Fedora is a powerful, fast-changing, freely available operating system. It can be used as a productive desktop or server environment, or it can be used to learn about Linux and experiment with new technologies.
There are many different Linux distributions, each with a different set of features, aimed at a different type of user. Before you invest time and effort in Linux, you need to decide if Fedora is the right distribution for you.
Fedora Core is a collection of software that provides a complete working environment for a desktop or a server computer. It is often called an operating system , but, like other Linux distributions, it provides a lot more functionality than operating systems such as Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X because it includes desktop productivity applications and server software. Fedora Extras is a collection of software that is compatible with and extends the functionality of Fedora Core.
Fedora is developed and supported by a large community of developers, testers, package maintainers, documentation writers, marketers, and advocates. Many leading community members are also employees of Red Hat, Inc., which provides servers, build systems (the computers that compile and test the thousands of packages included with Fedora) and some funding for the project. In return, Red Hat gains the opportunity to receive feedback on new software and features before incorporating them into its commercial product line, called Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
If you want (or need) to run Windows games or a specific Windows application, Fedora may not be the right OS for youalthough Wine will let you run some Windows applications when you're in a pinch. Two commercial products based on Wine are available: Cedega, for Windows games, and CrossOver Office, for Microsoft Office and other business applications.
A new Fedora release is made approximately every four to nine months, and only the current and next-to-current releases are actively maintained by the project (beyond this time frame, security and bug fixes are supplied by the Fedora Legacy project).
If you need a platform with long-term stability, consider using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) instead (or CentOS, which is a nonaffiliated project based on RHEL that does not have commercial support). Each RHEL release is supported with updates and security enhancements for a full seven years.
Because Fedora serves as a testbed for new technologies, it can be used to gain a preview of the new technologies that will be incorporated into future Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases.
As a community distribution, support for Fedora is provided by the Fedora community rather than a commercial entity. That means that most questions receive a quick and friendly answer, but since no one is being paid to help you, you may not receive any answers to unique or unusual questions.
If you like Fedora but need commercial support, consider using RHEL, which is Red Hat's fully supported commercial Linux product.
Fedora will install on PCs with Intel and AMD 32- and 64-bit processors, as well as compatible processors from Transmeta, Via, and others. You will need a minimum of 256 MB of memory, 7 GB of disk space, and a processor speed of 400 MHz to obtain reasonable performance with the graphical user interface. A broadband Internet connection is desirable for obtaining software updates but is not necessary.
You can install a very basic version of Fedora Core without a graphical user interface on a system with as little as 64 MB of memory, 1 GB of disk space, and a processor speed of 200 MHz. However, this is not recommended for desktop usage.
You can also install Fedora Core on a system with a PowerPC processor, such as an Apple Mac produced after 1999 and before 2006, or an IBM RS/6000 system.
Fedora Core includes over 2,200 software packages, and Fedora Extras (a library of compatible software) includes hundreds more. All of these packages are open source ( http://www.opensource.org/ ), which means that the human-readable version of the software ( source code ) is distributed along with the ready-to-run binaries . Each package is licensed under one of a set of open source licenses that permits the software to be modified, adapted, and redistributed.
Most of these packages are developed and maintained by a team that may include developers, documentation writers, and testers, and most of the packages are not specific to Fedora; they're also distributed with other Linux distributions and non-Linux operating systems (for example, the excellent Firefox web browser is used on Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, and many other operating systems).
Each of these pieces of software is packaged for Fedora by another maintainer. To distinguish the two groups, the original developers and maintainers of the software are called the upstream maintainers , while the people responsible for integrating the package into Fedora are called Fedora maintainer s. The Fedora packages use the RPM package format for ease of management by package tools such as yum .
The current development version of Fedora is called Rawhide (see Lab 9.4, "Running Rawhide ") and is highly unstable; people using Rawhide expect a steady flow of changes, along with features that appear and disappear, and work and then stop working again. Rawhide serves as the testing and proving ground for the software that will become the next Fedora release.
A similar process is used for Fedora Core updates and Fedora Extras: software is released to a testing repository, where it is tested by volunteers on the bleeding edge, and once the bugs are worked out, the software is moved to the Fedora Core updates or Fedora Extras repository.
Fedora Core can be configured for dual booting , as long as you have sufficient disk space for both operating systems. You will be given the opportunity to select the default operating system during the Fedora installation, and you can override this default during the boot process, selecting the operating system you wish to use from a menu.
If Windows is currently using your entire hard disk, you will need to resize the Windows partition (see Lab 10.1, "Resizing a Windows Partition ") or add an extra disk drive. If Windows is not yet installed on your computer, you should install it before Fedora; otherwise, it may overwrite your Fedora bootloader (or, in some cases, the entire Fedora installation).
There are dozens and dozens of Linux distributions, each aimed at a different audience. For details about specific distributions, visit http://distrowatch.com .
Visit http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/6/i386/os/repodata/ , and you'll see a browsable display of all of the packages in Fedora Core. Click on a package name to see a detailed description of the package.
The Fedora Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/ and http://fedoraproject.org
The Fedora Legacy Project: http://www.fedoralegacy.org/
The Open Source Initiative: http://www.opensource.org/
About Fedora: http://fedora.redhat.com/About
Red Hat Enterprise Linux: http://redhat.com/rhel
CentOS: http://www.centos.org/
Linux distributions: http://distrowatch.com/
The Fedora software exists in two parts: Fedora Core, a Linux distribution that includes base applications for desktop and server systems, and Fedora Extras , a repository of additional applications that can be added easily to a Fedora Core system.
The first step is to obtain a copy of the Fedora Core software itself.
The Fedora Core installer is a bare-bones configuration of Linux designed specifically for the installation process. Once the installer is running, it configures and installs the Fedora Core software on your system.
There are, therefore, two parts to the software: the software used to boot up the system for the installation session, and the software that is installed on your system. These may be on the same media, or they may be separated into boot media and installation media .
Before selecting the media and obtaining the software, you must determine which architecture (machine type) you are using. Fedora Core is available for three different architectures:
i386
All Intel-compatible 32-bit systems with a standard BIOS, including all Intel 32-bit Celeron, Pentium, Centrino, and Core systems; AMD 32-bit Athlon, Duron, and Turion systems; and VIA CPUs such as the C3 and Eden processors. Older processors such as 80386, 80486, and K6 processors will also work. Fedora Core may be installed on Apple Mac systems with an Intel processor by using Apple's Boot Camp software (included in Mac OS X 10.5 and available in beta form for Mac OS X 10.4).
x86_64
All AMD-compatible 64-bit systems, including Opteron, Athlon 64, Duron 64, and Turion 64 systems, and Intel 64-bit Pentium 4, Xeon, and Core 2 systems. These systems can also run the i386 version but will do so in 32-bit mode.
PPC
Systems based on the PowerPC G3/POWER4 and later PowerPC processors, including recent PPC-based Apple Macs (manufactured between 1999 and 2006), IBM eServer pSeries, and IBM RS/6000 systems.
This chapter focuses on the i386 and x86_64 platforms, but the PPC installation procedure is quite similar.
The Fedora Core installation boot software is usually started from a CD or DVD disc. It's also possible to boot from a USB flash disk drive if the system's BIOS supports it, or to boot from a network boot server using the PXE protocol. Table 1-1 outlines the boot media requirements.
Table 1-1. Boot media requirements for installing Fedora Core 6
| Media type | Media count | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| DVD | 1 | 4.7 GB (or larger) | All of the software will fit on one disc (which serves as both the boot and installation medium), so this is usually the fastest and most convenient installation option. |
| CD | 1 | 8 MB (any CD) | A single CD or mini-CD can be used to start a network or hard disk installation. If you will be using CDs for both the boot and installation media, five 700 MB discs are required (see Table 1-2). |
| USB flash drive | 1 | 8 MB or higher | Requires a Linux system to configure the drive. Useful for network or hard disk installation. The BIOS of some systems will not permit booting from a USB flash key (beware of BIOS versions that permit booting only from a USB floppy or Zip drive). |
| PXE Server (Network Boot) | 1 | 6.5 MB | Requires an existing system to serve as the PXE server (see Lab 10.3, "Preparing Alternate Installation Media"). |
Once the system has been booted, the rest of the installation software can be on a DVD, several CDs, an existing hard drive partition on the computer (or an external hard disk drive), or an FTP, NFS, or HTTP server. Table 1-2 outlines the requirements.
Table 1-2. Installation media requirements for Fedora Core 6
| Media type | Media count | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| DVD | 1 | 4.7 GB or higher | Same media used for booting. |
| CD | 5 | 700 MB | The images will not fit on 650 MB discs, such as some CD-RWs or old CD-Rs. |
| Network server (HTTP, NFS, or FTP) | 1 | 3.5 GB of disk space on the server | HTTP is the lightest of the three protocols and is often the easiest to set up. |
| Hard disk partition | 1 | 3.5 GB of disk space | Only ext2 and ext3 (Linux) and FAT (Windows/DOS) partitions are supported, on an internal or external disk drive. NTFS and LVM-based partitions will not work. This option is useful when adding Fedora to a computer that already has an operating system installed; the existing OS can be used to download the installation images. Note that the file size exceeds the maximum for FAT16 filesystems (2 GB). |
To create a Fedora Core CD or DVD set, you must obtain the ISO image files .
To download the entire Fedora Core distribution for installation direct from disc, use one of these two procedures:
Go to the web page http://fedora.redhat.com/Download/mirrors.html and select an HTTP or FTP site for direct download. Select the directory for the desired Fedora Core version number (6), then the directory for your machine architecture (i386, PPC, or x86_64), and then select the iso directory. You will probably not need the files containing "SRPM" in the name. If you want the CD images, get the files containing "disc1," "disc2," and so forth in the name; to obtain the DVD image, get the file containing "DVD" in the name.
Use BitTorrent ( http://www.bittorrent.com ) to obtain the files from one of the Fedora torrents listed on http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/ .
Some download tools have problems with files over 2 GB in size. Most of the time, these problems affect only the download size, progress, or time-remaining displays during the download process, but some versions of the Lynx browser will not successfully download files over 2 GB. Older versions of wget also have a 2 GB limitation. If you are downloading onto a Windows system that is formatted with the FAT file system, the maximum file size may be 2 GB (FAT16) or 4 GB (FAT32).
To download only the boot disk ISO (for use with a network or hard disk installation):
Go to the web page http://fedora.redhat.com/Download/mirrors.html and select an HTTP or FTP site for direct download. Select the directory for the desired Fedora Core version number (6), then the directory for your machine architecture (i386, PPC, or x86_64), select the os directory, and then select the images directory. Download the file named boot.iso . (You can also find this file in the images directory of the Fedora Core DVD or CD disc 1).
Once you have the image files, burn them onto optical media using the CD-creator program available on the platform used for downloading. For example, on Windows you could use Nero or Roxio Easy Media Creator; on a Linux system (such as Fedora Core 4), right-click on the file and select "Write to disc," or use a tool such as K3B , xcdroast , or growisofs .
When burning a CD or DVD, use the ISO image file as the disc filesystem, but do not place the ISO image inside another filesystem on the disc. You will usually get the correct results if you save the ISO file to the desktop and then double-click on it.
To verify that the disk was created correctly, open it after you burn it: you should see several files and directories. If you see a single file with a .iso extension, the disc was not created correctly.
Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, it may be faster and cheaper to purchase a set of Fedora discs than to download the software. A list of online Fedora Core vendors is available at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Distribution/OnlineVendors , and a list of local retailers carrying Fedora Core is at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Distribution/LocalVendors .
To install Fedora Core from a FAT, ext2, or ext3 partition, simply copy the ISO image files for the DVD or CD set onto that disk partition. For example, on a Windows system with a FAT32 disk partition D: , download the DVD image file as though you were going to burn it onto a DVD but place the image file on drive D: (be sure to record the name of the directory/folder containing the images!).
Each of these tasks is most easily performed on a running Linux system; see Chapter 10 for instructions. (Similar software is available for other platforms.)
An ISO image file is an exact copy of the contents of an optical disk. The name comes from the fact that data on optical discs is stored using a standard known as ISO 9660 .
Each type of boot media has a unique standard for specifying how boot data is stored. On optical discs, the El Torito standard permits the system BIOS to find the boot software. For USB disks, a standard hard disk boot sector is used. For PXE network booting, a boot protocol (bootp) server is used to identify the boot files, and a trivial file transfer protocol (TFTP) server is used to serve them to the client system.
The first piece of software that loads from the boot media is the bootloader: isolinux for optical discs, syslinux for USB flash drives, or pxelinux for PXE boot servers.
After accepting boot parameters from the user, the bootloader subsequently loads two files:
vmlinuz
A compressed Linux kernel; the heart of the Fedora Core operating system.
initrd.img
A filesystem image that is loaded into memory and used as a ramdisk. This provides the drivers, startup scripts, and programs to get the system started.
Once these files have been loaded, the kernel is executed and begins the install process.
The Fedora installer has grown to the point that it no longer fits on a floppy disk. The USB flash disk method has replaced the floppy-disk boot procedure.
The Fedora Core release notes: http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/ or in the root directory of Fedora Core CD disc 1 or DVD
The Fedora Core installation guide: http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/fedora-install-guide-en/
Documentation on syslinux , isolinux , and pxelinux : http://syslinux.zytor.com/
Burning ISO images to CD/DVD: http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/howtoburn.html
Fedora on Macintel: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraOnMactel
Installing Fedora Core is a simple and straightforward task on most modern computers.
To install Fedora Core, you'll need the installation media and your computer. If you are going to use a local area network or broadband Internet connection, it's recommended that you have it connected during the installation process.
A Fedora installation will usually take 15 to 90 minutes, depending on the speed of your computer and the amount of optional software you choose to install.
If your system already has Windows installed, and you intend to continue to use Windows, you will need to free up some space on the hard disk for Fedora Core. See Lab 10.1, "Resizing a Windows Partition ," for instructions on shrinking a Windows disk partition (or deleting one that is unused).
There is an alternative to repartitioning your disk: you can install an additional disk drive in your system and use that drive for Fedora, or use an external USB or FireWire drive.
Be sure to check the system requirements in the release notes at http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/ or in the root directory of the Fedora Core DVD or CD disc 1.
On your system, if you have any data that you want to preserve, back it up before installing Fedora Core, and test the integrity of the backup copy.
Insert your installation media (DVD, CD, or USB stick, or plug your system into a network with a PXE network boot server) and turn your system on. If it does not boot from the installation media, change your system BIOS settings to boot from it.
The first thing you will see is the boot screen shown in Figure 1-1 .
Figure 1-1. Fedora Core installation boot screen
The boot: prompt at the bottom of the screen lets you configure special options. You can press Enter for a standard, graphical installation, or you can type linux followed by any of the keywords in Table 1-3 to specify particular options for the installation session. Table 1-4 lists hard disk device names.
Additional installation boot options are discussed in Chapter 10.
Table 1-3. Fedora Core basic installation options
| Option | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| lowres | Uses 640x480 screen resolution. | Use if you are installing with a very old monitor. |
| resolution= 1024x 768 | Specifies a standard video resolution. | Use if the installer does not correctly detect your monitor capabilities and the video signal is out of range. |
| text | Uses text mode for installation (no graphics mode or mouse access). | Use this if graphics are garbled or slow when using the regular installer. |
| askmethod | Ask the user for the installation method (source of the software to be installed). | The installer will automatically ask if the boot media is a USB flash drive or a network boot. For a CD or DVD installation, the installer will assume that you're installing from the CD or DVD unless the askmethod or method= options are specified. |
| method= method | Specifies the installation method:cdromInstall from optical disc (CD or DVD)http:// server / pathInstall from HTTP serverftp:// server / pathInstall from FTP servernfs: server / pathInstall from a NFS serverhd:// partition / pathInstall from an ISO file on a hard disk partition | For the hd installation method, take the hard disk device name from Table 1-4 and add the partition number at the end. For example, if the ISO file is in the folder fc6 on the 2nd partition of the primary master hard disk, use: method=hd://dev/hda2/fc6/. |
| expert | Enables the use of a driver disk with additional device driver modules. | Use this to install onto hardware that requires driver modules not included in Fedora Core 6. |
Table 1-4. Hard disk device names
| Device name | Disk type | Controller | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|
| /dev/hda | Parallel ATA (IDE) | Primary | Master |
| /dev/hdb | Parallel ATA (IDE) | Primary | Slave |
| /dev/hdc | Parallel ATA (IDE) | Secondary | Master |
| /dev/hdd | Parallel ATA (IDE) | Secondary | Slave |
| /dev/hde | Parallel ATA (IDE) | Auxiliary #1 | Master |
| /dev/hdf | Parallel ATA (IDE) | Auxiliary #1 | Slave |
| /dev/hdg | Parallel ATA (IDE) | Auxiliary #2 | Master |
| /dev/hdh | Parallel ATA (IDE) | Auxiliary #2 | Slave |
| /dev/sd<X> | SATA, SCSI, IEEE1394, or USB | <X> is a for the first disk found, b for the second disk found, c for the third disk, and so forth. With USB and IEEE1394 (FireWire) devices, the assignments may change between reboots. |
For example, if you are using a CD for booting, and you want to use text mode and to be asked for the installation method, enter this boot string:
boot: linux text askmethod
In most cases, you should simply press Enter at the boot prompt. The Linux kernel and ramdisk ( initrd.img ) will load, as shown in Figure 1-2 , and then start executing, as shown in Figure 1-3 .
Figure 1-2. Loading the kernel and initrd (ramdisk)
Figure 1-3. The Linux kernel starting up
At this pointif you are installing from DVD or CD seta media-check tool enables you to test the DVD or CD set, as shown in Figure 1-4 . Press Enter to test the discs (optional), or press Tab and then Enter to skip the media check. The tests will take 26 minutes per CD or 812 minutes per DVD on a modern computer.
Some disc burning programs will pad the image before burning it, adding additional data to the end of the disc. This will cause the disc to fail the media check even though the disc is valid.
Figure 1-4. DVD/CD media check
The screen shown in Figure 1-5 will appear only if you did not not boot from an optical disc, or if you entered the method or askmethod keywords at the boot prompt ( Figure 1-1 ).
Figure 1-5. Language selection screen
Select the language to use during installation using the up/down cursor keys, and then press Enter to proceed. The keyboard selection screen shown in Figure 1-6 will appear.
Figure 1-6. Keyboard selection screen
Select the entry that matches your keyboard and press Enter.
If you included the askmethod keyword at the boot prompt or booted from a USB flash disk or a PXE boot server, the installation method dialog shown in Figure 1-7 will appear next.
Figure 1-7. Installation method dialog
If you select an installation method that is network-based (NFS, FTP, or HTTP), you will be presented with a network configuration screen where you can enable automatic IP configuration through DHCP and select IPV4 (used on most networks) and/or IPV6. If you do not enable DHCP support, an additional page will appear to collect the IP settings (IP address, netmask, DNS server, and gateway). In most established networks (including small business or home networks with a broadband Internet connection through a router/gateway device), the IP settings can be obtained from a DHCP server. If in doubt, try the DHCP server option; if it fails, you will be given the opportunity to enter the network information manually.
If you select the hard disk installation method, you will be prompted to select the disk device and path to the Fedora Core ISO images. Use Table 1-4 to determine the disk device, and append the partition number to the device name (for example, use /dev/hda2 for partition 2 on the IDE primary master disk); for the path, enter the pathname of the directory containing the ISO images, using the forward-slash ( / ) character to separate directories instead of the Windows-style backslash ( \ ).
At this point, control of the system passes from the boot media to the installation media. For example, if you've used a USB flash drive to boot and HTTP for the installation method, it is at this point that the system switches over to software from the HTTP server.
If you're using a graphical installation, the graphical environment will be started now, and the splash screen shown in Figure 1-8 will appear. Click Next to proceed.
If your mouse is not working, you can activate a graphical button on the installation screen by using the keyboard; just press Alt and the letter underlined in the button label. For example, to view the release notes while on the splash screen in Figure 1-8, press Alt-R (because R is underlined on the Release notes button).
If you are using a text-mode installation, you will see a text-based version of each of the following screens; the layout may be slightly different to accommodate the available screen space and the absence of a mouse pointer. Use the Tab key to navigate among the controls on the text screen.
You cannot manually create a new Logical Volume configuration using the text-mode installer
Figure 1-8. Fedora Core graphical-installation splash screen
If you have not already selected your language and keyboard type, the screens shown in Figures 1-9 and 1-10 are presented to collect this information.
Figure 1-9. Graphical language selection
Figure 1-10. Graphical keyboard selection
The installation program will check to see if you have an existing Fedora installation; if you do, it will offer you the option of upgrading the current system instead of performing a new installation (Figure 1-11).
Figure 1-11. Upgrade option
Choose Install Fedora Core if you want to replace your existing installation, or "Upgrade an existing installation" if you want to upgrade your existing Fedora system to Fedora Core 6. Click Next.
This dialog may appear if you previously started a Fedora installation, but aborted the installation process before it was finished (producing a partially installed system). In that case, choose Install rather than Upgrade to ensure that the new system is complete.
If you have an existing Fedora installation and you want to replace it with Fedora Core 6, but you wish to preserve the data in your home directories, and the home directories have their own filesystem or partition, you can choose Upgrade.
If you choose Install, skip to the next section titled "Performing a New Fedora Installation." Otherwise, the screen shown in Figure 1-12 will appear, asking what you want to do with the bootloader configuration.
Figure 1-12. Bootloader configuration during upgrade
Choose an option based on your current bootloader:
Update boot loader configuration
Use this if your previous installation installed the GRUB bootloader (the default for recent versions of Fedora Core).
Skip boot loader updating
Use this if you are using a third-party bootloader program. You will need to refer to your bootloader documentation to determine how to update the bootloader manually.
Create new boot loader configuration
Select this option if you are using the older LILO bootloader. The installation system will replace LILO with GRUB.
Click Next. After a few seconds, the screen shown in Figure 1-13 will appear.
Figure 1-13. Fedora installation confirmation screen
This is the point of no return. Click Next to proceed with the upgrade, but remember that the upgrade process must run to completion and cannot be safely interrupted. The Fedora installer will analyze the software installed in your existing Fedora system, determine what needs to be updated, and install the new packages.
If any of your hard disks are empty and have not been previously used, the warning message displayed in Figure 1-14 will appear. If the drive contains data that you wish to preserve, abort the installation and boot into your existing operating system, figure out why the disk does not show a partition table, and restart the installation. Otherwise, click Yes to continue the installation.
Figure 1-14. Warning about a blank partition table
The installer will now ask what you want to do about partitioning, as shown in Figure 1-15 . In most cases, there are four options available:
Remove all partitions on selected drives and create default layout
This will wipe out everything on the drive and use the entire drive for Fedora Core. Select this option on a new computer or a computer you want to convert for use entirely with Fedora Core. This is also the right option to use when you are installing Linux on a second (or third) disk drive, leaving the software and data on the other drives untouchedbut be careful that only the Fedora Core drive is selected in the list of available disks.
Remove Linux partitions on selected drives and create default layout
Use this option if you are replacing an existing Linux installation and want to leave other operating systems (such as Windows) untouched.
Figure 1-15. Disk and partition strategy selection
Use free space on selected drives and create default layout
If you have unused space on your disk drive, or you have shrunk a Windows partition to free up some space, select this option.
Create custom layout
If you are familiar with partitioning and have special requirementsfor example, you wish to preserve only one filesystem (such as /home ) from a previous Linux installationselect this option.
If you have more than one disk drive installed, you will be able to select the drive(s) to be used for Fedora using the checkboxes in the rectangle labeled "Select the drive(s) to use for this installation." Refer to Table 1-4 for Linux disk names.
At the bottom of this screen, be sure to select the checkbox labeled "Review and modify partitioning layout" so that you will have an opportunity to see the proposed disk layout before it is used. Click Next to continue.
If you have selected an option that involves removing an existing partition, you will see the partition-removal warning shown in Figure 1-16 . Review the information shown, and then click Yes to confirm that you are prepared to remove the partitions listed.
Figure 1-16. Partition removal warning
By default, Fedora Core uses a system called Logical Volume Management (LVM). A partition managed using LVM is called a physical volume (PV). Storage space from one or more PVs is used to create a pool of storage called a volume group (VG). Out of this pool of storage, one or more virtual partitions are created; each virtual partition is a logical volume (LV). Figure 1-17 illustrates the relationship between these components.
Figure 1-17. Relationship between LVM components
LVM has several advantages over traditional partitioning:
Logical volumes can be resized, enabling you to shift space between filesystems without reinstalling the system.
Logical volumes can span multiple physical volumes, enabling the use of filesystems that are larger than one physical disk.
Additional storage can be added to existing filesystemsfor example, you can add a new disk drive and add that storage space to the home filesystem.
Data can be migrated from one drive to another.
Chapter 6 delves into more detail regarding LVM.
Although logical volumes can be enlarged or reduced at any time, the ext3 filesystem that Fedora uses can be enlarged only while it is in use. It must not be in use when it is reduced in size. This can make it fairly complicated to shrink an ext3 partition. Because it's difficult to determine how much disk space each filesystem will require in the future, it is a good idea to make Fedora filesystems no larger than necessary at first, and then add space to them as required. This avoids the need to reduce the size of one LV in order to increase the size of another.
Unfortunately, the LVM system is too complex to use during the early stages of the booting process, so a system configured to use LVM must also have a small traditional partition for boot files.
In order to use Fedora Core's hibernate feature, you will also need a swap partition (either instead of or in addition to swapspace on a logical volume). See Lab 3.1, "Power Management," for more information on hibernation.
If you have selected a partitioning option that includes the default layout and have selected the checkbox to review and modify the layout, the screen in Figure 1-18 will appear at this point in the installation.
Figure 1-18. Fedora Disk Druid partitioning screen
The table on the bottom half of the screen contains two sections: one for LVM volume groups and one for hard disks. The default layout creates a 100 MB boot partition, and takes all remaining available disk space on all drives and places it in a single volume group named VolGroup00 . The space in this volume group is then divided into two logical volumes: LogVol00 for the root filesystem and LogVol01 for swap space (virtual memory).
There are three improvements that we are going to make to the default Fedora Core partition/LVM layout:
A separate LV will be used for the /home filesystem, so that users' home directories are separated from the operating system. This will enable you to wipe out the operating system and reinstall it (or install another distribution of Linux or a later version of Fedora Core) without affecting the users' files.
The LVs will be reduced in size so that they are no larger than necessary. Surplus disk space can be left unassigned within the volume group and added to logical volumes as needed; this eliminates the need to perform complex operations to shrink one volume group in order to grow another.
The volume group and logical volume names will be replaced with more descriptive text.
To make these changes, double-click on the line in the table that reads VolGroup00 and then click the Edit button. The Edit LVM Volume Group window will appear, as shown in Figure 1-19 .
Figure 1-19. Edit LVM Volume Group window
Start by changing the Volume Group Name at the top of this window from VolGroup00 to main . Next, click on the entry that has a mount point of / and click Edit; the Edit Logical Volume window shown in Figure 1-20 will appear.
Figure 1-20. Edit Logical Volume window for the root LV
Change the Logical Volume Name to root , and change the size to a value that is closer to the size of the installation. I recommend 8,000 MB (i.e., 8 GB; most server and desktop systems will take 26 GB of space to install, so 8 GB gives a modest amount of headroom). Click OK when you are done.
Figure 1-21 shows the settings that repeat the process for the other predefined LV: click on this LV and then click Edit. Change the Logical Volume Name to swap , leaving the size at the default value. Click OK when you are done.
Figure 1-21. Edit Logical Volume window for the swap LV
Finally, click the Add button and create a new Logical Volume to hold the home directories, as shown in Figure 1-22. Set the Mount Point to /home , the File System Type to ext3 , the Logical Volume Name to home , and then set a reasonable size for storing the users' home directories (if you're not sure what value to use, start with 1000 ). Click OK when you are done.
Figure 1-22. Creating a new Logical Volume for the home LV
Review the final disk partition and LVM layout, and then click Next. The bootloader configuration screen will appear, as shown in Figure 1-23 .
Figure 1-23. Bootloader configuration screen
The default bootloader configuration replaces any existing bootloader installed on the main hard disk. If you have more than one operating system installed, the bootloader will ask you which OS to boot when the system is started. If you have a Windows boot partition present, it will be listed as a boot option, but it will be labeled Other. To change this label to something more descriptive, click on that entry, and then click Edit. Enter the text of your choice, such as Windows XP Professional , and then click OK.
Use the checkboxes in the Default column to select which operating system will be loaded by default if the user doesn't override the selection at boot time.
It is a good idea to install a bootloader password. Without this, any person with physical access to your machine will be able to easily override all security by booting the system into single-user mode. Click "Use a boot loader password" and then enter your selected password twice when prompted.
The bootloader password is a critical piece of information. Don't lose it!
Click Next to proceed.
If you have not already configured the network, and you have a network adapter installed in your system, the network configuration screen appears next, as shown in Figure 1-24 .
Figure 1-24. Network configuration screen
If you have a DHCP server on your networkwhich is the case in most large networks and in most small office and home networks that have a broadband Internet gateway/router devicethen you will only need to change the "Set the hostname" option to "manually" and then enter the hostname of your choice (unless your DHCP server sets the hostname for you). If you have a registered domain, choose a hostname within that domain, such as bluesky.fedorabook.com (which specifies the host bluesky within the domain fedorabook.com ); otherwise, choose a hostname and append .localdomain to the end of the name.
If you do not have a DHCP server on your network, select your primary Ethernet card from the Network Devices list and then click Edit. You will see the Edit interface window shown in Figure 1-25 . Click on the "Configure using DHCP " option to deselect that checkbox, then enter the IP address and netmask. Click OK to save this information, and enter the hostname, gateway, and DNS server information in the blanks provided (it is necessary only to enter a Primary DNS server).
Figure 1-25. Edit interface window
Click Next to proceed to the next step in the installation, which is time zone selection, as shown in Figure 1-26 .
Figure 1-26. Time zone selection
Click on your region of the map to zoom in, and then click on the major city closest to your locationor use the pull-down menu to select your time zone.
You can choose to configure the system's hardware clock to store information in local time or in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). This is controlled by the checkbox labeled "System clock uses UTC." If you are using multiple operating systems on your computer (dual-boot), to use local time, deselect the checkbox so that the other operating system will interpret the time correctly.
If you are using only Fedora, or Fedora and another distribution of Linux, choose UTC by selecting the checkbox. This will avoid multiple adjustments of the clock when entering or exiting daylight savings time.
Click Next to proceed.
The screen in Figure 1-27 requests that you enter a root password for the system (twice). This is the master system administration password, so be sure to safeguard it against both theft and loss.
Choose passwords that are easy for you to remember but hard for others to guess. One way to do this it to choose a line or verse from a song, poem, book, or play, and use the first letter from each word plus the punctuation marks. For example, from Shakespeare's line "Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?" you would derive the password Dybytau,s?
Figure 1-27. Creating a root password
The next screen, shown in Figure 1-28 , is used to select the software that will be installed. Use the checkboxes to select the categories of applications that you wish to have installed. To further refine the software selection, select the "Customize now" option; this is recommended if you are installing on a system with minimal disk space or a slow Internet connection.
When installing from DVD or CD, the button labeled "Add additional software repositories" can be used to add a Fedora Updates network repository to ensure that the latest versions of the Fedora Core packages are installed. This can be somewhat faster than installing the disc version of all packages and then updating the software after installation, but it requires a good Internet connection (or local repository). See Lab 5.3, "Using Repositories," for more information.
Figure 1-28. Software selection screen
Click Next to continue. If you selected "Customize now," you will see the screen shown in Figure 1-29 . Otherwise, skip ahead two paragraphs.
Figure 1-29. Software customization screen
Select a category on the left side to see the package groups within that family on the right side. Use the checkboxes provided to select the groups you want. For even finer control, you can select a package group, click the "Optional packages" button, then select the individual packages you wish to include from the window shown in Figure 1-30 .
Figure 1-30. Optional package selection screen
Click Next to continue. After a short time for dependency processing, the screen shown in Figure 1-31 will appear.
Figure 1-31. Installation confirmation
This is the point of no return; once you click Next, the partition table, filesystems, and bootloader will all be modified. Once the installation process begins, it cannot be safely interrupted and must be allowed to run to completion. During the installation, a progress bar similar to the one in Figure 1-32 will be shown.
Bored? You can read the release notes during the installation; just click on the button in the lower-left corner of the screen.
Figure 1-32. Installation progress indicator
When the installation is complete, the confirmation message shown in Figure 1-33 is displayed. Remove the installation boot media, and then click Reboot to start up the new system.
On some systems, you may need to click Reboot and wait for the system to start the boot process before you can remove optical media.
Figure 1-33. Completed installation
The first time you boot your freshly installed Fedora system, you will be asked a few questions to finish up the initial configuration. The display shown in Figure 1-34 will greet you; as you work through the questions, the arrow on the lefthand side of the screen will move downward to indicate your progress.
Figure 1-34. First boot welcome screen
Click Forward to proceed to the license-agreement screen. Read the license carefully, and then click Yes or No to indicate whether you accept the license terms.
Click Forward to enter the firewall configuration screen. I strongly recommend that you leave the firewall enabled, and that you initially select only ssh as a trusted service. You can loosen your firewall to permit other inbound services later, as you set those services up.
Click Next to proceed to SELinux configuration. SELinux hardens the Linux kernel against attack. Although it can be a bit difficult to configure at times, the protection that it provides is well worth the extra effort. SELinux is covered in more detail in Lab 8.2, "Using SELinux ." For now, leave the Modify SELinux Policy option at its default setting; you can always adjust SELinux later.
Click Forward to proceed to the date and time configuration screen. Select the current date by clicking on the calendar, and enter the current time into the fields provided.
If you have an always-on Internet connection, click on the Network Time Protocol tab. Select the checkbox labeled Enable Network Time Protocol. This will configure your system to communicate with timeservers on the Internet to keep the clock closely synchronized to official time. This is valuable because it ensures that time and date stamps on your system are always accurate.
You can edit the list of timeservers that can be contacted using the Add, Edit, and Remove buttons beside the server list. The NTP Server Pool Project maintains a pool of publicly accessible timeservers; the default server list ( 0.fedora.pool.ntp.org , 1.fedora.pool.ntp.org , and 2.fedora.pool.ntp.org ) configures your system to randomly select up to three timeservers from the pool at boot. To use a timeserver in your country, use your ISO country code as the hostname within the pool.ntp.org domain; I'm in Canada, so a server in my country could be found using the name ca.pool.ntp.org .
Click Next to proceed on to creating the first user. The root password that you entered during installation is used only for system administration and should not be used for day-to-day work. This screen lets you create the first user account; you can create as many additional accounts as you want later (see Lab 4.7, "Managing Users and Groups").
Fill in the four fields on this screen:
Username
Choose a username that contains no spaces and starts with a letter. This name will be used for logging in and will also serve as the user's local email address (typically, this is not intended to replace the email address you got from your ISP or mail provider; it is generally used to receive system notices and other local messages). I recommend using only lowercase letters, digits, underscores, and periods. If you are setting up a home or personal system, first names work well; for a corporate server, full names in firstname.lastname form reduce the likelihood of confusion between users (now and in the future).
Full name
Enter the user's full name (for example, Chris Tyler ).
Password
Enter a password that is easy to remember and hard to guess. Just like the root password, using the first letter from each word plus the punctuation from an obscure line of text can be helpful (for example, FL:AcgtRHcd. for "Fedora Linux: A complete guide to Red Hat's community distribution.").
If the button in the lower-righthand corner of the screen reads Forward, there is one more step. Click on that button to proceed to the the sound card check screen.
On this screen, click on the Play button (labeled ) and adjust the volume slider until you hear a guitar strum on the right, left, then the center channel of your sound system. If you don't hear anything, check your speaker power, physical volume control, and sound connections (if you have multiple sound cards, use the device tabs on the left side to switch between them), clicking Play after each adjustment (or just select the Repeat checkbox).
If you can't get sound working at this point, don't worry; you may just need access to some of the advanced mixer controls, which you can experiment with later (see Lab 2.6, "Configuring Sound ").
Click Finish. Congratulations, Fedora is installed and ready to use!
The Fedora Core installer is named Anaconda . It shares code and technology with several other tools, including:
yum, pup, and pirut
Tools for adding and removing software (see Chapter 5).
kudzu
A tool that checks the system at boot time to see if any hardware has been added or removed, and adjusts the system configuration appropriately.
system-config- component
Graphical tools to configure individual system components.
Because the hard disk is in an unknown state and the CD is not writable during the installation session, Anaconda uses a ramdisk an area of memory configured to act like a disk driveas the filesystem while it is running. After interacting with you to get the configuration details, Anaconda partitions and formats the hard disks and mounts them. It then starts installing RPM packages containing the selected software. Finally, it reboots the system.
Each time the system boots, the init script /etc/rc.d/init.d/firstboot is executed. If the file /etc/sysconfig/firstboot does not exist, the Python script /usr/sbin/firstboot is executed to ask the initial configuration questions.
Once the configuration details have been saved, the firstboot script exits and the normal boot sequence continues.
You can rerun the firstboot script by adding reconfig to the boot parameters when the system is started (boot parameters are entered in the same way as runlevels are during the boot process; see Lab 4.5, "Using Runlevels"). The sequence of steps used during a reconfiguration is slightly different and longer from that used when the script executes for the first time; for example, you can change the system's default language during reconfiguration.
If you are not using a bootloader password, then any user with physical access to your computer can reset the password of any account on the system using the reconfig boot argument.
Fedora is a community-based project, and the Fedora community is very helpful. The best places to turn for help are the Fedora Forum and the Fedora mailing lists. You can also access help using IRC (see Lab 9.2, "Using IRC ," for more information).
The Fedora Core release notes: http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/
The Anaconda web page: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/anaconda-installer/
The manpages for kudzu and yum
The Fedora Forum: http://fedoraforum.org