We have all heard about that dark, mysterious and foreboding system
called Unix. It has become the most versatile OS around. It makes few demands on
resources; it is very net centric; and the security is like a medieval castle. It can also
be used across various platforms.
Unix's amazing popularity can be gauged by the fact that most large
organizations like VSNL rely on Unix servers, as they hardly cash and are said to have an
uptime of months and even years. Unix is also the most mature OS around as it been
configured & reconfigured to work with varied systems and varied configurations.
Linux is a flavour of Unix which was developed initially by a student
by the name of Linus Torvalds who then distributed the source code free of cost under the
general public license to thousands of developers and end users on the Net. Thus Linux is
the baby of the collective imagination of mankind and not the property of any company as
such though various companies do make their own distributions of it at a nominal cost.
Linux source code allows the software engineer & the student alike to have a look at
the innards of a real life true operating system and learn what makes them tick.
Copyrighted OSs like Windows or SCO Unix do not allow their code to be used except on
license. Linux over the years has developed into a very mature and reliable OS and is now
rivaling traditional UNIX in the marketplace having shrugged of it’s tag of being a
clone. It has gained recognition from the software big-wigs which can be seen from the
fact that companies like Microsoft, Netscape, Corel orp etc. are now developing products
for this platform. Here we will help you in the installation of Red Hat Linux Kernel 5.0
which has been distributed by PCQuest. This distribution also includes fortran, basic, C,
C++, Lisp compilers which are much faster than their Dos or Windows versions. Unix
knowledge is a must for the engineer as most development platforms operate on this system.
Linux provides you with a way to learn and harness the power of Unix at no cost to you
except your hard disk space.
Let us now get to the installation.....
Requirements : 486PC with CD-ROM drive, HDD with atleast 200MB free
and the PCQuest Linux CD-ROM
Installation : Remember that Linux 5.0 requires a linux native
partition which in effect means that you will have to repartition your hard disk drive.
Fortunately you can do that without formatting using the FIPS utility in the
DOSUTILS/FIPS15c directory of the PCQuest CDROM drive. You could also use commercial
software like Partition Magic 3.0 or Quarterdeck Partition-It! , but Fips works fine and
what’s more - it’s free!
Run scandisk on all your hard drives and remove errors if any
Run Defrag or Speedisk to defragment all your hard drives.This is
mission critical( I like that term) since Fips only woks if there is enough free space at
the end of your drive. If you use speedisk, specify the ‘unfragment free space’
option.
Make a boot disk or startup disk if you don’t have one and Restart
your machine in MS-Dos mode.
Copy the FIPS15C directory from the DOSUTILS directory of your PCQuest
CD to your hard disk.
Run FIPS.EXE . After FIPS finishes checking your FAT specify the
partition you want to split. Choose the one which has more space available , preferably on
C drive.
Use the cursor key to select the size of the new partition and remember
the size.
Next FIPS asks you to insert a boot floppy onto which it writes backup
information in case you need to restore the previous settings of your hard drive. After it
does this; press continue and say yes for it to save changes.
You should now reboot and go to your BIOS and select Boot from CDROM
option. If this option is not present in your BIOS, go to the command prompt( real dos
mode) and run autoboot.bat from the dosutils directory of the CDROM. Now your cd drive
letter will be shifted by one.( if it was f: it will be g: )
Answer the questions setup asks you appropriately until you reach a
menu showing disk druid and fdisk.
Go to disk druid and delete the fips partition you had created. Use F1
to add a partition. First add a partition as a swap specifying a size around 24MB to 50MB.
In ‘mount point’, type /hda4. After this add another partition using F1 and
specify ‘mount point’ as / and ‘type’ as Linux native.Specify
size=(size of original fips partition-size of swap-10)MB.
After doing this press OK and let the installation continue. Now it is
all smooth sailing as you have crossed the murky waters. Select all packages you want to
install. I recommend the X windows system, C, C++, fortran77 compilers, printer support,
games etc. This should come in about 150-170 MB.Linux will then format your drive (
don’t worry! it will not touch Windows at all). Allow it to do so.
When you reach the lilo boot loader installation screen, you will see 2
partitions with two names. You have to tell lilo to install in the Master Boot Record when
it asks you. Next, in the 2 partitions displayed select the one not named linux and press
F2. The other may be named DOS. This tells lilo to boot dos/windows by default. Note down
the 2 names. Assuming the other name is Linux; when you boot; LILO presents you with a
prompt. If you press escape, type linux and press enter it will load linux else if you
just press enter or you don’t do anything for 5 seconds, it will load windows. So
essentially you don’t change your bootup.
If questions on printers are asked, answer with an OK to all the
questions. Also answer all questions pertaining to Xconfigurator appropriately.
After all this, select your password and don’t forget it! Linux
requires secure login even on a single user system
Reboot, load linux as described above and login as root and give your
password as selected.
