Most people who want to use Linux need a transition period to get accustomed to it. This transition is best accomplished through a process called dual booting. This means that you use two operating systems on your computer. Every time you start the computer, you just choose which operating system to use. For example, with this method you can continue working in your old Window’s environment when you’re in a rush and use Linux when you have more time to play around. To make life easier, get a separate hard disk for Linux. Of course, you can also use your existing hard disk, but you will have to create room on it for Linux. A full installation of Red Hat Linux 7.3 (www.redhat.com) will require a bit more than 2GB. You really should have at least 5GB free to accommodate all the programs and files you’ll want to save and install in the future.
If you don’t want to purchase a new hard drive, here are the steps to make room on your current hard disk for Linux. On Windows, right click on C drive and choose Properties — Tools. You will find a Defrag button, click on it. This will take a few minutes. Defragmenting the hard disk will push all the data to the beginning of the hard disk and all the empty space will be located at the end of the hard disk. This empty space will be used to create a new partition by using a DOS program called FIPS. Don’t worry, it’s on the first Red Hat Linux CD.
After defragmenting finishes, reboot into the DOS command line. Don’t boot into Windows and then use a DOS command line; that will not work. After rebooting into DOS, change to the directory where the first Red Hat CD is. Change to the “dosutils/fips20” directory and type: fips. After that the program will ask you to choose how much space you want to create for the new partition. Now, you can begin to install Red Hat Linux 7.3. The installer will see the new partition and can use it for Red Hat Linux.
Red Hat Linux comes on three CDs. The first CD is bootable, so put the first CD in the CD-ROM drive and reboot the system. Nearly all PCs today are configured to boot from the CD-ROM drive first. If yours doesn’t, you’ll have to modify a setting in the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System). When the system reboots, you will be greeted with the Red Hat text screen. Press “enter” and the graphical user interface (GUI) will take you through the rest of the installation.
The first window you will see in the installer GUI is the Red Hat Linux welcome screen. You move to the next window by clicking on the NEXT button. The next window is about the language to be used during the installation. The default is English. Then comes the keyboard window. It has three sections: Layout, language, and something called “Dead Keys.” It’s safe to go with the defaults. By the way, there is good online help on the left-hand side of the screen, which offers explanation of the options.
The window that follows is about the mouse. There are different types and the installer should detect your mouse type easily. If it doesn’t, have no fear. Look at the list and select the correct model or choose a generic type, which will work well enough. Also, click on Enable 3 button Emulation. This option means that if you click on both mouse buttons at the same time, you will get a different menu.
After that, we come to the installation type. Most people want to use Linux on their home PCs, so they should choose Workstation. On the following screen, you will have to choose the password for the root user and add at least one more regular user. The “root” user is the system administrator’s account and the password that you will choose must be a good one. A good password is one that is at least eight characters long. It must contain numbers, lower-case letters, and upper-case letters. It must not be in the English dictionary and it must not be something that others can guess easily. You login to the root user account to do system maintenance only. To browse the Internet, play games, type, etc., you would use a regular user account. That’s why you must create at least one user account that you will use for your day to day activities.
Now we come to the bootloader screen. This is a program that is responsible for starting the operating system. It also gives you a menu to choose which operating system to boot if you have more than one operating system. Red Hat Linux 7.3 has two bootloaders: The new Grub and the old venerable Lilo. I like to go with the new. Grub is chosen by default so leave it like that. If you have two operating systems, for example Red Hat Linux and Windows 98, then you can choose which one of them will be the default. Also you can edit the name of the operating system that will appear on the boot menu. Choosing an operating system to be the default means that when the boot menu is displayed, the system will wait for a few seconds for you to make a selection. If you don’t, the default will be used. The next screen asks you if you want to use a password for the bootloader. You can ignore it unless you are paranoid.
Next appears the firewall screen. Previous versions of Red Hat didn’t offer firewall configuration as part of the install process, but this version does. You can pretty much leave the defaults because they are good. Then comes the additional languages screen. Here you can add languages that you want to be available in the system, such as Arabic. Note that the use of those additional languages depends on the window manager (later about this). KDE 3.0 has very good support for Arabic. Gnome, version 1.4, which ships with Red Hat Linux 7.3 does not have support for Arabic. For that, you will have to download Gnome 2. It’s better to wait for the next release of Red Hat Linux, which will include the newer window managers. Now, deal with the time zone configuration window. You can select your geographical area from the interactive map by clicking on it.
The next screen is very important. This is where you get to choose the components that you want on the system. There are a few basic packages that are needed. The bulk of the packages are optional for the system to function properly. A lot of people would argue that games are essential. I’m not one to disagree. I think it’s better to choose everything including the kitchen sink.
Once you’ve made your choices, the screen for the video card appears. The video card used to be the biggest problem faced when installing Linux. But with newer versions, that problem is about to become obsolete. With any luck the installer will detect your video card and the correct amount of video memory it has. If you are unlucky and the video card is unrecognized, you should go to the website of the card manufacturer for advice. More and more companies are making drivers for Linux available.
Now comes the longest step: Formatting the hard disk and installing the packages. You should select auto format and the installer will prepare the hard disk for Linux and then will proceed to install the packages that were chosen. After this step finishes, the bootdisk window comes. It is essential to get an empty floppy, put it in the floppy drive and click next. Trust me, this bootdisk can become a lifesaver. The monitor window is the next to last one. The monitor should have been automatically detected by the installer with the correct horizontal and vertical refresh rates, so just click next. The last window is all about the look and feel of the GUI. First, you choose the resolution. I like 800x600 but you may select something else. You can always see how it will look by clicking on the test button. Then comes the time to choose your weapons, the window manager!
In the world of Windows, there is one desktop look; it’s what some focus group at Microsoft decided would be suitable for everyone. In the world of Linux, you have several choices about the look and feel of your desktop. The two leading candidates are Gnome (www.gnome.org) and KDE (www.kde.org). For Red Hat, the default window manager is Gnome, but you can choose KDE if you like. Note that later, on the login screen, you can select from the menu whichever window manager you prefer. There is a choice for text of graphical, select graphical and you are done. The installation on my PC, which has an AMD K6-II 550MH CPU, took about 45 minutes from the moment I put the first Red Hat CD in the CD-ROM drive and rebooted, until I logged in to the Red Hat Linux operating system.
I hope this article will make you curious enough to actually install Red Hat Linux. To learn more about Linux, join the Saudi Linux group at Yahoo (groups.yahoo.com/group/saudi_linux). I’d like to mention one last point, which is about Arabic support. In the past, many Saudis found it difficult or impossible to use Linux because it did not support the Arabic language. That is becoming a thing of the past. Arabic support in KDE is around 80 percent and will be complete in a couple of months. Also, the new version of Gnome, Gnome2, has very good Arabic support.
The screen shot included here of KDE shows the main menu completely in Arabic. All the office programs that come with KDE can be switched to Arabic interface. This Arabic support has been added thanks to the great work of volunteers at www.arabeyes.org. Unfortunately, no support for this effort was to be had from the government of any Arabic speaking nation. That’s a pity. Even so, I believe it’s time for all governments and companies in the Arab world to seriously consider abandoning Microsoft Office in favor of KDE Office, which has Arabic support and costs next to nothing.
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