redhat-cd-install.html

Linus guide, Linus guide, Linus guide,

and their type on your hard drive. If all this is done, then type
<TT>w</TT> to write to the partition table and exit.</P>

<P>You will find yourself at the screen you were last in, so press enter
on &quot;Done&quot; or &quot;Okay&quot; since you already edited the
partition tables for Linux. If you have an older, slower computer, it
might take Linux a while to &quot;initialize the swap space&quot; (which
it is really just &quot;formatting&quot; it, really). Just sit back and
wait, and/or do something else while it does this.</P>

<!-- This section created on February 5, 1999 -->

<A NAME="splitdrive"></A>
<H4><A NAME="8">Splitting Your Hard Drive</A></H4>

<P>In case you still want to keep your old DOS/Windows partition, you must
resize it. The tool I prefer to use is the fdisk utility in Red Hat
installation (though DiskDruid is available for you). I go about it by
&quot;deleting&quot; the DOS/Windows partition in Linux fdisk (during Red
Hat installation). (Note that it does not really get deleted right at the
moment when you choose to delete it.) Next, I re-create it, only smaller,
so it takes up only however much of the drive that I want. When doing
this, be sure to make it big enough so that it will at least hold your
existing data, so none of it gets damaged or lost.</P>

<P>After re-creating the DOS/Windows partition in a smaller size, be sure
that you tag it properly. Then, create your Linux partition(s) (tagged as
Linux native) and your swap space (tagged as Linux swap).</P>

<A NAME="softwareinstall"></A>
<H4><A NAME="9">Software Installation</A></H4>

<P>When Linux installation is finished setting up swap space, it will ask
you what programs to install. Choose what you're interested in, modify
what is about to be installed, and proceed. It might take a long time if
you have an older computer. You can easily manually select what packages
you want to install through the menu that Red Hat installation provides,
or choose to install everything (I think by checking off the box at the
bottom).</P>

<P>If you want to be able to build programs on your system from their 
source code (compiling), or get into programming sometime, be sure to 
install the development packages. I would also suggest installing the 
networking packages. It's safe to install all the packages, but if you're 
short on hard drive space just choose the packages that you don't think 
you'll need, and if you need them later, you can install them 
separately.</P>

<A NAME="lilo"></A>
<H4><A NAME="10">Installing LILO, the Bootloader</A></H4>

<P>When the programs are done installing, write the Master Boot Record to
<TT>/dev/hda</TT> (<TT>/dev/sda</TT> if you have a SCSI system.. if you
don't know what I'm talking about then don't worry about it, just use
/dev/hda). You want to do this at sector 0 (the beginning of the HD) 
because there's where the BIOS on your computer looks on your hard drive
to boot up (if you want to use some other bootloader, that's fine, but
LILO is really the only one I know how to use).</P>

<A NAME="startlinux"></A>
<H3><A NAME="11">Starting Linux</A></H3>

<P>When Linux prompts you that installation is complete, just reboot with
no floppies in your floppy drive(s). When the screen says <TT>LILO
boot:</TT>, type <TT>Linux</TT> (doesn't matter what is capitalized), and
Linux will start up. If you don't do anything, LILO will just load what is
on the first partition on your hard drive. You can later configure it so
that it will load something else on default. To do that, refer to <A
HREF="linux-fdisk.html">the fdisk section</A> of the guide.</P>

<P>Now, when it's time for you to login, your username will be
<TT>root</TT>, and you use the password that you typed in during install. 
Your Linux adventure/struggle begins.</P>

<A NAME="jumpingpoints"></A>
<H3><A NAME="12">Jumping Points</A></H3>

<P>If you don't know what to do now, there's plenty! You can get your
graphical interface set up, you can get connected to the Internet, and
learn some Linux commands. And that's just the beginning. There are more
pages in this guide to keep you occupied for a while. :-)</P>

<OL>
<LI><A HREF="linux-mount.html">Accessing Your Floppy Drive, CD-ROM Drive, and Other Partitions</A></LI>
<LI><A HREF="linux-X-config.html">Configuring X</A></LI>
<LI><A HREF="linux-software-install.html">Installing Software Packages</A></LI>
<LI><A HREF="linux-commands.html">Linux Commands</A></LI>
<LI><A HREF="linux-ppp.html">Setting Up a Dialup PPP Connection</A></LI>
</OL>

<P>You should also check for updates to Red Hat at <A
HREF="http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/errata.html" 
TARGET="_top">http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/errata.html</A>.  
These should plug up security holes and fix bugs that might have been in
the software packages. To install these, read the quick guide on <A
HREF="linux-rpm-usage.html">using RPM</A>.</P>

<A NAME="notes"></A>
<H3><A NAME="13">Author's Notes</A></H3>

<P>When you use the Linux fdisk (<TT>FIPS.EXE</TT> in <TT>\DOSUTILS\</TT>
on the Red Hat CD-ROM, I think) to partition your hard drive, it will
retain all the data that is already on your MS-DOS FAT partition, provided
that your hard drive is not overly fragmented. When you do a <TT>dir</TT>
command in DOS, however, it will show its size before it was
repartitioned, so DOS/Windows will think that your partition was never
modified in the first place.</P>

<P>If you already know quite a bit about Linux and want to create separate
partitions that are to be mounted for each root filesystem, I would
suggest that you make <TT>/usr/</TT> the largest partition. More
information on modifying your partitions is available in <A
HREF="linux-fdisk.html">the fdisk section</A> of the guide. That guide is
useful especially for changing your Linux filesystem after you get Linux
up and running.</P>

<A NAME="comments"></A>
<H3><A NAME="14">Comments</A></H3>

<PRE>
Fips.exe _definitely_ needs a defragged drive to work. fips won't
chop off space that contains files. This could be an issue when one is
running Norton Utilities which puts rescue information at the very last
cluster of the DOS partition, even after defragging (which would normally
gather all files at the beginning.). Also, one needs PartitionMagic to do
this kind of work on a FAT32 disk, as they come with win95b.

Mans Axel Nilsson              Sound Engineer
http://hem.passagen.se/mansaxel
</PRE>

<P><A HREF="mailto:[e-mail]">Shawn Ormond</A> wrote about his
MetroX problem during installation. MetroX, as far as I know, is only in
the offical Red Hat distribution, not the 2 dollar CheapBytes version. 
But here it is anyway:</P>

<PRE>
Well, I fixed the problem....Maybe you might wanna make a note of this
in your manual or something....I don't know, but the solution was
kinda weird....On Red Hat Linux 5, the installation, gives you an
option of installing MetroX.  Well, I usually installed it, whenever I
reinstalled it. (I installed it for the 15th time today :c) ) Well,
this time I didn't.  Let everything run its course.  And there we go,
I got full color.  I don't know exactly why it did that, maybe a
conflict between MetroX and the regular X-Windows thingy....I dunno,
but from what I understand MetroX has to do with X-Windows.  Anyway,
thanks for responding to my email, I appreciated it.

                                                        Sincerely,
                                                        Shawn Ormond
</PRE>

<P>That's a lesson to be learned... if XFree86 supports your card, there's
no need for MetroX. More information on configuring X or whatnot is
through another document I wrote, <A
HREF="linux-X-config.html">Configuring and Troubleshooting X</A>. However,
that doesn't list what video cards XFree86 supports; you might want to try
<A HREF="http://www.xfree86.org" TARGET="_top">http://www.xfree86.org</A>
or one of its mirror sites.</P>

<A NAME="summary"></A>
<H3><A NAME="15">Summary</A></H3>
<UL>
<LI>Partition your hard drive with DOS's <TT>FDISK</TT> and make sure you leave room for other partitions.</LI>
<LI>Format your hard drive in DOS.</LI>
<LI>Insert a boot disk rawritten with <TT>boot.img</TT>.</LI>
<LI>Run the installation.</LI>
<LI>Make a primary Linux partition, then extended, and then logical. (The last two are for the swap space.)</LI>
<LI>Tag your partitions.</LI>
<LI>Reboot and at the &quot; LILO boot: &quot; prompt, type Linux.</LI>
<LI>Login as &quot;<TT>root</TT>&quot; and enter the password that you set.</LI>
</UL>

<HR>

<P>Send a <A HREF="mailto:[e-mail]">plea for help</A> if
you encounter problems, but only after reading through this
carefully. You can also make use of the <A HREF="help.html">help
form</A>. Ask other people for help as well, if you get stuck, and if
you figure it out and I haven't responded yet, drop me a line to say
that you've figured it out.</P>

<HR>

<P><B><FONT SIZE="-1">Copyright &copy; 1997-2000 <A
HREF="mailto:[e-mail]">Joshua Go ([e-mail])</A>. All rights
reserved. Permission to use, distribute, and copy this document is
hereby granted. You may modify this document as long as credit to me
is given.</FONT></B></P>

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