Guide for Installing RedHat linux 6/6.1/6.2 on your System. (Using non destructive partition and linux co-existing with windows 9x) by Sangram Copyright (c) 2000 Sangram. Permission is granted to copy, distribute this document without modification under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being FULL DOCUMENT, with out the Front-Cover Texts, and with out the Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License". Copy of license can be obtained at www.gnu.org. Welcome to the world of linux. This document tries to simplify the task of installing linux on your system. For simplicity sake I am considering RedHat linux distributions which are freely available for download or as complimentary copies. Please take into consideration that 'RedHat' linux is not a freeware but is free for personal use. Please register your copy if you intend to use it for commercial purposes. Preliminary Requirements. Copy of RedHat linux on a C.D. Free hard disk space minimum 1GB. 486 or higher machine. Copy of fips whish is non-destructive disk partitioning utility. CD-ROM drive. Information gathering. Find out the make of your display card. Ref. To your monitors manual and find out the refresh rates, horizontal and vertical freq. Check whether your mouse is serial or PS2. Find out the make of your sound card. Partitioning your hard disk. I assume you are running win 9x currently. Now there could be 4 possibilities. You are running windows 9x occupying entire hard disk. (read ahead). Hard disk has two partitions. (read ahead) Hard disk has 3 or more dos (win) partitions. (you are in trouble pal, for information e-mail me). You have non dos (win) partition in addition to windows partition. (E-mail me). If you come under category 3or 4 please mail me on sangram_g@yahoo.com because the method of partitioning could be unique to your PC and also is beyond the scope of this documentation. Category 1: you are lucky pal. It could not have been easier. First defragment your drive using tool provided with win98 or using disk utility like Norton's. Copy fips (usually given with your linux distribution CD.). Be careful that you use version of fips which supports fat32 if you have a hard disk greater than 2.1gb. Backingup all your critical data is recommended before you proceed. Restart your system in MS-Dos mode. Run fips.exe. read all the instruction carefully. Select the size of the partition when you are prompted to do so. Continue to follow instructions on screen. When the system reboots you will see a new partition in 'My Computer'. Restart the system in MS-Dos mode. Type fdisk. Select option 4 . you should see the information regarding your partitions. Delete extended dos partition using fdisk. Restart your PC. Category 2: If your hdd has two partitions and you have data on drive D. follow the steps carefully. A>: create a backup folder on c: and name it ddos. Copy all the folders and files into this directory including hidden files.(u can use any other method for backing up your complete drive D. u can also zip all the data before backing up.). Now restart in MS-Dos mode and run fdisk. Delete your logical drive in extended dos partition and then delete the extended dos partition. B>: create a new extended dos partition using fdisk , leaving (i.e. not including) at least 1GB free for linux. (Note it is not advisable to try and install linux in extended dos partition). What we have done is we have deleted extended dos partition. Empty space is obtained on hard disk. In this empty space we again have created the former dos (extended) partition not using the full empty space available; i.e. We have left atleast 1GB of empty space on drive for linux partitions. Now create a logical dos drive in the extended dos partition. Restart the system for changes to take place. Note that from windows you will again be able to see drive D: , which is of a smaller capacity than previously( as we partitioned it for linux). You will have to format this drive before you can copy all your backed up data back on to this drive. ***C>: you need not do step B if your drive D is empty and you intend to use full space on drive D for linux. But still you will have to follow the step A. Installing Linux on to your system. Boots using your RedHat CD-ROM. Press enter at boot prompt to enter graphical mode. You can type text at the prompt to enter text mode. I would suggest the graphical mode unless your display becomes garbled or some component is not supported. You will be asked to choose between types of install. A workstation install will usually do fine unless you have less than 1.5GB or want to manually select components to install. If you have more than 2GB of space you could do a full install by selecting custom installation. Hopefully your display card will be automatically detected if not u can select it from the list. If your card is not listed bad luck pal you will have to settle for 16-color VGA display. Mouse will usually be detected correctly, but just in case it isn't select Microsoft compatible (serial or PS2 whatever your type is). Selection of your monitor may be tough. Refer to your monitor manual and be conservative in selecting the frequencies. Now you will have to select partitions in which to install Linux. A graphical version of disk druid will come up. It will already show the existing dos partitions. It will also display the unused (unpartitioned or unformatted ) space on your drive. If it does not show any free space it means something went wrong with the fdisk session, or if disk druid shows an extra partition which should not have existed and if you are willing to take the risk you can delete it (at your own risk of course) to create free space. Now select add partition and create 'Linux Swap' partition, the size of this partition can be from 64MB to 127MB (go for 127 mb if you have more than two gb of space, making swap more than 127 mb will be waste of precious space ). Create a 'Linux Native partition with mount point / (slash). Specify the size as 1MB and select 'grow to fill disk'. When asked where to install LILO select 'Master Boot Record' or MBR in short. It is advisable to create a boot disk incase something goes wrong. Follow the on screen instructions like selecting root password, creating user account etc. and so on. Wait for the files to be copied and soon (1/2 to 1 hour) the process will be completed and the system will reboot. On reboot LILO prompt will appear. Typing Linux will let you boot into linux whereas typing dos will let you boot into windows. Once you have successfully booted into Linux login as root and create a user account for your self. Happy Linuxing. P.S. for those whose display card was not supported E-mail me on sangram_g@yahoo.com. For any difficulties email me. Ps. on configuring 'intel 810' is available on intel siteSangram