C H A P T E R Installing SUSE 10 AL ✦ T MA TE RI he most important part of getting Linux up and running is installing the system. Unfortunately, this is also where most users encounter problems because of differences between the types of information that you need to know when installing Linux versus Windows. This chapter demystifies the process by helping you through the installation, pointing out any stumbling blocks that you may hit upon, and offering suggestions for resolving them.
4 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Different Installation Sources This chapter focuses on installing SUSE Linux from the DVD that was packaged with this book or from the installation discs you have purchased. However, your installation discs and the installation DVD that is packaged with this book (like all SUSE installation media) also support a number of other installation sources.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 when you want to install SUSE on a large number of networked computer systems. Manual installation also enables you to install SUSE from an existing hard drive partition where the SUSE packages are installed. You can use Manual installation to install SUSE from a portable, external hard drive.
6 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Figure 1-1: The SUSE Welcome screen Tip If your system does not display a screen like the one in Figure 1-1, reboot and hold down the Shift key while your computer system boots. This will reboot your system into a text-mode installer that follows the same general sequence as the graphical boot process described in this chapter, but has fewer dependencies on the capabilities of the graphics card in your machine.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 Figure 1-2: Boot options ✦ Boot from Hard Disk — This is the default setting if you do not interact with the boot sequence. It’s the default because your system automatically reboots as part of the installation process to load the kernel that is installed on your hard drive during the initial phases of the installation process. If you forget to remove the installation media, the system will still boot off the hard disk and the install routine can continue.
8 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics encounter problems during installation, and they do not seem related to power management. ✦ Rescue System — The Rescue System enables you to correct system problems, such as disk corruption or lost passwords, by booting from the installation media and subsequently correcting system problems. The Rescue System is quite a feature-rich system that you can use to load and edit filesystems, as well as change the settings of an installed system.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 So far, the system has booted a minimal Linux kernel that is sufficient to run the installation process and execute the SUSE installer and the various utilities that it uses to probe and configure your system. SUSE’s YaST installer now begins to collect information that it will use to configure your system to match your personal and hardware requirements. Tip The installer uses a very different boot process from that used by a standard SUSE Linux system.
10 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics During the installation routine, you can control the screen with your keyboard using accelerators. Any option on the screen can be selected by pressing the Control key (Ctrl) and the accelerator code, signified by an underlined character in a button or a GUI element. For example, in Figure 1-4, pressing Ctrl+R will abort the installation while Ctrl+N will accept the setting you selected and proceed to the next screen.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 Next, as with most software products, you have to agree to the SUSE license before using the system. Customizing the Installation For SUSE to operate correctly, the system time must be correct (you may get quite confused when the system says something happened at 3 a.m. when in fact it happened at noon!). Before partitioning your disks and setting up your system, you will need to select your time zone, check your date and time, and also your location (see Figure 1-6).
12 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Figure 1-7: Selecting your desktop environment You will be given the option of either a minimal desktop environment, or text mode only. If you are installing SUSE as a server, then these options are the best to go with as it minimizes unnecessary packages being installed. For this installation we will choose GNOME.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 Figure 1-8: Installation overview Clicking any heading in the Installation Overview section enables you to modify that aspect of your installation. Similarly, selecting the Change button displays a pop-up menu from which you can select any of the headings on this screen to change or examine the relevant aspects of the installation to guarantee that they meet your requirements. ✦ System — Displays a dialog box showing the hardware that the installer detected in your system.
14 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics ✦ Language — Set the language of the system and also the installation process. This was already set earlier in the installation process. ✦ Default Runlevel — Set the initial boot runlevel for the system. Runlevels are discussed in Chapter 4. For now, the default value (runlevel 5) is acceptable. ✦ Reset to defaults — Remove all changes you have made and start from scratch. This is useful for testing installation mixtures and seeing how these affect your system.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 One key thing to know when defining and experimenting with disk partitioning is that none of the changes that you are defining are actually performed until you explicitly tell YaST to proceed with the installation. You can make as many changes or experiment with different partitioning schemes as much as you want without actually committing those changes.
16 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics If you are creating your own partitioning scheme and do not already have an operating system on your computer that you want to preserve, skip to the section “Primary and Extended Partitions.” Resizing Existing Operating System Partitions Nowadays, it is quite common to have systems that can boot multiple operating systems.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 CrossReference For more on setting up dual-boot (multiboot) systems, see Chapter 4. Primary and Extended Partitions In this section, we start with a clean disk to create the partitions needed to install SUSE. If you want to remove the partitions on an existing installation of an operating system, select the partition and press the Delete button. You will be asked to confirm this, and the partition will be removed.
18 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics The most common way to partition disks for home Linux use is to have one primary partition for the Linux root partition, a second primary partition for the swap partition, and then an extended partition for any other (logical) partitions that may be needed. Using extended and logical partitions grows the amount of total partitions you can have in a system to 16, which is usually more than enough. Select the Primary partition option and click OK to proceed.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 Figure 1-12: Creating filesystems CrossReference Filesystems are discussed in more detail in Chapter 3. Start and end cylinders are often new concepts to new Linux users who are used to data sizes being defined in mega- and gigabytes. YaST enables you to enter the size of a partition in human readable form, such as MB and GB.
20 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Tip At a bare minimum, the filesystems that need to be created are the swap space and a root (/) filesystem. However, for ease of use and manageability, the creation of a /home partition can help keep your personal data separate from the system partition and also enable you to keep your data in the unlikely event that you want to do a total reinstall of Linux. See the section on “Data Partitions” later in this chapter for more information.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 By default, creating this partition will automatically use the remaining unallocated space on the hard drive, which is fine for our example. However, if you need to create another partition — /home, for example — you specify the size of the partition explicitly as you did with the swap space. See the next section, “Data Partitions,” for an overview of why you may want to create additional partitions.
22 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Data Partitions Data partitions is a generic term for partitions that are formatted as a filesystem and in which both the system and its users can store data. The partition designated as the root filesystem is a special case of a data partition because it is required in order to boot a Linux system. The preceding sections explained how to create the swap and root partitions that must be present to successfully boot a Linux system.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 If you want to create multiple partitions during the installation process, you can do this by making sure that the root partition does not completely fill your disk and then creating additional partitions in the remaining space on your disk. Common parts of a Linux system that you may want to put on separate data partitions are /boot, /home, /opt, /tmp, /var, /usr, and /usr/local.
24 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics The left panel of the package selection screen gives a broad overview of packages and disk space used, and also indicates how much space will be required when installing all selected packages. The Filter drop-down list box provides a powerful way to limit what packages you can select. As we stated in the Introduction, we ourselves differ on our views of a few Linux idiosyncrasies, including text, desktop environments, and also Linux on the desktop in general.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 When a package is selected, your disk usage will be increased to reflect the size of the install domain. Select Accept to add those packages you select to the install list and take you back to the package installation summary screen. Selecting a Boot Loader The next item you can change is the configuration of the boot loader. A boot loader is central to the deployment of Linux as it controls the booting of operating systems on the PC.
26 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Linux systems typically use one of two boot loaders, LILO (Linux Loader) or GRUB (Grand Unified Boot Loader). Both are very powerful and flexible, and are controlled by easily edited configuration files (/etc/lilo.conf and /etc/grub.conf, respectively). The key difference between the two boot loaders is how they interact with these configuration files.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 One of the most important reasons for editing the default boot loader configuration is to add a Linux kernel option at startup. If your hardware manufacturer has notified you that a certain value must be passed to the Linux kernel at boot time, you would append it to the “Other kernel parameters” section of the configuration dialog box. When you are happy with the boot loader item configuration, click OK to return to the boot loader overview screen.
28 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Figure 1-19: Changing the default runlevel Running the Installation When you’ve made any changes to the installation, select the Accept button in the Installation Settings window, and the installation process begins. You will be asked if you definitely want to create the partitions you defined and the filesystems that sit above them (see Figure 1-20). Partitioning the disk is a destructive process and will remove any data that those partitions replace.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 Figure 1-20: Confirmation of installation During package installation, you can view the progress, the CDs needed, and also an overview of the package use by selecting the Details button. To switch back to the slideshow, select the Slideshow button. This may be a good time to get a coffee, as nothing interesting happens while packages are installed.
30 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Configuring Your Root Password The first item that needs configuration is the root password (see Figure 1-21). We will talk about the root user in Chapter 2, but for now it is enough to know this is the user who has the privileges to change anything on the system, has access to all files on the system, and is known as a superuser. The password should be something that you can remember, but also difficult to guess.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 Figure 1-22: Configuring network cards For most people using SUSE in a business environment, a DHCP server may already be running, and an address, domain name system (DNS) server list, and router configuration will already be available. Home users and users setting up a server system will find it necessary to configure these details manually.
32 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Figure 1-23: Configuration of network cards Setting Up Your Host Name and DNS Addresses To set up the host name of the Linux machine and the addresses of your Domain Name System servers, select the Host name and name server button. A screen like that shown in Figure 1-24 appears. The host name of your Linux machine can be anything you like, such as a person’s name, a descriptive name, or something random.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 Figure 1-24: Configuring DNS and host name Enter the name server address into the Name Server 1 field. You can also enter up to two other separate DNS server entries. Your administrator or ISP should be able to give you this information. The Domain Search entry is used to control how your machine looks up the address of other machines connected through TCP/IP. For example, if you use a Domain Search entry such as suse.
34 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Figure 1-25: Configuring a default gateway Your default gateway address is the IP address of the host to which TCP/IP packets that are not destined for your local network are sent for further processing. For example, your gateway address will be that of your asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) router if that is how you connect to the Internet. In other cases, your network or system administrator will be able to provide you with this information.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 Figure 1-26: Online update Configuring Your Modem Modems are notorious for being something of a problem area for Linux because many of the internal PCI modems that are on sale are not true modems, but are what is known as winmodems or soft modems. The idea behind winmodems is that some of the functionality of the modem can be offloaded from hardware into software — the software in question being the Windows operating system.
36 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Assuming that your modem is supported, YaST asks you for the necessary information to set up the modem and your dial-up connection. In the first screen of the setup you are asked for a dial prefix if necessary (a prefix you might need to get an outside line, for example) and to choose between tone dialing and pulse dialing (tone dialing will be the correct choice unless your telephone exchange is very antiquated).
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 work, and if your provider offers the choice, you should definitely go for this type of connection. If your provider offers a wires-only service, you can buy such a router and use it to connect; again, there should be no problems at all. All you need to do is follow the instructions provided by the manufacturer or ISP for setting up your network connection to talk to the router and make the necessary settings in YaST’s networking module.
38 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Figure 1-28: Creating a local user Tip One nice feature of the SUSE user creation process is that you can set yourself as the user who receives any mail destined for root by selecting the Receive System Mail option. Regardless of whether you set up this option, it is always a good idea to read the root user mail (if you are the owner of the root user account!) to see any automated mails that the system sends as well as mails from the mail subsystem.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 This enables the user to configure services and server processes without having to understand application-specific configuration files. When all packages have been installed, SuSEconfig picks up the default configuration files installed by SUSE and writes out specific application configurations. SuSEconfig is a core element of the SUSE system and allows YaST to maintain configuration files for services it can control.
40 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Configuring Your Hardware When you have read the release notes, click Next and you will be asked to configure your hardware (see Figure 1-30). The YaST installer and the YaST system configuration manager runs the same modules to configure hardware. For now you will configure the video card so that you can use X/KDE/GNOME. YaST in SUSE 10 has changed the way it detects your graphics capabilities.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 Figure 1-31: Choosing your monitor model If your specific monitor is listed in the vendor list, select it. If not, choose either LCD (for laptop or flatscreen monitors) or VESA (for CRT monitors). It is usually a safe bet that a resolution of 1024 × 768 will be supported by your monitor. Every Linux book and piece of documentation on X Windows configuration has a disclaimer about configuring your graphics system.
42 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Graphics Card Configuration As you have changed the resolution of your monitor, you will also need to change the resolution of your graphics card to reflect the monitor settings. To do this, click on the resolution (in Figure 1-30, this is 800 × 600). You will be presented with a small drop-down box asking you for the resolution you wish to run X with (see Figure 1-32). Configuring Your Sound Card YaST will detect the sound card and will set it up automatically.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 After the installation is complete, confirm that sound is working by attempting to play a music CD or music file (for example, an MP3 file using the x m m s player program). If you don’t hear sound at this stage, first check the physical connection to the speakers. Then (if you are using KDE) check that the KDE volume control is at a sensible setting and not disabled or turned down to zero.
44 Part I ✦ SUSE Linux Basics Figure 1-33: Installation completed If you are an experienced Linux user, you should be quite happy about how much SUSE has come along from other distributions and how easy it has been to install it. Don’t worry, however; as with everything Linux-related, you can make it as easy or as hard as you like, and you will see how in later chapters. Just to whet your appetite, Figure 1-34 shows an image of what you will see once your system has booted up to the system proper.
Chapter 1 ✦ Installing SUSE 10 Figure 1-34: The final installed system ✦ ✦ ✦ 45