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Installing Linux Part I: The Groundwork

Commonly people fear Linux, as opposed to Windows, mainly due to the fact that installing the latter is Wizard-driven. Linux is perceived as a threat to the system on which you are trying to install it on. But this installation is not really as scary as most people make it out to be. Linux is very easy to install. As long as you remain aware that this operating system assumes that you know all the details about the installed hardware before you actually begin installing Linux into it.

Linux is a freely distributable implementation of Unix for inexpensive personal machines. It was developed on i386s. And now supports 486, 586, 686, Pentium, PowerPC, Sun SPARC, ARM and DEC Alpha hardware, and even the IBM System 390 mainframe. It also supports a wide range of software, including X Windows, Emacs, TCP/IP networking (including SLIP), and many applications.

This series contains, in specific, the information required to install Linux on an Intel based computer. Though I must say that the information contained here is also sufficient for a successful installation on Power PC's, SPARCS and Alphas as well.

Before you actually install Linux on your system, you'll have to make sure that your machine is Linux compatible. You'll also have to choose for yourself a flavour of Linux that appeals to you. About making sure that your computer is Linux capable, you'll have to be sure that your processor is a compatible 80386, 80486, Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III, or AMD K6/K7/Duron. These processors generally work without much of a fuss. You don't require a math co-processor although it is better to have one. The ISA, EISA, VESA Local Bus and PCI bus architectures are well supported in Linux so you don't have to worry about that. The MCA bus architecture (found on IBM PS/2 machines) has been minimally supported since the 2.1.x kernels. If you are installing a version of Linux with a kernel greater than 2.4.x, you can be happy with your hardware support.

A minimum of about four Megabytes of Random Access Memory (RAM) is a must. 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 Megs of RAM is better. You will of course need a hard drive and an ATA compatible device controller so that your IDE drives work. If you have a SCSI drive attached to your system, beware that the versions less than the 2.4.x kernel do not completely support all available SCSI adapters.

Having a floppy drive is not a necessity though I would suggest that you have one so that you can take an Image Backup on a Floppy disk.

You'll require 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 the X window system, there are other restrictions on the supported video hardware. But you can be certain that monitors and graphic cards that are capable of running Windows will gleefully make the shift to Linux.

A CD-ROM drive would be necessary if you plan to install your Linux distribution from a CD-ROM. The CD-ROM should be ATAPI, SCSI or true IDE in which case, you can be sure that you will be able to get it running under Linux. Beware of drives that advertise IDE Interfaces but really don't even support it. If your CD-ROM uses a proprietary interface card, it's possible that the installation kernel you're going to be booting from will be unable to detect it. CD-ROMs that attach to your parallel port will not work at all so before you think of buying one, think again!

So-called "Plug 'n' Play" jumper less cards can be a major problem. Support for these is said to be under active development, but not there as yet in the 2.4.12 kernel. Fortunately this is only likely to be a problem with sound or Ethernet cards.

A. Siddhartha Angiaras Acharya
[email protected]

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