to conserve disk space, rather than a full installation.
3. Specify Kernel Options: Add specific kernel options to the system's configuration file.

The installation process is broken down into three main phases:

• Preparation: This involves significant planning, including determining the required size for various file systems (accounting for elements like crash dumps, error logs, and selected software subsets) and filling out provided worksheets to record these decisions.
• Performance: A step-by-step procedure guiding the user through making and confirming their planned allocation choices, naming directories, initializing file systems, and selecting desired software subsets and kernel options.
• Completion: Processor-specific instructions for finalizing the installation, which includes system configuration, device special file creation, updating console boot media (for relevant VAX models), and the eventual system reboot. It also covers post-installation tasks like setting up users, devices, networks, and managing software subsets using utilities like setld.

The manual emphasizes the advantages of advanced installation, such as greater flexibility in disk allocation, the ability to save disk space by installing only needed software, and the convenience of having the installation software build a tailored kernel. It includes extensive worksheets and tables in an appendix to aid in the planning process.