The Linux Installation HOWTO
Eric Steven Raymond
Thyrsus_Enterprises
    <esr@thyrsus.com>
   Â
Copyright © 2000 Eric S. Raymond
Revision History
Revision 5.7 2002-07-06 Revised by: esr
New translations.
Revision 5.6 2002-01-04 Revised by: esr
Minor corrections.
Revision 5.6 2001-09-06 Revised by: esr
Added a Translation section.
Revision 5.5 2001-07-11 Revised by: esr
PnP cards are no longer a problem.
Revision 5.4 2001-06-14 Revised by: esr
Added link to Post-installation HOWTO.
Revision 5.3 2001-03-9 Revised by: esr
Fixes for various links.
Revision 5.2 2001-02-22 Revised by: esr
LDP Styleguide markup fixes.
Revision 5.1 2001-01-29 Revised by: esr
Minor corrections for the post-2.1 world.
Revision 5.0 2000-07-21 Revised by: esr
First DocBook version.
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. Translations
1.3. Other_sources_of_information
1.4. New_versions_of_this_document
1.5. 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. Time_requirements
4.4. 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
6.5. Booting_the_installation_disk
6.6. Installing_software_packages
6.7. After_package_installations
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, ARM and DEC Alpha hardware, and even the IBM System 390
mainframe!). 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. Translations
This document has been translated to Catalan and Slovenian and Czech.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.3. 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 at Linux_Documentation
Project_home_page. You can find the latest_version_of_this_document there.
You should probably start by browsing the resources under General Linux
Information; the Linux_INFO-SHEET and the Linux META-FAQ. The `Linux Frequently
Asked Questions' document contains many common questions (and answers!) about
Linux -- it is a ``must read'' for new users.
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. This document
is NetBSD- rather than Linux-oriented, but contains useful material on disk
configuration and boot managers for multi-OS setups.
Please do not email me asking for installation help. Even if I had the time to
handle such requests, troubleshooting by mail is much less efficient than
asking help from your local Linux user's group. You can find worldwide contact
information for Linux user groups on the LDP_site.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.4. New versions of this document
New versions of the Linux Installation HOWTO will be periodically posted to
comp.os.linux.help and comp.os.linux.announce and 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://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Installation-HOWTO.html.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.5. 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' section.
* 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.
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
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, gives a (more or less) complete listing of hardware supported by Linux.
The Linux_INFO-SHEET, 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) has been minimally supported
since the 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 an absolute minimum of
16 megabytes if you're planning to use X-Windows; 64 is better.
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'll want a CD-ROM drive; effectively all Linux distributions are now CD-ROM
based. If your machine was built in 1998 or later, you should be able to
actually boot your Linux's installer right off the CD-ROM without using a boot
floppy.
If your CD-ROM is 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 for a list and details of supported hardware.
If your CD-ROM isn't in your machine's boot sequence, 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 or
Windows then they should work under Linux. However, if you wish to run the X
window system, there are other restrictions on the supported video hardware.
The Linux_XFree86-HOWTO, contains more information about running X and its
requirements.
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 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. Today most installations
require somewhere in the ballpark of a gigabyte of space. 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 two gigabytes 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 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 disk
space, 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. Time requirements
Start to finish, a modern Linux installation from CD-ROM can be expected to
take from ninety minutes to three hours.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.4. 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. All distributions pretty
much share the same underlying codebase, however.
Linux distributions are available both via anonymous FTP and via mail order on
diskette, tape, and CD-ROM. There are many checklists and comparative reviews
of Linux distributions out there. The Linux_Weekly_News_site, in addition to
being an excellent general source of news and information, carries a weekly
report on distributions with pointers to many of them.
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 Metalab), 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 metalab 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.
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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 or 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
* Make installation floppies.
* Boot an installation mini-Linux from the floppies in order to get access to
the CD-ROM.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.3. Continuing the Installation
* Prepare the Linux filesystems. (If you didn't edit the disk partition table
earlier, you will at this stage.)
* Install a basic production Linux from the CD-ROM.
* Boot Linux from the hard drive.
* (Optional) Install more packages from CD-ROM.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.4. Basic Parts of an Installation Kit
Here are the basic parts of an installable distribution:
* The README and FAQ files. These will usually be located in the top-level
directory of your CD-ROM and be readable once the CD-ROM 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.
* A number of bootdisk images (often in a subdirectory). If your CD-ROM is not
bootable, one of these 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 of 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 rescue disk image. This is a disk containing a basic kernel and tools for
disaster recovery in case something trashes 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 bootdisk 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. There's a dd example later in this
document.
* 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 theLinux_Boot_Prompt_HOWTO 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,
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 bootdisks, see the Linux_Bootdisk_HOWTO.
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 will 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
optionally from the 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 bootdisk 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 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.
* The_Linux+Win95_mini-HOWTO.
* The_Linux+NT-Loader_mini-HOWTO
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 replace
the last primary partition with 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. It used to be that there was no way to
resize partitions without destroying the data on them. Nowadays there are
partitioning utilities that can resize non-destructively; they know about the
structure of file systems, can find the free space on a file system, and can
move file data around on the partition to move free space where it needs to be
in order for a resize to work properly. It's still suggested that you make a
full backup before using one of these, in case of program or human error.
Under Linux GNU_parted allows you to create, destroy, resize and copy
partitions. It supports ext2, FAT16, and FAT32 filesystems, Linux swap devices;
it also knows about MS-DOS disk labels. Parted is useful for creating space for
new operating systems, reorganising disk usage, copying data between hard
disks, and disk imaging. It is relatively new code, but is reported to work
well and not trash data.
There is a non-destructive disk repartitioner available for MS-DOS, called
FIPS. 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.
The older method of resizing a partition, if you don't have one of these
resizing partition editors available, is to delete the partition(s), and re-
create them with smaller sizes. If you use this method, you absolutely must
make a backup in order to save any of your data.
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:|
|______________|
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.)
3. Boot the MS-DOS system floppy.
4. Run FDISK, possibly specifying the drive to modify (such as C: or D:).
5. Use the FDISK menu options to delete the partitions which you wish to
resize. This will destroy all data on the affected partitions.
6. Use the FDISK menu options to re-create those partitions, with smaller
sizes.
7. Exit FDISK and re-format the new partitions with the FORMAT command.
8. 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 there are platform-dependent limits on
the size of swap partitions; see the Partition-HOWTO if you want to create a
swap partition larger than 1GB.
You can find more on the theory of swap space layout and disk partitioning in
the Linux Partition mini-HOWTO (http://www.linuxdoc.org/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.
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.
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.
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 boot disk 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.
(In times past this was a two-stage-process, involving a second disk called a
`root disk'; this changed when kernel modules were introduced.)
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, if 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 your 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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.5.1. Choosing Console or X installation
After boot, all current Linuxes run 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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.5.2. 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. Note that the argument to the
fdisk needs to be the device corresponding to an entire disk (e.g. /dev/sda)
rather than any of its partitions (such as /dev/sda1).
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.5.3. 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).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.6. 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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.7. 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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.7.1. 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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.7.2. 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!)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.7.3. 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!
The GNU/Linux_post-install_procedures has some good suggestions about things
you can do just after installation to minimize problems later on.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 (you may translate it)
* 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, or altered 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>.