Red Hat 6.2 Installation
First the obligatory DISCLAIMER:
***DISCLAIMER***
Basically, everything here worked for me but I cannot guarantee that it
will work for you. The information here is provided AS IS, with no
warranty of any kind, yada yada... I cannot be held responsible for any
damages/death/destruction of your computer, your brain, your significant
other or your lack of one, etc. resulting from the use of this
information.
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Now on with the installation...
The first thing to do is to RTFM (Read The F***ing Manual) accompanying
your Red Hat distribution. It can be found on the Red Hat CDROM under
/doc. The Official Red Hat Installation Guide walks you through all the
steps in the installation so I will not waste my time or yours by
repeating it here. What I'll be doing instead, is highlighting the parts
of the install that is specific to the FOSA 1100.
Keyboard Configuration
The default values here worked fine for me so I see no reason to change
it.
- Model - Generic 101-key PC
- Layout - U.S. English w/ISO9995-3
- Dead Keys - Enable dead keys
Mouse Configuration
You can choose:
- Generic 2 Button Mouse (PS/2) OR the Alps GlidePoint (PS/2) if you
are planning to use the touchpad or plug in a 2 button PS/2 mouse. Either
works with both. Select the Emulate 3 Buttons option (Strongly
recommended).
- Generic 3 Button Mouse (PS/2) if you have a 3 button PS/2 mouse like
me. The touchpad will still work in this case. There is no need to
unselect the Emulate 3 Buttons option because you might still need it when
you use the touchpad.
I've not used a serial mouse on this before so I don't know what'll happen
if you choose a serial mouse. My guess is that the touchpad will stop
working but I don't know for sure. If you've tried, tell me :)
Partitioning
This is a hard one. There is no one right answer as to how best to
partition your disk. Trial and error until you come up with one that suits
you. Then participate in various debates to try and force it down some
other newbie's throat :)
Alternatively, you can skip this entirely by choosing options other than
Custom in the Install Options. Refer to the Official Red Hat 6.2
Installation Guide for details.
Here's mine anyway. I used Disk Druid and I recommend you do too, unless
you absolutely KNOW what you're doing.
|
Mount Point |
Device |
Requested |
Actual |
Type
|
/mnt/C |
hda1 |
1000M |
1000M |
DOS 16-bit >=32M
|
/ |
hda2 |
1M |
4745M |
Linux Native
|
Swap |
hda5 |
128M |
128M |
Linux Swap
| | | |
Note:
- Red Hat will mount partitions from Windoze if you specify a mount
point like I did. I do not know if it applies to other operating systems
like NT or OS/2. I've never used them.
- You can choose the Grow to fill disk option to easily take up any
remaining disk space.
- My swap space is 2 times my RAM. This is the "Rule of Thumb" from an
unknown thumb. You do not have to follow it. Again, trial and error. I
also believe the previously advertised 128M swap limit has been overcome
so you can go as high as you want. And don't believe anyone else that
tells you otherwise.
- You do not usually have to worry about the Device column, Disk Druid
will automatically fill that out for you.
- I did not reserve an extra partition for the Suspend to Disk function
that the FOSA 1100 is capable of. I use Suspend to RAM instead. But if you
need to do this you can visit
Bryan's page.
X Configuration
Finally we come to the traditionally most difficult and dangerous part of
the whole install -- configuring your monitor for X. Be sure to read my
DISCLAIMER before you continue ;)
Monitor - Generic LCD Panel 1024x768
You will see that the default values for the Horizontal and Vertical Sync
ranges are very low so I do not believe it will blow up your monitor, but
we've all heard of Murphy... So be sure to double triple check your
values.
If nothing goes wrong, X should autodetect your videocard and tell you
it's the S3 ViRGE (generic). If you're like me and hate the term
"generic", you can choose S3 ViRGE/MX from the list. Double check the
amount of video RAM you have. I have 4096k but I do not know if all FOSA
1100's are made the same.
Next you can choose your screen resolution and colour depth. I have both
8- and 16-bits at 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768. Choosing more than one
will allow you to switch modes when you are in X by pressing Alt-Ctrl-'+'
or '-' later on.
I haven't been able to get 24-bit working at any resolution but
Bryan
has, so do check out his page. Unfortunately, he uses rather high
frequencies and I am not very sure if my monitor can handle it in the long
run, so I've decided not to go with it.
This is it. Congratulations if you've successfully installed your very own
Red Hat Linux. Otherwise, take the laptop back to your dealer for repair
if you can still find your warranty card ;)
If you have any problems/suggestions feel free to email me and I'll see
if I can fix it. At the least I'll listen (and ignore).