Installation Steps

1. Insert Linux bootable floppy and system CD-ROM before rebooting the system

   Many older systems may contain CD-ROM drives that may not be detected by newer release of Linux. It may ask you to load the second floppy which contains more modules for recognizing your CD-ROM drive. If the CD-ROM is still not recognized, you will have to install older versions. But you are better off to buy a newer drive or borrow the drive for a day from your friends.

2. Select video card: This steps allow you to probe, select and test video card and monitor resolution. OpenLinux's Lizard (the GUI-based installation tool) will guess your video card. But you should click on "Probe" button to make sure that it has a good guess. You then proceed to select the monitor and video mode. Be sure to test your video mode with different resolution or use the same resolution that you used under Win95 (Control -> Display). Be sure that you see your screen is painted properly. If not, try to use different Linux distribution that do not install X as default. E.g. You may use RedHat 6.1's text mode (when GUI failed) for installation. Using text mode will save you a lot of grief when GUI mode cannot recognize your video card successfully. After Linux is installed, then proceed to tackle X problem. (via XF86Setup and xvidtune.)

   penLinux

3. Disk partition: Linux provides fdisk for disk partitions (similar to DOS fdisk command but different)

   It only allows up to four primary partitions: (Assuming that the first primary partition is loaded with Win9[58]).

   /: this is root partition (100 MG has to be within 1025'th cylinder)
   swap: swap partition is used as secondary memory. The rule of thumb is to set it about 2 to 3 times of the system's RAM.
   /usr: 800 MG or more if you have plenty of disk space
   The fourth partition should be an "extended" type partition. (You may divide it further with logical partitions: swap, /opt and etc. OpenLinux provides you this capability gracefully. You may use OpenLinux to partition the disk with "extended" and "logical" type. Then reboot the system with redHat 6.1 for installation.)

   Note: Under Lizard, one should select expert mode or customize for OpenLinux and RedHat respectively. Be sure to click on 'write' button and check the mount point and the size of each partition before proceed. If they are not shown correctly, reboot the system and restart it from step one.
   

4. On OpenLinux, select "Standard Installation" or "Development Workstation" for larger disk. You may want to select "Minimal Installation" for a quick test if you have a slow CPU. Try to install everything if the disk space is sufficient. (allocates 1GB for /usr partition.)

   Attached is disk partition of an "Development Workstation" etrisO 2.3 system:

   /         80 MB
   /usr     700 MB 
   /opt      60 MB
   

5. Enter a new root password - don't foget it.

6. Set Login Name(s): create accounts - for yourself and choose your favorite shell ( bash or tcsh) then click on "Add User".

7. Basic utilities and servers (C, C++, perl and etc.)/Apache

8. X: select a right X server is the critical one when your display adaptor is not being identified by the installation steps.

9. Lilo: Refers to RedHat's installation steps.

10. Playing T while loading SW. (on OpenLinux 2.3 only) If you have a pentium 100 with 64 MB RAM, it should take about an hour for "Standard Installation". If it takes more than 10 minutes to show "10%" of packages have been installed, something is wrong. Restart it over.
11. For connecting to the network, the ip address, netmask, gateway, dns server, and hostname are required.

12. Time zone: US/Eastern and GMT for SW and HW clock respectively.