Linux Install

Resources Guide to Linux Installation and Administration, Nicholas Wells, Course Technology, 2000

Hard Disk Partitions Swap partition Linux partition –Make Linux partition active partition

Hard disk Device name –/dev/hda –/dev/hdb –CD-ROM /dev/hdcif it’s the third IDE device Partition name –/dev/hdb1 Refers to first partition on the second IDE disk SCSI –/dev/sda

Mount points Linux uses “subdirectory” structure to access devices –No “drive letters” such as “A:”, “C:”, etc. What is a mount point? –Subdirectory in which a set of data is accessed –Names are arbitrary Standard names exist by convention –‘root’ is the only mount point you must specify Define the hard disk partition which holds the root directory structure

Mount points Devices such as floppy drive and CD-ROM drives can be mounted and ‘unmounted’ –Not permanently available

Mount Points /mnt/floppy –Floppy drive / –“main” hard disk partition in Linux /opt –Secondary Linux partition or second Windows drive /mnt/cdrom –CD-ROM drive /remote_home –Network server home directory

Possible usage of disks Core OS places on one hard disk User directories on second disk Applications / data on third disk Configuration is defined at install time Segregation of data –Allows upgrade of OS w/o impact to user files –Ensures user data won’t fill up OS drive –Eases backup / restore of information –Lends itself to security administration –R/W performance issues

fdisk Prepares a partition for usage Command line interface –mhelp –nnew partition –p primary partition –Multiple partitions per hard disk using extended / logical partitions –t type of partition(uses code numbers)

DiskDruid “gui” interface for partitioning disks Will suggest a configuration Creates mount points for Linux subdirectories

Installation Type Workstation Server Custom

Boot Loader Placement of LILO Linux Loader –MBR BIOS passes control to LILO, invoking Linux –May have problems with other OS on machine (Windows) –Boot sector of Linux install partition BIOS to MBR, to copy of LILO on Linux partition –Linux partition must be marked as “bootable” –Allows for booting to another OS –Floppy Start Linux from floppy, leaving MBR intact

root user Administrative user name –“superuser” Create “regular” user accounts

Linux version Features and support available depend on version of Linux –Kernel contains support and drivers Not all hardware supported