Installing any linux from image or iso

There are many linux distros out there and its really interesting to see each one of them. But you don't have to write a cd to install any distro. Thats the good thing about linux. You can perform a complete installation from hard disk.

First of all I am not responsible if you delete your data by mistake. But if you follow the steps closely, there is little chance you are going to do that.

Before we begin we are going to need some files. First make sure which Linux distro you want to download. There are many out there and it is completely up to you. Get the image file, dvd or cd, your choice.


BOOTING WITH GRUB

If you allready have a linux, chances are, you allready have got Grub. That will do the trick. Just skip to the end of this article.

If you have a completely new hard disk without any OS, which is really rare, no problem. You can boot up from a floppy and then use. But that is really long cumbersome process and I wont recommend something I haven't done. So just use another hard disk to boot up and follow the steps.

If you are on Windows then also no problem. If you are installing openSUSE you can get instlux.

If you are going for some other distro no problem. Get the Grub for DOS here. Unzip the pack and all you need are two files, grldr and menu.lst. Copy them to C:\boot (theres no folder by the baem of boot, create one). Open up your boot.ini file, which must be in C drive. By default it is hidden and write protected. So unprotect it, open it in notepad and then add the following line at then end of the file,"C:\grldr="Start GRUB", without the quotes.

Open the menu.lst file in notepad and add the following lines (you can delete everything present in the file and keep these lines only).

title My Linux Installer
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/

Replace the fields with the required things. Save it.

You are done. Now your computer can boot up with Grub.

STARTING THE INSTALLATION

Before you begin the installation make sure you know exactly the name of the image and the location it is. If you have got the images of the cds, then make sure they are in one place. Make sure that drive is not touched during the installation.

Get two files, the linux kernel and initrd.img (initial RAM disk image) of the distro you want to install. You can find these in the iso, and extract it (with Winrar or a virtual drive). Or you can download it from the internet. It is available in the mirror sites and you can easily get it.

Copy those two files to C:\boot. Include the filenames in menu.lst and its over.

Restart your computer and you will have another option in ntldr boot menu saying My Linux Installer. Select it and the kernel will load. A menu will appear from which select the Install from hard disk. Give the location of the image file and the installation will start.


GRUB ALLREADY INSTALLED

In that case just press 'c' when in the grub menu and type in the following commands in the grub menu.

>kernel (hd0,0)/boot/
>initrd (hd0,0)/boot/
>boot

You can use the TAB key. It really help if you don't remember the location by7 showing you a list of the directories and filenames available for the first word you type. For example after you typed in >kernel (hd0,0)/ if you hit the TAB key key, a list of directories present will be displayed.

Thats it now you can select install from hard disk after the kernel loads and enter the image location.

Done.


Note:- The image file has to be saved on ext3 or ext2 partition. It currently doesn't work if you save it on a LVM FAT32 partitions. But it will work in FAT32 partitions provided its not an LVM like a USB drive. If you are on windows and want to create an EXT3 partition you will need Acronis Disk Director suite to partition a drive to ext3 and EXT2IFS to access the ext3 partition in Windows. Its not that hard and can be done in minutes.

Fedora 7 test 4 gnome

Well I am one of those fans of the simple look of Gnome. Though not flashy like KDE, it is quite as powerful. The best thing about Gnome is its look, the simple and clean look. It looks like your whole desktop has recently got a wash. As for fedora 7, the Gnome in fedora always looked good to me, don't know why. This time it is a little changed. It has got two taskbars instead of one, making it more cool. Take a look.

Of course you can always edit the look as you like cause its Linux. Anyway the files browser by default is set to metacity. Its really boring. There are no navigation buttons, none at all. Every folder you open, opens in a new window. So it isnt quite the thing if you are habituated to Konquerer or to the windows browsing. I still don't know why Gnome sets it as its default. Anyway the other nautilus manager is quite cool and has the answer to all our wishes. Take alook yourself. I think you can distinguish between the two.


There aren't a lot of games included except the basic. Of course KDE has a lot more number of games. SO if really like linux games like nibbles, ktron etc. go for KDE. Gnome is quite the same otherwise. But if you know the way almost all KDE things will run in Gnome. Like all other linuxes cant play mp3 or movie files from the beginning. But it can be easily fixed like other linuxes. But thats for another article.

If you think about installing Fedora, just wait a little. its still in test version and will be released on 24th May. I experienced a lot of bugs myself in test 4, so I wouldn't recommend installing it and getting yourself into trouble. But do download it when it comes out on 24th.

Fedora 7 test 4 review

Ok. So I finally got to install fedora without any problems. Installation was smooth except it took a lot of time. It took over 2 hours to install 862 packages. Well i guess that is because of my aging hard disk. But Yast never took so much time. SO maybe a problem with Anaconda installer. Anyways I had a good sleep in the meantime.

Here is what the KDE looks like.
By default KDE is not installed and Gnome is the default session. So make sure you install KDE. The K-menu is like the default KDE menu, no changes, I guess. Here is another one showing the menu.
Unlike openSUSE, Fedora doesn't mount your windows partitions by default. So if you are a beginner you might face a little problem. That was easily fixed by editing the fstab file. Another thing, you cant play mp3s like other linuxes by default. To do that you have to update the xine engine and/or install real player. That done Redhat works out to be like any other Linux. Connecting to the internet isn't that hard.

It seems a lot of bugs still remain to be fixed. The desktop effects don't work on my system though they are mostly the same as others out there, the wobbling effect and the cube effect. The add/remove software crashes every time I try to start it. it runs neither in KDE nor in Gnome. That are the problems I have experienced so far.

Fedora said it would merge the Core and extras. What that meant to me was it would contain a lot more packages. But I was disappointed to find almost no extra packages. if there were any i failed to discover them. there were no new packages which I had seen for the first time. Almost all packages are available in other linux.

The bottom line is Fedora doesn't give a reason to install it over other distros. Almost all linuxes are becoming the same. But one good thing is that it is fast even on low memory though the desktop effects may not work. So if you are a fedora fan you can go for it, otherwise be happy with Ubuntu or Suse whatever you are using. Theres nothing new here.

Fedora 7 vs openSUSE

Well Fedora 7 hasn't been officially released yet though the final test is out. I had some bitter experiences with Fedora Core 3 and after that never looked at Fedora. But with all the talking going around of Fedora merging the core and extras I couldn't resist. So I got the Fedora 7 test 4 dvd iso.

The iso is only 2.7GB. Ihave allready got openSUSE 10.2 and it really rocks. Its dvd iso was 3.7 Gb. Well I could easily see a lot of packages are different. I always have the habit of installing from hard disk without burning the images to disk. I had no problems starting the installation. It took a long time loading the kernel thought I have got a sufficient memory. Its a whole new installation screen from its previous versions. The steps are processed very fast. There was no problem in partitioning hard disks or anything. I chose some extra packages to install like KDE which by default is not installed. Then the problem began. It said checking dependencies and took really a long long time. I went to sleep and when I woke up thank God it was over. i only had to click next to install. I clicked and it started copying files. It had about 1093 packages to install and so went to sleep again. When i woke up it was stuck. No mouse movement nothing. I tried everything but no effect. I tried the installation again from scratch a couple of times but the same effect.

Well for now I will say that though openSUSE installer inst that cool as Fedora but at least it doesn't give problems like these. Also openSuse has a lot more pachttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=7892343390332317913#
Show allkages than Fedora. So for now openSUSE wins.

Next time if I try to install I will try to post some screenshots. If anybody has been facing the same problems please tell me.