Exercise 1: Armstrong s Auto Body

Exercise 1: Armstrong's Auto Body

Novell Linux Desktop is presently available in both the DVD and CD formats, and there is no difference between the formats with the exception of not needing to switch media with DVD. This discussion walks through the use of the CD media. To begin the installation, insert the first CD into the drive and boot the workstation. A Welcome screen will quickly appear followed by a screen offering a boot options menu. If the boot options menu does not appear, reconfigure the BIOS on the workstation to make the drive bootable.

The welcome menu offers the following choices:

• Boot from Hard disk This choice is the default, and the one to use if you accidentally arrive at this menu and truly do not want to make any changes.

• Installation The choice to use to begin the installation routine.

• Installation ACPI Disabled This option sets acpi=off and is used only if you are having trouble with power savings interfering with the installation routine.

• Installation Safe Settings Among other things, this sets acm=off, acpi=off, and barrier=off and is used when you are having a great deal of trouble getting an installation to take. These settings disable certain advanced features such as power management and advanced hard drive settings during the installation process. Use this choice as a last ditch effort for a successful installation, and use it only after you have exhausted the previous two options.

• Manual Installation This lets you walk through only the aspects of the installation you want to tweak.

• Rescue System This recovers a system with corrupted boot files.

• Memory Test This does not do any installation, but simply checks the memory.

To begin a standard install, choose Installation. The License Agreement appears next. Scroll through the choices, and you can either click on the command button labeled I Agree or the command button labeled I Do Not Agree. If you choose the latter, the installation will not continue. After agreeing to the License Agreement, YaST2 identifies itself as "The Installation and System Administration Program," and you must select your language. Your hardware is then analyzed, and you are given radio buttons allowing you to choose either GNOME or KDE for the default desktop. Neither is preselected, so choose KDE.

A summary of the installation settings you have chosen appears next. As soon as you click Accept, a warning appears telling you that YaST2 has all the information needed and can now start the installation. Once you click to start the actual installation, the hard disk starts being prepared. Following that, you can watch the status of the installation for each of the CDs through progress bars. At the end of this phase, basic installation finishes with the following automatic steps:

NOTE

Before selecting Accept, you should change the partition proposal to leave unpartitioned space. Without this, you will run into difficultly adding space to the swap partition in exercise 14. The basic steps for this are

1.	From the Installation Settings page, select Partitioning.
2.	On the next page, select Create custom partition setup.
3.	Select Custom partitioning for experts.
4.	Highlight the entry in the partition table for the Linux native partition; then select Delete > Yes.
5.	Highlight the entry in the partition table for the storage device (/dev/hda or /dev/sda); then select Create.
6.	Select Primary Partition; then select OK.
7.	Change the value in the End field to +8GB (any value that leaves at least 2GB of free disk space); then select OK.
8.	Select Next, and you are returned to the Installation Settings page.
9.	Select Accept.

1.	Update configuration.
2.	Copy files to installed system.
3.	Install boot manager.
4.	Prepare system for initial boot.

The system reboots and continues on with the installation (often asking that you insert the next install CD at this point). Packages are now installed including RealPlayer, Acrobat Reader, Red Carpet, and OpenOffice.org, among others.

You are prompted to enter, and verify, a password for the root user. Enter the password N7Press.

A command button entitled Expert Options also appears on this screen. Choose it and select MD5 encryption. A scan is done for network interfaces, DSL connections, ISDN adapters, Modems, Proxy, and VNC Remote administration. Accept the results found on the summary screen, and choose to test the Internet connection. This is necessary to download the latest release notes and updates, and make sure that the system is up-to-date.

When the three choices are offered for an authentication mode, select Local (/etc/passwd) this option stores entries in the /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files. After clicking Next, you can add the new user account for Ken Armstrong using the information presented in the exercise. Choose the Details option to be able to select the additional groups the user is to belong to.

After choosing Next, SuSEconfig now starts and writes the system configuration files as they stand at this point; after which, Release Notes are displayed. You can scroll through and read the Notes if you prefer, or access them at any later point in time at /usr/share/docs/release-notes/RELEASE-NOTES.en.rtf.

Hardware configuration occurs next, as such items as graphic cards, printers, and sound cards are searched for and identified. Once again, you can make any changes on the summary screen that you want to or accept what is there and click Next. At this point, the installation is complete, and all that is left to do is click Finish. Once you do so, the system reboots and comes to the Novell Linux Desktop login screen, prompting you for a username and password that you must now supply. After you do so, the KDE desktop is loaded, and you are in business.

TIP

If you log in as kenarm, you will be set up properly to get into YaST in exercise 2.