Tutorials > How to Install Linux

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#274009 by unknown[902] at 2005-07-01 13:33:50 (8 years ago) - [Report]

This tutorial should help you to install Linux, no matter how 'noob' you may be. The specific distribution used will be Mandriva, for now. Another distribution is Ubuntu: http://torrentbytes.net/forum_viewtopic … ge=p274070

I think that as you learn more about Linux, you'll realize it's about much more than just security. As you use linux and get used to it, you discover many new ways of doing things that are much easier/nicer than what you've been doing in Windows, and you also get a chance to learn more about how computers and Operating Systems work. Not to sound dorky, but it's an experience that'll stick with you for the rest of your computer-loving life, and even if you end up going back to Windows, it will have improved your perspective of things.

The most often-used excuse for not installing Linux is 'games'. First of all, that's what Dual-Boot is for - you can have Windows and Linux together. However, there are also many games available for Linux:
Enemy Territory
Quake(all of 'em)
Doom 3
Unreal(all of 'em)
and many more. The ones I've listed above use native Linux binaries, so in some cases they're even faster than their Windows counterparts.
For most other Windows games, a program called Cedega(.com) makes playing them possible. It's not free, but it's available for dl many places...
So, before you think that you'll never use Linux because you like to play games, think again.

Initial preparation
Blank Partition/Drive
The easiest solution is to just use an entire blank hard drive. If you don't have one, you'll need at least a blank partition. Here are some possible Windows tools for creating/resizing partitions:
Partition Magic
Can be used for Resizing as well.
Windows Disk Management
Find it at Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management
You will want to give yourself a partition with at least 10GB or more to play with, probably.

Hardware Support
Video Cards:
As far as support for video cards goes, don’t worry about basic video. Where things get difficult is when you want support for 3D – if you intend to play games, basically.
NVidia card owners won’t have problems, but ATI support for Linux is a bit lacking, although working (for the most part).
Other Hardware
Especially in the more popular distributions, hardware support is quite sufficient for most people, and the installation should handle the setup for you – though you may be required to know some basic information about your computer. Anything not automatically detected during install can be installed at a later time (same as you would expect in windows).

Some Linux Concepts (Optional)
How Dual-Booting works
If you’ve opted to Dual-Boot, basically your computer will boot to LILO or GRUB, which will manage your boot options. The Linux install should automatically set this up for you, and any detected windows installations will be listed, as will your Linux installation, and a few extras (like safe-mode).
If you re-install Windows after installing Linux, it will overwrite the boot sector and you’ll no longer be able to boot to Linux. This can be easily repaired, however.

Typical File System Layout
In Linux, the file system is quite different from Windows. It can be confusing at first, but once you get used to it, you’ll find it’s actually very efficient and easy to use.
There are no letter drives in Linux. In windows, ‘drives’ are really partitions – it just so happens that it’s very common to have only one partition on one hard drive. In Linux, all partitions and the files and directories on them are located below ‘/’. That is, instead of C:\Music\, you would have simply /Music.
The general directory structure of Linux looks something like this:

/bin – contains commonly used programs
/boot – contains information for booting your computer
/dev – contains some more complex files, used to access different hardware
/etc – contains configuration files
/home – Rather like ‘My Documents’ or ‘Documents and Settings’ from Windows
/lib – contains library files
/lost+found – contains files saved if serious errors occur
/misc – Miscellaneous
/mnt – contains mounted drives – Could be windows partitions, CDROM, USB drive, etc.
/opt – can contain programs
/proc – a special file
/root – the ‘home’ directory for the system administrator
/sbin – like /bin, but not for use by all users
/tmp – temporary place for files
/usr – contains user-specific programs and the like
/var – For files that change often (log files, etc)

As far as partitioning goes, a popular setup is to have at least 3 separate partitions: one for /home, one for swap (which is like the page file in windows), and one for everything else.

File Systems
Some popular file systems for Linux include ext2, ext3, XFS, JFS, and ReiserFS. There are many more file systems out there, but for a beginner, it doesn’t matter which FS you choose. Each FS has its own advantages and disadvantages. There is extensive information on each file system, usually found on their development webpage.

Never reboot
Since Linux (and Unix, etc) is primarily used as a server platform, it is not necessary to reboot the computer after installing new software, or at any time. The only time you should need to reboot is when you’re changing the actual operating system, since obviously you need to load the new system.

Install Process (Mandriva Specific)
Download, Burn, and insert CDROM/DVD
A list of mirrors from which you can download ISOs for the CDs or the DVD can be found at http://www1.mandrivalinux.com/en/ftp.php3 . Burn using any burning software you like; Nero works fine. Then just put the CD or DVD in the drive, and reboot. Make sure your BIOS is set to boot from CDROM, of course.
Choose Language and Language Support
Security – Standard, High, Higher, Paranoid
Standard should suit you fine, and I wouldn’t go anything higher than ‘Higher’, since as a new Linux user you may have trouble working around the issues created. Standard security is still much more secure than your average Windows install.
Partitioning
Select ‘Custom Disk Paritioning’
Delete any existing partitions on the drive you’ll be using for Linux, or select the partition you want to use.
Select ‘auto allocate’, and Mandriva will split the size between / , /home, and swap.
Select ‘done’, then ‘ok’.
Package Selection
Select which installation CDs you have, and/or Copy the CDs to hard drive.
Select which package groups you want. Definitely select ‘Internet Station’, ‘Multimedia station’, and ‘Console Tools’. Selecting too many packages won’t cause any problems, unless you’re using very limited space.
I suggest selected all the ‘Graphical Environment’ options, KDE, GNOME, and Others.
Select ‘next’.
Mandriva will install. Be patient.
Post-Install Configuration
Set your administrator password. Make it something long and hard to guess.
Create a user – the account you’ll use primarily.
Mandriva can auto-login for you, I suggest using the feature. Select which window manager you want to use(Use KDE if you’re not sure), and select next.
Summary
Check to make sure everything seems right, and if anything is ‘not configured’ and you think it should be, configure it.
Don’t bother installing the updates, just go to the final screen, and select ‘reboot’.

Install Process (Ubuntu Specific)
Install normally, let Ubuntu handle everything.
After you reboot and login for the first time, right-click the desktop and open a terminal. There, type:
'' and set a root password. For more info on how Ubuntu handles 'root', check out http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/docu … n/faq/root For the rest of the tutorial, you can generally substitute 'apt-get install' for 'urpmi'. Post-Install Process First things first The monitor icon gives you a terminal (Konsole if you chose KDE). This is similar to the command prompt in windows, but much more powerful. When you’re using the terminal, you’ll generally be logged in as a normal user. Some commands(such as urpmi below) require that you be logged in as root. It’s easy to switch to root in a terminal – just type ‘su’ and then enter the password for root. But be cautious – only log in as root when you need to, because it’s possible to royally screw things up when you’re root. Also, copy-paste in Linux doesn’t use ctrl-c and ctrl-v. Instead, any text you highlight is automatically copied, and when you scroll-click, the text is pasted. A user's home directory is referenced often, so there is a short way to refer to it: '~'. Eg: /home/Ubitsa/ becomes simply ~/. This is useful not only when writing guides like this, but also for config files, etc - it makes the 'home dir' generic, and not dependent upon whatever your username is. ~/Desktop/ exists for you, but don't get too attached to it - it's just as easy to use ~/downloads, etc. Some basic Linux commands: ls - list directory entries (like 'dir' in DOS) cd - change your current working directory (same as DOS) mkdir - make a new directory rmdir - remove a directory (only if the directory is empty) rm - delete files (use -r to delete recursively through a directory) cp - copy a file mv - move or rename a file man - read the built-in online manual pages for a command du - estimate file space usage df - report filesystem disk space usage If you're not sure how to use a command, type 'man <command>' for info on it. And don't forget, the Linux terminal has tab-completion - if you wanted to type 'cd Superlongdirectoryname', you could just do 'cd Su[tab]' and be done with it much faster. Setting Up Your Internet Connection If you're on a LAN or use a router, then you should already be setup for the net. If your computer is directly connected to a cable or DSL modem, however, you may need to set it up yourself. Here's how: Open a terminal, and type 'drakconf'. When prompted, enter your root password. Select 'Set up a new network interface' from 'Network & Internet', and follow the directions. Alternatively, if you use a wireless connection, you will ned to select 'Wireless Connection' from 'Network & Internet'. Common Apps (And how to install them) First of all, you want learn how to install software, the easy way. In order to install software ‘packages’, Mandriva uses a tool called urpmi. We’ll set that up now. First of all, open a terminal and login as root (‘su’, then your password). Then, type ‘urpmi.removemedia –a’. urpmi installs programs from ‘sources’, usually FTPs with the latest packages on them. This command removes the installation CDs/DVD as a ‘source’, since they’re outdated and not as complete as the FTP sources we’re about to add. You should already have a reasonably up-to-date version of Firefox installed. The icon for it is a blue earth. Open that up, and go over to http://easyurpmi.zarb.org. Follow the steps. (In case you’re not sure, you have Mandriva 2005, for i586.) For step 2, you will want all the Core distribution sources. I recommend checking source plf-free as well. Step 3 is easy, the commands will take a while to run depending on your net speed. Once you’ve got urpmi set up, you can start installing software immediately. For instance, if you’d like a better terminal app, type ‘urpmi aterm’ as root. Some common applications you may want: Gaim – for AIM/MSN/Yahoo etc, it’s a very good client. Mplayer – the greatest media player ever. Xmms – winamp clone, good for mp3s. Aterm – a much nicer, more customizable terminal than Konsole. Gedit – a basic text editor, which is already installed. Xchat – irc client. Lftp – great command-line ftp client. If you prefer a GUI, get gftp Gkrellm – gives you basic info about your computer, fun to play with. To install any of the above, simply type ‘urpmi <app. name>’ as root, all lowercase. Setting up a WM At first, you’ll want to use KDE(or GNOME). When you’re bored and ready for something truly special, a new WM(Window Manager) may be what you need. Fluxbox is one I would recommend, and you can learn about it at fluxbox.org . To install it, simply ‘urpmi fluxbox’. To make fluxbox or any other installed WM your default, simply type 'drakconf' in a terminal. Then, go to Boot -> Autologin. Simply change 'default desktop' to whichever WM you want to use. For Ubuntu, simply use the 'session' button when you login to choose Fluxbox, and make it your default. Fluxbox will be installed at ~/.fluxbox (note the . at the start of the dirname - it's a 'hidden' dir). I suggest you read up on the documentation found at fluxbox.org first, but if you just want to jump into things, download ubitsa.org/menu and save it as ~/.fluxbox/menu2 . Then, edit the following line in ~/.fluxbox/init: Change it to 'menu2', of course. Then, in the fluxbox menu, go to Fluxbox -> Reload Config, or Restart. Go ahead and experiment with the menu2 file. In the future, as you learn what apps you want to use and which ones you don't, you can edit it to suit you best. You may already have noticed, but in Fluxbox, when your cursor isn't on top of a window, using the scroll button on your mouse will actually 'scroll' you through 4 different desktops. Make sure you notice which dektop you're in at any given moment(right-click the bar and choose 'Edit current workspace name' if it pleases you), otherwise you might lose a window. I find that the multiple workspace approach keeps everything neat and tidy - one for Browsing, one for IRC, one for terminals, and one for misc. other apps. Experiment! Learn to love the terminal The terminal can be intimidating and annoying when you first start Linux. However, if you continue to use linux, you will eventually learn to love it. I suggest trying to use it as much as possible as soon as possible, to help make yourself comfortable with it. Many useful programs, such as mplayer, are primarily cli(command line interface). You don’t want to miss out on them just because you’re afraid of the terminal. Setting up Azureus While most programs can be installed using urpmi, some can't. But not to worry; installing Azureus is still quite easy. Head over to azureus.sf.net, and on the download page, select 'Linux GTK'. Download the file someplace - Firefox by default will auto-download it to ~/Desktop/. (Speaking of which, the FF prefs are under Edit rather than Tools.) You'll also want to follow the link to download Java @ java.com/en/download/manual.jsp, and download the 'Linux RPM' to the same place you downloaded Azureus. Now, open up a terminal and 'cd' to the directory you downloaded to. Run 'sh jre-[tab]' and accept the license, and java will be done. Quick Aside Extracting archives in Linux is very easy. Typically, a file will be 'tarred', and then gzipped or bzipped. 'tar' doesn't compress files, it just groups them into one big file. Gzip or Bzip then compressed that one file. File names will be: foobar.tar.gz or .tgz for tar-gzipped files, and foobar.tar.bz2 or .tbz2 for bzipped files. To extract the whole thing quickly, type: 'tar xvzf foobar.tar.gz' or 'tar xvjf foobar.tar.bz2' Now that you've got that out of the way, extract Azureus: 'tar xvjf Azureus[tab]' This will result in a folder called 'azureus' being created. You can either leave the folder where it is, or move it someplace else. I keep mine at ~/azureus/. Whereever you put it, remember it, because you'll need to later edit either your Fluxbox menu or your KDE/Gnome menu. How to install programs from source code Some applications which aren't available through urpmi require that you compile the source code. It may sound like a daunting task, but it's usually quite easy, and generally the source comes with a README or INSTALL file which will help you out. First of all, download the source code of the program you want. Then, open up a terminal and 'cd' to the place you downloaded it. Using the extraction method mentioned above for Azureus, unpack the source code from the tar.gz or tar.bz2. 'cd' into the directory that you extracted everything to. (do an 'ls' if you're not sure which directories are available). Now, type './configure && make', and then 'make install' as root. Done! How to Search in Linux The 'whereis' command searches a handful of common directories to find a command and its manpage. Type 'whereis urpmi', and it prints a few program names and manpages that contain the word "urpmi". When you have no idea where some command is located, try using 'whereis'. The 'locate' command is excellent for looking for any type of file that can be any place on your hard drive. Type 'locate urpmi', and it prints lots of filenames, all of which have the string "urpmi" somewhere in their file name. You may be asking, "how does 'locate' get this information so quickly?", which is an excellent question. The answer is that 'locate' searches a small database of your entire hard drive. This database is updated automatically every night. If you want to use 'locate' for files that have been recently copied to your hard drive, then run 'updatedb' to update its database. Note, 'locate' was not installed on your system by default, you can just type 'urpmi slocate' and 'updatedb' to set it up. The best of all file searching commands is 'find'. It has many command line options to specify exactly *how* it should search for files, by name, size, and modification time. Then there are more command line options to specify what it should *do* with the file names. The general usage for 'find' is "find [path(s)] [option(s)] [test(s)] [action(s)]". One can specify each type of argument several times, but the overall order is important. For example, the following find command would start searching in /usr, descend no more than five directories deep, look for filenames with "foobar" that have been modified within the last three days, and print the results. find /usr -maxdepth 5 -name foobar -mtime -3 -print ^path ^option ^test ^test ^action Mounting iso/bin Files The command to mount an iso is quite simple: < mount -o loop -t iso9660 /path/to/filename.iso /mnt/iso as long as you have used 'mkdir' to make a directory in /mnt/ (can be named anything), then you can mount an iso to that directory. If you've got a bin/cue, which is common, check out the bin2iso program, which will convert them to an iso. Additional Links Learn Unix in 10 Minutes The best tools for Linux Freshmeat: Open Source Apps

#276349 by unknown[30467] at 2005-07-03 01:47:55 (8 years ago) - [Report]

Highlight that never reboot part

....

lol, great tutorial.

#276362 by unknown[34015] at 2005-07-03 02:01:33 (8 years ago) - [Report]

does ntfs works full 100%? i dont fix on exemple fedora core..

#276397 by unknown[5496] at 2005-07-03 02:40:47 (8 years ago) - [Report]

owd wrote:

does ntfs works full 100%? i dont fix on exemple fedora core..

The Captive project is said to give you full ntfs access under Linux. It uses the proprietary ntfs driver by Microsoft.

#276682 by unknown[902] at 2005-07-03 11:03:16 (8 years ago) - [Report]

owd wrote:

does ntfs works full 100%? i dont fix on exemple fedora core..

As Vade mentioned, if you absolutely must use NTFS in Linux, Captive is your best shot.

However, I highly reccomend you not use NTFS in Linux. It's better to use Linux filesystems for your day-to-day storage needs, and only access the NTFS when absolutely necessary.

#279593 by unknown[71075] at 2005-07-05 07:55:12 (8 years ago) - [Report]

DistroWatch - Great news about distributions, a top100 based on HPD , Hits Per Day ....
LinuxQuestions - All your questions answered.

BTW if you are going to use Ubuntu and not Mandriva , go to WwW.UbuntuGuide.Org and check there for some great information

#279631 by unknown[1266] at 2005-07-05 08:45:22 (8 years ago) - [Report]

partition magic? wth?

cfdisk <3

#279650 by unknown[902] at 2005-07-05 09:23:36 (8 years ago) - [Report]

flyonthewall wrote:

partition magic? wth?

cfdisk <3

They have cfdisk in windows now?

I'm tryin to convert people, not badger them! :-P

#280036 by Phixion (Power User) at 2005-07-05 14:49:59 (8 years ago) - [Report]

Linux is great for a stable system, but playing games etc on Linux is a pain in the ass.

Oh, and my top few Linux Distros?

Ubuntu
Fedora
Suse
Mandriva

Last edited by Phixion at 2005-07-05 14:51:23

#280710 by unknown[81707] at 2005-07-05 20:59:29 (8 years ago) - [Report]

is there any instructions how to make a connection to the internet using pppoe?

#281043 by haggeluring Donor

(Power User) at 2005-07-05 23:46:56 (8 years ago) - [Report]

erolking wrote:

is there any instructions how to make a connection to the internet using pppoe?

You might wanna check out The whole PPPoE World for Linux

#281770 by unknown[902] at 2005-07-06 12:54:38 (8 years ago) - [Report]

erolking wrote:

is there any instructions how to make a connection to the internet using pppoe?

Sorry about that, I forgot that some people still do that

I've added it now, hopefully that helps. If you have any further problems, feel free to PM me. The whole PPPoE World for Linux is definately worth checking out as well.

#281799 by unknown[1266] at 2005-07-06 13:20:31 (8 years ago) - [Report]

Ubitsa wrote:

flyonthewall wrote:

partition magic? wth?

cfdisk <3

They have cfdisk in windows now?

I'm tryin to convert people, not badger them! :-P

cfdisk is included on the install CD for most linux dists

Only perc partition magic has is that it can resize partitions without erasing the info on it, but that is also not recomended to do with an active system partition.

Thus, pick a disk which you can wipe clean and do it properly with fdisk. cfdisk is just a bit easier to handle (with curses).

#282042 by unknown[902] at 2005-07-06 16:18:31 (8 years ago) - [Report]

flyonthewall wrote:

cfdisk is included on the install CD for most linux dists

I'm not sure, but I would imagine the Mandriva partition manager during install is just a GUI frontend for fdisk anyhow, so it doesn't matter :-P

#282813 by Wandel Donor

(Pirate) at 2005-07-07 01:41:19 (8 years ago) - [Report]

Is Ubuntu and/or Mandriva good for total linux newbies, like me?
A friend of mine mention that SuSe is pretty good, is that true? And I have an other friend that uses Gentoo, but that's nothing for beginners, right?

#282818 by unknown[17519] at 2005-07-07 01:49:56 (8 years ago) - [Report]

Wandel wrote:

Is Ubuntu and/or Mandriva good for total linux newbies, like me?

Ubuntu is great. So yes, it is good for you. Great forum for beginners.

You can start with Gentoo if you feel like it, but that would require more reading then with for example Ubuntu.

#282843 by Komp (Power User) at 2005-07-07 02:20:56 (8 years ago) - [Report]

Is there a way for windows to read linux partitions? I'm guessing not, which is fine, but is 'Captive' stable enough or should I make a FAT32 partition to transfer files? This is on Fedora, btw.

#282862 by unknown[5269] at 2005-07-07 02:55:12 (8 years ago) - [Report]

Komp wrote:

Is there a way for windows to read linux partitions? I'm guessing not, which is fine, but is 'Captive' stable enough or should I make a FAT32 partition to transfer files? This is on Fedora, btw.

Explore2fs can read Linux partitions from within Windows.

http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm

The only problem with using FAT32 is that you can't have really big files so DVD images are out of the question.

#282890 by unknown[46785] at 2005-07-07 03:30:40 (8 years ago) - [Report]

Hi there!
I allways wanted to install linux on my primary PC, but I'm afraid I won't be able to.
My main PC's storage is a raid 0 array... (software raid, Intel ICH5-R) I found a tutorial, but It implyes a kernell compilation with an intel driver and the use of another IDE HD to install LILO with that kernell into the array. ¬¬ to hot to handle... I guess. I have to stay with live CDs.

Anyways, have you ever tryed cedega in linux? I would like to know if it works fine and maybe I can consider migrating to linux once I kill the array someday...

greetings!

#283212 by unknown[902] at 2005-07-07 10:59:58 (8 years ago) - [Report]

Woodsielord wrote:

Anyways, have you ever tryed cedega in linux? I would like to know if it works fine and maybe I can consider migrating to linux once I kill the array someday...

Cedega works pretty well, and it gets better all the time. As long as you use it only for games, you're fine.

Quote:

Is Ubuntu and/or Mandriva good for total linux newbies, like me?

Most absolutely, you'll find it's much easier than it seems.

I obviously prefer Mandriva for newbies, but from what I hear, Ubuntu is good too. SuSe is a good distro, but I wouldn't call it the best for noobs...

#283733 by Komp (Power User) at 2005-07-07 14:33:17 (8 years ago) - [Report]

Awesome guide, I'm gonna give Fedora a go tomorrow.

#283791 by oneill (Power User) at 2005-07-07 15:04:31 (8 years ago) - [Report]

Even though gentoo might not be the easyest distro for beginners its a great way to learn how linux works and the basics of the command line ( you have to because of the rather complex installation )
but if you follow the great guides at gentoo.org it isnt extremly hard..

#284287 by unknown[4409] at 2005-07-07 19:23:18 (8 years ago) - [Report]

i've got a dilemma , don't know which one to install , suse 9.3 or fedora core 3 , can someone tell me which linux distribution should i choose ? btw i'm a newbie when it comes to linux

and another kinda noobish question , can i mount the iso with daemon tools and install linux without burning any data to the disk ?

#284305 by unknown[902] at 2005-07-07 19:36:38 (8 years ago) - [Report]

smokee wrote:

I suggest you use Mandriva Linux, as it is, in my opinion, easier than SuSe or Fedora(though it's quite similar to Fedora). If you choose Mandriva, this guide will get you totally set up, easy.

I'm afraid you can't mount the iso with daemon tools, you have to actually burn the CD or DVD and boot to it.

#284329 by unknown[4409] at 2005-07-07 19:53:53 (8 years ago) - [Report]

thanks for the fast response Ubitsa , well , i've decided to install mandriva

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