Now it's time to start installing Red Hat Linux. To start the installation, it is first necessary to boot the installation program. Before we start, please make sure you have all the resources you'll need for the installation. If you've already read through Chapter 2, and followed the instructions, you should be ready.
[Alpha Systems: If you haven't created your diskettes yet, please refer to the first chapter of the Red Hat Linux Alpha Installation Addendum, and create them now. After you've created the necessary diskettes, please finish reading the first chapter of the Red Hat Linux Alpha Installation Addendum for information on starting the installation.]
[SPARC Systems: If you haven't prepared for the installation yet, please read Sections F.2 through F.5. Determine how you will boot the installation program, and issue the boot command that will start the installation.]
To start installing Red Hat Linux, insert your boot diskette into your computer's first diskette drive and reboot (or boot from the Red Hat Linux CD-ROM, if your computer supports it). After a short delay, a screen containing the boot: prompt should appear. The screen contains information on a variety of boot options. Each boot option also has one or more help screens associated with it. To access a given help screen, press the appropriate function key as listed in the line at the bottom of the screen. You should keep two things in mind:
Normally, you'll only need to press [Enter] to boot. Watch the boot
messages to see whether the Linux kernel detects your hardware. If it does
not properly detect your hardware, you may need to restart the installation
in ``expert'' mode.
Expert mode disables most hardware probing, and gives
you the option of entering options for the drivers loaded during the
installation. Expert mode can be entered using the following boot command:
Please Note: The initial boot messages will not contain any references to
SCSI or network cards. These devices are supported by modules that are
loaded during the installation process.
Options can also be passed to the kernel.
For example, to instruct the
kernel to use all the RAM in a 128 MB system, enter:
After entering any options, press [Enter] to boot using those options.
If you do need to specify boot options to identify your hardware, please
make note of them -- they will be needed later.
[Intel Systems:
The Red Hat Linux/Intel CD-ROM can also be booted by newer computers that support
bootable CD-ROMs. Not all computers support this feature, so if yours
can't boot from CD-ROM, there is one other way to start the installation
without using a boot diskette. The following method is specific to
Intel-based computers only.]
If you have MS-DOS installed on your computer, you can boot the
installation system directly from the CD without using any diskettes.
To do this, use the following commands (assuming your CD is drive
d:):
Note that this method will not work if run in a DOS window -- the
autoboot.bat file must be executed with DOS as the only operating
system. In other words, Windows cannot be running.
If your computer can't boot directly from CD-ROM, and you can't use a
DOS-based autoboot), you'll have to use a boot diskette to get things
started.
boot: expert
boot: linux mem=128M
Installing Without Using a Boot Diskette
C:\> d:
D:\> cd \dosutils
D:\dosutils> autoboot.bat