RedHat Linux 9.0 Installation Guide

1. If you have a Windows Installation on the same hard disk that you are planning to install Linux 9.0, please make a backup of everything important on your Windows installation before proceeding. Dr. Wu WILL NOT be held responsible for any loss of data, system crashes, or any other problems that may be created as a result of following this tutorial.
2. If you want to keep your windows installation and only use 1 hard disk, follow these instructions:
3. Use partition magic to partition 2 extra partitions: one for Linux ext2 (/boot) and one for extended (/hda4). Partition Magic asks you if you want to make the extended have one /Linux swap and one Linux ext2: answer is yes.
4. Insert RedHat 9.0 CD #1 into CD-ROM drive & turn on computer. I will assume you have your BIOS configured to boot from the CD-ROM drive first.
5. At the first screen, press enter to install Linux 9.0 in graphical mode.
6. Skip the media check to save time, or if you'd like, you can do the media check
7. Hit the Next button to select your language, keyboard & mouse. The defaults on these options should be sufficient.
8. Installation Type screen - Select the Custom option (the bottom one)
9. If you used Partition Magic (A windows based program – run Partition Magic before doing this Linux installation) to partition the hard drive, follow these steps. If not, then skip the following and go ahead to step 9:
• Click on Custom Installation
• Manual partition
• New: mount hda3 to /boot format: ext3 fixed size 75 MB
• Mount hda5 to swap 512 MB or double the memory size
• Mount hda6 to / format ext3 fill to max. allowable size
• Change boot loader to GRUB
• After you are done, it should look something like Figure 1.1
• Skip to step 11

Figure 1.1

10. If you have Windows or another Linux installation on the same hard disk, you may want to consider using Partition Magic to create room for the new Linux installation and go back to step 9. If you don’t want to use Partition Magic, then choose the middle option Remove all partitions on the system.

11. Let the installer automatically partition the hard disk for you.

12. The next screen is for you to review the partitioning the system has decided on. Click the Next button.

13. The next screen allows you to configure your ethernet connections. You can either manually configure the ethernet device or if you have a DHCP server, you can let DHCP handle the configuration for you.

14. On the Firewall Configuration screen, allow incoming HTTP & FTP request by clicking once on the checkbox beside the WWW(http) and FTP option.

15. Select your time zone (Usually I choose America/Chicago for central time zone).

16. The Set Root Password screen is important. Make sure you use a password you will remember because there is no way to recover a lost root password. You will need this password to configure apache, mySQL, and other software packages.

17. The Package Group Selection screen is important

• Make sure the X Windows System is checked
• You can install either the GNOME Desktop Environment or the KDE Desktop Environment or you can choose to install both.
• Under the Servers header

1. Check on the box beside Server Configuration Tool. Then click details and make sure the first 9 options are checked.

2. Check on the box beside Web Server and then click the details button. Put a check mark beside mod_auth_mysql and php-mysql.

3. Check on the box beside SQL Database Server and then click on details button. Put a check beside the option for mysql-server.

• Under the System header

1. Check on the box beside Administration Tools

2. Check on the box beside System Tools and click on details button. Make sure the two ethereal options are checked (If you didn't install the GNOME, don't put a check in the option for ethereal-gnome)

• Under the Development header

1. Check on box beside Development Tools. Then click details and put a make sure there is a check mark beside gcc-java.

18. The installer will then check package dependencies. If there are any errors, it's probably best to install the required packages, but use common sense to resolve any problems.

19. Sit back and relax as the installation make take quite a long time. Remember to check periodically as it will need the other installation CD's throughout the installation process to complete.

20. Exit the installation when prompted. The computer will restart. Log on to the computer as root using the password you decided on during installation.

21. The first thing you need to do is configure the Apache and mySQL servers to start automatically each time the computer is turned on. To do this, click on the red hat in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. Go to System Settings > Server Settings > Services.

22. Put a check mark beside httpd - this is the Apache web server and the check will enable it to start automatically each time the computer is turned on. Highlight the httpd option and click on the start button in the upper left-hand corner of the screen to start the Apache web server immediately.

23. Figure 1.2 shows a screen capture of the Service Configuration screen.

Figure 1.2

24. Repeat step 22 for the option mysqld - This is the mySQL server.