The
Linux Installation HOWTO
by Eric S. Raymond
v4.15, 20 November 1998
This document describes
how to obtain and install Linux software. It
is the first document
which a new Linux user should read to get
started.
______________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1
Purpose of this document
1.2
Other sources of information
1.3
New versions of this document
1.4
Feedback and Corrections
2. Recent Changes
3. The Easiest Option:
Buy, Don't Build
4. Before You Begin
4.1
Hardware requirements
4.2
Space requirements and coexistence
4.3
Choosing a Linux distribution
5. Installation Overview
5.1
First Installation Steps: The Easy Way
5.2
First Installation Steps: The Hard Way
5.3
Continuing the Installation
5.4
Basic Parts of an Installation Kit
6. Installation In Detail
6.1
Getting prepared for installation
6.2
Creating the boot and root floppies
6.3
Repartitioning your DOS/Windows drives
6.4
Creating partitions for Linux
6.4.1 Partition basics
6.4.2 Sizing partitions
6.5
Booting the installation disk
6.6
Using the rootdisk
6.6.1 Choosing EGA or X installation
6.6.2 Using
6.6.3 Post-partition steps
6.7
Installing software packages
6.8
After package installations
6.8.1 LILO, the LInux LOader
6.8.2 Making a production boot disk (optional)
6.8.3 Miscellaneous system configuration
7. Booting Your New System
8. After Your First Boot
8.1
Beginning System Administratration
8.2
Custom LILO Configuration
9. Administrivia
9.1
Terms of Use
9.2
Acknowledgements
______________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
1.1. Purpose of
this document
Linux is a freely-distributable
implementation of Unix for inexpensive
personal machines (it
was developed on 386s, and now supports 486,
586, Pentium, PowerPC,
Sun Sparc and DEC Alpha hardware). It supports
a wide range of software,
including X Windows, Emacs, TCP/IP
networking (including
SLIP), and many applications.
This document assumes
that you have heard of and know about Linux, and
now want to get it running.
It focuses on the Intel base version,
which is the most popular,
but much of the advice applies on Power
PCs, Sparcs and Alphas
as well.
1.2. Other sources
of information
If you are new to Linux,
there are several sources of basic
information about the
system. The best place to find these is at the
Linux Documentation Project
home page at
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/linux.html>.
You can find the latest, up-
to-date version of this
document there, as
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Installation-HOWTO.html>
You should probably start
by browsing the resources under General
Linux Information; the
Linux INFO-SHEET
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/INFO-SHEET.html>
and the Linux META-
FAQ <http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/META-FAQ.html>.
The `Linux
Frequently Asked Questions'
document contains many common questions
(and answers!) about
Linux---it is a ``must read'' for new users.
You can find help for
common problems on the USENET newsgroups
comp.os.linux.help and
comp.os.linux.announce.
The Linux Documentation
Project is writing a set of manuals and books
about Linux, all of which
are freely distributable on the net and
available from the LDP
home page.
The book ``Linux Installation
and Getting Started'' is a complete
guide to getting and
installing Linux, as well as how to use the
system once you've installed
it. It contains a complete tutorial to
using and running the
system, and much more information than is
contained here.
You can browse it, or download a copy, from the LDP
home page.
Finally, there is a rather
technical Guide to x86 Bootstrapping
<http://www.paranoia.com/~vax/boot.html>.
This document is NetBSD-
rather than Linux-oriented,
but contains useful material on disk
configuration and boot
managers for multi-OS setups.
1.3. New versions
of this document
New versions of the Linux
Installation HOWTO will be periodically
posted to comp.os.linux.help
and and news.answers
<news:news.answers>.
They will also be uploaded to various Linux WWW
and FTP sites, including
the LDP home page.
You can also view the
latest version of this on the World Wide Web via
the URL <http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Installation-HOWTO.html>.
1.4. Feedback and
Corrections
If you have questions
or comments about this document, please feel
free to mail Eric S.
Raymond, at esr@thyrsus.com. I welcome any
suggestions or criticisms.
If you find a mistake with this document,
please let me know so
I can correct it in the next version. Thanks.
Please do not mail me
questions about how to solve hardware problems
encountered during installation.
Consult ``Linux Installation and
Getting Started'', bug
your vendor, or consult the Linux newsgroup
comp.os.linux.setup.
This HOWTO is intended to be rapid, painless
guide to normal installation
-- a separate HOWTO on hardware problems
and diagnosis is in preparation.
2. Recent Changes
· Added the
`Buy, Don't Build'.
· Added the
material on booting from CD-ROM.
3. The Easiest Option:
Buy, Don't Build
Linux has now matured
enough that there are now system integrators who
will assemble a workstation
for you, install and configure a Linux,
and do an intensive burn-in
to test it before it's shipped to you. If
you have more money than
time, or you have stringent reliability or
performance requirements,
these integrators provide a valuable service
by making sure you won't
get hardware that's flaky or dies two days
out of the box.
There are several firms
of this kind (and I'll list them here as I
learn more about them).
The only such outfit I know about personally
is VA Research <http://www.varesearch.com>.
These good people build
high-end, high quality
Linux workstations with a nifty Tux-the-penguin
logo on the front.
They have intimate ties to the Linux community
(the Debian project <http://www.debian.org>
lives on a machine in
their back room, Linus
owns one of their boxes, and they even throw
resources at your humble
HOWTO maintainer occasionally).
For those of us without
a champagne budget, the rest of this HOWTO is
about how to install
Linux yourself.
4. Before You Begin
Before you can install
Linux, you'll need to be sure your machine is
Linux-capable, and choose
a Linux to install. The Linux Pre-
installation checklist
<http://members.tripod.com/~algolog/lnxchk.htm>
may help you organize
configuration data before you begin.
4.1. Hardware requirements
What kind of system is
needed to run Linux? This is a good question;
the actual hardware requirements
for the system change periodically.
The Linux Hardware-HOWTO,
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Hardware-
HOWTO.html>, gives a
(more or less) complete listing of hardware
supported by Linux. The
Linux INFO-SHEET,
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/INFO-SHEET.html>,
provides another
list.
For the Intel versions,
a hardware configuration that looks like the
following is required:
Any 80386, 80486, Pentium
or Pentium II processor will do. Non-Intel
clones of the 80386 and
up will generally work. You do not need a math
coprocessor, although
it is nice to have one.
The ISA, EISA, VESA Local
Bus and PCI bus architectures are supported.
The MCA bus architecture
(found on IBM PS/2 machines) is supported in
the newest development
(2.1.x) kernels, but may not be ready for prime
time yet.
You need at least 4 megabytes
of memory in your machine. Technically,
Linux will run with only
2 megs, but most installations and software
require 4. The more memory
you have, the happier you'll be. I suggest
8 or 16 megabytes if
you're planning to use X-Windows.
Of course, you'll need
a hard drive and an AT-standard drive
controller. All MFM,
RLL, and IDE drives and controllers should work.
Many SCSI drives and
adaptors are supported as well; the Linux SCSI-
HOWTO contains more information
on SCSI. If you are assembling a
system from scratch to
run Linux, the small additional cost of SCSI is
well worth it for the
extra performance and reliability it brings.
You will need a 3.5" floppy
drive. While 5.25" floppies are supported
under Linux, they are
little-enough used that you should not count on
disk images necessarily
fitting on them. (A stripped-down Linux can
actually run on a single
floppy, but that's only useful for
installation and certain
troubleshooting tasks.)
You also need an MDA,
Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA, or Super VGA video card
and monitor. In
general, if your video card and monitor work under
MS-DOS then it should
work under Linux. However, if you wish to run X
Windows, there are other
restrictions on the supported video hardware.
The Linux XFree86-HOWTO,
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/XFree86-HOWTO.html>,
contains more
information about running
X and its requirements.
You'll want a CD-ROM drive.
If it's ATAPI, SCSI, or true IDE you
should have no problem
making it work (but watch for cheap drives
advertising "IDE" interfaces
that aren't true IDE). If your CD-ROM
uses a proprietary interface
card, it's possible the installation
kernel you're going to
boot from floppy won't be able to see it -- and
an inaccessible CD-ROM
is a installation show-stopper. Also, CD-ROMs
that attach to your parallel
port won't work at all. If you're in
doubt, consult the Linux
CD-ROM HOWTO,
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/CDROM-HOWTO.html>
for a list and
details of supported
hardware.
So-called "Plug'n'Play"
jumperless cards can be a problem. Support
for these is under active
development, but not there yet in the 2.0.25
kernel. Fortunately
this is only likely to be a problem with sound or
Ethernet cards.
If you're running on a
box that uses one of the Motorola 68K
processors (including
Amiga, Atari, or VMEbus machines), see the
Linux/m68k FAQ at
<http://www.clark.net/pub/lawrencc/linux/faq/faq.html>
for information
on minimum requirements
and the state of the port. The FAQ now says
m68k Linux is as stable
and usable as the Intel versions.
4.2. Space requirements
and coexistence
You'll need free space
for Linux on your hard drive. The amount of
space needed depends
on how much software you plan to install. Most
installations require
somewhere in the ballpark of 200 to 500 megs.
This includes space for
the software, swap space (used as virtual RAM
on your machine), and
free space for users, and so on.
It's conceivable that
you could run a minimal Linux system in 80 megs
or less (this used to
be common when Linux distributions were
smaller), and it's conceivable
that you could use well over 500 megs
or more for all of your
Linux software. The amount varies greatly
depending on the amount
of software you install and how much space you
require. More about this
later.
Linux will co-exist with
other operating systems, such as MS-DOS,
Microsoft Windows, or
OS/2, on your hard drive. (In fact you can even
access MS-DOS files and
run some MS-DOS programs from Linux.) In
other words, when partitioning
your drive for Linux, MS-DOS or OS/2
live on their own partitions,
and Linux exists on its own. We'll go
into more detail about
such ``dual-boot'' systems later.
You do NOT need to be
running MS-DOS, OS/2, or any other operating
system to use Linux.
Linux is a completely different, stand-alone
operating system and
does not rely on other OSs for installation and
use.
In all, the minimal setup
for Linux is not much more than is required
for most MS-DOS or Windows
3.1 systems sold today (and it's a good
deal less than the minimum
for Windows 95!). If you have a 386 or 486
with at least 4 megs
of RAM, then you'll be happy running Linux. Linux
does not require huge
amounts of diskspace, memory, or processor
speed. Matt Welsh,
the originator of this HOWTO, used to run Linux on
a 386/16 MHz (the slowest
machine you can get) with 4 megs of RAM, and
was quite happy. The
more you want to do, the more memory (and faster
processor) you'll need.
In our experience a 486 with 16 megabytes of
RAM running Linux outdoes
several models of expensive workstations.
4.3. Choosing a
Linux distribution
Before you can install
Linux, you need to decide on one of the
``distributions'' of
Linux which are available. There is no single,
standard release of the
Linux software---there are many such releases.
Each release has its
own documentation and installation instructions.
Linux distributions are
available both via anonymous FTP and via mail
order on diskette, tape,
and CD-ROM. The Linux Distribution HOWTO,
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Distribution-HOWTO.html>,
includes
descriptions of many
Linux distributions available via FTP and mail
order.
In the dim and ancient
past when this HOWTO was first written
(1992-93), most people
got Linux by tortuous means involving long
downloads off the Internet
or a BBS onto their DOS machines, followed
by an elaborate procedure
which transferred the downloads onto
multiple floppy disks.
One of these disks would then be booted and
used to install the other
dozen. With luck (and no media failures)
you'd finish your installation
many hours later with a working Linux.
Or maybe not.
While this path is still
possible (and you can download any one of
several distributions
from
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/>),
there are now much
less strenuous ways.
The easiest is to buy one of the high-quality
commercial Linux distributions
distributed on CD-ROM, such as Red Hat,
Debian, Linux Pro, or
WGS. These are typically available for less
than $50 at your local
bookstore or computer shop, and will save you
many hours of aggravation.
You can also buy anthology
CD-ROMs such as the InfoMagic Linux
Developer's Resource
set. These typically include several Linux
distributions and a recent
dump of major Linux archive sites, such as
sunsite or tsx-11.
In the remainder of this
HOWTO we will focus on the steps needed to
install from an anthology
CD-ROM, or one of the lower-end commercial
Linuxes that doesn't
include a printed installation manual. If your
Linux includes a paper
manual some of this HOWTO may provide useful
background, but you should
consult the manual for detailed
installation instructions.
5. Installation
Overview
It's wise to collect configuration
information on your hardware before
installing. Know
the vendor and model number of each card in your
machine; collect the
IRQs and DMA channel numbers. You probably won't
need this information
-- but if it turns out you do, you'll need it
very badly.
If you want to run a "dual-boot"
system (Linux and DOS or Windows
both), rearrange (repartition)
your disk to make room for Linux. If
you're wise, you'll back
up everything first!
5.1. First Installation
Steps: The Easy Way
If you have an EIDE/ATAPI
CDROM (normal these days), check your
machine's BIOS settings
to see if it has the capability to boot from
CD-ROM. Most machines
made after mid-1997 can do this.
If yours is among them,
change the settings so that the CD-ROM is
checked first.
This is often in a 'BIOS FEATURES' submenu of the BIOS
configuration menus.
Then insert the installation
CD-ROM. Reboot. You're started.
If you have a SCSI CDROM
you can often still boot from it, but it gets
a little more motherboard/BIOS
dependent. Those who know enough to
spend the extra dollars
on a SCSI CDROM drive probably know enough to
figure it out.
5.2. First Installation
Steps: The Hard Way
1. Make installation floppies.
2. Boot an installation
mini-Linux from the floppies in order to get
access
to the CD-ROM.
5.3. Continuing
the Installation
1. Prepare the Linux filesystems.
(If you didn't edit the disk
partition
table earlier, you will at this stage.)
2. Install a basic production
Linux from the CD-ROM.
3. Boot Linux from the
hard drive.
4. (Optional) Install
more packages from CD-ROM.
5.4. Basic Parts
of an Installation Kit
Here are the basic parts
of an installable distribution:
1. The README and FAQ
files. These will usually be located in the
top-level
directory of your CD-ROM and be readable once the hard
disk
has been mounted under Linux. (Depending on how the CD-ROM
was
generated, they may even be visible under DOS/Windows.) It is a
good
idea to read these files as soon as you have access to them,
to
become aware of important updates or changes.
2. A number of bootdisk
images (often in a subdirectory). If your CD-
ROM
is not bootable, one of these is is the file that you will
write
to a floppy to create the boot disk. You'll select one of
the
above bootdisk images, depending on the type hardware that you
have
in your system.
The issue here is that
some hardware drivers conflict with each other
in strange ways, and
instead of attempting to debug hardware problems
on your system it's easier
to use a boot floppy image with only the
drivers you need enabled.
(This will have the nice side effect of
making your kernel smaller.)
· A rootdisk
image (or perhaps two). If your CD-ROM is not bootable,
you
will write one of these to a floppy to create the installation
disk(s).
Nowadays the root disk or disks is generally independent
of
your hardware type; it will assume an EGA or better color
screen.
· A rescue
disk image. This is a disk containing a basic kernel and
tools
for disaster recovery in case something steps on the kernel
or
boot block of your hard disk.
· RAWRITE.EXE.
This is an MS-DOS program that will write the contents
of
a file (such as a boot or rootdisk image) directly to a floppy,
without
regard to format.
You only need RAWRITE.EXE
if you plan to create your boot and root
floppies from an MS-DOS
system. If you have access to a UNIX
workstation with a floppy
drive instead, you can create the floppies
from there, using the
`dd' command. or possibly a vendor-provided
build script. See
the man page for dd(1) and ask your local UNIX
gurus for assistance.
· The CD-ROM
itself. The purpose of the boot disk is to get your
machine
ready to load the root or installation disks, which in turn
are
just devices for preparing your hard disk and copying portions
of
the CD-ROM to it. If your CD-ROM is bootable, you can boot it
and
skip right to preparing your disk.
6. Installation
In Detail
6.1. Getting prepared
for installation
Linux makes more effective
use of PC hardware than MS-DOS, Windows or
NT, and is accordingly
less tolerant of misconfigured hardware. There
are a few things you
can do before you start that will lessen your
chances of being stopped
by this kind of problem.
First, collect any manuals
you have on your hardware -- motherboard,
video card, monitor,
modem, etc. -- and put them within easy reach.
Second, gather detailed
information on your hardware configuration.
One easy way to do this,
if you're running MS-DOS 5.0, or up, is to
print a report from the
Microsoft diagnostic utility msd.exe (you can
leave out the TSR, driver,
memory-map, environment-strings and OS-
version parts).
Among other things, this will guarantee you full and
correct information on
your video card and mouse type, which will be
helpful in configuring
X later on.
Third, check your machine
for configuration problems with supported
hardware that could cause
an un-recoverable lockup during Linux
installation.
· It is possible
for a DOS/Windows system using IDE hard drive(s) and
CD
ROM to be functional even with the master/slave jumpers on the
drives
incorrectly set. Linux won't fly this way. If in doubt,
check
your master-slave jumpers!
· Is any
of your peripheral hardware designed with neither
configuration
jumpers nor non-volatile configuration memory? If
so,
it may require boot-time initialization via an MS-DOS utility
to
start up, and may not be easily accessible from Linux. CD-ROMs,
sound
cards, Ethernet cards and low-end tape drives can have this
problem.
If so, you may be able to work around this with an
argument
to the boot prompt; see the Linux Boot Prompt HOWTO,
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/BootPrompt-HOWTO.html>
for
details).
· Some other
operating systems will allow a bus mouse to share an IRQ
with
other devices. Linux doesn't support this; in fact, trying it
may
lock up your machine. If you are using a bus mouse, see the
Linux
Bus Mouse HOWTO, <http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Busmouse-
HOWTO.html>,
for details.
If possible, get the telephone
number of an experienced Linux user you
can call in case of emergency.
Nine times out of ten you won't need
it, but it's comforting
to have.
Budget time for installation.
That will be about one hour on a bare
system or one being converted
to all-Linux operation. Or up to three
hours for a dual-boot
system (they have a much higher incidence of
false starts and hangups).
6.2. Creating the
boot and root floppies
(This step is only needed
if you can't boot from a CD-ROM.)
Your Linux CD-ROM may
come with installation aids that will take you
through the process of
building boot, root, and rescue disks with
interactive prompts.
These may be an MS-DOS installation program
(such as the Red Hat
redhat.exe program) or a Unix script, or both.
If you have such a program
and can use it, you should read the rest of
this subsection for information
only. Run the program to do actual
installation -- its authors
certainly knew more about the specific
distribution than I,
and you'll avoid many error-prone hand-entry
steps.
More detailed information
on making boot and root disks, see the Linux
Bootdisk HOWTO at
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Bootdisk-
HOWTO.html>.
Your first step will be
to select a boot-disk image to fit your
hardware. If you
must do this by hand, you'll generally find that
either (a) the bootdisk
images on your CD-ROM are named in a way that
willl help you pick a
correct one, or (b) there's an index file nearby
describing each image.
Next, you must create
floppies from the bootdisk image you selected,
and from the root and
rescue disk images. This is where the MS-DOS
program RAWRITE.EXE comes
into play.
Next, you must have two
or three high-density MS-DOS formatted
floppies. (They
must be of the same type; that is, if your boot
floppy drive is a 3.5"
drive, both floppies must be high-density 3.5"
disks.) You will use
RAWRITE.EXE to write the boot and rootdisk images
to the floppies.
Invoke it with no arguments,
like this:
C:\> RAWRITE
Answer the prompts for
the name of the file to write and the floppy to
write it to (such as
A:). RAWRITE will copy the file, block-by-block,
directly to the floppy.
Also use RAWRITE for the root disk image (such
as COLOR144). When you're
done, you'll have two floppies: one
containing the boot disk,
the other containing the root disk. Note
that these two floppies
will no longer be readable by MS-DOS (they are
``Linux format'' floppies,
in some sense).
You can use the dd(1)
commands on a UNIX system to do the same job.
(For this, you will need
a UNIX workstation with a floppy drive, of
course.) For example,
on a Sun workstation with the floppy drive on
device /dev/rfd0, you
can use the command:
$ dd if=bare of=/dev/rfd0 obs=18k
You must provide the appropriate
output block size argument (the `obs'
argument) on some workstations
(e.g., Suns) or this will fail. If you
have problems the man
page for dd(1) may be be instructive.
Be sure that you're using
brand-new, error-free floppies. The floppies
must have no bad blocks
on them.
Note that you do not need
to be running Linux or MS-DOS in order to
install Linux.
However, running Linux or MS-DOS makes it easier to
create the boot and root
floppies from your CD-ROM. If you don't have
an operating system on
your machine, you can use someone else's Linux
or MS-DOS just to create
the floppies, and install from there.
6.3. Repartitioning
your DOS/Windows drives
On most used systems,
the hard drive is already dedicated to
partitions for MS-DOS,
OS/2, and so on. You'll need to resize these
partitions in order to
make space for Linux. If you're going to run a
dual-boot system, it's
strongly recommended that you read one or more
of the following mini-HOWTOS,
which describe different dual-boot
configurations.
· The DOS-Win95-OS2-Linux
mini-HOWTO,
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Linux+DOS+Win95+OS2.html>.
· The Linux+Win95
mini-HOWTO,
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Linux+Win95.html>
· The Linux+NT-Loader
mini-HOWTO,
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Linux+NT-Loader.html>
Even if they are not directly
applicable to your system, they will
help you understand the
issues involved.
NOTE: Some Linuxes will
install to a directory on your MS-DOS
partition. (This is different
than installing FROM an MS-DOS
partition.) Instead,
you use the ``UMSDOS filesystem'', which allows
you to treat a directory
of your MS-DOS partition as a Linux
filesystem. In this way,
you don't have to repartition your drive.
I only suggest using this
method if your drive already has four
partitions (the maximum
supported by DOS) and repartitioning would be
more trouble than it's
worth (it slows down your Linux due to filename
translation overhead).
Or, if you want to try out Linux before
repartitioning, this
is a good way to do so. But in most cases you
should re-partition,
as described here. If you do plan to use UMSDOS,
you are on your own---it
is not documented in detail here. From now
on, we assume that you
are NOT using UMSDOS, and that you will be
repartitioning.
A partition is just a
section of the hard drive set aside for a
particular operating
system to use. If you only have MS-DOS installed,
your hard drive probably
has just one partition, entirely for MS-DOS.
To use Linux, however,
you'll need to repartition the drive, so that
you have one partition
for MS-DOS, and one (or more) for Linux.
Partitions come in three
flavors: primary, extended, and logical.
Briefly, primary partitions
are one of the four main partitions on
your drive. However,
if you wish to have more than four partitions per
drive, you need to create
an extended partition, which can contain
many logical partitions.
You don't store data directly on an extended
partition---it is used
only as a container for logical partitions.
Data is stored only on
either primary or logical partitions.
To put this another way,
most people use only primary partitions.
However, if you need
more than four partitions on a drive, you create
an extended partition.
Logical partitions are then created on top of
the extended partition,
and there you have it---more than four
partitions per drive.
Note that you can easily
install Linux on the second drive on your
system (known as D: to
MS-DOS). You simply specify the appropriate
device name when creating
Linux partitions. This is described in
detail below.
Back to repartitioning
your drive: The problem with resizing
partitions is that there
is no way to do it (easily) without deleting
the data on those partitions.
Therefore, you will need to make a full
backup of your system
before repartitioning. In order to resize a
partition, we simply
delete the partition(s), and re-create them with
smaller sizes.
NOTE: There is a non-destructive
disk repartitioner available for MS-
DOS, called FIPS. Look
at
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/install>.
With FIPS, a disk
optimizer (such as Norton
Speed Disk), and a little bit of luck, you
should be able to resize
MS-DOS partitions without destroying the data
on them. It's still
suggested that you make a full backup before
attempting this.
If you're not using FIPS,
however, the classic way to modify
partitions is with the
program FDISK. For example, let's say that you
have an 80 meg hard drive,
dedicated to MS-DOS. You'd like to split it
in half---40 megs for
MS-DOS and 40 megs for Linux. In order to do
this, you run FDISK under
MS-DOS, delete the 80 meg MS-DOS partition,
and re-create a 40 meg
MS-DOS partition in its place. You can then
format the new partition
and reinstall your MS-DOS software from
backups. 40 megabytes
of the drive is left empty. Later, you create
Linux partitions on the
unused portion of the drive.
In short, you should do
the following to resize MS-DOS partitions with
FDISK:
1. Make a full backup
of your system.
2. Create an MS-DOS bootable
floppy, using a command such as
FORMAT /S A:
3. Copy the files FDISK.EXE
and FORMAT.COM to this floppy, as well as
any
other utilities that you need. (For example, utilities to
recover
your system from backup.)
4. Boot the MS-DOS system
floppy.
5. Run FDISK, possibly
specifying the drive to modify (such as C: or
D:).
6. Use the FDISK menu
options to delete the partitions which you wish
to
resize. This will destroy all data on the affected partitions.
7. Use the FDISK menu
options to re-create those partitions, with
smaller
sizes.
8. Exit FDISK and re-format
the new partitions with the FORMAT
command.
9. Restore the original
files from backup.
Note that MS-DOS FDISK
will give you an option to create a ``logical
DOS drive''. A logical
DOS drive is just a logical partition on your
hard drive. You can install
Linux on a logical partition, but you
don't want to create
that logical partition with MS-DOS fdisk. So, if
you're currently using
a logical DOS drive, and want to install Linux
in its place, you should
delete the logical drive with MS-DOS FDISK,
and (later) create a
logical partition for Linux in its place.
The mechanism used to
repartition for OS/2 and other operating systems
is similar. See the documentation
for those operating systems for
details.
6.4. Creating partitions
for Linux
After repartitioning your
drive, you need to create partitions for
Linux. Before describing
how to do that, we'll talk about partitions
and filesystems under
Linux.
6.4.1. Partition
basics
Linux requires at least
one partition, for the root filesystem, which
will hold the Linux kernel
itself.
You can think of a filesystem
as a partition formatted for Linux.
Filesystems are used
to hold files. Every system must have a root
filesystem, at least.
However, many users prefer to use multiple
filesystems---one for
each major part of the directory tree. For
example, you may wish
to create a separate filesystem to hold all
files under the /usr
directory. (Note that on UNIX systems, forward
slashes are used to delimit
directories, not backslashes as with MS-
DOS.) In this case you
have both a root filesystem, and a /usr
filesystem.
Each filesystem requires
its own partition. Therefore, if you're using
both root and /usr filesystems,
you'll need to create two Linux
partitions.
In addition, most users
create a swap partition, which is used for
virtual RAM. If you have,
say, 4 megabytes of memory on your machine,
and a 10-megabyte swap
partition, as far as Linux is concerned you
have 14 megabytes of
virtual memory.
When using swap space,
Linux moves unused pages of memory out to disk,
allowing you to run more
applications at once on your system.
However, because swapping
is often slow, it's no replacement for real
physical RAM. But applications
that require a great deal of memory
(such as the X Window
System) often rely on swap space if you don't
have enough physical
RAM.
Nearly all Linux users
employ a swap partition. If you have 4
megabytes of RAM or less,
a swap partition is required to install the
software. It is strongly
recommended that you have a swap partition
anyway, unless you have
a great amount of physical RAM.
The size of your swap
partition depends on how much virtual memory you
need. It's often suggested
that you have at least 16 megabytes of
virtual memory total.
Therefore, if you have 8 megs of physical RAM,
you might want to create
an 8-megabyte swap partition. Note that swap
partitions can be no
larger than 128 megabytes in size. Therefore, if
you need more than 128
megs of swap, you must create multiple swap
partitions. You may have
up to 16 swap partitions in all.
You can find more on the
theory of swap space layout and disk
partitioning in the Linux
Partition mini-HOWTO (
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Partition.html>).
Note: it is possible,
though a bit tricky, to share swap partitions
between Linux and Windows
95 in a dual-boot system. For details, see
the Linux Swap Space
Mini-HOWTO,
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/unmaintained/Swap-Space>.
Gotcha #1: If you have
an EIDE drive with a partition that goes above
504MB, your BIOS may
not allow you to boot to a Linux installed there.
So keep your root partition
below 504MB. This shouldn't be a problem
for SCSI drive controllers,
which normally have their own drive BIOS
firmware. For technical
details, see the Large Disk Mini-HOWTO,
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Large-Disk.html>.
Gotcha #2: Are you mixing
IDE and SCSI drives? Then watch out. Your
BIOS may not allow you
to boot directly to a SCSI drive.
6.4.2. Sizing partitions
Besides your root and
swap partitions, you'll want to set up one or
more partitions to hold
your software and home directories.
While, in theory, you
could run everything off a single huge root
partition, almost nobody
does this. Having multiple partitions has
several advantages:
· It often
cuts down the time required for boot-time file-system
checks.
· Files can't
grow across partition boundaries. Therefore you can
use
partition boundaries as firebreaks against programs (like
Usenet
news) that want to eat huge amounts of disk, to prevent them
from
crowding out file space needed by your kernel and the rest of
your
applications.
· If you
ever develop a bad spot on your disk, formatting and
restoring
a single partition is less painful than having to redo
everything
from scratch.
On today's large disks,
a good basic setup is to have a small root
partition (less than
80 meg), a medium-sized /usr partition (up to 300
meg or so) to hold system
software, and a /home partition occupying
the rest of your available
space for home directories.
You can get more elaborate.
If you know you're going to run Usenet
news, for example, you
may want to give it a partition of its own to
control its maximum possible
disk usage. Or create a /var partition
for mail, news, and temporary
files all together. But in today's
regime of very cheap,
very large hard disks these complications seem
less and less necessary
for your first Linux installation. For your
first time, especially,
keep it simple.
6.5. Booting the
installation disk
The first step is to boot
the bootdisk you generated. Normally you'll
be able to boot hands-off;
the boot kernel prompt will fill itself in
after 10 seconds.
This is how you'll normally boot from an IDE disk.
By giving arguments after
the kernel name, you can specify various
hardware parameters,
such as your SCSI controller IRQ and address, or
drive geometry, before
booting the Linux kernel. This may be
necessary if Linux does
not detect your SCSI controller or hard drive
geometry, for example.
In particular, many BIOS-less
SCSI controllers require you to specify
the port address and
IRQ at boot time. Likewise, IBM PS/1, ThinkPad,
and ValuePoint machines
do not store drive geometry in the CMOS, and
you must specify it at
boot time. (Later on, you'll be able to
configure your production
system to supply such parameters itself.)
Watch the messages as
the system boots. They will list and describe
the hardware your installation
Linux detects. In particular, f you
have a SCSI controller,
you should see a listing of the SCSI hosts
detected. If you
see the message
SCSI: 0 hosts
Then your SCSI controller
was not detected, and you will have to
figure out how to tell
the kernel where it is.
Also, the system will
display information on the drive partitions and
devices detected. If
any of this information is incorrect or missing,
you will have to force
hardware detection.
On the other hand, if
all goes well and you hardware seems to be
detected, you can skip
to the following section, ``Loading the root
disk.''
To force hardware detection,
you must enter the appropriate parameters
at the boot prompt, using
the following syntax:
linux <parameters...>
There are a number of
such parameters available; we list some of the
most common below.
Modern Linux boot disks will often give you the
option to look at help
screen describing kernel parameters before you
boot.
· hd=cylinders,heads,sectors
Specify the drive geometry. Required
for
systems such as the IBM PS/1, ValuePoint, and ThinkPad. For
example,
if your drive has 683 cylinders, 16 heads, and 32 sectors
per
track, enter
linux hd=683,16,32
· tmc8xx=memaddr,irq
Specify address and IRQ for BIOS-less Future
Domain
TMC-8xx SCSI controller. For example,
linux tmc8xx=0xca000,5
Note that the 0x prefix
must be used for all values given in hex. This
is true for all of the
following options.
· st0x=memaddr,irq
Specify address and IRQ for BIOS-less Seagate ST02
controller.
· t128=memaddr,irq
Specify address and IRQ for BIOS-less Trantor
T128B
controller.
· ncr5380=port,irq,dma
Specify port, IRQ, and DMA channel for generic
NCR5380
controller.
· aha152x=port,irq,scsi_id,1
Specify port, IRQ, and SCSI ID for BIOS-
less
AIC-6260 controllers. This includes Adaptec 1510, 152x, and
Soundblaster-SCSI
controllers.
If you have questions
about these boot-time options, please read the
Linux SCSI HOWTO, which
should be available on any Linux FTP archive
site (or from wherever
you obtained this document). The SCSI HOWTO
explains Linux SCSI compatibility
in much more detail.
6.6. Using the rootdisk
After booting the bootdisk,
you will be prompted to enter the root
disk or disks.
At this point you should remove the bootdisk from the
drive and insert the
rootdisk. Then press enter to go on. You may
have to load a second
root disk.
What's actually happening
here is this: the boot disk provides a
miniature operating system
which (because the hard drive isn't
prepared) uses a portion
of your RAM as a virtual disk (called,
logically enough, a `ramdisk').
The root disks loads onto
the ramdisk a small set of files and
installation tools which
you'll use to prepare your hard drive and
install a production
Linux on it from your CD-ROM.
6.6.1. Choosing
EGA or X installation
Older Linuxes (including
Slackware) gave you a shell at this point and
required you to enter
installation commands by hand in a a prescribed
sequence. This
is still possible, but newer ones start by running a
screen-oriented installation
program which tries to interactively walk
you through these steps,
giving lots of help.
You will probably get
the option to try to configure X right away so
the installation program
can go graphical. If you choose this route,
the installation program
will quiz you about your mouse and monitor
type before getting to
the installation proper. Once you get your
production Linux installed,
these settings will be saved for you. You
will be able to tune
your monitor's performance later, so at this
stage it makes sense
to settle for a basic 640x480 SVGA mode.
X isn't necessary for
installation, but (assuming you can get past the
mouse and monitor configuration)
many people find the graphical
interface easier to use.
And you're going to want to bring up X
anyway, so trying it
early makes some sense.
Just follow the prompts
in the program. It will take you through the
steps necessary to prepare
your disk, create initial user accounts,
and install software
packages off the CD-ROM.
In the following subsections
we'll describe some of the tricky areas
in the installation sequence
as if you were doing them by hand. This
should help you understand
what the installation program is doing, and
why.
6.6.2. Using fdisk
and cfdisk
Your first installation
step once the root-disk Linux is booted will
be to create or edit
the partition tables on your disks. Even if you
used FDISK to set up
partitions earlier, you'll need to go back to the
partition table now and
insert some Linux-specific information now.
To create or edit Linux
partitions, we'll use the Linux version of the
fdisk program, or its
screen-oriented sibling cfdisk.
Generally the installation
program will look for a preexisting
partition table and offer
to run fdisk or cfdisk on it for you. Of
the two, cfdisk is definitely
easier to use, but current versions of
it are also less tolerant
of a nonexistent or garbled partition table.
Therefore you may find
(especially if you're installing on virgin
hardware) that you need
to start with fdisk to get to a state that
cfdisk can deal with.
Try running cfdisk; if it complains, run fdisk.
(A good way to proceed
if you're building an all-Linux system and
cfdisk complains is to
use fdisk to delete all the existing partions
and then fire up cfdisk
to edit the empty table.)
A few notes apply to both
fdisk and cfdisk. Both take an argument
which is the name of
the drive that you wish to create Linux
partitions on. Hard drive
device names are:
· /dev/hda
First IDE drive
· /dev/hdb
Second IDE drive
· /dev/sda
First SCSI drive
· /dev/sdb
Second SCSI drive
For example, to create
Linux partitions on the first SCSI drive in
your system, you will
use (or your installation program might generate
from a menu choice) the
command:
cfdisk /dev/sda
If you use fdisk or cfdisk
without an argument, it will assume
/dev/hda.
To create Linux partitions
on the second drive on your system, simply
specify either /dev/hdb
(for IDE drives) or /dev/sdb (for SCSI drives)
when running fdisk.
Your Linux partitions
don't all have to be on the same drive. You
might want to create
your root filesystem partition on /dev/hda and
your swap partition on
/dev/hdb, for example. In order to do so just
run fdisk or cfdisk once
for each drive.
In Linux, partitions are
given a name based on the drive which they
belong to. For example,
the first partition on the drive /dev/hda is
/dev/hda1, the second
is /dev/hda2, and so on. If you have any logical
partitions, they are
numbered starting with /dev/hda5, /dev/hda6 and
so on up.
NOTE: You should not create
or delete partitions for operating systems
other than Linux with
Linux fdisk or cfdisk. That is, don't create or
delete MS-DOS partitions
with this version of fdisk; use MS-DOS's
version of FDISK instead.
If you try to create MS-DOS partitions with
Linux fdisk, chances
are MS-DOS will not recognize the partition and
not boot correctly.
Here's an example of using
fdisk. Here, we have a single MS-DOS
partition using 61693
blocks on the drive, and the rest of the drive
is free for Linux. (Under
Linux, one block is 1024 bytes. Therefore,
61693 blocks is about
61 megabytes.) We will create just two
partitions in this tutorial
example, swap and root. You should
probably extend this
to four Linux partitions in line with the
recommendations above:
one for swap, one for the root filesystem, one
for system software,
and a home directory area.
First, we use the ``p''
command to display the current partition
table. As you can
see, /dev/hda1 (the first partition on /dev/hda) is
a DOS partition of 61693
blocks.
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/hda: 16 heads, 38 sectors, 683 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 608 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Begin Start End
Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1
1 203 61693 6
DOS 16-bit >=32M
Command (m for help):
Next, we use the ``n''
command to create a new partition. The Linux
root partition will be
80 megs in size.
Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Here we're being asked
if we want to create an extended or primary
partition. In most cases
you want to use primary partitions, unless
you need more than four
partitions on a drive. See the section
``Repartitioning'', above,
for more information.
Partition number (1-4): 2
First cylinder (204-683): 204
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (204-683): +80M
The first cylinder should
be the cylinder AFTER where the last
partition left off. In
this case, /dev/hda1 ended on cylinder 203, so
we start the new partition
at cylinder 204.
As you can see, if we
use the notation ``+80M'', it specifies a
partition of 80 megs
in size. Likewise, the notation ``+80K'' would
specify an 80 kilobyte
partition, and ``+80'' would specify just an 80
byte partition.
Warning: Linux cannot currently use 33090 sectors of this partition
If you see this warning,
you can ignore it. It is left over from an
old restriction that
Linux filesystems could only be 64 megs in size.
However, with newer filesystem
types, that is no longer the case...
partitions can now be
up to 4 terabytes in size.
Next, we create our 10
megabyte swap partition, /dev/hda3.
Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 3
First cylinder (474-683): 474
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (474-683): +10M
Again, we display the
contents of the partition table. Be sure to
write down the information
here, especially the size of each partition
in blocks. You need this
information later.
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/hda: 16 heads, 38 sectors, 683 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 608 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Begin Start End
Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1
1 203 61693 6
DOS 16-bit >=32M
/dev/hda2 204
204 473 82080 83
Linux native
/dev/hda3 474
474 507 10336 83
Linux native
Note that the Linux swap
partition (here, /dev/hda3) has type ``Linux
native''. We need to
change the type of the swap partition to ``Linux
swap'' so that the installation
program will recognize it as such. In
order to do this, use
the fdisk ``t'' command:
Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 3
Hex code (type L to list codes): 82
If you use ``L'' to list
the type codes, you'll find that 82 is the
type corresponding to
Linux swap.
To quit fdisk and save
the changes to the partition table, use the
``w'' command. To quit
fdisk WITHOUT saving changes, use the ``q''
command.
After quitting fdisk,
the system may tell you to reboot to make sure
that the changes took
effect. In general there is no reason to reboot
after using fdisk---modern
versions of fdisk and cfdisk are smart
enough to update the
partitions without rebooting.
6.6.3. Post-partition
steps
After you've edited the
partition tables, your installation program
should look at them and
offer to enable your swap partition for you.
Tell it yes.
(This is made a question,
rather than done automatically, on the off
chance that you're running
a dual-boot system and one of your non-
Linux partitions might
happen to look like a swap volume.)
Next the program will
ask you to associate Linux filesystem names
(such as /, /usr, /var,
/tmp, /home, /home2, etc.) with each of the
non-swap partitions you're
going to use.
There is only one hard
and fast rule for this. There must be a root
filesystem, named /,
and it must be bootable. You can name your other
Linux partitions anything
you like. But there are some conventions
about how to name them
which will probably simplify your life later
on.
Earlier on I recommended
a basic three-partition setup including a
small root, a medium-sized
system-software partition, and a large
home-directory partition.
Traditionally, these would be called /,
/usr, and /home.
The counterintuitive `/usr' name is a historical
carryover from the days
when (much smaller) Unix systems carried
system software and user
home directories on a single non-root
partition. Some
software depends on it.
If you have more than
one home-directory area, it's conventional to
name them /home, /home2,
/home3, etc. This may come up if you have
two physical disks.
On my personal system, for example, the layout
currently looks like
this:
Filesystem 1024-blocks
Used Available Capacity Mounted on
/dev/sda1
30719 22337 6796
77% /
/dev/sda3
595663 327608 237284 58%
/usr
/dev/sda4
1371370 1174 1299336
0% /home
/dev/sdb1
1000949 643108 306130 68%
/home2
The second disk (sdb1)
isn't really all /home2; the swap partitions on
sda and sdb aren't shown
in this display. But you can see that /home
is the large free area
on sda and /home2 is the user area of sdb.
If you want to create
an partition for scratch, spool, temporary,
mail, and news files,
call it /var. Otherwise you'll probably want to
create a /usr/var and
create a symbolic link named /var that points
back to it (the installation
program may offer to do this for you).
6.7. Installing
software packages
Once you've gotten past
preparing your partitions, the remainder of
the installation should
be almost automatic. Your installation
program (whether EGA
or X-based) will guide you through a series of
menus which allow you
to specify the CD-ROM to install from, the
partitions to use, and
so forth.
Here we're not going to
document many of the specifics of this stage
of installation.
It's one of the parts that varies most between Linux
distributions (vendors
traditionally compete to add value here), but
also the simplest part.
And the installation programs are pretty much
self-explanatory, with
good on-screen help.
6.8. After package
installations
After installation is
complete, and if all goes well, the installation
program will walk you
through a few options for configuring your
system before its first
boot from hard drive.
6.8.1. LILO, the
LInux LOader
LILO (which stands for
LInux LOader) is a program that will allow you
to boot Linux (as well
as other operating systems, such as MS-DOS)
from your hard drive.
You may be given the option
of installing LILO on your hard drive.
Unless you're running
OS/2, answer `yes'. OS/2 has special
requirements; see ``Custom
LILO Configuration'' below.
Installing LILO as your
primary loader makes a separate boot diskette
unnecessary; instead,
you can tell LILO at each boot time which OS to
boot.
6.8.2. Making a
production boot disk (optional)
You may also be given
the chance to create a ``standard boot disk'',
which you can use to
boot your newly-installed Linux system. (This is
an older and slightly
less convenient method which assumes that you
will normally boot DOS,
but use the boot disk to start Linux.)
For this you will need
a blank, high-density MS-DOS formatted diskette
of the type that you
boot with on your system. Simply insert the disk
when prompted and a boot
diskette will be created. (This is not the
same as an installation
bootdisk, and you can't substitute one for the
other!)
6.8.3. Miscellaneous
system configuration
The post-installation
procedure may also take you through several menu
items allowing you to
configure your system. This includes specifying
your modem and mouse
device, as well as your time zone. Follow the
menu options.
It may also prompt you
to create user accounts or put a password on
the root (administration)
account. This is not complicated and you
can usually just walk
through the screen instructions.
7. Booting Your
New System
If everything went as
planned, you should now be able to boot Linux
from the hard drive using
LILO. Alternatively, you should be able to
boot your Linux boot
floppy (not the original bootdisk floppy, but the
floppy created after
installing the software). After booting, login
as root. Congratulations!
You have your very own Linux system.
If you are booting using
LILO, try holding down shift or control
during boot. This will
present you with a boot prompt; press tab to
see a list of options.
In this way you can boot Linux, MS-DOS, or
whatever directly from
LILO.
8. After Your First
Boot
You should now be looking
at the login prompt of a new Linux, just
booted from your hard
drive. Congratulations!
8.1. Beginning System
Administratration
Depending on how the installation
phase went, you may need to create
accounts, change your
hostname, or (re)configure X at this stage.
There are many more things
you could set up and configure, including
backup devices, SLIP/PPP
links to an Internet Service Provider, etc.
A good book on UNIX systems
administration should help. (I suggest
Essential Systems Administration
from O'Reilly and Associates.) You
will pick these things
up as time goes by. You should read various
other Linux HOWTOs, such
as the NET-3-HOWTO and Printing-HOWTO, for
information on other
configuration tasks.
8.2. Custom LILO
Configuration
LILO is a boot loader,
which can be used to select either Linux, MS-
DOS, or some other operating
system at boot time. Chances are your
distribution automatically
configured LILO for you during the
installation phase (unless
you're using OS/2, this is what you should
have done). If
so, you can skip the rest of this section.
If you installed LILO
as the primary boot loader, it will handle the
first-stage booting process
for all operating systems on your drive.
This works well if MS-DOS
is the only other operating system that you
have installed. However,
you might be running OS/2, which has its own
Boot Manager. In this
case, you want OS/2's Boot Manager to be the
primary boot loader,
and use LILO just to boot Linux (as the secondary
boot loader).
An important gotcha for
people using EIDE systems: due to a BIOS
limitation, your boot
sectors for any OS have to live on one of the
first two physical disks.
Otherwise LILO will hang after writing
"LI", no matter where
you run it from.
If you have to configure
LILO manually, this will involve editing the
file /etc/lilo.conf.
Below we present an example of a LILO
configuration file, where
the Linux root partition is on /dev/hda2,
and MS-DOS is installed
on /dev/hdb1 (on the second hard drive).
# Tell LILO to install itself as the primary boot loader on /dev/hda.
boot = /dev/hda
# The boot image to install; you probably shouldn't change this
install = /boot/boot.b
# The stanza for booting Linux.
image = /vmlinuz # The kernel is in
/vmlinuz
label = linux # Give it the name
"linux"
root = /dev/hda2 # Use /dev/hda2 as the root filesystem
vga = ask
# Prompt for VGA mode
append = "aha152x=0x340,11,7,1" # Add this to the boot options,
# for detecting the SCSI controller
# The stanza for booting MS-DOS
other = /dev/hdb1 # This is the MS-DOS partition
label = msdos # Give it the name
"msdos"
table = /dev/hdb # The partition table for the
second drive
Once you have edited the
/etc/lilo.conf file, run /sbin/lilo as root.
This will install LILO
on your drive. Note that you must rerun
/sbin/lilo anytime that
you recompile your kernel in order to point
the boot loader at it
properly (something that you don't need to worry
about just now, but keep
it in mind).
Note how we use the append
option in /etc/lilo.conf to specify boot
parameters as we did
when booting the bootdisk.
You can now reboot your
system from the hard drive. By default LILO
will boot the operating
system listed first in the configuration file,
which in this case is
Linux. In order to bring up a boot menu, in
order to select another
operating system, hold down shift or ctrl
while the system boots;
you should see a prompt such as
Boot:
Here, enter either the
name of the operating system to boot (given by
the label line in the
configuration file; in this case, either linux
or msdos), or press tab
to get a list.
Now let's say that you
want to use LILO as the secondary boot loader;
if you want to boot Linux
from OS/2's Boot Manager, for example. In
order to boot a Linux
partition from OS/2 Boot Manager, unfortunately,
you must create the partition
using OS/2's FDISK (not Linux's), and
format the partition
as FAT or HPFS, so that OS/2 knows about it.
(That's IBM for you.)
In order to have LILO
boot Linux from OS/2 Boot Manager, you only want
to install LILO on your
Linux root filesystem (in the above example,
/dev/hda2). In this case,
your LILO config file should look something
like:
boot = /dev/hda2
install = /boot/boot.b
compact
image = /vmlinuz
label = linux
root = /dev/hda2
vga = ask
Note the change in the
boot line. After running /sbin/lilo you should
be able to add the Linux
partition to Boot Manager. This mechanism
should work for boot
loaders used by other operating systems as well.
9. Administrivia
9.1. Terms of Use
This document is copyright
1998 by Eric S. Raymond. You may use,
disseminate, and reproduce
it freely, provided you:
· Do not
omit or alter this copyright notice.
· Do not
omit or alter or omit the version number and date.
· Do not
omit or alter the document's pointer to the current WWW
version.
· Clearly
mark any condensed, altered or versions as such.
These restrictions are
intended to protect potential readers from
stale or mangled versions.
If you think you have a good case for an
exception, ask me.
9.2. Acknowledgements
My grateful acknowledgement
to Matt D. Welsh, who originated this
HOWTO. I removed
much of the Slackware-specific content and refocused
the remainder of the
document on CD-ROM installation, but a
substantial part of the
content is still his.
The 4.1 version was substantially
improved by some suggestions from
David Shao <dshao@best.com>.
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