The whole installation of any OS, according to me, can be divided into three phases, viz. :

1) The Pre-installation Phase
2) The Installation Phase
3) The Post-installaton Phase


These phases performs the following tasks :

1) In the Pre-installation Phase the setup program prepares itself for the installation of the OS on your Computer system by collecting some generic information about the system automatically & some with the help of the user.

2) The Installation Phase is actually the time when the OS files are being copied to your hard disk (or SCSI, etc.) depending upon the parameters defined by you for the installation.

3) In The Post-installaton Phase the system setting's are finalised so that the Computer system can be used thereafter(Ya, after a reboot).

This following section has been describing key issues for installation by taking Red Hat GNULinux 8.0 as an example. For the installation of other GNULinux brands(flavours) like Mandrake, PCQuest, SUSE, Caldera or any other, the underlying issues will remain same.

The Pre-installation Phase :

Which installation type should one choose ?
The answer to this question is quiet simple, it depends upon for what purpose you are going to use your Computer system.
One has to choose an installation type because by that you are customising your Computer system  to suit your needs.

1) Desktop : If you are a home user or a small or medium organisation using his computer system for word processing, spreadsheet preparation, presentation preparations, listening music, playing games, viwing videos, surfing internet & doing basic student level programming then this is the installation type for you.

2) Workstation : This installatoin type includes all the packages that will be installed in a desktop installation type plus packages for system administration & software development. If you are an advanced home user or are installing GNULinux on a workstation(a Computer system with a number of users as in case of an organisation) then this is the installation type for you.

3) Server : If you are going to set your Computer system as a server then this is the installation type for you.

Note : In case you want a Dual Boot system then you can choose anyone from Desktop, Workstation or Custom installation types but not the Server installation type as in case of a server installation type all of your hard disk is reformatted & allocated only to GNULinux.

4) Custom : If you are a computer literate person & are able to choose the packages required by you then you can go for custom installation. Many people recommend this as the best installation type as you have maximum control over the installation procedure in this case.


The important thing to be perform in the Pre-installation phase is to correctly allocate the correct hard disk partitions to GNULinux & of ample amount. The process becomes a little bit confusing when u want a to have a dual-boot system or want to preserve your previous data on a partition existing already.

Hard disk partitons in Microsoft Windows or MS-DOS are depicted as - C, D, E, & so on. But in GNULinux they are depicted as hdc1, hdc2, hdc3, & so on("hd" stands for hard disk ). If you have more than one hard disks in your Computer system then the different hard disks will be depicted as hdc, hdd, hde & so on. If your second drive is a SCSI, then you'd end up with sdb1, sdb2, sdb3, and so on.

Microsoft Windows can only recognize Microsoft's operating systems previously installed in a Computer system while its installation & not any other & this is the reason that we can have a dual boot like windows98 & XP or 98 & NT or whatever irrespective of the thing that we can install either of them first i.e. whether we install 98 first & XP thereafter or XP first & 98 thereafter we are getting a Dual Boot system easily.

So if we will install GNULinux on a hard disk first & then windows 98 or XP then the GNULinux will not be detected by the windows & what we will finally get a system having only windows with all the space allocated to GNULinux invisible.

Note : Microsoft's Windows never shows the GNULinux partitions in the My Computer or DOS & also we cannot access GNULinux partitions from Windows without any utility software. But the reverse is possible i.e. we can both see & access windows partitions from GNULinux & can do whatever with them or in them with the help of a single 'mount' command in GNULinux. Also we can use, if we want to, utility softwares for this purpose also.

So for having GNULinux with windows in a single Computer system we have to first install Microsoft's Windows & then GNULinux because GNULinux will detect Windows automatically thus you will have a Dual Boot system.

Now the question is that how many partitions are required & of what size for installing GNULinux. A simple desktop installation will require only two partitions namely root(/) & swap. The root partition should be atleast of 600MB & no upper limit for the hard disks of today. The swap partition serves the purpose of vitual memory & can be of same or double in size of the system's RAM. There is no rule to make the swap partition double in size to the system's RAM. Our main concern is to have ample amount of workable space when we use the system, so if you are having a huge amount of RAM at your disposal & your requirement is much less than the RAM size then you can also create a swap partition of half or even one-third of your RAM size, the system would not complain until or unless your requirements increase. So it's you who can decide best the size of your swap partiton. For a minimum graphical installation i would recommend a root size of 2.5GB & a swap size of 512MB. I would also like to recommend that anybody going to install GNULinux should also make one /home partition. /home partition is not a must but it saves your settings & data in case you reinstall your GNULinux system. This means that all your desktop settings, theme settings, screensaver settings, your files saved under the /home will be saved but for this to happen you have to choose an option somewhat like this :
Preserve data, do not format partition
while installing your system after the manually partition option.

After putting the bootable GNULinux CD, adjust the BIOS settings so that your Computer System can boot from the bootable CD.
Following some onscreen instructions, & stating some settings we finally arrive on a screen where we have to partition our hard disk or have to allocate partitions to GNULinux, if they already exist.
Note : Allocating any pre-existing partition will destroy all data from that partition so it is always advisable to take a BACKUP first.

1)Automatically partition
2)Manually partition with Disk Druid
3)Manually partition with FDISK(for experts only as this FDISK is different from the Windows fdisk).

If you are new to Computer's & installing GNULinux on a fresh brand new hard disk then you should choose the 1st option & if you are familiar with partitioning & partitions then 2nd. Also if you want to have a dual boot Computer system then also you can use either 1st or 2nd option.
You should never choose the 3rd option.

Now I will explain the options :

After selecting the 1st option of automatically partitioning three more options will come & will look like as :

1)Delete all partitions & use the available free space.
2)Do not delete any partitions & use the available free space.
3)Delete all GNULinux partitions & use the free space.

Choose 1st option if you r installing GNULinux on a new hard disk.
Choose 2nd option if you have some free hard disk space with already existing partitions .
Choose 3rd option if you have somewhere GNULinux previously installed & want to reinstall it. In this case your DOS or FAT partitions will not be touched & the data on them will be remain preserved.

Note: The nice method for having a dual boot system, according to me, is :

1) Partition your system with Fdisk from Windows boot disk defining space to two partitions for GNULinux in addition to the partition(s) for Windows.
2) Format all partitions, including the partitions defined for GNULinux.
2) Install Windows.
3) Choose the option mentioning manually partition with Disk Druid.
4) Now carefully select the partition you want to give to GNULinux root(/) by recognising partitions from it's size as one might not be easy with hdc1, hdc2, etc.
5) Press the EDIT button & select mount point '/' for the root partition & format partition as ext3(best suggested) or as ext2.
6) Now select the partition you want to give to GNULinux swap(/) by recognising partitions from it's size.
7) Press the EDIT button & select only format parition as swap.


After this make sure that correcly allocated the partitions to GNULinux / & swap because after pressing next you are going to format the GNULinux partitions & u can't access any data from them after this(if they contain any valid data). If you think that you have made a mistake in allocating partitions to GNULinux correctly then press the RESET button & then reallocate partitions again.

So this whole was the pre-installation phase.

Top

The Installation Phase :
In this phase u have to do nothing but to sit back & provide the necessary installation CDs(when asked) to the installation program. As the GNULinux is now been installing on your specified partitions this will take about 25 to 60 minutes or more depending upon the Installation Type, number of packages to be installed & the processor & system speeds.

Top

The Post-installaton Phase :
Note: Select the default operating system as DOS or GNULinux depending upon your choice. DOS means Windows here & Default here will specify that after installing GNULinux which of the two options will be selected by default every time when you will boot your system & nothing more.

You should specify a root password & should remember it & can create as many no. of users u want to, say 0,1,2,5,10,etc.

The most important thing in this phase is selecting the exact right hardware like ur display card monitor etc.
NOTE: If exactly right name of ur hardware is not in the list then plz do not select a nearly equivalent name like e.g. in case of a LG Studioworks 563N do not select LG Studioworks 56i or LG Studioworks 56M etc. In case ur display card or monitor's name is not there in the list then press a BACK & then NEXT & then again press NEXT to keep the autodetected device that GNULinux has detected. In the screen where you have to specify resolution & number of colours, after selecting your choice from the drop-down menus try to check the setting by pressing a button labelling 'Configure' or 'TEST' or a similar caption.

Now you will be asked for creating a boot disk & after this by pressing EXIT you will be rebooting the system.Select the GNULinux Red-Hat & wait for a login screen to come.Then type root in the Username field & then your password in the passwaord field & you are ON............

For shutting down your system first Log Out, then press "System" to finally select "Shutdown".

NOTE :

If you have another OS already installed in addition to GNULinux and some antivirus software installed on it then ignore a message like as follows by your antivirus software by simply choosing the 2nd option or a similar to it :
Your boot record has been changed. This might be due to some virus activity on your system.What do you want to do :
1. The change to my boot record is unknown to me. Please reload my previous boot record from a saved copy of it or do not update my boot record.
2. The change to my boot record is known to or is done by me. Please update it.

NOTE: The above warning can come after 2-3 logins into the other OS or may be after 2-3 DAYS after the installation of GNULinux.

The reasons behind a message like the one written above are:
1. The boot record has been updated by GRUB or LILO (boot loader programs of GNULinux; GRUB stands for "GRand Unified Bootloader" & LILO stands for "GNULinux LOader").
2. New partitions are created in your existing hard disk space.

So I think that I have discussed all the necessary things but if still someone wants more clarification on any topic then he/she can contact me via E-mail. Check out my E-mail i.d. from the "About This Site" page from top of this page.