Building the System

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This section describes how to build the basics of the development workstation. As with all the case studies, this example starts from a stock Red Hat Linux 7.3 system and customizes the list of installed packages and configuration of the stock system to meet the established goals.

Starting with the Desktop

A development workstation is mostly a superset of a desktop system. Since you've probably already read about such a system in Chapter 14, there's no need to rehash it all here. So, the first step in installing a corporate desktop is to install a desktop installation.

Of course, not everything from Chapter 14 is relevant. For example, you probably don't have much of a need to manage a portable MP3 player from your office workstation (though you may still need USB support). So, you don't really need everything from Chapter 14; you only need the basics.

Specifically, you're interested in items such as the following:

• KDE as the desktop environment

• OpenOffice for productivity

• Konqueror and Mozilla for web browsing

• Connectivity and remote access

• Support for hardware (such as a ZIP drive or CD writer, if not that MP3 player)

In other words, start with the desktop system in Chapter 14 and install the features relevant to your situation. This case study itself uses the preceding list, but of course your own list may vary.

Selecting Packages

The rest of this chapter is a list of software packages to install and, where necessary, pointers on how to configure them. Consequently, it might be a good idea to skim the rest of these sections before you install the base system to get an idea of what packages you'll need to select during the process. For the most part, however, you can get the majority of what you need by selecting a few of the highlevel package options Red Hat provides you during the installation.

Selecting a few of the high-level categories will get you 85% of what you need. (Some of the software in this chapter isn't included with Red Hat Linux, such as OpenOffice.) For the rest, you can install them individually from the CD or using the up2date command (which is discussed in Chapter 4) and then configure them as you need to, using the information in this chapter as a guide. Another alternative is to simply select "Install Everything"; however, remember that this installs lots of needless software, which may have security implications.

Details of the Configuration

There isn't a great deal of change needed to the default Red Hat Linux configuration. Of course, a lot of the rest of this chapter involves configuring individual packages that are installed, but there isn't much you have to do to the stock system.

Perhaps the only thing to consider is whether you wish to leave the default firewall enabled. This, however, depends on your environment and policies; see the section "Security Issues" later in this chapter.

In the next section, you'll read about some important software that lets your new workstation connect to a network. You'll read about the information you need to gather to set up the system, and then you'll learn what and how you must configure.

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