Installing for a Workstation

Last month, we gave you two CDs containing PCQ Linux 7.1 (based on Red Hat Linux 7.1). Many people got confused about whether these CDs included the Workstation/desktop setup, since our articles last month concentrated on the server setup.

Sorry for the confusion. While we did talk about server setups last month, the CDs do contain everything you need to set up a Linux workstation/desktop.

So retrieve those July 2001 CDs, and let’s get to work. Installing PCQ Linux 7.1 on a workstation is not much of a task. The install options have a preconfigured option for a workstation installation. But before you start installing, make sure that you have a free partition to install Linux and a CD-ROM drive to boot from the CD.

If you do not have a free partition, that is all the space on the hard disk is already partitioned for some other OS, you can use some partitioning software like Partition magic or FIPS. The latter can be found on the PCQ Linux July 2001 CD in the dosutils directory. Description of the usage of these tools is out of the scope of this article. Sufficient documentation is available with the tools.

In the BIOS configuration, disable any kind of anti-virus protection and specify the cdrom as the machine’s first boot device.

Installation

1. Insert the PCQ Linux install CD into the cd-rom drive and reboot your system. The computer will automatically boot from the CD and show you a text based menu.

2. You need to choose an installation environment. The default is a graphical installation. If you prefer a text-based install, type“text” at the prompt and hit the Enter key. The text-based install is faster on machines with comparatively less resources. Press Enter if you want to go into the graphical install. However, if you choose to use the graphical install and it crashes while installation, simply reboot and use the text-based install.

3. The installer will now ask for a language for the installation program to display its text. I’ll assume you’ll want “English”. If you have plenty of time to spend on each menu, figuring out what the text says, try something like “Hungarian” or “Icelandic” in which case, you can use “Til Baka” or “Vissza” (Go Back) button to come back to this language selection menu. Jokes apart, go to the next step.

4. Select your keyboard layout. Accepting the default (US) should work in most cases.

5. If you are using the graphical installer, you will be asked about your mouse.You will probably want to select one of the generic mice. Most of the other mice that are listed (logitech, mouseman, etc) are for older mice that use obsolete protocols. Do not select them unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If your mouse has a scroll-wheel, select Microsoft
   
   Intellimouse.

6. When asked for install type, select Workstation.

7. You would now need to create appropriate partitions to install Linux. Choose Disk Druid or fdisk depending on whichever you are familiar with. Partition sizes and number may vary with your setup but for a bare minimum, you need to create a / and a swap partition. But it is recommended to create /boot, /home, /, and a swap partition. In case you decide to reinstall, you can safely reuse the /home partition with all your user data intact. Save the partitioning scheme and proceed to the next step.

8. Next, you will be asked details of configuration of your network interfaces.If you have the details handy, you can enter them. Refer to the article Configuring the Gateway from last month (page 109) for more details.

9. The firewall configuration screen offers a choice of firewall configurations. Choose ‘Medium Firewall’ for the time being. You can modify this later by using ipchains rules of your own.

10. If you are using a text-based install, at this point you will be prompted for details about your mouse. Refer to item 5 above.

11. When asked for languages to be installed select English, otherwise refer to step 3.

12. For time zone, choose the default “Asia/Calcutta”.

13. Enter a root password when prompted. Do not forget it. You should create a user account here, which you should use to work on the machine. You should never work as root at all times.

14. Select the packages that you want to install. You get to choose from installing KDE, GNOME and a collection of games.

15. Select the video card that you have, the installer would try to autodetect the card for you, otherwise select it manually.

16. If you are doing a graphical install, you’ll be prompted for some additional information which starts with the type of monitor that you have. If your monitor type is not listed, select custom and feed the monitor specification manually. Be sure to refer to the monitor manual before filling in the details here as any incorrect settings may damage the hardware on your machine.
    
    Select the Color depth and the screen resolution that you wish to run the X Window system in, after installation. Choose your default desktop environment and if you want a graphical login or a text based login. I recommend that you select the text based login type. You can test the X Window configuration after installation and then switch to graphics based login.

17. The installer will now format the Linux partitions and will install the required packages. You can watch the progress of the formatting by switching to the virtual terminals by using Alt+1 to Alt+5 (if you are doing a text based install) or by using Ctrl+Alt+2 to Ctrl+Alt+5 (for graphics based install).

18. After some time you should be prompted to insert the second disk. Do so and press OK.

19. After installation of all packages, you will be given the opportunity to create a boot disk. I strongly recommend that you create one. You can also create one later on, using “mkbootdisk”.

20. If you did a text based install, you’ll be prompted for the type of monitor that you have. Refer to step 16 above.

At this point, the installation is complete. Remove the cdrom from the drive and reboot into the Linux system that you just installed. 

All set and ready to enjoy the powerful features of the software offered by Linux? Read on.

Vaibhav Sharma is a network consultant with Exocore Consulting

www.exocore.com