From: Digestifier To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 18:24:56 EDT Subject: Linux-Admin Digest #98 Linux-Admin Digest #98, Volume #1 Fri, 8 Oct 93 18:24:56 EDT Contents: Linux Installation HOWTO (Matt Welsh) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mdw@sunsite.unc.edu (Matt Welsh) Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.announce,comp.os.linux.help,news.answers,comp.answers Subject: Linux Installation HOWTO Date: 8 Oct 1993 21:05:43 GMT Archive-name: linux/howto/installation Last-modified: 23 August 1993 The Linux Installation HOWTO by Matt Welsh, v1.1, Last Modified 23 August 1993 ============================================================================ This document describes how to obtain and install the Linux software. It is the first document which a new Linux user should read to get started. 0. Introduction Linux is a freely-distributable implementation of UNIX for 80386 and 80486 machines. It supports a wide range of software, including X Windows, Emacs, TCP/IP networking (including SLIP), the works. This document assumes that you have heard of and know about Linux, and just want to sit down and install it. 0.1 Other sources of information If you have never heard of Linux before, there are several sources of basic information about the system. One is the Linux FAQ, available from sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs. This directory contains many other documents about Linux, including the Linux INFO-SHEET and META-FAQ, both of which are good introductory documents about Linux. Also take a look at the USENET newsgroups comp.os.linux and comp.os.linux.announce. Another source of online Linux documentation is the Linux HOWTO archive, on sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO. The file INDEX in that directory explains what Linux HOWTOs are available. The Linux Documentation Project is writing a set of manuals and books about Linux, all of which are freely distributable on the net. The directory /pub/Linux/docs/LDP on sunsite.unc.edu contains the current set of LDP manuals. 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. This HOWTO is simply a condensation of some of the most important information in that book. You can get ``Linux Installation and Getting Started'' from sunsite.unc.edu in /pub/Linux/docs/LDP/install-guide. 0.2 New versions of this document New versions of the Linux Installation HOWTO will be periodically posted to comp.os.linux.announce, comp.os.linux, and news.answers. They will also be uploaded to various Linux FTP sites, including sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO. 0.3 Feedback If you have questions or comments about this document, please feel free to mail the author, Matt Welsh, at mdw@sunsite.unc.edu. I welcome any suggestions, criticism, cheques, or money orders. If you find a mistake with this document, please let me know so I can correct it in the next version. Thanks. 1. Hardware Requirements What kind of system is needed to run Linux? Any ISA, EISA or VESA Local Bus 80386 or 80486 system will do. Currently, the MicroChannel (MCA) architechture (found on IBM PS/2 machines) is not supported. Any CPU from the 386SX to the 486DX2 will work. You do not need a math coprocessor, although it is nice to have one. 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. 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 FAQ (see above) contains more inforamation on SCSI. Linux can actually run on a single 5.25" HD floppy, but that's only useful for installation and maintenance. Free space on your hard drive is needed as well. The amount of space needed depends on how much software you plan to install. Most installations require somewhere in the ballpark of 40 to 80 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 conceiveable that you could run a minimal Linux system in 10 megs or less, and it's conceiveable that you could use well over 100 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 later. You also need a 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 FAQ contains more information about X Windows. In all, the suggested setup for Linux is not much more than is required for most MS-DOS or MS Windows systems sold today. 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. I run Linux on a crappy 386/16 MHz (the slowest machine you can get) with 4 megs of RAM, and am quite happy. 2. Getting Linux 2.1 Linux Distributions 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. The most popular release of Linux is the Softlanding Linux System release, or SLS. Most Linux users worldwide use SLS---it is one of the most complete and easy-to-install releases available. It consists of about 30 disks, divided up into a number of disk "series" which contain differnt types of software. For example, the c disk series contains compilers and programming utilities, and the x disk series contains the X Windows software. You pick and choose which disks and packages you want to install. This document focuses on getting and installing the SLS release, because it is so popular. Information on other releases can be found in the Linux Installation and Getting Started manual from the LDP. You can also find other releases of Linux on various FTP sites, including sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/distributions. The instructions here should be generasl enough to be applicable to releases other than SLS. I hate to be biased towards a single release, but I don't have time to keep up with them all! 2.2 SLS Space Requirements The following series of SLS disks are available. a1-aN: The minimal base system b1-bN: Base system extras, like man pages, emacs etc. c1-cN: The compiler(s), gcc/g++/p2c/f2c x1-xN: The X-windows distribution (+idraw and doc) t1-tN: TeX (document processing) s1-sN: Source code for critical system components d1-dN: Documentation for various things You must get the "a" series diskettes; the rest are optional. I suggest at least installing the a, b, and c series, as well as the x series if you plan to run X Windows. Approximate disk space requirements are: Tiny base system: 15 Meg (Only a) Main base system: 45 Meg (a, b and c) Main base system + X11: 70 Meg (a, b, c and x) Full system: 90 Meg (a, b, c, d, s, t and x) 2.3 Getting the SLS Release from the Internet The SLS release of Linux may be found on any number of FTP sites worldwide. The Linux META-FAQ lists several of the Linux FTP sites; we suggest that you try to find the software on the FTP site nearest you, to reduce net traffic. However, two of the major Linux FTP sites are sunsite.unc.edu and tsx-11.mit.edu. The SLS release may be found on sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/SLS as well as tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/packages/SLS 2.3.1 Downloading the files You need to download the following files. Make sure that you use binary mode when FTPing these files! * READ.ME, RELEASE, and SLS.FAQ. These files are text files giving up-to-date information on the latest release of SLS. * a1.3 or a1.5. These are binary images of the SLS "a1" boot disk. If you have a 3.5" boot floppy drive on your system, get a1.3. If you have a 5.25" boot drive, get a1.5. * rawrite.exe. This is an MS-DOS program used to create the SLS a1 disk from the a1.3 or a1.5 image. On tsx-11.mit.edu, this program is found in /pub/linux/dos_utils/rawrite.exe And on sunsite.unc.edu, it is found in /pub/Linux/system/Install/rawrite2.exe (Note that "rawrite2.exe" is a newer version of rawrite which is faster, but doesn't work on all drives. If you have problems with it, try the other version.) * The files in the directories a2, a3, and a4. These files will be copied later to MS-DOS disks; they make up the a2, a3, and a4 disks in the SLS series. When downloading these files, keep them in separate directories; that is, don't mix the a2 files up with the a3 files, and so on. Make sure that you get the file "diska2", "diska3", and so on on each disk. In FTP, if you use "mget *.*", you will probably miss files without a "." in the filename. Therefore, use "mget *" to get all files. * Files in the directories b1, b2, etc., depending on what disk series you are installing. For example, if you are installing the 'b' disk series, get the files in the directories b1 through b7. As with a2-a4, above, be sure to keep the files in separate directories when you download them. 2.3.2 Making the disks Once you have the files downloaded, you need to create the install disks. The a1 disk needs to be the type of disk that you boot from; i.e., either a high-density 3.5" disk or a high-density 5.25" disk. The disk must be MS-DOS formatted. Also be sure to use a brand-new floppy if possible; bad blocks on the floppy will cause you much trouble later. To create the a1 disk, run the "rawrite" program from MS-DOS. It will prompt you for the file to write to the disk (such as a1.3 or a1.5) and the disk to write it to (such as A: or B:). After the disk has been written, it will no longer be recognized by MS-DOS; it is complete overlaid with the SLS a1 image. To create the rest of the SLS, disks, simply use the MS-DOS "copy" command. All of the rest of the SLS install disks must be of the same type (either HD 3.5" or HD 5.25"), but they do not need to be the same type as the a1 disk. All of the disks must be MS-DOS formatted before you begin. For example, to create the a2 disk, simply copy the files from the directory "a2" to the floppy, with the command C:\> copy a2\*.* A: Do likewise for every disk that you downloaded. NOTE: It is possible to install SLS from the hard drive. If you have all of the SLS disk images (a2, a3, a4, and so on) in the directory "\install" on the MS-DOS partition on your drive, you can install from there (and you don't need to copy all of the files to floppies). For example, the a2 files need to be in the directory C:\install\a2, the a3 files in C:\install\a3, and so on. However, you do still need to make the a1 disk with rawrite, as explained above. 2.4 Getting the SLS release via mail SLS is available from the address below for a $3.50/disk US ($4.50/disk Canadian) copying charge. Add $1.00/disk for 3.5" disks, and $15.00 for shipping and handling. Mail payment, either cheque or money order, in advance, to Softlanding. Visa and Mastercard are now also accepted, Because people keep asking about prices, Softlanding has provided this commonly ordered configurations price sheet: NAME #DISKS SERIES 5 1/4 DISKS 3 1/2 DISKS ------------------------------------------------------- TINY 4 a US $29.00 US $33.00 BASE 17 a,b,c,d,s US $74.50 US $91.50 MAIN 24 a,b,c,x US $99.00 US $123.00 FULL 30 a,b,c,x,d,s,t US $120.00 US $150.00 When ordering, ensure that you specify the bootdisk type (3.5 or 5.25). Softlanding is also now offering support subscriptions for SLS. Individual support, (one user, one machine) is $100.00 per year. Group support, primarily for resellers and corporate sites is $1000.00 per year. CDROM ($99) and QIC-150 tape ($150) also available. Softlanding Software 910 Lodge Ave. Victoria, B.C., Canada V8X-3A8 Quite a few people distribute SLS and other Linux distributions via mail for other prices; watch comp.os.linux.announce for details. 3. Installing the Software 3.1 Repartitioning Before you can install the Linux software, you need to repartition your drive to make space for Linux. On most systems, your drive is already dedicated to partitions for MS-DOS, OS/2, and so on. You need to resize these partitions in order to make space for Linux. 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 on sunsite.unc.edu in the directory /pub/Linux/system/Install. With FIPS, a disk optimizer, and a little bit of luck, you should be able to resize MS-DOS partitions without destroying the data on them. 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 need to 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. Use of MS-DOS "fdisk" should be self-explanatory. The mechanism used to repartition for OS/2 and other operating systems is similar. 3.2 Creating partitions for Linux After repartitioning your drive, you need to create partitions for Linux. Linux will require at least two partitions on your drive: one for the software itself, and one for swap space. (You can create multiple filesystems for Linux, each one on its own partition. If you have previous UNIX experience, you will know how to creatively partition your drive. However, most users simply use one large root filesystem for all of the Linux software.) In order to create these partitions, first boot the SLS a1 disk. At the "LILO" prompt, press or to get a boot menu. Follow the instructions there. In mose cases, all you need to do is press , unless you want to boot without the ramdisk. After the system boots, login as "root" (no password). If you login as "install" instead, you will be given an installation menu, which will basically let you execute the steps below. However, for this document, we will show you how to run the same commands by hand. 3.2.1 Using fdisk After logging in as root, run the command fdisk where 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 ...and so on. For example, to create Linux partitions on the first SCSI drive in your system, use the command fdisk /dev/sda If you use "fdisk" without an argument, it will assume /dev/hda. Use of fdisk is simple. The command "p" displays your current partition table. "n" creates a new partition, and "d" deletes a partition. To Linux, partitions are given a name based on the drive which they belong to. For example, the first partition on /dev/hda is /dev/hda1, the second is /dev/hda2, and so on. NOTE: You should not create or delete partitions for operating systems other than Linux with Linux fdisk. That is, don't create or delete MS-DOS partitions with this version of fdisk; use MS-DOS's version of "fdisk" to do that. If you try to create MS-DOS partitions with Linux fdisk, chances are MS-DOS will 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. We will create two Linux partitions; one for swap, and one for the root filesystem. 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. (1 block == 1024 bytes). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 root partition will be 80 megs in size. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Command (m for help): n Command action e extended p primary partition (1-4) p ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A primary partition is simply one of the 4 partitions on your drive. An extended partition allows you to create multiple logical partitions within it; this allows you to go over the four-partition limit on the drive. In most cases, you should only use primary partitions unless you need more than 4 partitions on a drive. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 (not really possible since partitions must be at least 1 block in size). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 meg 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- And, finally, 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 81 Linux/MINIX /dev/hda3 474 474 507 10336 81 Linux/MINIX ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To quit fdisk and save the changes to the partition table, use the "w" command. To quit fdisk without making any changes, use the "q" command instead. 3.2.2 Rebooting the system After running fdisk and creating Linux partitions, reboot the system (again with the SLS a1 disk), and login as root. It is important to reboot after modifying the partition table, because the kernel only detects partition sizes at boot time. 3.3 Creating filesystems and swap space After rebooting the system, you need to prepare the filesystems and swap space on the new partitions. 3.3.1 Using mkswap First, the swap space. For this we use the command mkswap -c where is the partition name, such as /dev/hda3, and is the size of the partition in blocks. For example, if you created a swap partition on /dev/hda3 of size 10336 blocks, use the command mkswap -c /dev/hda3 10336 The -c option tells mkswap to check for bad blocks on the partition when preparing the swap space. If you see any "read_intr" error messages during the mkswap operation, this means that bad blocks were found (and flagged). So you can ignore these errors. To enable swapping on the new device, use the command swapon For example, for our swap space on /dev/hda3, we use swapon /dev/hda3 We should now be swapping with 10 megs of extra virtual RAM on /dev/hda3. 3.3.2 Using mke2fs Next, we need to prepare the root filesystem, using the command mke2fs. This creates an "ext2fs" type filesystem, which is just one of the several types of filesystems available. ext2fs is the most flexible and popular filesystem type to use; it allows filesystems of up to 4 terabytes in size and 256-character filenames. Several other filesystem types are still in use, such as the Minix filesystem and the extended filesystem. However, because of the limitations on these filesystem types, ext2fs is the most popular. The syntax of the mke2fs command is mke2fs -c For example, if we are creating a filesystem on /dev/hda2 with a size of 82080 blocks, we use the command mke2fs -c /dev/hda2 82080 Again, the -c switch tells mke2fs to check for bad blocks on the partition. If you are using more than one Linux filesystem, you will need to use mke2fs for each one. 3.4 Installing the software Installing the SLS release is simply a matter of using the doinstall command. Before you begin, make sure that you have a blank, high-density MS-DOS formatted diskette on hand. This diskette will be used to create an SLS boot disk after the installation procedure is complete; therefore, the diskette must be of the type (either 3.5" or 5.25") that you will boot from on your system (like the a1 disk). To install the software, use the command doinstall where is the name of the Linux root partition. For example, if your root partition is /dev/hda2, use the command doinstall /dev/hda2 doinstall will prompt you for the install media (such as floppy, or hard drive), and other information (such as what packages you wish to install). The rest should be self-explanatory. If you are using more than one filesystem for Linux, you need to specify extra parameters to doinstall. For example, if your root filesystem is on /dev/hda2, and your /usr filesystem is on /dev/hda4, use the command doinstall /dev/hda2 /dev/hda4 /usr 3.5 After installation After the software is installed, you may boot from the SLS boot disk created during the installation procedure (or from the hard drive if you opted to install LILO at install time). You should be able to boot the system, login as "root", and off you go. 4. Miscellaneous I don't like to be biased towards the SLS release, however, in order to document multiple releases of Linux, this file would be much, much longer. It is simpler and more coherent to cover the specific instructions for a single release of Linux. The book ``Linux Installation and Getting Started'' will in the future cover releases other than SLS. However, because the installation procedures are so varied, covering them all would be very confusing both to myself and to the reader. However, the basic concepts in this document still hold, no matter what release of Linux you choose. For example, all releases require you to run fdisk, mkswap, and mke2fs. The only real difference is the method used to create the installation disks (if needed) and the analogue to the "doinstall" command. If you choose to use a release of Linux other than SLS, the READMEs and installation instructions that come with that release should be easy to understand in the context of the material presented here. If you would like a more complete discussion of Linux installation (instead of the "quick" examples given here), read the book ``Linux Installation and Getting Started", from sunsite.unc.edu in /pub/Linux/docs/LDP. This document is intended only to get new users started with Linux without a great deal of background. The book, on the other hand, contains a complete discussion of Linux, from start to finish, including tutorials on how to use the system once you have installed it. Please mail me (mdw@sunsite.unc.edu) if any part of this document is confusing or incorrect. I am open to any suggestions and comments. I also like to help answer questions about Linux installation, if you have any. Best of luck with your new Linux system! Cheers, mdw -- Send submissions for comp.os.linux.announce to: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu ------------------------------ ** FOR YOUR REFERENCE ** The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is: Internet: Linux-Admin-Request@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.admin) via: Internet: Linux-Admin@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites: nic.funet.fi pub/OS/Linux tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux End of Linux-Admin Digest ******************************