Learn Unix Administration Blog

If you're reading this book, I bet that you already have a Unix operating system installed on a system you run. Whether it's a shared server that you're renting space on for your Web site, a file server in your office, or even a PC that you've used as a Unix test platform, this first section will possibly be the least interesting one in this book.

The first issue of concern is whether your system meets the hardware requirements for a Unix installation. Although Linux (and Red Hat in particular) runs across a wide range of different hardware platforms, there are nonetheless certain requirements to have it run reasonably well:

• A minimum of 350MB of available disk space, and if you want to have the X Window System running, a Web server, developer software, and other standard Unix goodies, you'll find that the realistic minimum disk space requirement is 1.8–2GB.
• At least 64MB of RAM, though Unix is definitely an operating system where more RAM is always better. I always try for a minimum of 128MB, and if you have 256MB or more, you'll find greatly increased performance.
• A CPU. Should it be a specific minimum speed, like a 500Mhz Pentium III? Surprisingly, people have successfully run Linux on quite old and slow systems. Does it run well enough that you would enjoy using it? Well, you can answer that question for yourself. Generally, any computer sold since January 1, 2000 has plenty of horsepower to run a Linux distro (jargon for distribution) with good results.
• A CD-ROM drive (hopefully that is self-evident).
• A network card, ideally, so you can connect to the Internet. Be warned, it can be tricky to configure a modem and PPP (the Point to Point Protocol), though not at all impossible.
• A graphical display, display card, keyboard and mouse.

Let's assume that you want to install Red Hat Linux, as they have one of the best installation packages (called anaconda) out of all the Linuxes I've used.

1. The first step is to make sure you have a reliable backup of any information that you already have on your computer. Most likely, you'll want to just overwrite your entire disk with the new operating system, which will mean that all your existing files will be stomped, mutilated, and otherwise burned beyond recognition.

Once you're sure you want to proceed, slip the first installation CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive of your computer and boot up.

It's not visually exciting, but the first thing you'll see is as shown in Figure 1.1, the boot-up screen options. I always choose the default by pressing Enter on the keyboard.

Figure 1.1: Red Hat Linux installation boot options.