Linux Installation

The balance of this discussion will be based on the Debian distribution, since that's the one I'm using. The general discussion would be applicable to any of the distributions, but when we get into specific details, you will have to look up what to do if you are using a different one.

Most of the installation will go pretty much like you are used to with Windows. However, there are more decisions to make during the process. This guide is designed to help you along. It is not a replacement for the official installation guide that comes with the distribution. Keep that guide handy, and use it.

Get out the installation guide, put the CD's in order, get the configuration information you printed handy, and get comfortable. The fun is about to begin.

Note

If you have a high-speed internet connection, select the option for a minimal install. We'll get into "why" shortly.

When the installation starts, it will detect the empty hard drive and ask if you want to use the whole thing. Double-check its selection. The installer is usually right, but you don't want it to decide to reformat the drive that has your other OS on it. Once you have it pointed at the right drive, you can proceed with partitioning. If this is your first foray into Linux, it's safe to let the installer do the automatic partitioning. This will give you a good, workable setup, although it may not be optimal. Once you have become familiar with the way Linux "thinks", you can do another installation and rearrange things to taste. (It isn't hard. I have done several installations on this machine...either to recover from something dumb I did, to change distributions, or to rearrange things to fit my own idiosyncracies.)

The installer will configure your keyboard, mouse, video, nic, and modem. Play close attention to the prompts, supply the information as needed, and in 30 minutes or so you will have a functional, basic operating system. Once you have rebooted into your new Linux system you will be ready to install the rest of your toys. What you have now is a basic system, so you will be at a command line with a login prompt. Type root and hit the Enter key. At the password prompt, type in your root password and hit Enter.

At this point, you are ready to use Debian's application management system (apt) to update and flesh out your install. If you have a high-speed internet connection, this will be a piece of cake. If you have a dial-up connection, be prepared...this is going to take awhile. Apt maintains a database on your system that contains information on the versions of all the programs you have installed, their dependencies, and the current versions of all the available packages and their dependencies. Given the pace of development in the free software world, this data will change daily, so the first thing to do is update your repository. To do this, type apt-get update. Apt will go out and update your repository with the latest package information from all of the sites listed in your sources.list. (We'll talk about this in the post-install section.)

Next, you want to make sure that everything you have installed so far is up to the latest version, because everything you install later will have dependencies on the core elements you already have. So, apt-get dist-upgrade. When it gets done, you will be ready to start loading up all the toys.

The first thing you want is to set up the x-window system and load a couple of desktop environments, so do the following, in order:

apt-get install x-window-system
apt-get install gnome
apt-get install kde

In the course of installing the x-window-system package, you will be prompted for configuration data on your video card and monitor. Make sure that you do not give specifications that are beyond the capabilities of either. Doing so can cause permanent damage to your hardware.

Once you have completed this step, you will probably want to get to a desktop and work in the more familiar environment of a gui. By default, x-windows installs with the option to boot to a graphical login. So, reboot your system to activate everything you've installed so far.

When you get to the login screen, use the userid and password you set up during the base install process. As a rule in Linux, as with any *nix, you want to spend as little time as possible working as root. Before you hit [Enter], click on the "Sessions" button. Click the radio button next to "Gnome" and then click OK. Now, go ahead and login, hitting [Enter] after you type in your userid and again after you enter your password.

Guess what? You're ready for the post-install process.