Linux Guide/Installing Linux

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Before installing GNU/Linux on your computer it's important to consider whether it's right for you.

Of course, one may also run other operating systems either on another computer or, with partitioning (explained later) on the same one.

This manual will help you decide on a specific Linux distribution and guide you through its installation.

Contents

[edit] Flavors of Linux

From the beginning, Linux has been designed to work well with other operating systems.

There are many different flavors of Linux-based GNU systems, and if you are new to Linux and want to spend minimal time configuring the operating system, choose one of the distributions marked with bold:

  • the most popular rpm-based are Red Hat with more easy to use derivatives like Fedora, Mandriva and Suse/OpenSuse - rpm-based are usually more easy to install the first time, but not always to upgrade and install new software.
  • the most popular deb/apt-based are Debian with more easy to use derivatives like Mepis, Mint and Ubuntu - deb-based are more easily upgraded and have a huge base of ready-to-install included applications.
  • for more experienced users are Gentoo (usually have the last version of most applications using emerge software) and Slackware (very stable for "hackers", using simple archived files as packages)
  • there are many others.

From this list, you can always find free (as in free beer) versions of any distribution. However:

  • the following are commercialised: Mandriva (6 months old releases are free with no support), Suse (by Novell, only OpenSuse is free), Red Hat (no free version).
  • the following are 100% free as in beer but are backed by a for-profit organisation: Fedora (by Red Hat), Mepis (by its founder).
  • the following are backed by the community or by a non-profit organisation: Debian (the most free as in free speech, slow release cycle, free beer), Slackware (the most "clean", for hackers) and Ubuntu (a very well done compromise of ease of use, liberty and up to date packages).

Debian would be a good choice for users who want a secure standard Linux system without needing a fast Internet connection to update their software. See 'distributions' for more information about various GNU/Linux flavours.

If you aren't worried about complicated installation procedure and you want an OS that is optimized for your hardware (meaning it will go faster than the others) choose Gentoo. Gentoo is a source based distro, with a BSD style ports system called portage. The fact that it is source based means that you will probably not want to install it if you have a dial up Internet connection, since Gentoo will need to download a great deal of data: the source code must all be fetched from the Internet. It also is one of the most flexible distributions; due to its source-based nature, it is able to have "USE flags", which specify whether to include optional support for various things such as Unicode, a graphical interface, and so on to individual programs.

There are 3 ways of "installing" Linux:

  1. "no-install": a "Run-from-CD" LiveCD distribution. Everything runs from the CD and RAM, leaving the hard drive untouched -- completely avoiding the trickiest part of setting up Linux, "hard drive partitioning". After you take out the CD and reboot, everything is restored to the way it was before. (Many of these work just as well with Keydrive as with CD)
  2. There's a lot of information on setting up "Dual-boot" systems. This is not for beginners. (Experts generally don't do this either -- if they need 2 operating systems, they keep them on 2 physically separate hard drives, or better yet 2 physically separate computers).
  3. If you are certain there is nothing you want to keep on a computer's hard drive, you can completely erase the HD and install Linux only. This is the most fool-proof system -- Once the hard drive has been erased, the worst that can happen is erasing the hard drive again and having to start all over.
  4. This is rare now, but some distributions allow installation to any FAT32 partition even if it contains an installation of Windows. This just copies files containing the Linux and uses a Floppy or a Boot Loader to load.


  1. More detailed write-ups on different distros
  2. Explanations of terms like partitions, file systems
  3. External links, Wikipedia
  4. Red Hat Linux used to allow this, and Puppy Linux still does.


[edit] Dual-boot systems - Run Linux and MS Windows

You need to run both MS Windows and Linux on your PC and you have only one hard disk. Follow these steps:

Windows needs the first partition. It is strongly advised to put windows in the first partition (/dev/hda1) otherwise you will have to do hide and unhide of partitions during grub configuration. If you have Linux on first partition then you have to move it. Golden rule: Put windows in first partition and Linux can run easily off any other partition

Notation: If using SCSI drive use 'sda' and for IDE drives use 'hda'

  1. Download the partition tool LiveGParted from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php and boot the LiveGparted CD-ROM
  2. Resize the MS Windows partition and then create new partition(s) for Linux.
  3. If Windows is NOT in first partition and if Linux is already existing on first partition then move the Linux from partition 1 to another partition like 2.
Open X-terminal console and 
	mkdir /hda1
	mkdir /new
	mount /dev/hda1 /hda1
	mount /dev/hda2 /new
	cd /hda1
   Use tar and not cp -r.
	tar cpf - . | tar xpvf - -C /new
   Edit /new/etc/fstab and /new/grub/menu.lst as appropriate
  1. Create primary partition 1 FAT32 for MS WindowsXP, Windows wants the first disk.
  2. If you do not have Windows already in partition 1, install Windows XP on partition 1 (format to NTFS)
  3. Boot Linux CD-ROM and install the grub and in menu.lst you do not need to do unhide and hide since MS-Windows is in first partition.

Troubleshooting: Grub not finding file or disk or partition. If the disk is not recognised inside the grub, then that partition is marked as "hidden". Also when you do 'find /boot/grub/stage1' it does not find the file. So you do this inside grub: Note: hd0 is /dev/hda1 and partition 1 is 0 in grub commands.

grub> unhide (hd0,0)
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1  
(Now this will succeed and show some output)

Dual-boot references:

[edit] Picking a Distribution and Generic Installation Tips

[edit] Distributions in detail

[edit] Arch Linux - Wikipedia

Arch Linux is a relatively young distro which offers more comfort than Slackware in that most things have reasonable defaults, the software does already work together within reasonable limits (so it's not "over-configured" like the big distros) and you can choose between binary package installation (with dependency support) and source compilations.

[edit] Debian - Wikipedia

Debian was considered one of the harder distros to install, although with the release of 'Sarge' this has now improved due to a new installer. The installation is not too hard for the prepared user and what difficulties it may still cause is made up for by apt-get: a package management system that automatically downloads and installs or upgrades programs. It can even upgrade the entirety of Debian when it becomes necessary, so a computer running Debian will never need to be totally reinstalled for an upgrade.

Debian is popular enough that a very large number of packages are available for it — virtually every common open source program (and many libre closed-source ones) has a package made for it. However, the "stable" distribution is usually very outdated (they come out about every two years), so many home users will opt for the "testing" or "unstable" versions which come with more up-to-date software. Unstable is updated more quickly, but the official policy on it is "if it breaks, you get to keep both parts." Nonetheless, it is much more stable than the name implies.

Debian is entirely non-commercial, and only software that meets the Debian Free Software Guidelines(direct) makes it to the main distribution. However, it is made easy to install non-free software with the same tools if you need it.

Debian is among the most widely ported distributions. Unlike other distrobutions which usually only run on x86 and x86_64 hardware. Debian has official ports to SPARC, alpha, powerpc, arm (big and little endian), mips (big and little endian), PA-RISC, IA-64, s390 (IBM mainframe), x86, and x86_64. There is also a community port or Motorola m68k. It can take full advantage of almost any hardware you have. Unlike other distributions, Debian also releases optimized kernels for more specific releases of processors.

Debian is known for extremely high quality releases, which are very stable.

Because of all these strengths Debian is also one of the most forked distributions. Prominent examples are Ubuntu, MEPIS, and Knoppix.

Some people have hardware that isn't recognized by the "easy" installers from any distribution. If you are one of those people, check out non-official Debian installers that are designed to run on the widest possible variety of computers here.

Debian's wiki is at http://wiki.debian.org/

Debian's main site is http://debian.org/

[edit] Gentoo - Wikipedia

Gentoo is a source-based distro. It is far more time-consuming and difficult to install than any other major Linux distribution. This is primarily due to it lacking an installer; it merely provides "stage tarballs" and boot CDs. The CDs provide a basic environment for bootstrapping the system; they include packages necessary for install, drivers, a shell, and not much else. There is no graphical installer, nor even a text based one, despite several plans for creating one; the command line is used for the whole install.

Gentoo is not a distribution for any but the most technically oriented - not those necessarily who are already familiar with GNU/Linux (also called Linux), but for those who want to learn more about how a Linux system works. It is a highly flexible system, which can be tuned to every user's individual needs; this comes at the price of being somewhat more hands-on. There is far less autodetection than in other major distributions. Furthermore, most programs must be compiled from their source code. Fortunately, Gentoo's documentation site contains comprehensive documentation on an expanding number of topics. It has a very good installation guide, which is now the "Gentoo Handbook", which teaches new users several things about the structure of Gentoo and how it works. There is also a Gentoo Wiki

The installation process is long, especially if source packages are used. Binary packages are possible, and can be provided either from GRP or custom-made, but are not frequently used. Installation is an involved process, but not especially difficult to those who carefully follow the installation guide; help is provided in numerous ways to those who have trouble, whether the cause is unfamiliarity with the system, custom needs, or shortcomings in the install process. The installation guide provides highly detailed examples, complete with sample commands which often work unchanged, and include directions of how and what to change for highly variable details such as which hard disk partition to use.

Gentoo has a steeper learning curve than other distributions of Linux. This is both a cost of the flexibility, combined with the fact that Gentoo does not have a long history (so sometimes suffers from not entirely automating what should be automated). This is mitigated somewhat by the documentation and huge amount of community support, including very large forums. Many questions on the forum get answered very rapidly. The reason for the large forums is that just about everyone who uses it is in love with it, largely due to its advanced package system, "portage".

Portage is source-based, and also supports quarterly binaries for those who would rather not do compilations. The package system is inspired by BSD's "ports" system, and shares some similarities to Debian's package system, such as automatic dependency resolution (which means, in short, that anything you need to compile/install a package will be automatically installed when you ask the system, with "emerge name-of-package", to do so; this contrasts with the historical frustrations presented to users of package systems where each dependency must be manually found and installed first. How to install each package is described by a simple machine-readable text file, called an "ebuild". Ebuilds are conceptually simple, but can become quite complex, and provide Gentoo-specific configuration for packages; they also frequently apply patches which increase functionality or fix bugs. Major packages (which have the best-maintained ebuilds) are consequently easy to upgrade and most start with a working configuration; further details on what a user may want to do are shown after a package is installed. There are around 7000 packages available in portage, and on average 50 new packages (including upgrades) are added daily. The newest updates can be seen on the "Fresh Ebuilds" site.

Gentoo is most likely to be appreciated by people with fast computers and Internet connections, due to the bandwidth and processor-intensive nature of its package system. Those with unusual needs may also appreciate Gentoo; as Linux changes rapidly, and Gentoo is highly configurable, it can make some tasks easier than other distributions do. A typical Gentoo user wants to know exactly what makes up their system and appreciates major configurability. Gentoo systems are easy to keep very up to date; unfortunately, some stability is often sacrificed, especially in the "~arch" [similar to Debian's "unstable"] branches.

Gentoo is least likely to be appreciated by those with slower computers and Internet connections, unless they are highly patient; if an advanced package manager is wanted, these users may prefer BSD or Debian. Users who want a Linux system to just work with no manual configuration are more likely to at least initially appreciate a distribution such as Lycoris, Xandros, or perhaps Mandrake or Fedora Core.

[edit] Red Hat (Fedora) - Wikipedia

Red Hat gears the majority of its production toward corporate clients. However, a frequently updated consumer edition, Fedora, is offered. It is a popular distribution built by a community under the central direction of Red Hat, and its code is the basis from which Red Hat's enterprise software is developed. While Fedora is easy to use and has very good graphical utilities (including an installer), it's still a flexible and powerful distribution, capable of everything from laptop computing to a full-fledged multi-use server to a thousand-node cluster, and beyond. The package manager, RPM, does not automatically handle dependencies, however it is quite popular and many Linux applications are available as pre-compiled RPM packages; also, users may opt to use yum or PackageKit, both included with Fedora, to install packages instead. They may install the alternative installers apt-rpm and synaptic. Ten versions of this distro have been developed among which Fedora 11 is the latest available at the official website. Previous versions were Fedora Core 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, and Fedora 7, 8, 9 and 10.

official website

[edit] Mandriva - Wikipedia

Mandriva was originally known as Mandrake. It was originally based on Red Hat; it is now a distribution in its own right and is designed for beginners and experts. Mandrake's installation program has the ability to resize NTFS partitions, meaning it is a good choice if you want to keep your existing Windows XP or Windows 2000 installation but still install Linux (however, Knoppix can be used to resize NTFS partitions before an installation no matter what distro is being installed).

Mandriva uses the urpmi package manager, an equivalent of apt-get for rpm packages. Urpmi has both graphical (see screenshot here: [2]) and text-based front-ends. With the graphical front-end it is very easy to manage all installed and available software.

The live-version of Mandriva is MandrivaOne, which runs KDE or GNOME, has a one-click installation method. The installed Linux is the Official Mandriva Linux 2007, which makes for easy update/upgrade/program installations.

[edit] Puppy Linux - Wikipedia

"Live-CD", installable, Recordable DVD

Q: Is it true that this can run on a PC that doesn't even have a hard drive?

A: Yes - true. It will run on older hardware. It will run from USB keydrive. It works like Windows. You can run it from Windows You could even remove the CD ROM and floppy and have a machine with no hard disk no CD ROM even. It also can be run from a CD-RW. When you finish a session it writes any files to the CD-RW or DVD-RW

Puppy Linux can also be installed to a hard drive in the traditional way and the "install it to files on a vfat partition" way.

[edit] Sabayon - Wikipedia

Sabayon is a binary Gentoo distro. This is the recommended distribution for those who want to learn Linux or use bleeding edge software. A typical DVD installation 1hr with an 8x DVD drive. Gentoo's the distribution with the sharpest learning curve because it requires knowledge of the hardware and compiling the kernel first thing. Sabayon is just the opposite of Gentoo except that it's still Gentoo, which is designed for optimizing your applications by compiling them from source. Sabayon comes with a kernel configured for all kinds of hardware along with precompiled binaries. The Gentoo Portage package manager is still there for optimizing your favourite applications and giving them a boost.

[edit] Slackware - Wikipedia

Slackware tends to be favored by the more hardcore Unix fans. The entire operating system is based around tarballs and source installs. It definitely is a Linux distribution which requires the user to have a solid knowledge of the filesystem and its operations. It is not typically recommended for first time users, and should be installed by people with a desire to know the deeper and more complicated problems that arise within the Linux world. The install set typically is 4 cd's with 2 of them being a store for source tarballs and other packages. The opinion of some is that Slackware tends to be a more rock solid Distro, with less security vulnerabilities. Some first-timers consider it to be easy to install, but this is usually because they have worked with other UNIX-like OS's before. Installing it is quite simple, however configuring it to your liking is much more difficult. Slackware likes to have manual controls, so the user may find oneself using the terminal more often, needing to manually mount devices, etc. A large and growing number of Linux users have abandoned Slackware for newer, more advanced and overall less needy distributions.

Slackware does have support for other package modules, mainly RPMs. However, this support is limited, and without support generally. It's better suited to install applications by source compiling. Slackware is a good choice, but a user should probably be well versed in Linux prior to giving it a shot, it's not a bad learning distro, just a hard distro to learn.

[edit] SuSE - Wikipedia

SuSE is mostly popular in Europe and was acquired by Novell in November of 2003. SuSE focuses, like Mandriva, on an easy installation procedure and graphical administration tools. A graphical installation program guides you through the individual steps necessary to install Linux.

The SuSE Linux distribution is updated regularly and was chosen by many cities in Germany like Munich, to convert their desktop and server computers to Linux.

SuSE has possibly the best installer software of any Linux distribution, called Yast , which they recently (mid 2005) released as GPL (open source).

SuSE is a stable and easy to install Linux distro. And is by default LSB(Linux standard base) compliant.

Also SuSE like most other distributions is available on the form of downloadable ISO files (which you can write to CDs or a DVD). For this purpose you can use this link http://www.opensuse.com

It is usually available the same day as it is released in the stores. If you want installation support you must pay a one time fee for 90 days support. Earlier, before the openSuSE project you would have to wait for 3 months before the ISO of the latest version was available.

[edit] Ubuntu - Wikipedia / Kubuntu - Wikipedia

Ubuntu is a desktop Linux distribution. It is based on Debian and copies over many Debian packages.(albeit many outdated) Ubuntu is sponsored by Canonical Ltd, however all releases are free of charge. The name of the distribution means "humanity towards others". New versions are released every 6 months, and support (bug fixes) is provided for 18 months after the release. Ubuntu is developed for x86 and x86_64 systems.

Ubuntu uses the GNOME desktop environment as default. A version using the KDE desktop environment is available under the name Kubuntu.

[edit] Obtaining installation disks

Once you have chosen the distro that you would like to install, you will need to obtain installation disks in order to install the operating system onto your computer. If you have a high speed Internet connection and a CD burner, you may download the "ISO images" which you can tell your CD writing application to make disks out of. If you don't have a high speed Internet connection or a CD burner, it is still easy to obtain the installation disks. Popular distros, such as red hat, are included in many books about linux (the cds are usually a few versions outdated though). Also, you may purchase installation disks online for extremely low prices. (less than 2 dollars for a set of disks). Ubuntu Linux has a program in which they give away CDs for free, even waiving shipping costs.

You can install Linux too from a LiveCD (generally using the icon "Install in hard-disk"). See Knowing Knoppix.

[edit] Dual-booting or saving data

[edit] Preliminary note

You most likely do not need to do this as it is integrated into the installers

Generally installers have excellent partitioning tools so this is all part of the install. If not, or if you are not installing it is easiest to use a live CD distro that has GParted on it, such as ubuntu. GParted does not support LVM volumes used on more complicated partitioning setups, however fedoras installer for example and debians can install and partition LVM volumes.

[edit] hard way

To install Linux without erasing the contents of the hard drive requires a spare partition. One solution is to install an extra hard drive. However, one can also non-destructively resize an existing partition. A FAT-type volume can be resized with FIPS and an NTFS volume with ntfsresize. If using FIPS, the hard drive will need to be defragmented before the resizing, but defragmentation is a good idea no matter what the file system.

[edit] What size?

You would be hard-pressed to fit a normal desktop Linux system in under 2GB. It's advisable to give Linux more space than that, however, because many, many applications are available for free for Linux, and especially with a high-speed Internet connection, one is likely to install quite a lot of them.

You should plan on leaving at least 20% of each of your hard drive partitions free at all times -- modern file systems (such as NTFS, ext3 and ReiserFS) try to keep fragmentation low on their own, but they need extra space to do it with.

[edit] Manual resizing

[edit] Easiest way

(NOTE: Most of this only applies if there is already a version of Microsoft Windows on the computer) The volume resizing is a safe process, but afterwards the hard drive must be repartitioned. An error here can destroy the data on the hard drive, so double-check all commands. A typical session with ntfsresize ("/dev/hda1" is the most likely name for the NTFS partition. In this case, it is 10 GB in size.):

paul@faust:/$ su
Password:

You must be root to run ntfsresize. Under Knoppix {what about other live CDs? Under Gentoo's LiveCD, you are already root, so the su will not prompt for a password. Anyone know about others? I'd assume no-password or already-root would cover most of them...}, you will not be asked for a password unless you had already set one.

faust:/# umount /dev/hda1

This step is only needed if hda1 is already mounted, which is unlikely. However, if it is not needed, it will only give an error message and not do anything.

faust:/# ntfsresize -i /dev/hda1
ntfsresize v1.9.0
NTFS volume version: 3.1
Cluster size       : 4096 bytes
Current volume size: 10999992832 bytes (11000 MB)
Current device size: 11013617664 bytes (11014 MB)
Checking filesystem consistency ...
100.00 percent completed
Accounting clusters ...
Space in use       : 4197 MB (38.2%)
Estimating smallest shrunken size supported ...
File feature         Last used at      By inode
$MFT               :      8223 MB             0
Multi-Record       :      3160 MB         14852
You might resize at 4196970496 bytes or 4197 MB (freeing 6803 MB).
Please make a test run using both the -n and -s options before real resizing!

ntfsresize, version 1.90 and later, will automatically move files (including ones that the Windows defragmenter can't) in order to resize the partition, so defragmentation is not necessary before resizing (it might be easier to defragment while the partition is larger, though, so its a good opportunity).

The next step does a test run of the resizing process. Here, the user decided to leave Windows with about 6GB of space.

faust:/# ntfsresize -n -s 6000M /dev/hda1
ntfsresize v1.9.0
NTFS volume version: 3.1
Cluster size       : 4096 bytes
Current volume size: 10999992832 bytes (11000 MB)
Current device size: 11013617664 bytes (11014 MB)
New volume size    : 5999993344 bytes (6000 MB)
Checking filesystem consistency ...
100.00 percent completed
Accounting clusters ...
Space in use       : 4197 MB (38.2%)
Needed relocations : 251614 (1031 MB)
Schedule chkdsk for NTFS consistency check at Windows boot time ...
Resetting $LogFile ... (this might take a while)
Relocating needed data ...
100.00 percent completed
Updating $BadClust file ...
Updating $Bitmap file ...
Updating Boot record ...
The read-only test run ended successfully.

Now, write down the exact number of megabytes passed on the command line here (in this case, 6000). (The file system will probably not be resized to the exact size you specify, but ignore that — use what you entered.) You will need to resize the partition to the same size later.

Run ntfsresize with the same parameters, except leaving out the -n. This resizes the ntfs filesystem, but not the partition.


Splitting the partition is the only remaining task. Be sure to give it the hard drive (like "/dev/hda") as a parameter, rather than the partition ("/dev/hda1").

faust:/# cfdisk /dev/hda

If you don't have cfdisk, use fdisk instead. It has a less friendly interface, but it has exactly the same commands. Either way, no changes are made to the disk until you tell the program to (w)rite out the new partition table. If you accidentally write out the wrong partition structure, you should be able to save your data by replacing it with the correct one before doing anything to the affected partitions.


You need to

  • delete the current NTFS partition (this does not destroy the data on it)
  • (N.B. In the highly unlikely event that there was unpartitioned space before the NTFS partition, you need to create a partition filling it up. This is false -- you can create a partition beginning anywhere on the disk. You just need to write down what the starting cylinder was.)
  • create a new partition with the same size you passed to ntfsresize earlier at the beginning of the unpartitioned space that was created.
  • leave the remainder as free space. It will be filled with Linux's partitions, but some decisions need to be made first.

[edit] Resizing with QTParted

SystemRescueCD has QTParted on it, but no tutorial has been written here yet.

[edit] General tips

  • Always back up all your user data before fiddling with re-partitioning.
  • Whenever doing anything drastic to a computer system, it's very useful to have a live CD that you can use the computer with, just in case a catastrophic failure occurs.
  • If you get an error message you don't understand, search the web for its exact text (put it in quotes). You will likely find a mailing list discussion of your problem.
  • Learn to use console-mode (text-only) utilities like lynx (web browser), pico (simple text editor), nano (open source pico clone, the default Gentoo editor), emacs and vi (advanced text editors), and mutt and mail (mail client). Not only are these still useful if graphics mode is unavailable, but they are faster, and they are often scriptable and can be used over SSH or telnet (for example).
  • One can always visit the World Wide Web (Of course, wiki as well) for finding information on GNU/Linux and forums where people would always be ready to help!
  • One must always make sure that installation of GNU/Linux is on a free (unpartitioned, unformatted) space either in the Primary Partition area or the extended partition area.
  • Most distro's allow to create partition of the free space and format it on their own while installing.

[edit] Partitioning

  • mount point /boot: minimal 3 MB per kernel, recommended 100 MB
  • mount point /:
    • 300 MB for basic os (/bin/ /lib/ /sbin/ /etc/) not including /usr, /home,
    • 5 G including /usr
  • mount point /usr : 5 G for typical workstation installation (desktop, applicatrions)
  • swap partition or file = twice RAM size (Rule of thumb)
  • rest diskspace: /home, /opt, /usr/local.
  • Not recommended to store / and /home on one partition.
  • Recommended to install the source along with the distro in the / partition. The advantage of this, is certain devices that are not detected by the GNU/Linux can be configured and its driver can be installed with ease if the kernel source is installed.

More:

[edit] After installing

Once Linux is installed, you might be interested in Linux For Newbies. There are quite a few games that run under Linux.


[edit] Specific tips/fun stuff

  • If you're using KDE, check out these addons:
    • Kuake, a drop-down console, a la Quake's in-game console.
    • Karamba and Superkaramba, environments to support eye-candy interface features.

See also:

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