A.1. Booting the installer

A.1. Booting the installer
	Appendix A. Installation Howto

For more information on where to get CDs, see Section 4.1, “Official Ubuntu CD-ROMs”.

The installation on s390x requires at least an installer kernel and initrd file. This is usually be taken from the Official Ubuntu CD-ROM image (see the ./boot folder) or can be directly downloaded from the Ubuntu archive page - either the version from main or (if available) a version from the updates pocket.

The easiest way is probably to download the (CDROM) image, because the files most people need are there on the image.

The subsections below will give the details about which image(s) you should get for each possible means of installation.

A.1.1. Booting from CDROM

First of all download the image for your architecture and burn it to a CD/DVD.

In case you are going to do an installation on s390x from CD/DVD-ROM, put the CD/DVD into the HMC's CD/DVD drive and execute the HMC task Load from Removable Media or Server for the installation and select Hardware Management Console CD/DVD-ROM....

The installation from a USB drive on s390x is very similar (and not comparable to other architectures). In such a case just copy the image to a USB drive, plug it into the HMC, execute the HMC task Load from Removable Media or Server and select Hardware Management Console USB flash memory drive... - keep in mind that the USB drive needs to be already inserted before you execute the task, otherwise the USB drive option(s) are not listed.

A.1.2. Booting from network

It's also possible to boot the Ubuntu installer completely from the net. The various methods to netboot depend on your architecture and netboot setup.

Booting the installer from network is on the s390x platform quite flexible and convinient, hence the recommended way. But some initial steps are required. The CD/DVD image needs to be extracted and made available via FTP. It's crucial that the FTP server itself is reachable by the HMC, the SE and the LPAR or z/VM guest to be installed. A dedicated network is usually setup just for this purpose. Once this infrastructure is in place the booting of the installer from FTP can be started with the execution of the HMC task Load from Removable Media or Server, selecting FTP Source and specifying Host Computer (usually specified by IP address), User ID, Password, Account (optional) and File location (optional). Anonymous FTP is possible, too.

A.1.3. Booting from CMS disk (z/VM)

On z/VM the usual way to boot the installer is to use the (virtual) puncher. At least the files initrd.ubuntu and kernel.ubuntu are needed. These files need to be carefully transfered to a z/VM CMS disk using mode binary / bin and the FTP option locsite fix 80.

It's recommended to download parmfile.ubuntu and ubuntu.exec as well, but using ascii mode.

Properly transfered to CMS, the installation files can be booted by just executing the ubuntu.exec REXX script. Alternatively you can also execute the steps from the script manually.

/* REXX EXEC TO IPL Ubuntu for        */
/* z Systems FROM THE VM READER.      */
/*                                    */
'CP CLOSE RDR'
'PURGE RDR ALL'
'SPOOL PUNCH * RDR'
'PUNCH KERNEL    UBUNTU   * (NOHEADER'
'PUNCH PARMFILE  UBUNTU   * (NOHEADER'
'PUNCH INITRD    UBUNTU   * (NOHEADER'
'CHANGE RDR ALL KEEP NOHOLD'
'CP IPL 000C CLEAR'