Linux Installation
As with all JWG Tutorials, screenshots are provided within the JWG Gallery, to make following the tutorials easy for beginners.
The simplest method of viewing the screenshots along with the tutorials, is to right click on the first screenshot, and choose ‘open in new window or tab’, depending on your browser preferences. Then you can keep this new window or tab open, and browse through the screenshots in the gallery itself, by clicking on the next arrows on the right of the gallery screen.
Installation of openSUSE 10.2
Requirements:
Installation CD-ROM(s) or DVD:
CD and DVD ISO images may be downloaded from the Internet, (for free!!) and burned to CD or DVD ROM media for install.A computer with at least the minimum hardware requirements to run Linux.
Linux comes in many different flavours or distros – short for distributions - and there are several distros that are smaller, simpler and particularly well suited to older machines.Information about Linux Hardware compatibility requirements can be found at the following websites:
www.tldp.org…
en.opensuse.org…
en.opensuse.org…
en.opensuse.org…
It is also necessary to know which ‘architecture’ your computer is using because there are different versions of Linux for each architecture. The main ones are x86, x86-64) and PPC, (PowerPC for Macintosh).
x86 architecture supports the following processors:
Intel: Pentium 1-4, Celeron, 32bit Xeon, Celeron D
AMD: K6, Duron, Athlon, Athlon XP, Athlon MP, Sempronx86-64 architecture supports the following processors:
AMD: Opteron, Athlon 64, AMD Athlon 64 X2, Sempron 64, Turion 64
Intel: Xeon, Xeon MP, Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, Pentium Core 2 Duo, Pentium D
Processors based on AMD’s AMD64 & Intel’s EM64T (Intel’s implementation of AMD64)PPC architecture supports the following processors:
G5 / G4 / G3
604 / 603 / 601
IBM RS/6000
IBM pSeries
IBM iSeries
openSUSE is a fairly large distro, but broadly speaking, if you have a modern PC that is currently running one of the later versions of Windows, it should meet the requirements for installing SUSE:
Random Access Memory: At least 256 MB RAM:
Hard Disk Drive: At least 500 MB (for a minimal system); 2.5 GB is recommended for standard system:
Sound and graphics cards: Most modern sound and graphics cards are supported out of the box:
It should also be noted however, that SUSE likes rather a lot of RAM to run at a reasonable speed, and therefore 256 MB should be considered as a bare minimum, and that 512 MB or more would be better, (not unlike Windows XP, in fact).
Procedures:
Many first-time would-be Linux users will currently be running a version of Windows on their home computers, and will wish to retain this whilst also installing Linux. This can be achieved by partitioning the Hard Disk Drive (HDD), thus creating what is known as a ‘dual-boot’ system. This means that when you start (boot) your computer, you have a choice of booting into Linux or Windows.
There are three main methods of doing this:
The first method involves preparing your HDD first by using commercial 3rd party software such as Partition Magic to create suitable partitions, because Windows does not natively provide this support.
A second method entails creating a boot disk using an Open Source, Partition Magic clone for Linux, known as QtParted
The first two methods are beyond the scope of this tutorial, but the third method, which we are going to discuss here, uses your new Linux Operating System to do this for you during the installation process.
Preparation:
The first thing to do if you are keeping your Windows installation, as discussed above, is to ensure that your computer’s boot order is set to boot from Floppy Disk, then CD-ROM then HDD, otherwise the machine will just boot straight into Windows upon reboot, which of course we don’t want if we are trying to install another Operating System. You will need to go into the BIOS to check and alter this, if necessary.
Boot into Windows as normal, and set it to run Scandisk and to do a boot-time defragment of the HDD. It is sensible to do this anyway, but it is absolutely essential if your HDD has an NTFS partition as opposed to a FAT 16 or 32 partition, (mostly found on systems running a Windows 9x OS). This is likely to be the case if you are running Windows 2000 or XP. This must be done because Linux will not be able to resize the partitions if the Windows files are not at the front of the disk. Defragmenting the disk ensures that they are moved into their proper place.
It is also wise to temporarily deactivate the Windows Swap file (Page file) because this is often placed at the end of the drive, and may remain there after defragmenting, thus not allowing Linux to shrink the partition sufficiently. This may be reconfigured after Linux has been installed and the partitions resized.
Once these preparations have been completed, you can shut down the computer, insert the Linux CD or DVD into the CD/DVD drive, and restart the computer.
Installation:
At the boot screen, Boot from Hard Disk is selected by default, (because the CD/DVD is often left in the machine after installation). Use the arrow keys on the keyboard to select the normal Installation option. After a few seconds, the YAST (Yet Another Setup Tool), graphical installer loads, and installation proper can begin. All areas can be accessed by the mouse or keyboard. If your mouse has not been detected initially, use the keyboard until you are able to configure your mouse later in the procedure.
Select your preferred language for installation. (Using arrow keys, tab and enter enable you to do this without a mouse).
Click Next if your mouse does work.
Accept the license agreement, and click Next.
Select New Installation.
Select Region and Time Zone.
Choose your desktop environment, (sometimes known as Window Managers).
KDE and GNOME are the most popular, offering a Graphical User Interface (GUI), similar to that seen in Windows. Other options are available, but for the newcomer to Linux, it is safer to begin with something that is at least vaguely familiar!
It is quite possible to install several Window Managers, and switch between them when logging in, but one must be selected now. Others may be installed later if required. As KDE is the desktop with the GUI that will seem most familiar to Windows users, we shall choose this option for the moment.
YAST then undertakes a full system analysis, and presents an overview of reasonable, suggested options for installation. One may just accept the defaults, but usually there are some manual changes you will wish to make.
In our case, we are going to make some changes to the partitioning section to allow us to retain our existing Windows installation.
Partitioning
Click on the Partitioning Heading as shown in the first screenshot:
The Partitioning Dialog box opens where you will have three options:
If we had an empty HDD, we could probably just check the box to Accept Proposal and move on, but as we want to keep our existing windows installation, we will choose Create Custom Partition Setup, (the final option).
Here SUSE will list all HDDs it has found, and if you have Windows installed, it will detect this.
Hopefully your HDD is big enough to accommodate both Operating Systems, and you will be given the option of deleting Windows or shrinking the Windows partition. Make absolutely sure the second option of Shrinking the Windows partition is checked, otherwise you will lose all your Windows files completely!!
At this point, you can accept the proposed resizing, or move the slider and make changes yourself. Click Next when you are happy with the proposal, and your settings are stored. The actual resizing and partitioning takes place later in the setup, but for now you are returned to the Suggestions Window where we clicked on Partitioning.
Completing Setup
This time, click on Software, and the Software Manager dialog window opens. At this point you can add or remove any software that is selected for install. It is probably sensible not to actually remove anything at this stage, but you may wish to add some packages if you know that you are going to use them, and they aren’t initially selected. You can always add extra software packages when your OS is up and running, so it isn’t too critical if you forget anything now. Click Accept when you are ready, and we move on to the Language section.
Further customising of Language settings can be performed here, and then we move on to System, Keyboard Layout and Boot configuration – all of which can be left alone unless you know what you are doing and are sure you wish to make changes.
YAST will have already made changes to the boot loader to accommodate the fact that you also have a Windows partition, so you will be able to dual-boot into either OS at boot time.
The GRUB (Grand Unified Boot Loader), boot loader is a robust boot loader and tends to be preferred nowadays, because it automatically rereads it’s configuration file at boot time, and thus does not require you to modify any other system files if changes are made. LILO (Linux Loader), is also available if required.
When you are happy with all settings, click Accept, and then Install in the dialog window that opens.
Installation normally takes between 15 and 30 minutes, and then YAST boots into the new system to allow you to set up hardware and configure services.
Configuration:
The first thing you are asked to do is provide a password for the root user. Root equates with Administrator in Windows. The main difference however, is that one is usually compelled to run a Windows installation as Administrator because limited or guest users are so restricted, and there is no method of ‘trading up’ apart from logging out and logging in again as Administrator, which is somewhat tedious and time-consuming. In Linux one usually logs in as a user, but can trade-up to root at any time if necessary, by providing the root password. This is a safe, secure method of running your system, as it is more difficult for you to delete important system files, erroneously. It obviously goes without saying that it is crucial for you to remember your root password, as retrieving or resetting it is a tortuous business, not for the faint-hearted!
Network configuration may be set up at this stage, but we are going to leave that for the moment, as networking will be discussed in depth in our next guide, (coming soon!).
Therefore, we check Skip Configuration, and click Next. We can also skip Firewall and Online updates, and proceed to Users.
We are going to initially create a new local user which you will log in as from now on. Specify Full name, desired username and password and your user is created. Again, you must remember your username and password as you will need them every time you login. You can choose to receive system messages by email which can be useful for the main user, as one does not actually log in as root very frequently.
It is best not to enable automatic logon unless you are the only user of a stand-alone system, as this does constitute a security risk.
Hardware may now be configured, and it is definitely a good idea to configure your graphics card for your own personal preferences at this point, even if you wish to leave other hardware configuration until later. One can now select Finish in the final dialog box, and the installation is complete.
The graphical login screen will now appear, and this is where you login with your username and password that you have just created, (not as Root!).
Differences
It is worth mentioning at this stage, that although modern Linux distributions have improved enormously in their user-friendliness, Linux is not Windows, and you will notice differences.
The first point to make is that the structure of Linux differs significantly from that of Windows, insofar as Linux is designed on the tree model, with the root being at the start, and all directories and files branching out from this root. The root of the structure is designated / and all other directories stem from this. (See example screenshot).
Therefore, a user’s own files (My Documents in Windows), may be found in /home/user/ (this will be the username that you chose above eg: jewel).
One final observation is that everything in Linux is a file, and can be edited directly via the Command Line Interface - CLI - using a Console window or Shell, (rather like the run/cmd in Windows). Nowadays, one can also perform a lot of actions through the GUI using YAST or other set up tools, but for speed and fine-tuning, it is advisable to learn how to use the CLI as well.
That will probably suffice for this session. It is generally a good idea to get a feel for your new installation, particularly if it is your first dabble in the Linux waters, so to speak, and play around with menus, desktops, customisation etc, before coming back to the next section of our guide, Networking 101! , where we configure our Network to talk to other computers (both Windows and Linux), and get ourselves out onto the Internet.
See you soon!
