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February 3rd, 2006, 9:15 am

Well, the suggestion was that you install the minimal installation and build up from that - which you can do with any of these distributions, including RH 9. If you don't want to do this, you can install a full featured environment.

Aside from being very stable, the docs exist on the CentOS distribution itself (as with most distributions) and in more than just man pages. The first time you start your web browser in CentOS you'll be looking at the manual. If you get stuck on something before that you can feed off the user bases for CentOS, RHEL and Fedora (they're all pretty much the same) for anything distro-specific or the plethora of other distros for anything Linux-common.

I can understand your hesitation in following my suggestions though. Another method that would teach you quite a bit would be to just pick a distribution (any will do) then build a "Linux From Scratch" distribution next to it. Complete details on doing this can be found here: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org
Doing this will allow you to build a complete distribution (from which you're bound to learn something as well) while giving you the safety net of a running Linux system at the same time.

I don't think the question here is turning you away from "the Linux Experience" because of hard times at the outset. I think what's in question here is arming you with the experience you'll need to be successful in the enterprise network while in the short term giving you something to which you can better associate common functions in your Unix training. This means plunging right into the meat of the matter. It won't be fun at times, but that's not the purpose.

February 3rd, 2006, 9:37 am

I will look into this. What you are saying also sounds good to me. But, I am looking forward in finishing Linux/UNIX System Administration in 2 months. Do I have time to do these?

So, for installing LFS, do I need to have a Linux pre-installed? If yes, is it enough to have a minimal install like you just said?

February 3rd, 2006, 9:49 am

You'll have as much time as you give it. People and hardware are different, you might have it set up by the end of a day, or it might take you 6 months. This also depends on how deep you're going into it.

You do have to have a minimal Linux system installed at the least - any distribution will work, as long as it's a working distribution on that machine.

February 3rd, 2006, 10:05 am

Ok, Let me try installing Linux with minimal with partitions as per AnarChy's advice and try to go on your path.

Let's see if Anarchy has any suggestions.

It's just that I am so much afraid as I have no clue how Linux would look like. I am just reading Linux Red Hat 7(Complete Reference) and I have just finished readin the introduction part which itself is around 100 pages and it includes most of installation and configuration part. If I were using just one partition for linux, I can keep formatting back and forth. But, I need Windows for primary usage to browse files, access internet, until I get used to Linux environment.

And I don't want to keep formatting again and again and keep installing, as I have no time to do this formatting, after which I won't be having time to sit, study and play with Linux

February 3rd, 2006, 11:29 am

Since you're just installing 1 Linux over the other you won't need to reformat with every installation. Use a live cd (like Mepis), open a terminal, mount the Linux partition somewhere (assuming your linux partition is /dev/hda2):

Code: [ Download ] [ Select ]

# mount -t ext3 /dev/hda2 /mnt

then just do:

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rm -Rf /mnt/*

This will effectively wipe that linux distribution and prepare the drive to accept a new distribution.

If you're really afraid of doing the whole "minimal installation", just install a "workstation" and build your LFS distribution next to it. This will give you a known good base to work off of with all the features.

February 3rd, 2006, 12:08 pm

Let me see if I understood properly.

A Workstation install would install Linux with typical (or full) features.
A LFS would install nothing, but we have to manually install everything.

Do I have an option of comparing what's in Workstation install Vs LFS install so that I would at least be knowing if I am going on the right track?

How do I build LFS distribution next to Workstation install?

Is it like I can switch between Workstation and LFS back and forth?

February 3rd, 2006, 3:08 pm

All of these questions are answered on the LFS site here: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org

in short: Yes, yes, yes, see the docs, yes

February 3rd, 2006, 3:09 pm

Thanks
I am reading the documentation. I will let u know once i finish installing it.

February 4th, 2006, 8:10 am

I just installed Windows OS with 8 GB as it's partition space. Then I tried formatting the remaining by splitting 11 GB into 7 (formatting complete) and 4(without formatting). I put in PC-BSD, and it froze at the last step, right after u put in the root password and user information. It happened twice. Any suggessions?

February 4th, 2006, 8:28 am

did it give you any error messages or say anything before freezing?
what's the last thing you see before / when it freezes.

it may be a bad iso.. did you check the md5 hash of the iso after you downloaded it with the one they have available?

February 4th, 2006, 8:34 am

please wait..setting up default users.
This is the last prompt where it froze. It happened twice and now i am trying it for the third time, if it happens the same, then i am unsure what to do, as I have linux down the line waiting for installation.

As an alternate, i thought of installing freebsd, so am in the process of downloading.

how to check md5 hash of the iso to see if the iso is good or not?

February 4th, 2006, 8:39 am

are you using windows? if so, there are quite a few programs that will create / check an md5 sum from iso's. the one that i usually use is md5summer. you could do a google search for others if you wanted, but then once you have the program and the iso downloaded, you just open up the program, select the iso to be summed and let it go. it'll take a minute or two to create the sum but when its finished it'll ask to save the sum to file. do that and it should display the sum. compare the sum you get with the sum available from the directory where you downloaded the image. the sums should match. (although i've had the sum not match when i summed the iso and summed the image after i burned the disk, they did match and they did work so *shrug*)

February 4th, 2006, 8:42 am

Ok, I will try summing up to see if it matches well. I can't take the disc out as it's in the middle of installing files. If I get the same error, I will do the summing and also will let you what it says. What was the reason why you asked me to install in this order?

Windows,PC BSD and Linux

instead of

Windows,Linux and PC-BSD.

Would it create problems?

February 4th, 2006, 9:18 am

i deleted the iso file from the pc after burning it to a cd. so, would that be a problem to compare? i opened md5summer, created a .md5 file from the cd. how do i compare now?

February 4th, 2006, 10:19 am

http://www.pcbsd.org/?p=download#CD1

Quote:

Description: CD #1 - Main installation CD
FileName: PCBSD-1.0rc2-x86-CD1.iso
Size: 668 MB

Mirror:

Show Link
Downloads: 34717
ISO MD5 Sum: 51762279C1A56D246D0B060F72B7DE8D

thatd be the sum you'd want to match.


the only reason i said to install things in that order was to make things more convenient in dealing with the bootloader. you could install windows | linux | pc-bsd but then if you wanted to keep the linux bootloader, you would have to tell pc-bsd to NOT install its bootloader and then open up the config file for the linux bootloader and add an entry for your new bsd installation so that you could boot to it.