[Linux for Newbies]

Linux for Newbies: Part 2 - "Ready, Get Set ..."

by Gene Wilburn

(The Computer Paper, September 1999. Copyright © Wilburn Communications Ltd. All rights reserved)

Last month we had our "getting-acquainted with Linux" session. This month the tire nears the pavement as we prepare a pre-installation checklist. (Note: our example distribution is the $1.99 Cheapbytes Red Hat 6.0 i386/CPU CD -- see Cheapbytes CDs at www.cheapbytes.com).

Let's get started with a philosophical warmup exercise. Take a deep breath and think about your approach to learning Linux. If I were to offer a single bit of advice, it would be this: go slow. Don't try to leap to Linux literacy. Take your time, be patient, be curious yet cautious, and keep notes in a spiral-bound notebook you store beside your computer. There's a lot to learn. Keeping notes will help you remember things and track your progress.

Also, be prepared to invest time in serious reading of both print and online material. Linux comes with a large cargo of documentation and the Internet provides even more. There are many well-written books on Linux and Unix and you should start building a reference library. Here's a book I'm recommending to go along with this series: Que Using Linux, Special Edition. Along the way I'll suggest a few more.

Look upon your Linux adventure as a long-term (even a lifetime) technical seminar with tons of detailed, but interesting, material. If you proceed a step at a time, you won't be overwhelmed. In the process you'll learn a great deal about computing in general. Linux doesn't "dumb you down" the way some well-known popular operating systems do.

Sufficiently warmed up? Let's get started. The most important thing to do right now is take a complete hardware inventory of your target PC. You need to know exactly what pieces of hardware you've got and what their settings are. Here's a basic checklist:

If you're currently running Windows 95/98, you can get quite a bit of this information from Control Panel, System, Devices.

Got all that written down? Great. Now go to the website of your Linux distribution (if Red Hat 6.0, go to www.redhat.com/support/), find the hardware compatibility list, and see if you have compatible hardware. Linux can be used on a wide range of PC hardware, but it's not yet as comprehensive as Windows, so make sure you don't try to install using unsupported components.

Next, decide where Linux is going to be installed on your system. You need 400-500Mb for a basic workstation with a graphical interface and language development modules, less if you only want a bare-bones system. If you can spare 1Gb or more, you can install more programs and try out the hot new GUIs: KDE and GNOME. If you plan to install Linux alongside your existing Windows or OS/2 setup, you'll need to handle it in one of three ways:

1. Destructive Partitioning

Often the easiest thing to do is simply wipe your hard disk completely and rebuild it from scratch, partitioning it the way you like. Of course you will back up all your important files first, right? Doing it this way will have the side benefit of making your Windows setup run faster (Windows performance deteriorates over time--a reinstallation does wonders for it). If you have a 4Gb hard disk, for instance, you might want to give 2Gb to Windows and 2Gb to Linux, or 3Gb and 1Gb--you decide.

Always install Windows first, then Linux, if you have a choice. Use the DOS FDISK program to create the DOS/Windows partition (we'll use Linux FDISK to create the Linux partitions). If you plan to install Linux alongside NT or OS/2, go to www.linux-howto.com and read up on special procedures.

2. Non-Destructive Partitioning

This is a bit trickier, but it can be done. The scenario is that you've got plenty of free hard disk space, but Windows owns all of it and you want to repartition your hard disk without destroying your existing Windows setup. To do this you need to pack Windows into a smaller partition first. Either go out and purchase a copy of Partition Magic, or use the "Poor Man's Partition Magic" that comes with every Linux distro. It's called FIPS and can be found in the \DOSUTILS directory of your Linux CD. FIPS has a good track record for reliability but read the docs very carefully before attempting to use it. Whether you use Partition Magic or FIPS, but sure to back up all your critical files first.

3. Add an Additional Hard Disk

Hard drives have become so inexpensive that adding a second drive is very feasible option. For $200 or less, you can add a 3Gb drive just for Linux while leaving your Windows drive untouched.

Creating Installation Floppies

If your PC can boot from CD-ROM, you should be able to insert the Linux CD, reset your PC, and follow the prompts. Otherwise, you need to boot from a Linux floppy diskette and then connect to the CD-ROM player. All "official" Linux box sets come with a boot diskette or two. If you have the Cheapbytes version of Red Hat Linux, you'll need to create your own:

While in Windows, insert the Linux CD, go to the DOSUTILS directory and copy the file RAWRITE.EXE to a temporary directory on your Windows hard disk. Then go to the directory called IMAGES and copy BOOT.IMG to the same Windows directory.

From the DOS prompt, format a fresh 1.44Mb diskette (FORMAT A:), go to the directory where you stored the files, and type RAWRITE. Give BOOT.IMG as the name of the file to write, and A: as the destination. When this finishes, you'll have a Linux boot floppy.

The procedure for creating boot floppies for distros other than Red Hat is nearly identical except for the names of the boot images. Just go to the DOSUTILS and IMAGES directories and read the README files for full instructions.

We're almost ready to do our first install, but there's still one more bit of planning to do. You should decide ahead of time how you'll set up the Linux filesystems.

At minimum, you need two filesystems: a swap filesystem (for virtual memory) and a root filesystem, designated as "/" in Linux. In the early days of Linux, the rule of thumb was that a swap partition should be twice the amount of physical RAM. Hence if you had 16Mb RAM, you'd create a 32Mb swap partition. This is still a useful ratio for systems with small amounts of memory. For modern systems with large amounts of RAM (64Mb or more), you will rarely need a swap partition greater than 127Mb.

The Linux (Unix) filesystem is quite different from anything in the DOS/Windows world. It's a single hierarchical file system that starts at root "/" and different parts of the tree can be located on separate partitions and even separate disks.

For simplicity, we'll only use swap and root partitions for our sample installation. As you grow in your knowledge of Linux, you can explore more sophisticated ways to set up your Linux partitions.

Next time: Installation

Gene Wilburn (gene@wilburn.ca) is a Toronto-based IT manager, musician and writer who operates a small farm of Linux servers.

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