A practical exercise for starters: install Linux on your PC. Read the
installation manual for your distribution and/or the Installation HOWTO and do
it.
Will this distribution run on my hardware?
Check with
http://www.ibiblio.org/mdw/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/index.html when in doubt
about compatibility of your hardware.
What kind of keyboard do I have (number of keys, layout)? What
kind of mouse (serial/parallel, number of buttons)? How many MB of RAM?
Will I install a basic workstation or a server, or will I need
to select specific packages myself?
Will I install from my hard disk, from a CD-ROM, or using the
network? Should I adapt the BIOS for any of this? Does the installation method
require a boot disk?
Will Linux be the only system on this computer, or will it be a
dual boot installation? Should I make a large partition in order to install
virtual systems later on, or is this a virtual installation itself?
Is this computer in a network? What is its hostname, IP
address? Are there any gateway servers or other important networked machines
my box should communicate with?
| | Linux expects to be networked |
|---|
| | Not using the network or configuring it incorrectly may result in slow
startup.
|
Is this computer a gateway/router/firewall? (If you have to
think about this question, it probably isn't.)
Partitioning: let the installation program do it for you this
time, we will discuss partitions in detail in Chapter 3. There
is system-specific documentation available if you want to know everything about
it. If your Linux distribution does not offer default partitioning, that probably means it is not suited for beginners.
Will this machine start up in text mode or in graphical mode?
Think of a good password for the administrator of this machine
(root). Create a non-root user account (non-privileged access to the system).
Do I need a rescue disk? (recommended)
Which languages do I want?
The full checklist can be found at
http://www.ibiblio.org/mdw/HOWTO/Installation-HOWTO/index.html.
In the following chapters we will find out if the installation has been
successful.
