[ILUG] For BLG

[Niall Walsh]

Hi everyone,

I've started into the BLG 
(http://www.linux.ie/newusers/beginners-linux-guide/) and have drafted 
the following updated versions of the first two pages from Installing 
the Operating System (I've ignored the homepage for now).

Comments (rewrites) welcome.  Spelling and grammar included (and I 
expect you all to find plenty seeing this is pretty much all shot from 
the hip and my speeling and gremmar is be rael bed somewhens).   There 
are numerous areas why I am not sure whether I have gone too far or not 
far enough or whether they should even be mentioned at all.   There are 
other areas where I am sure my personal opinions show through and any 
alternative opinions would be welcome!

I would suggest we completely overhaul page 3 from "Making a boot floppy 
to start from" to "Booting Up" or "Starting Up for the First Time" 
covering downloading and burning iso files and setting the machine to 
boot them, we can later add a sub-page on other boot options.   Some 
mention needs to be made here of the variety of distributions on offer, 
with some sorts of recommendations (controversy), the current document 
assumes you have already chosen a distro (and later assumes it's Red 
Hat) but what about the people who haven't, we should offer them some 
prod in the right directions.

Anyone wanting to join in overhauling or validating these or any other 
pages, fire ahead!

I'll see how the reaction goes to this before I start on any more!

I know I could have just submitted these to owen or Ken directly and let 
them go to work on them (or take them as is which they are free to do) 
but I thought they would be greatly improved by collaboration and 
getting a few eyes on them first, or at worst getting a few eyes on them 
as they go up so they can be updated quickly for any gross errors or 
omissions!   Also I wanted to put out another call for help to update 
the whole guide :-)

Niall "did someone say wiki" Walsh


General Information on Installing Linux

There are numerous ways to use Linux with a computer.   The most common 
method is to allocate part of your hard disk to Linux and put all the 
software you need on it.   It's also possible to use Linux without 
touching your hard disk at all, either by getting the software from 
another computer on a network or by using a cd or dvd.   When people 
talk of installing Linux though, they invariably mean using the hard 
disk to store all their required software.

To install Linux on your hard disk, you first need to be able to 
allocate a section of the hard disk to Linux.   Thankfully all sorts of 
computer systems understand the methods of dividing hard disks so two or 
more operating systems (e.g. versions of Linux and /or Windows) can 
reside on just one hard disk.   More details on dividing the hard disks 
are given in the next section.

Once that is done, you need to get a startup/install disk. Just as you 
would use a startup disk to access windows in case of a crash, a Linux 
startup/install disk will boot your computer in the Linux OS, albeit a 
limited version of it. The startup disk also contains info on accessing 
the hardware it needs to complete the installation and the complete 
install system itself.   Most Linux installations are done from either 
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM install disks.

If your computer is built from common hardware which is well supported 
by Linux, it is unlikely that you will have to do any configuration to 
make the hardware work in your computer.   It is not uncommon however to 
find that your computer has some hardware which does not work (well or 
at all) with Linux, the most common problem being with Modems which are 
an eternal source of frustration for new Linux users.   You can use the 
internet site at www.linmodems.org to try and determine if your modem 
should work with Linux, or if there are any special steps required to 
make it work.   Generally most other problems experienced with hardware 
when installing Linux are related to very new models or new types of 
hardware which are not yet supported in the distributions.   Most 
distributions will have notes on known hardware problems often with 
solutions or workarounds.   You should check these notes on-line, as 
opposed to from the installation media as problems may have been found 
after it was released, before trying to install as it could save you 
much frustration later.

If you want to test out your computer with Linux before trying to 
install, many different Linux distributors now have "LiveCD" versions 
which allow you to try the system without installing.   The way these 
work is by ignoring your hard disk and simply treating your computer 
like a PlayStation, running everything from the CD.   These systems 
cannot run as fast or be as flexible as a Linux system installed onto a 
hard disk, but they do give you a chance to test your computer and the 
system for compatibility and to try out the software to see how it suits 
your needs.


Partitioning your Hard Disk for Linux

As outlined in the General Information section, the most common way to 
install Linux is to allocate a part of your hard disk for Linux.   Most 
computers come with one hard disk, and that hard disk is usually setup 
to have just one partition which uses all of the space on the hard 
disk.   If this is the case with your computer, then you will need to 
either add a new hard disk for Linux, or shrink your existing partition 
to make space for Linux.

Each partition not only creates a separate independent space on the hard 
disk but it also associates a method of reading and writing information 
to the drive, the format of the drive.   Linux has a number of different 
formats it can use for sections of the hard disk, the most popular being 
ext2 and ext3 (others include reiserfs, xfs and jfs).  Normally you will 
not have to worry much about the formats of Linux partitions, the 
installation program will make appropriate suggestions.   One other type 
of partition format for Linux which is worthy of mention is swap.   A 
swap partition is used effectively extend your memory onto the hard 
disk, so if your computer wants to use more memory then it has, it will 
"swap" information in memory which it doesn't need at the time onto the 
hard disk.   It is possible to use a large file on a normal partition 
for swap however this is much slower.   Unless you measure your memory 
in Gigabytes, you should probably use a swap partition at least the size 
of your memory, and if you have less then 256Megabytes of ram then you 
may want a partition 2 or 3 times it.

If you are in the common situation of having to shrink the only Windows 
partition on your hard disk, the first thing to be aware of is that your 
access to the information on the Windows partition will depend on its 
format.   There are two main types of partition formats for Windows, FAT 
and NTFS.   Generally computers with the Windows 95/98/ME systems will 
have FAT partitions and Windows NT/2000/XP will have NTFS partitions, 
though it is possible for the NT/2000/XP family to use FAT.   The 
critical difference between FAT and NTFS as far as Linux is concerned, 
is that while reading information from either system is perfectly safe 
under Linux, writing information to an NTFS partition is currently 
regarded as potentially unsafe so you wouldn't be able to edit these 
files from Linux and access the changes directly under Windows.   Linux 
is perfectly reliable sharing FAT partitions with other operating 
systems (if your feeling lost, perhaps telling you that when you format 
a floppy you are actually making a FAT filesystem on it will help put 
things in perspective).   Windows has no native method of reading Linux 
formatted partitions, but the Free explore2fs program allows you to read 
and copy information from ext2 and ext3 Linux partitions while you are 
running Windows.

There are numerous methods for shrinking Windows partitions to make 
space for Linux (and I would recommend simply making the space and using 
the installer to create the partitions and format them).   No matter 
what method you use to do this, you should backup all your data before 
you begin, in fact you should always keep backups of all your important 
information as a hard disk could fail at any time.   The tried and true 
method for shrinking a partition is a commercial program called 
Partition Magic ($69.95 as of Sept 2004).  You can also do this with 
Free software such as QTParted or often as part of the installer 
itself.   Check the installation documentation for the system you plan 
on installing to see if it's now supports resizing/shrinking ntfs 
partitions.

Whatever scenario you start in, when you begin to install Linux you need 
to know where you have space to put it.   It may be a new hard disk or 
free space on an existing hard disk.   For a modern desktop Linux system 
you would want to allocate an absolute minimum of 2GB of hard disk 
space, 5GB would be far better and if you have plenty of space (or if 
you plan to install lots of large pieces of software, perhaps games) 
10GB+ is perfectly reasonable.   If you have enough free space the 
installation program may suggest creating more than one Linux partition, 
if so it is well worthwhile creating a separate partition for your 
files, the /home partition.   Amongst other things you can reinstall 
your system or install a new system without having to make an additional 
backup of your files (remember again you do always keep backups of 
everything important).