How to Install Linux | Online Tutorials - Tips,Coding, Websites

Introduction

This article is designed for beginners, however those who are not beginners can also follow this article if they want.

In this article i will be demonstrating the proper process of installing any Linux OS and i will be using Red hat Enterprise Linux version 6 for the demonstration. 

Installing Linux in a proper way is not an easy job as compared to windows OS installation. There is a series of manual work when it comes to install Linux OS. I have also created a Video Tutorial on " How to install Linux" on my you tube channel you can watch the tutorial video.

Why should i read this article 

Well, i think you must be having this thought in your mind right now!. So i want to clear this thing in the beginning:

• You will get the proper knowledge of every installation wizard option.
• You will learn how to partition disk manually in a proper way to install linux
• You will be able to manage the memory in a proper way.
• You will able to install OS in a dual boot mode etc.

Installation Steps

This tutorial is designed to install Red Hat Linux if you are installing other Linux OS then skip to the Step 9 because the rest of the process will be different for other Linux. 

Step 1: Boot the Linux OS Media Disk or ISO file and press enter on the first option "Install or upgrade an existing system". You can switch between options using up and down arrow keys.

 Step 2: On welcome screen you will be asked to check the media. Switch the options using right and left nav keys. Its up to you whether you want to check the media. if you want to do it then  press enter on ok otherwise select Skip and press enter. This only purpose of check media is to look for any error in the media before proceeding further.

Step 3: After Skipping or checking the media the installation will be begin and you will see a graphical user interface click next and choose default language and then press next again.

Step 4: Then select your keyboard layout.

Step 5: After pressing next you will be asked to choose the type of storage setting you want to use. Red hat Linux offers a variety of features which includes Servers and Simple Desktops. 

If you are installing Redhat for basic home use then select first options i.e. Basic Storage Devices and if you are installing for SAN environment then use Specialized Storage Devices and click next.

Step 6: Now its time to configure the network and setup the domain. Enter your hostname or leave it default depending upon you. And if you have a working Ethernet connection or wifi connection then click on configure network and make the settings otherwise you can skip this step. It can be done later also. 

Step 7: Select your timezone and click next.

Step 8: Now its time to set the root password. This password will help you to get root level access. The password must me minimum 6 characters long and to make it strong use minimum 10 character password which contains a combination of  Alphabets, Numerics and Special Characters.

Step 9: This is the main part of this article. In this part we are going to make a custom layout for our linux OS but before that i want to explain few things.

We will discuss all these options one by one:

1. Use All Space: Well if you select this option, the whole storage device will be formatted and you will lost all your saved data. But if you have an empty Hard Disk  and you want only Linux OS in your System then you can use this option.
2. Replace Existing Linux System(s): This option will format only the already installed linux partitions and will install the new OS on the same partition layout.
3. Shrink Current System: This option will shrink the size of linux partitions without formatting the current installed Linux OS.
4. Use Free Space: Suppose your storage media already contains data in it and there is some free unallocated space in it then this option will use all the free space in your storage device to install the OS without harming your existing data. This option is similar to First option but with extra feature.
5. Create Custom Layout: If you want to create a custom layout then you will use this option and this tutorial is designed to use the custom approach in a proper way. So Lets continue with Last option.

Step 10: Click on custom layout and click next you will se screen like this 

Every linux OS must have 4 Partitions to work properly.

• Swap - Used as virtual memory by RAM
• /boot - Contains Booting Mechanism
• / - The main Partition which contains all the Configuration Files
• /home - The User's Space e.g Documents and Settings Desktop etc.

Now will will create all these partitions one by one.

Step 11:  First create Swap Partition by clicking on create button. After that you will see a popup window. Now select General Partition and Click Create.

Now, Click on File System Type and select Swap and set its size depending upon your ram size i am using 2000 MB and click OK.

Step 12: Follow the above step again by clicking the remaining free space and this time select file system as ext4 and Select mount point to  /boot and give it size according to your requirement  the minimum recommended size for this partition is 500MB.

Step 13: Repeat the above process and this time select / as your mount point and set its size. The minimum recommended size for / partition is 8GB but you can use according to the free space you have i am using 10 GB

Step 14: Now select /home as your mount point and set its size. you can use all the free space left for this partition because this space will store your personal data so use proper space according to your requirement i am using around 13 GB.

Now, after its all done the Scene will look like this:

Step 15: Now click next and you will be asked to format the newly created layout. click on write changes to disk. but keep one thing in mind that after committing the changes there is no go back so only proceed if you are sure. 

Step 16: If you are installing Red hat Linux then you will asked to configure the boot loader in the final step.

Here you can change the default boot loader and set boot loader password.

In the list you will see the list of OS that will be shown in the Booting menu in case if you are having another os installed in the system then it will be displayed in the list and if its not displaying then add it otherwise you will not able to boot into that OS in the booting menu. 

There is one more thing Red hat users need to do. I will not discuss it here in this article because i have created a video tutorial on my you tube channel you can see the whole process in the video below.