Installing Fedora

There are a rich variety of ways to install Fedora (as well as many other distributions of Linux.) Essentially they all break down to the following steps:

1. Get the files needed in a bootable configuration
2. Prepare your system for installation
3. Boot your computer (see step 1) and install
4. Reboot your computer and configure.

Fedora's New Users Chapter of the install guide does a pretty good job of discussing the options and when you would use which. We discuss installing from a live CD in detail, simply because we captured lots of notes on the topic since we started keeping this primer. As we progress we promise to expand our set of pocket lab-oriented info.

Installing Fedora 10 via Live CD

One of the ways to install some Linux distributions is via a live CD. A live CD is a bootable CD from which you can install the distribution. Why install from a live CD? It comes with less crud. But it is harder to install. See Fedora install guide for f10.

1. Download the Fedora 10 Live CD from the fedora website. Burned the iso file to a CD. Check the sha1.
2. Pop in the CD. When you are presented a message similar to "Loading in 9 seconds" and the numbers count down, press any key and select Verify and Boot to verify the CD and then boot from it.
3. Let it boot up. When you are in X windows, double-click on the icon Install to Hard Drive to start the Fedora Installer.
4. partitioning the hard drives & installing fedora:
   • select remove all partitions on selected drives and create default layout, and click at the bottom to choose Review and modify partitioning layout for a custom partition set up. The UI is hard to work with, so we actually had to do this twice.
   • why should you partition by hand? there are many good reasons, including increased security, building a more robust system, and a system that can handle new fedora installations without losing or needing to reinstall /home or /var directories, for example.
   • look in the CIS documents to see recommendations for partitions and their respective sizes
   • the CIS recommendations may be overkill for some. On the installation we ran during this write-up we choose to set partitions for:

     boot	100MB	not part of the volume group
     /	16512MB
     swap	2048MB	this one actually isnt' called swp, it's the one without the mount point
     /usr	10240MB
     /var	4096MB
     /home	4096MB
     /tmp	1024MB

   • swap partition size? RHEL recommends...
     • 2x the size of your memory (if total memory is <2GB)
     • 1x the size of your memory for memory above 2GB
     • example: if your total is 2GB, recommendation is 4GB swap; if your total memory is 3GB, recommendation is 5GB swap.
     • note: depending on what you are running on your server, these are mainly guidelines. You may want more or less.
   • when you are ready, click on edit, and shrink down the boot to 100MB.
   • click on VolGroup00 and click on edit, and a new window will pop up
     • edit the big one ... take off the final digit to make room for the new partitions
     • then add and adjust the numbers as you need them for your system setup
     • when ready you will be able to begin the formatting process, and fedora will reflect formating on each partition.
   • when the formatting is complete, you will see a window with...
     • a checked checkbox "Install boot loader on /dev/sda"
     • an unchecked checkbox "Use boot loader password"
     • a menu "Boot Loader operating system list" and on entry that is checked "Fedora /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00". This may be a little confusing because you haven't installed the OS yet, but this is the default, and if you try to delete it, the installer will inform you. We left this menu as we have described it here, and clicked next.
     • the fedora installer will begin to install the OS. This can take a while. Don't panic if the screen saver goes on and you want to go back in X and windows look like they've frozen. Just give it some time.
     • you will be prompted when it is done, and you will need to reboot or shutdown. You can then eject the CD.

post installation:

• turn the computer back on if you shut it down
• after booting up, fedora will make you go through some setup screens
• once you are in, open a terminal
  • use su to setup sudo

[back to top]

[see also ManagingUnix]