6. Installing Linux

So now I can consider that you decided on a Linux distro, have it available on CD, and you also verified that your hardware is compatible or if not then have taken the appropriate action to avoid any problems. If you decided on an FTP install then please refer to the source site for installation instructions. **Remember that you should always back up any data before performing any major changes to your computer**

Now this can be either very hard or very easy. Most major distributions provide a bootable CD, in other words this means that all you have to do is put the CD in you CD-ROM drive an boot in to it. Most the time you will have to enable "CD booting" from your BIOS to do so (you will have to check your Motherboard manufacturer to find out how to do that since many Mainboards have different ways in enabling it) If your CD-ROM is not bootable or the distribution you picked does not provide bootable CDs, you can create or download bootable Floppy disks. This will allow you to boot from an 1 1/2" floppy disk and then specify the install source from a CD. Once you're successful in booted in to the Linux setup program you will have a choice to pick what kind of setup interface you want to run (graphical, text, rescue mode) …go with the graphical mode. From there you will be able to configure your system to completely install Linux. Every Linux distribution has a different way of installing but all settings are bound to the same concept. Bellow you have the list of all the necessary steps that will be required to get Linux installed but not necessarily in the same order.

Basic Settings

Usually first you will be asked to select some general regional settings as well as you keyboard and mouse configuration. You also will have some other self-explanatory questions.

Setting up you Hard Disk

You will be required to properly partition you Hard drive to host Linux. It is recommended to leave this setting as default (let the computer figure it out what to do.) If you don't want the computer to partition your HD automatically you will have an option to do it yourself. If so, you need to create 3 partitions.

-Set the first one as the boot partition, usually 20 to 60 MBs in size. This space will host your boot loader like LiLO or Grub with all the necessary components to load Linux, like the kernel for example. You also will be able to specify other Operating Systems you want to boot in to, but that is after Linux has been installation.

-Second needs to be a Swap partition, this space is for swapping RAM, similar to virtual memory in M$ Windowz. This space has to be double of your current RAM so if you have 512 of RAM make your swap 1024 MBs.

-The third partition will be your root partition, this is like your "C" drive in Windowz but in Linux it is marked as "/" (forward slash) Make this partition at least 4 gigs in order to have additional space for games or other software for your enjoyment.

There are multiple tools available to get your Hard Drive partitioned manually. One of them is fdisk which works pretty good, and also you can try Partition Druid. If you have M$ Windows installed you can use Partition Magic to do so before booting in to your Linux installation CD.

Setting up the Kernel

This part is very important but usually you don't have to do much to it. This is where you will load all the appropriate drivers and modules for you kernel, but fortunately most major Linux Distributions will auto detect all you hardware and set it up for you, this way the headache is gone. Still, it is a good idea to go over all the configurations and make sure everything has been detected properly. Here is a list of devices that are most often not detected correctly or not detected at all:

-Network Interface Card: If you want network access, make sure the NIC was detected correctly, if not you will have to check with the manufacturer of your card to see what kind of chipset your card has in order to select the correct one.

-CD-RW/ DVD: if you have an older DVD drive or a CD-R drive, it might be detected as a CD-ROM only.
-Sound Card: if you have an built in OEM sound card (like the ones built in the mainboard) it might require specific driver to be selected or an generic type of sound card emulation to be installed.

If you are unsure what type of hardware you have or if the all proper devices ware detected by your Linux system, don't worry... you can change or install additional drivers at a later time.

NIC setup

If your Network card has been properly installed, you will be prompted to setup it up. You will be asked what kind of connection you have:

- If you don't use your NIC just keep the default settings
- For a LAN or High-Speed Cable connection set it via DHCP and 'Activate' on Startup.
- For DSL (pppoe) select manual configuration, disable 'activation at boot' and specify you localhost (127.0.0.1) as your IP... keep the other settings as default. (you still will have to install a pppoe clinet to get your connection working)

Packages Setup

This is where you will decide on what exactly you want your linux system to have. Many Linux Distros offer thousands of different software packages for your convenience. If you're new it might be wise to install everything so you have something to experiment with. But be aware that this might take up a few gigs of space. If you only have limited space, lets say 2 gigs, then only go with the basic install and make sure you include X WIndow as part of your packages with a desktop like KDE or Gnome. Don't worry about not installing something important because whatever it is, it can always be installed at a later time.

X Window Setup

X Window is the GUI for Linux which will allow you to run a pretty desktop manager (similar to what M$ windows is based on) This is probably a very important aspect for newcomers to Linux because it creates an easy way of navigating thru your Linux system and allows you to learn Linux quicker and easier. When setting up X Window you will be asked to select you monitor and your video card. The Monitor will be automatically probed and detected most of the time, if your monitor does not get successfully detected you will have an option to select it manually or specify the appropriate vertical and horizontal sync. You can get that info from your monitor's manual or the manufacturer's web site.
Most video cards will be properly detected as well. Best cards recommended for Linux are with the Nvidia chipset. Nvidia.com makes awesome drivers for Linux which will all allow you to blaze thru many desktop managers as well as OpenGL based games. Again, if you Video Card is not detected you will have a chance to pick one out of a huge list. If there is none, you can skip X Window configuration all together, get the drivers, and re-run X configuration after your video card has been properly installed.

Root and User Accounts

You will defiantly get a screen asking you to enter a root password. Root is an account that has full administrative access to you computer, no limits, no boundaries. It is important to remember the password for the root account cuz if you don't a re-install of Linux will be required. In addition to root you should and it's highly recommended to create a regular user account. This account can be anything you want, it will be used for your day to day activities like playing games and writing papers for work or school. You can change this account or add new ones at later time as well.

7. Dual boot with M$ Windows

If you have M$ Windows on your computer chances are that it was detected by the Linux installation program and was added to the boot config file for the boot loader. The only distribution that I found which didn't add Windows to it's Master Loader was Red Hat. Fallow these steps if your using Grub or LiLO:

You will have to use and editor like 'vi' to manually edit your boot loader config file and add appropriate entries in there. If you are using a Graphical interface then you can use a simple text editor.

Grub Instructions

Edit the file /boot/grub/grub.config' by typing vi grub.config from there add this to the last la

title Windows XP/2k/98
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1
makeactive
boot

The (hd0,1) indicates the drive and partition that windows is on. In this example the '0' is the drive number (primary drive is 0 then goes on with 1,2,3 …etc ) and the '1' indicates the partition on the drive (also starts with 0, meaning first partition.) So in other words (hd0,1) is the first hard drive and second partition.
A good site for more info is http://www.mcc.ac.uk/grub/grub_4.html

To add Boot entries for LILO visit these sites for more information:

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Multiboot-with-LILO-1.html

http://www.littlewhitedog.com/reviews_other_00011.asp

That usually will be it. If your unlucky then you probably got some nasty error message or run in to a strange problem while installing. Most of people should have had a smooth installation process. Now, if you did run it to a few problems check the Troubleshooting section for more info.