Getting Red Hat Linux 9

For you convenience, we include the Publisher s Edition of Red Hat Linux 9. It is a two-CD set. Due to space constraints, 162 packages available for Red Hat Linux 9 are not available in the CDs included with this book. Some of these packages are important for Linux administrators, such as the kernel-source-* RPM described in Chapter 12 . In addition, another 25 packages in the Publisher s Edition, including the Linux kernel, either include less information or are out of date.

If you install Red Hat Linux 9 from the Publisher s Edition CDs, the process skips a number of steps shown in Chapters 3 and 4 . We therefore recommend that you get the full version of Red Hat Linux 9, which requires three CDs for installation. You can do this in one of three ways:

• You can download the three Red Hat Linux 9 installation CDs for free. If you have a CD-writer, you can then write the data onto blank CDs. As strange as it sounds, the downloaded CDs actually include packages that are (slightly) more up to date than the Red Hat boxed sets.

• You can purchase the three Red Hat Linux 9 installation CDs from a number of third-party sources.

• You can purchase an official Red Hat Linux 9 Personal or Professional boxed set. Once you ve installed Red Hat Linux 9, consider using the up2date utility described in Chapter 10 to make sure that you have the latest packages installed on your computer. In addition, if you intend to install Red Hat Linux 9 over a network using an FTP connection as described in Chapter 04 , we recommend that you use the vsFTP server described in Chapter 27 .

Downloading Red Hat Linux 9

If you have a high-speed Internet connection such as a cable modem or DSL adapter, you can download the Red Hat Linux installation CDs. I recommend that you use an FTP client such as gFTP. Microsoft Windows users may use clients such as WS FTP or Cute FTP. The steps in any GUI FTP client should be similar.

Note  

I tried downloading Red Hat Linux over a telephone modem once ”it took nearly two full days to download the first installation CD. Once downloaded, the data was corrupt. If you connect to the Internet through a telephone modem, I strongly suggest that you get Red Hat Linux from a third party or Red Hat itself.

To download the Red Hat Linux 9 CDs, you ll need an FTP client, sufficient room on your hard drive (at least 2.1GB of free space for the three installation CDs), and the information described below:

FTP Site While the standard FTP site is ftp.redhat.com , it s often quite busy. There are a number of alternative sites worldwide available at www.redhat.com/download/mirror.html . You may get a faster response, especially if you re downloading from outside the U.S. Just be aware that there is often a delay between the release of a Red Hat Linux version and its availability on a mirror FTP site.

Username and Password Normal FTP sites for downloading Red Hat Linux 9 CDs (including ftp.redhat.com ) allow anonymous access. On such sites, the username is anonymous , and the password should be your e-mail address (though it isn t required).

Directory on the FTP Server The actual directory on the FTP Server varies with the site that you re using. While the Red Hat Linux CD files should be in some subdirectory of /pub/redhat/linux , some browsing may be required.

The Right CDs You ll probably find six Red Hat Linux 9 CDs, code name Shrike, in an undifferentiated list that will look similar to:

 shrike-i386-disc1.iso shrike-i386-disc2.iso shrike-i386-disc3.iso shrike-i386-SRPMS-disc1.iso shrike-i386-SRPMS-disc2.iso shrike-i386-SRPMS-disc3.iso 

The first three Shrike CDs are the binary installation CDs that you need to install Red Hat Linux on your computer. The last three Shrike CDs contain the associated source code.

Depending on the FTP site, you may also see other CDs of interest, which include Red Hat Linux documentation and an extended rescue disk.

A CD Writer The Red Hat Linux 9 CDs are on huge files. You ll need CD writing software and a CD drive that is capable of writing data to writable compact disks. Linux includes a number of good CD writing applications described in Chapters 14 and 16 .

Alternate instructions are available from Red Hat at www.redhat.com/download/howto_download.html .

Third-Party CDs with the Red Hat Linux 9 Installation Files

Not everyone has a high-speed Internet connection. In that case, it may be more practical to purchase the downloaded CDs from a third-party reseller. The cost of all three CDs is typically around $10 U.S. (or less).

A directory of these resellers is available online at directory.google.com; click on Computers Software ˜ Operating Systems ˜ Linux ˜ Companies ˜ Resellers for a list.

Note  

The General Public License (see Web Chapter 4 on the Sybex website or www.gnu.org/ copyleft /gpl.html ) allows you to download and distribute Red Hat Linux 9 for free. You can sell the CDs that you download. The content of the CDs can be identical to Red Hat Linux 9. However, if you re not Red Hat and you resell the CDs, you cannot call it Red Hat Linux.

Getting the Red Hat Linux 9 Boxed Set

You can purchase a full version of Red Hat Linux from www.redhat.com and many major computer retailers. The two entry-level options include:

• Red Hat Linux 9 Personal Edition includes seven CDs: the installation packages are on three CDs, the source code for each package is included in three more CDs; the final CD includes documentation in HTML and PDF formats. This edition comes with 30 days of web-based installation support and a 30-day basic one-computer subscription to the Red Hat Network.

• Red Hat Linux 9 Professional Edition includes nine CDs: the installation packages are on three CDs, and the source code for each package is included in three more CDs. Additional CDs with documentation, office and multimedia applications, and system administration tools are also included. All this information is also available on DVD. This edition comes with 60 days of web and telephone-based installation support and a 60-day basic one- computer subscription to the Red Hat Network.

There are other versions available with support, which I briefly describe in Chapter 01 . For a full list, see www.redhat.com/software .

Tell Us What You Think

We wrote this book to meet your needs, and only you can tell us if we ve succeeded. If there are topics you expected to find here that we haven t covered, or if you find any errors, let us know by going to the page for this book at www.sybex.com , and choosing the Submit a Review link. Of course, if this book has helped you to work better and faster with Red Hat Linux or if there are features we ve included that you particularly like, we d like to hear about that too. Good or bad, we ll use your feedback to build an even better book next time.