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Linux Adventure Continues |
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Written by Chintan Rajyaguru
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Sunday, 23 April 2006 |
My Linux adventure started with the installation. That was just a trial run though. I installed SUSE Linux 10.0 on my old PIII, 500 MHz machine with just 384 MB of RAM. While Linux itself runs well on that machine, there is barely anything I can do with it. My ultimate goal is to use a Linux machine as a home computer as well as a development box. Here are some of the things I would like to do on my home computer: I could probably use my old machine to do all this. But I can't use it for the development purposes. And I have big plans for development: - I would like to install tomcat application server and run JSF, Spring and Hibernate applications on it
- I would like to install and run JetSpeed portal on top of the tomcat server, I would also like to develop portlet applications
- To develop portlets, JSF, Spring and Hibernate applications, I would like to run a Java IDE on my Linux machine
- I would like to create a production like environment for my Java/J2EE based applications. This environment will include Subversion (improved CVS) for source code management, LDAP to store users, a database server, a web server and will integrate all of them
There was no way my old machine could do all this. So, I decided to create a Linux environment on my laptop with AMD Athlon 1.8 GHz and 512 MB RAM (expandable to 1 GB). In my previous article, I only included high level installation instructions, in this installment I plan to include more details. I will continue to use SUSE Linux10.0 because: - After my previous installation, I am more familiar with this Linux distro then any other distros out there
- I like YAST
- SUSE Linux has a professional backing of Novel
For the purpose of this article, I will divide the complete process in Preparation, Installation and Post Installation phases. We will discuss the first two phases in this article and the third one in the next article. Before we dive into the details, let's make a note of the system on which I am installing Linux:
HP Pavilion ze4500 AMD Athlon 1.8 GHz
40 GB hard drive,
512 MB RAM, expandable to 1 GB
Winows 2000 preinstalled,
about 31 GB hard drive taken
Linux should wipe out everything and install as a single OS on the machine
Preparation This phase hasn't changed much after my last install but I will describe the steps in detail anyway. Before we prepare, it is important to note that this installation will be a network install. Meaning, the files will be downloaded from the Internet during the installation process. This, - prevents the requirement to create installation CDs
- requires an Internet connection
We still need to create one CD from which our system can boot and initialize installation. To do this, - Download the boot.iso image from ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/opensuse/distribution/SL-10.0-OSS/inst-source/boot
- Burn the image on a CD, make sure you use "Burn an Image" option of your CD burning software. An iso file is like a zip file, if you simply copy the file on the CD, your machine will NOT be able to boot from it. The "Burn an Image" or similar option will ask your software to first extract and then burn the files. If you don't know how to burn an image, go to the help files of your CD burning software and search for ISO. If you burn the CD properly, you should see bunch of files and folders in it as opposed to an ISO file
- Connect printer, USB jump drive, Ethernet cable and any other hardware. While this step isn’t a requirement, I connected my hardware anyway to increase the chances that the OS would recognize them during the installation and configure them automatically
That's pretty much it as far as the preparation goes.
Installation If you have never done a network install before, this could be little bit tricky as you have to specify various network parameters. Let's get started: - Insert the CD and restart the machine. Some machines are configured to always boot from the hard drive. In that case, the installation will NOT start automatically and the machine will simply boot in the old OS. On my machine, I had to press the esc key while it was starting to select the boot order. I changed the boot order to boot from CD first
- The installation starts and gives the following options:
- Boot from hard disc
- Installation
- Installation - ACPI Disabled
- Installation - Safe Settings
- Rescue System
- Memory Test
- Select installation and press Enter
- After a while, the installer displays a message “The installation couldn't find the SUSE Linux installation source - Activating manual setup program.” This simply means that the installation files are not on the CD (we know this already, later, we will point the installer to a network location). Select OK
- Select language, in my case English
- Select keyboard map, in my case English (US)
- You will get a menu with one of the options to start the installation. Select that option
- Select option: "Start Installation or Update"
- Select option: Network. This is where we are instructing the installer to do a network install
- When asked Automatic configuration via DHCP? Select Yes
- Enter IP address of the server 204.152.191.7. This is the IP address of the server mirrors.kernel.org from where the installer is going to find the installation files. You can choose your own mirror, provided you know the ip address. You can use ping kernel.mirrors.org on a command prompt to verify the ip address mentioned above
- If the server asks whether you want to use a username and password, select (or type) No because this server allows anonymous downloads of the SUSE 10.0 distro
- Next, the installer asks if you want to use http proxy. In most cases the answer will be no. If you are using a proxy server, you will have to enter proxy information (which is out of the scope of this article)
- When asked to enter the directory, enter: /opensuse/distribution/SL-10.0-OSS/inst-source/. This path is case sensitive. This is the path where all the installation files are located. You can actually go to http://204.152.191.7/opensuse/distribution/SL-10.0-OSS/inst-source/ and see this for yourself
- Select load the installation system (no input is required on this screen)
- At this point you can use your mouse. Again, select the language
- Accept the license agreement
- Keep selecting OK while the installer detects hardware
- Select timezone and click Next
- Select the desktop. I like KDE but you can select anything you want
- Partitioning: Here is a simplified description of how I used the partitions to wipe out all the contents of my hard drive and install Linux:
- By default, the installer proposes to shrink the windows partition and install Linux in the available space. If this is what you want, no further action is needed, just proceed with the installation. In my case, I wanted to wipe out windows completely and install Linux. When I clicked partitions, it showed me what SUSE planned to do:
- Shrink windows partition /dev/hda1 to 31.9 GB
- Create swap partition /dev/hda2 878.5 MB
- Create root partition /dev/hda3 4.4 GB
- With the above options, it lets you
- Accept proposal (accept these partitions and continue installation)
- Base partition setup on this proposal (use this as a baseline and change partitions)
- Create custom partition setup (meaning, I don't like what you proposed, I don't even want to start with your proposal, I will create my own partitions)
- I selected the last option, "Create custom partition setup." Because only this option gave me the easiest way to wipe out my windows and install Linux
- Select create custom partition setup and click Next
- Select the hard disc and click Next
- Select "Use entire hard disc" and click Next
- Accept the setup
- We are now done with our partitions. At this point, the entire configuration is complete and SUSE is ready to actually make changes per your selections and install the OS. If you aren't sure, this is your last chance to back out. Select Install
My installation started at 8:55 AM and ended at 9:48 AM. SUSE downloaded one package at a time and installed. The only problem with this method is that I couldn't select the packages myself. I want to install apache web server, tomcat, cvs, mysql etc. in the future. I hope SUSE didn't install them out of the box.
After the download and installation is complete, - The system restarts, detects hardware, prompts to set the root password, detects network card, configures other network related services and tests the connection to the Internet
- Prompts to check for the updates. I would recommend skipping this step because it takes long time to find and install updates and by this time you will be too anxious to use your system
Once the installation program is done setting things up in the background, it becomes interactive again. When prompted, - Select authentication mechanism for the non root users. Select local, which means all users using the system, will be authenticated locally on this machine as opposed to against a central user repository like ldap. Setting up at least one non root user is recommended
- Keep clicking next until you are on the Congratulations screen. Click Finish on the congratulations screen
That's it! There is Linux, installed and working! Working? Not quite! There are a few problems. In the next installment, I will list the things I didn't get/like out of the box and describe how I fixed them. In the next installment, we will talk about an interesting (and little bit frustrating) Post Installation phase.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 23 April 2006 )
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