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Getting started with Linux; Pt.2 Setting Linux up to dual-boot with Windows is relatively straightforward, although there are quite a lot of options to consider. Alternatively, you can set Linux up as the sole operating system on something as simple as a 386 or 486 PC. By BOB DYBALL One way to squeeze more life out of an old “cast-off” PC is to run Windows 3.1 or, depending on your application and the machine, plain MS DOS. On the other hand, Linux might just be the answer, particularly if you want to use the machine as a file or printer server, as a web server or in some other LAN or Internet application. The big advantage of Linux is that you don’t need fancy hardware with lots of RAM to run it. As many people have found, it will run quite nicely on an old 386 or 486 machine. Others consider Linux a fast, stable operating system that’s cheap to buy and are installing it on Pentium, Pentium II and other late-model PCs. What hardware do you really need to run Linux? Although there are a couple of enthusiastic groups trying to “port” Linux to XT or 286 systems (in other words, rewrite it), the usual mainstream Linux distributions need at least a 386. From there, you need to have a look at the uses you might put the system to, to see what CPU, RAM and other hardware you’ll need. Generally speaking, Linux will run on a system with as little as 4MB of RAM but really needs at least 8MB and preferably 16MB to move along reasonably well. If you plan on using X11 or Xfree86, Linux’s version of X Windows, then 16MB should be seen as a minimum. The amount of hard disc space required depends on the installation options you choose. If you want a simple file server and printer server, 10  Silicon Chip then you really don’t need to install X Windows unless you want to run it occasionally to enable easier configuration. And that’s the crunch – con­fig­uring Linux, for someone who is used MS DOS and MS Windows, can be rather scary. A “small” installation will occupy 50MB to 200MB of disc space, depending on the options selected. More complete installations will require at least 500MB but if you are interested in recompiling the Linux kernel, then 1-1.5Gb would be desirable. This should provide enough room for the source code to be installed as well. Note, however, that the sizes vary a little from one distribution to another, as some come with extras that the others don’t have. Installing a minimal Open Linux system without X11, for example, requires 55MB. An average X11 setup will require about 137MB, while a larger installation with, say, DRDOS, NetWare client and Apache Web Server will need around 418MB. The complete works, with all options, will set you back 988MB. Networking Linux Networking Linux to machines running other operating systems is no problem. For example, Linux with the Australian “Samba” program installed can easily be networked with PCs running Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT. The Linux PC “looks” as if it is just another part of a Workgroup, or even part of a Domain, sharing files or printers with others in the network. Linux can also be used as a fax server, a modem server, a workstation running as a client in a Novell Netware network, or as a Unix workstation – all this for a fraction of the cost of many of the alternatives. Hardware support Linux Red Hat (from Red Hat Software) is a popular commercial distribution of Linux. The box includes three CD-ROMs, a boot floppy and a manual. Support for popular network, video and SCSI cards is not usually much of a problem with Linux. However, you might find that some of the latest cards, along with some less popular older cards, aren’t supported. If your network card isn’t directly supported in its native mode but has an NE2000 emulation mode, it should work perfectly if you choose the NE2000-compatible driver. The vast majority of network cards fall into this category. Some SCSI controller cards might cause problems, although most popular cards are supported in the standard kernel distributed with Linux. If you have a SCSI card that’s not well known, check to see if it’s supported before attempting to install Linux. Users of IDE hard disc drives will have an easier time but only for drives up to 8GB. Above this limit, Linux (like Windows NT) can become confused and detect only an 8GB hard disc when, in fact, you really have 10GB or more. On the display side, you will need a video card that’s supported if you want better than 640 x 480 screen resolution and 16 colours. Although your fancy new 16MB 2D/3D video card will have immediate support for Windows 98 or NT, you might have to wait for some time before support appears for it under Linux. As before, some older, less popular video cards won’t be supported, so shop carefully if bargain hunting for hardware. If you want to use your Linux box to connect to the net, or work as a “router” or firewall, then you’ll probably find an external modem easier to debug (if necessary). That’s because you can watch the lights, something missing on most internal modems. Printer support is fairly reasonable. If your printer isn’t listed in your Linux distribution, you can usually find something that’s close enough by using one of the emulations listed in the printer’s manual. The printer control file can be rather interesting. This is basically a text file that covers the capabilities of the printer. One that’s close to your printer can be modified to suit or you might write one from scratch by referring to the documentation in the “man” pages (on-line help) supplied with Linux. Fig.1: this screen grab shows Caldera OpenLinux 1.3 operating in XWindows and running the KDE desktop manager. This has a similar look and feel to Windows 98. Partitioning drives There are a number of choices when it comes to installing and booting Linux. Some of these might seem confusing at first, especially if you are used to booting DOS or Windows 95/98 from the C: drive. Linux can be installed on a second or third hard disc drive (in DOS terms, say the D: or E: drive) and booted using a special boot manager called LILO (Linux Loader). LILO is supplied with Linux and it also allows Linux to be started using a boot floppy. If you already have a Working Win- Fig.2: by way of comparison with Fig.1, this screen grab is from Windows 98. There are many similarities between the two. dows 3.11 or Windows 95/98 system, you could leave the C: drive where it is, add a second hard disc and install Linux on this new hard disc. Once formatted under Linux, this Linux hard disc drive will normally be invisible to your Windows 95/98 system. Alternatively, if your C: drive has lots of room and you’d like to keep Windows there, you might consider installing Linux into the MS DOS filing system. Although not as efficient as an installation to Linux’s own native format, it can still work in this way. Another option, if you have lots April 1999  11 Basic Linux Commands Purpose Linux DOS Mi dni ght Commander mc n/a Di rectory ls di r Commandli ne opti ons --hel p ?/ Make a di rectory mkdi r md Change di rectory cd cd H el p, command list h el p h el p Simi lar commands apropos n/a Restar ti ng system reboot Compl ete shut down h al t of space on your hard disc, is to first defragment the disc and then shrink the existing partition so that a second partition can be added for Linux. Commercial partition managers such as Partition It! and Partition Magic are not only able to re-size partitions and convert from one file system to another (eg, FAT16 to FAT32 and back again), but can also work as boot managers. Basically, a boot manager allows you to choose the operating system at boot up. The FIPS utility, freely available with Linux under the Gnu or GPL License, is also able to re-size partitions. A word of warning: irrespective of the software used, always back up any important data before attempting to re-size a partition. Repartitioning involves major changes to the organisation of your hard disc and it’s all too easy to lose data if something goes wrong during the conversion process. Check too that you are using the latest version of the software. FIPS 1.5 will not support FAT32 whereas FIPS 2.0 will, for example. Do not attempt to use Fdisk to repartition your disc – you will lose data if you do. The safest approach, if you want to keep your original Windows operating system, is to adopt the first suggested method; ie, add a new hard disc, install Linux to this drive, and 12  Silicon Chip Comments Simi lar to the ol d "System Commander" program. It provi des an easy way to fi nd your way around Li n u x. Has a number of swi tches. | is perhaps the most useful . For exampl e, mls gives a listi ng that's too l ong for the screen, use ls | more. This is like di r/p i n DOS. Use a forward sl ash to change di rectori es. For exampl e, cd/ goes to the root di rectory i n Li nux whereas cd\ goes to the DOS root di rectory. Type help for a list of commands. For more compl ete hel p, type man (for manual) and then the command, eg: man ls. Type q to qui t from man. Type apropos foll owed by the name of the command for a list of simi lar or rel ated commands. Al ternatively, use shutdown -r now. If your versi on doesn't suppor t this, use shutdown -h now. use LILO to select which operating system you want to use. LILO writes to the partition loader area of the hard disc where the partition table is stored. It is easily con­figured to provide one of several options: (1) immediate boot up to a default operating system; (2) wait for a few seconds to allow the desired operating system to be selected (the system boots to the default system if no keys are pressed); and (3) wait indefinitely for a choice to be made. If you subsequently decide that Fig.3: before installing Linux, use the System Properties dialog box in Windows 95/98 to obtain details on expansion card settings. you don’t want LILO on your hard disc and want to use a boot disc or some other method of booting, it is easily removed by typing (at the DOS prompt): FDISK /MBR If you intend using Linux as a router and firewall for Internet access, it makes some sense to initially keep your options open and install Linux in a dual-boot with say Windows 95. By keeping Windows 95, you’ll still be able to dial in and get your email or run a program such as C-Proxy (see SILICON CHIP, November 1998) while you get Linux up and running. Pre-installation checkup The main snag you’ll likely run into here, especially if you’re completely replacing the existing operating system, is figuring out the settings on your various I/O cards. Most things, like COM1, COM2 and your printer port, are no-brainers – Linux can pick these up without any problems. However, if you have an internal modem, it will often be set to COM3 and an odd IRQ and it’s useful to know this before installing Linux. Similarly, it might be useful to know the IRQ and I/O port settings for your network card. In case you’re wondering, the current version or “kernel” of Linux doesn’t fully support plug and play (PnP). Some of the modules will detect the settings of PnP devices, while others might need to be set to manual (or non-PnP) mode. Newer releases of Linux will include increased support for PnP and USB (Universal Serial Bus) devices. If you’ve already got Windows 95/98 installed, you can quickly find out what the settings are for each card via the System applet in Control Panel. To do this, double click the System icon, select the Device Manager tab then select an item and click the Properties button. From there, you can make a note of the IRQ and I/O settings for any network, video and sound cards or, in the case of a modem, its COM port setting. If you have older non-PnP cards, you may have to temporarily remove them from the PC and refer to the manuals to discover the settings. During the installation, you may find that there are some settings that cannot be changed or which aren’t recognised. By knowing the settings beforehand, you’ll save a lot of time Fig.4: the rawrite.exe utility is in the /dosutils directory of this Red Hat Linux distribution. You use this utility to make a Linux boot disc. when it comes to getting everything up and running after Linux has been installed. Installation OK, you’re finally ready to install Linux. You’ve backed up everything that’s worth backing up, you’ve got all the details on the add-on cards and you have a Linux CD. Often, a Linux CD on it’s own is fine, provided that the CD is bootable and the PC’s system BIOS supports booting from a CD-ROM drive. If you have an older PC, you probably won’t have the luxury of being able to boot from your CD (bootable CD disc or not). The way around this is to prepare one or more floppy boot discs from the Linux CD-ROM. Commercial distributions usually come supplied with boot discs. However, if your Linux came from a mag­ azine CD-ROM, a book CD-ROM or a low-cost GPL source, you will have to make the boot discs yourself. These are created from the DOS prompt (on blank DOS-formatted floppy discs) using a utility on the Linux CD called RAWRITE.EXE and an appropriate boot image file. When you run RAWRITE.EXE, it initially asks for the source of the disc image file (eg, boot.img). If this file is in the bootimg folder, for example, you simply type /bootimg/boot.img. After that, RAWRITE prompts you to enter the target drive (usually A). In any case, be sure to consult the documentation supplied with your distribution for details. Once you have the boot disc, you can use it to reboot your system and proceed with the installation. Alternatively, you can boot from the CD (if your system supports it and the CD is bootable). After that, it’s just a matter if following the prompts and answering the odd question. Most Linux distributions ask similar questions during installation, although some look prettier on screen than others. A progress bar is usually present and there’s often some indication as to how far the installation has progressed and how long is left to go. Here, I like Caldera Open Linux, as you can press ALT-F2 to go to another “window” where you can to read a number of useful on-line help files, or even play a quick game of Tetris while the installation goes on in the background! The first stage of the installation might ask where the Linux software Desperation Stuff If you change your mind after an fdisk/mbr and wish to boot Linux, use the rescue image or the boot image to get out of trouble. This will get you back into Linux, after which you can reinstall LILO. If you can’t get into Windows 95/98, reconfigure LILO (type man lilo for the details) so that you can add the necessary information on the DOS/Windows partition. Finally, if you want to toss in the towel on Linux, type fdisk/mbr at the DOS prompt to reinstate the Windows partition loader. is to be found. Assuming you’ve obtained a commercial distribution, this will be the CD- ROM but there are also some clever options to allow installation directly off the net (very slow unless you have ISDN). What ever you do, be sure to refer to the manual supplied with your distribution, particularly when it comes to selecting an installation class. If you’re planning on running a network, you will have to enter in your system’s IP address, the domain name and the PC’s name. If you don’t intend connecting to the Internet, or even if you do and this system is to function as a firewall/router, use a domain name that’s not valid in the outside world. As an example, let’s call the PC fred, assign it an IP address of 192.168.1.1, and call the domain network.home. The complete named address for the PC will thus be fred.network.home. Your other PCs on the network must be given different names and IP addresses but note that the domain name (network.home) remains the same. Your local area network will function quite happily, despite not having a domain name with a conventional extension (eg, .com or .com.au, etc). However, you can still set up your PC to route traffic to these domains after dialling in to the net (more on this next month). During the installation, if you select X11 or Xfree86 (the Linux “XWindows” look-alike), you may also be asked about your VGA card. Unless you are absolutely sure of what you have, it’s best to select “Don’t Probe” and configure Xfree86 after installation when you do have the necessary information. It can be quite annoying if you set the wrong card or monitor refresh rates and get stuck with a screen you can’t read or a VGA card that’s locked up. If something goes wrong during installation, simply reinstall Linux over the top of the previous installation. Next month we’ll show you how to configure Samba, so that your Linux “box” can function as a file and printer server to a Windows network. We’ll also describe how to set Linux up as a router, so that a number of people can share one Internet connection. Finally, to make it all safe, we’ll set it up as a firewall, to keep some of the latest Trojans and nasties, like NetBus SC and Back Orifice, at bay. April 1999  13