Windows Forum

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Let's Give Linux a try.

0 helpful
5 replies

by noonan

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
I have a PII 533 128MB of Ram sitting idle. I've read and see a lot of hype regarding Linux and I want to see what it is all about. This week is slow so I have the time to play a bit. (rare!!) What exactly do I need to do to install Red Hat Linux onmy machine. I went to Red Hat's website and downloaded the two images. I have Easy CD Creator loaded on my regular machine and the images have the same icon/file ext. as an cd cdreator file. Do I just click the image and let the software burn the cdas is? Or is there something I need to do? What type of partirion do I need on the disk. Fat32? How do I actually kick off the install and get Linux up and running on that machine? 1000pts for a moderately detailed how-to here. Thanks.

5 replies

by highorbit

Most of it is fairly easy actually!

The disks should be standard ISO format and I believe the software you have will burn them if you tell it to burn the image.

The CD's you downloaded should be bootable and assuming is version 7.2 you shouldn't really have many problems with hardware support. The disks are standard and readable by MS's OS's so you can check them.

As with NT and 2000 the disk partitioning and formating is done as part of the install process, you even get a choice of applications to do it. I recommend Disk Druid which is one of the options, it's got a nice GUI and it's easy to see what's going on with the disk.

There are a slew of standard questions about keyboard layouts, mouse types, time zones and language settings.

You need a Root partition and a swap partition, but the swap space has only got to be about 500Mb, I normally give it between 500 and 1.5Gb because I'm too lazy to work out the figures for giving it exact amounts. You have to set the mountpoint for the Primary Linux partition to /. This just sets the highest directory level for the harddisk.

I don't recommend you use fdisk as a first install, it's not the standard 9x type, it's obscenely powerful and contains options for (I think)every file system know to man! But it does say experts only!

If you are feeling inclined you can set-up separate partitions of hard disks to mount under diffent levels of the file system, so maybe a disk for /usr which contains all the users homedirectories.

Cont...

by highorbit

You will run into the part about software packages, there are hundreds of these so I wouldn't do individual package selection unless you are very familiar with everything you need and want. It does however give you a standard list and you can tellit to install as a server, workstation etc. Then specify which server services you would like, DNS, Samba (File server), Web Server (Apache) etc.

You will also be asked about security levels, RH uses IPChains Firewall for it's security and the default settings are restrictive if you are using the server as a file server or DNS server etc.

It will also ask you if you would like to use X Windows or not. This gives you a GUI as opposed to standard command line. I would recommend you install this, the menu systems are quite useful.

Once installed it will boot to a login screen. You will have set-up a root password during installation.

Right, now you are onto the interesting bit!! Configuration!

This depends on exactly what you want the server to do but basically you need to get yourself familiar with the command line. Alas I don't have room to explain!

Samba configuration is under /etc/samba

The telnet service (allows you to telnet into the machine) isn't enabled by default and can be enabled under /etc/xinetd.d/telnet.

You need to learn a couple of basic vi commands. VIew is the stanard text editor for Linux / UNIX and is very powerful, but all command line, no menus...

All UNIX / Linux commands are case sensitive.

If you are using DNS then download the latest version from www.isc.org (BIND) the configuration is under /etc/named.conf and zone files are in /var/named.

Cont...

by highorbit

Anyway... this the complicated bit, and it touches on hundreds of little issues.

I suggest that you install the system then look up www.linuxhowto.org because there just isn't room to explain here!

Good luck... :-)

by noonan

I went and bought Red Hat and then installed. So far so good. I'm making progress. Thanks for the help!

This discussion is closed to new replies.