Bh.P.S.RAJU (System Administrator) Pragati Engineering College
Bh.P.S.RAJU (System Administrator) Pragati Engineering College
0 Installation Guide
Bh.P.S.RAJU(System Administrator)
Linux still lags behind windows in the hardware support. Hence, if some
sophisticated devices are not recognized, hope that they will be supported in near
future, depending on the popularity of these devices. Linux supports almost all
devices now a days including USB devices such as digital camaras, webcams, printers,
external drives etc. but only limited models.
Don't get frustrated in the first instance. You will enjoy crash-less operation and
(http://www.linux.org/hardware/index.html).
You loaded Linux to enjoy the freedom and coming out of the clutches of propriotary
software. knowing all this ... So be cool if something is not working immediately.
Consult the Gurus and web sites before finally withdraw from using it, in case of
absolute must.
Start Installation with CD-1/3 of RH 9. The User is expected to have the basic knowledge of Drives,
BIOS Setup, Selecting an Item with Mouse etc..
Make sure that the
boot drive is
CDROM. If not, set
the BIOS options
Insert RH 9 CD-1 in
the drive and restart
the machine
This gives you the
boot: prompt
Press <Enter> to
start graphic
Installation
Click Next on the
welcome screen
You can read the
Release notes during
the installation by
clicking it
Select a language (English is Default) and click next
Select Keyboard (US Keyboard is default and OK normally) and Click Next
Select Mouse (default mouse is normally OK) and click next
Select Custom Installation (click the radio button). If you have an existing Linux version, it
also shows Upgrade Option. In that case you can select that for upgrade. Click next
Select Manually Partition with Disk Druid and Click Next
The Hard Disk Drive (HDD) and Partitions
• The hard Disk is the storage space for a computer. This can be split logically into various partitions.
• Each partition can be of any type like FAT32, NTFS, EXT2, EXT3, HPFS and so on..
• If you plan to have more than one operating systems on the same machine, the disk should be
logically partitioned first, before installation.
• The first sector of the disk is a special sector called the boot sector, which records the information
about the various partitions and the operating systems on the disk.
• If you are planning to have Windows and Linux, then install Windows first. Otherwise, windows erases
the Linux installation by overwriting the boot sector.
• During the windows installation, it asks for the partition information. Be careful to answer properly to
set aside certain space unallocated for windows (allocate all space for one partition).
• If you have already allocated all space for windows, use disk de-fragmentation tool to collect all the
free space at the end and you can use a program called FIPS to create a new partition from the existing
partition. But be careful to take a backup before venture. Get ready with one or two new floppies to
have undo of FIPS.
• Install Windows as usual. It is out of the scope of this document.
• In a typical case of about 40GB Hard disk, the partition strategy can be
• Windows C: Windows D: Linux boot Linux root Linux Var Linux Swap Linux home (user
data)
• 10GB (hda1), 15GB (hda2), 120MB (hda3), 8GB (hda4), 4GB (hda5), 600MB (swap), Remaining (hda6)
• Please note that the partition numbers may not be the same, since some partitions will be reserved by
the partition program itself, for example, hda4 may not be available, but it may the aggregation of hda5
and hda6. In this case we simply don’t use the partition hda4 but use hda5 and hda6.
Disk Partitions, Drive Names & Recommended Partitions
Disk Druid is a partition and configuration Tool for the hard disks.
It shows all the partitions if the disk is already partitioned including free space available.
If you have windows partitions, these are also shown and you can select a mount point (directory
name) for the partitions, so that you can access them from Linux.
The Hard Disks are named as
Primary master: 'hda', Primary slave: 'hdb', Secondary master = 'hdc', Slave = 'hdd'
(If you have one hard disk and a cdrom, most likely HDD = had and CDD = hdb)
Within hda, the partitions are named sequentially as hda1, hda2 and so on
Consider hda1 , and hda2 are windows C: and D: (primary and extended partitions of Windows)
and we have a free space of 10 GB at least for Linux.
●This opens a dialog box as shown in the figure shown in next slide.
●Ensure that the “leave Unchanged (Preserve data)” is selected (default) and Click Ok
●Do the same for all the existing partitions, selecting the proper mount point
●Select proper mount point from the list menu (or) directly enter the path
●You must specify the root directory at least (/). Though others can be mounted later it
●Select ext3 for file system type for all the types.
●If you have more than one hard disk, choose the drive you wish to allocate space
●Select Fixed size for all but the last partition, normally the swap, for which we will
allocate all the remaining space in that hard disk by selecting “fill to maximum
allowable space” button.
●Click OK
●Create all partitions like this. If necessary, delete a partition and re-create
Create all the partitions and ensure that mount points are set to all the partitions
including the windows partitions. Swap will not have mount point
Partitioning with Disk Druid – See the explanation given
Review the Partition information and click Next
If you have Windows also, Select a default OS. You can edit the label if required.
Leave the other Fields unchanged. Click Next
Network Configuration
After the Linux System started for the first time, it checks the configuration and
setting of the desktop.
It asks for other disks if you have (like Documentation etc.). If you have
documentation CD insert it in the drive and continue. Otherwise simply skip the
steps. This brings the Linux machine into usable mode.
Normally you shouldn't have any trouble loading the OS. In case of failure, consult
any book on Redhat Linux (There are a number of wonderful books in the market.
Redhat Linux 9 Bible is one such book with 3 CD set).