After you have obtained a distribution of Linux, you’re ready to prepare your system for installation. This takes a certain degree of planning, especially if you’re already running other operating systems. In the following sections we’ll describe how to plan for the Linux installation.
Preparing to Install Linux :
1. Installation overview
While each release of Linux is different, in general the method used to install the software is as follows:
a. Repartition your hard drive(s). If you have other operating systems already installed, you will need to repartition the drives in order to allocate space for Linux.
b. Boot the Linux installation media. Each distribution of Linux has some kind of installation media usually a “boot floppy” which is used to install the software. Booting this media will either present you with some kind of installation program, which will step you through the Linux installation, or allow you to install the software by hand.
c. Create Linux partitions. After repartitioning to allocate space for Linux, you create Linux partitionson that empty space. This is accomplished with the Linux fdisk program.
d. Create filesystems and swap space. At this point, you will create one or more filesystems, used to store files, on the newly-created partitions. In addition, if you plan to use swap space, you will create the swap space on one of your Linux partitions.
e. Install the software on the new filesystems. Finally, you will install the Linux software on your newly created filesystems. After this, it’s smooth sailing if all goes well.
Many distributions of Linux provide an installation program which will step you through the installation process, and automate one or more of the above steps for you. Keep in mind throughout this chapter that any
number of the above steps may be automated for you, depending on the distribution.
The Slackware distribution of Linux, covered in this book, only requires you to repartition your drive, using fdisk, and use the setup program to accomplish the other steps. Important hint: While preparing to install Linux, the best advice that we can give is to take notes during the entire procedure. Write down everything that you do, everything that you type, and everything that you see that might be out of the ordinary.
The idea here is simple: if (or when!) you run into trouble, you want to be able to retrace your steps and find out what went wrong. Installing Linux isn’t difficult, but there are many details to remember. You want to have a record of all of these details so that you can experiment with other methods if something goes wrong. Also, keeping a notebook of your Linux installation experience is useful when you want to ask other people for help, for example, when posting a message to one of the Linux-related USENET groups.
2. Repartitioning Concepts
Hard drives are divided into partitions, where a single partition is devoted to a single operating system. For example, on one hard drive, you may have several separate partitions one devoted to, say, MS-DOS, another to OS/2, and another to Linux.
If you already have other software installed on your system, you may need to resize those partitions in order to free up space for Linux. You will then create one or more Linux partitions on the resulting free space for storing the Linux software and swap space. We call this process repartitioning.
Many MS-DOS systems utilize a single partition inhabiting the entire drive. To MS-DOS, this partition is
known as C:. If you have more than one partition, MS-DOS names them D:, E:, and so on. In a way, each
partition acts like a separate hard drive.On the first sector of the disk is a master boot record along with a partition table. The boot record (as the name implies) is used to boot the system. The partition table contains information about the locations and sizes of your partitions.
There are three kinds of partitions: primary, extended, and logical. Of these, primary partitions are used most often. However, because of a limit in the size of the partition table, you can only have four primary partitions on any given drive.
The way around this four-partition limit is to use an extended partition. An extended partition doesn’t hold any data by itself; instead, it acts as a “container” for logical partitions. Therefore, you could create one extended partition, covering the entire drive, and within it create many logical partitions. However, you may have only one extended partition per drive.
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