To start the installation, you must first boot the installation program.
Please make sure you have all the resources you will need for the
installation. If you have already read through Chapter 1
and followed the
instructions, you should be ready to begin.
You can boot the Red Hat Linux installation program using any one of the
following media (depending upon what your system can support):
Bootable CD-ROM — Your machine supports a
bootable CD-ROM drive and you want to perform a local CD-ROM
installation.
Local boot disk — Your machine will
not support a bootable CD-ROM and you want to install from a local
CD-ROM or a hard drive.
Network boot disk — Use a network boot
disk to install via NFS, FTP, and HTTP.
PCMCIA boot disks — Use PCMCIA boot
disks when you need PCMCIA support, but your machine does not
support booting from the CD-ROM drive or if
you need PCMCIA support in order to make use of the CD-ROM drive
on your system. The PCMCIA boot disks can be used for all
installation methods (CD-ROM, hard drive, NFS, FTP, and HTTP).
Insert the boot disk into your computer's first diskette drive and
reboot (or boot using the CD-ROM, if your computer supports booting
from the CD-ROM drive). Your BIOS settings may need to be changed to
allow you to boot from the diskette or CD-ROM.
 | Tip |
|---|
| | To change your BIOS settings, watch the instructions provided on
your display when your computer first begins to boot. Often you will
see a line of text telling you to press the [Del] or
[F1] key to enter the BIOS settings.
Once you've entered your BIOS setup program, find the section where
you can alter your boot sequence. The default is often C, A or A, C
(depending on whether you boot from your hard drive [C] or a
diskette drive [A]). Change this sequence so that the CD-ROM is
first in your boot order and that C or A (whichever is your typical
boot default) is second. This instructs the computer to first look
at the CD-ROM drive for bootable media; if it does not find bootable
media on the CD-ROM drive, it will then check your hard drive or
diskette drive.
Save your changes before exiting the BIOS. For more information,
please refer to the documentation that came with your system.
|
After a short delay, a screen containing the boot:
prompt should appear. The screen contains information on a variety of
boot options. Each boot option also has one or more help screens
associated with it. To access a help screen, press the appropriate
function key as listed in the line at the bottom of the screen.
As you boot the installation program, be aware of two issues:
Once you see the boot: prompt, the installation
program will automatically begin if you take no action within the
first minute. To disable this feature, press one of the help
screen function keys.
If you press a help screen function key, there will be a slight
delay while the help screen is read from the boot media.
Normally, you only need to press [Enter] to boot.
Watch the boot messages to see if the Linux kernel detects your
hardware. If your hardware is properly detected, please continue to
the next section. If it does not properly detect your hardware, you
may need to restart the installation in expert mode.
Enter expert mode using the following boot command:
If you do not wish to perform a CD-ROM GUI installation, you can start
a text mode installation using the following boot command:
For installation instructions, please refer to Chapter 4.
If you are having trouble booting into the graphical installation program, you
can try to boot using the no framebuffer (nofb) boot
option.
At the boot command, enter the following:
This option allows you to use the graphical installation program without using a
framebuffer.
The command to start a serial installation has
changed. If you need to perform the installation in serial mode, type
the following command:
boot: linux console=<device> |
In the above command, <device> should
be the device you are using (such as ttyS0 or ttyS1).
Options can also be passed to the kernel. For example, to instruct
the kernel to use all the RAM in a system with 128 MB of RAM, enter:
After entering any options, press [Enter] to boot
using those options.
If you need to specify boot options to identify your hardware,
please write them down. The boot options will be needed during the
boot loader configuration portion of the installation (please see the section called Boot Loader Installation for more information).
The Red Hat Linux/x86 CD-ROM can be booted by computers that support
bootable CD-ROMs. Not all computers support this feature, so if
your system cannot boot from the CD-ROM, there is one other way to
start the installation without using a boot disk. The following
method is specific to x86-based computers only.
If you have MS-DOS installed on your system, you can boot directly
from the CD-ROM drive without using a boot disk. To do this
(assuming your CD-ROM is drive d:), use the
following commands:
C:\> d:
D:\> cd \dosutils
D:\dosutils> autoboot.bat |
This method will not work if run in a DOS window — the
autoboot.bat file must be executed with DOS as
the only operating system. In other words, Windows cannot be running.
If your computer cannot boot directly from CD-ROM (and you cannot use a
DOS-based autoboot), you will have to use a boot diskette to get things
started.
