LINUX INSTALLATION
LINUX DISTRIBUTIONS

The first question is "What distribution do I purchase?" I'm addressing my comments to the beginner, not to the advanced user who may have well-founded reasons behind his opinion. Here are my two top recommendations and why:

  • Official RedHat 6.0 - 6.2 is my number one choice for these reasons: It has a low incidence of installation failures. Not all hardware will work with either this or any other distribution, but you should be able to at least get through the initial install so you can try to fix it later. You can with RedHat. It handles common hardware, can read NTFS file systems if /etc/fstab is set up properly (useful for rescuing an NT4/2000 system gone bad), and handles the RPM format for program distribution. (It can also handle tar.gz files, the conventional way of packaging a program for Unix). You have the option of NOT starting your system in graphic mode, which can save you some reboots down the road. Its only real weakness as I see it is that X-windows setup can trick the beginner. The easy way is to use the RedHat setup tools, and if you fail to see anything when tested, retry with a lower monitor setting on the list -- even if you think your monitor can handle more. Most X-windows failures are a result of MONITOR frequencies being out of range, not card incompatibilities. Official RedHat can be installed on a 386 or 486 machine provided you have enough hard drive space for the packages you want.
  • I'd give Mandrake 7.0 up almost as high a grade. Some people will feel it is a better buy than RedHat, because it is not only cheaper but they throw in some extras. To some, it's easier to use than Official RedHat. It is a RedHat compatible version, so it can handle packages distributed in RPM format. I'd rate it slightly below official RedHat because I have isolated reports of something not working right which was cured by installation of an official RedHat version. Also, DO NOT USE Mandrake 6.5 and up on a 386 or 486. The kernel REQUIRES a Pentium or better processor. If you're going to use Mandrake 7.x you should use Drakconf from X, rather than the RedHat tools, because the Mandrake customization is designed to work with the Drakconf tools. Mandrake 7.x has a 'supermount'. option on installation, which I DISRECOMMEND, because it causes unnecessary increases in memory usage. You can still click on the FD or CDROM drive icon to mount and unmount the drive under X11 (X-windows) without having to struggle through a command line. Install Mandrake 7 and up in the expert mode and select all possible files by hand to get full functionality, which includes smbmount and smbclient functions.

    • SUSE 6.3 - 6.4 gets almost as high a mark. It's a bit trickier to set up network cards and has a graphic install which fails for some users. Fortunately for them you can pop in disk 2 and do a text-mode install and fix X later. It has two disadvantages versus RedHat though -- 1.) it cannot install packages that vendors choose to distribute in the RPM format. You would need to get a tar.gz version of the program (that some vendors may not provide), which is compatible with all unices. 2.) The kernel does not support NTFS partitions out of the box. You'd have to do some kernel-patching. It does have a routine called Sax, which can automatically determine the correct parameters for video cards and configure video-card / monitor setups that other distributions have trouble with. It also has a nice modem setup routine. Unfortunately in order to work with network cards you have to know which card you've got and use the advanced (text-mode) install, and the LILO on the easy-install is a bit more intrusive than I would like. On the plus side, if there's an obscure use for Linux that you're after, you'll likely find it with a SUSE distribution (like video-game machine emulators for example) .

    I would conditionally recommend Slackware provided that 1.) your primary intent is to use it as a server, or 2.) you have an older machine with a small hard drive. (Slackware has a small kernel, an option to set the HDD inode block size to as little as 1024, and an option to run mostly from CD.) It does not support NTFS, soundcards are harder to configure, and as for video cards, it either works like a charm or has problems. Also the Slackware kernels tend to be a bit older. Like SUSE, it won't handle RPMs. Its advocates who are used to configuration like it though, because they feel they have freedom to configure the system the way they like it. It will generally install, but X-windows may not work on all systems

    Here are some I DO NOT recommend and why -- the principal reason being that they have a significant chance of not installing on your system.

  • COREL (fractured Debian) is the most Windows-like of the Linuxes, but I disrecommend it because it will not install on some systems -- it will try to install in a video mode higher than VGA, unlike other Linuxes with a graphic install which (more wisely) do this in 16-color VGA. In some cases, this makes installation impossible, if it happens to pick a video mode your monitor can't support. One nice thing about it is that it automatically mounts other file systems that are on the hard drive. It is supposed to do a point and click mount of network shares but this doesn't work at all. One nice thing about it is that it CAN mount NTFS partitions. It comes with a fully licensed version of Word Perfect.
  • CALDERA Open Linux is also Windows-like, and forcibly starts in X (X-windows) but is a relatively easy install. The install even multi-tasks, copying files while you answer configuration questions. It is packaged with a 128-bit version of Netscape Communicator unlike the others which have 56-bit. Unfortunately there are several major problems -- 1.) install tends to freeze on systems with serial mice. 2.) it has hardware recognition problems 3.) The Internet connection app 'ksaferppp' which replaces kppp is nowhere near as user-friendly. The kernel DOES support the mounting of NTFS partitions.

    • So at this time my vote is for REDHAT or MANDRAKE (your choice) but get a copy of SUSE also in case you run into a difficult video card, and need to temporarily install it to find out what the problem is.

    INSTALLATION METHODS The easiest method of installation is to (for one boot) set the BIOS to boot off the CDROM (RedHat or Mandrake) If the CDROM won't boot or you get a kernel panic, copy the entire DOSUTILS directory (including all files in subdirectories) to the C: drive. If in 95 or 98, shut down to MSDOS mode. If in NT or 2000 reboot off a DOS floppy. Then switch to the C:\DOSUTILS directory and execute AUTOBOOT. Other Linux distributions offer their own DOS-based installation methods. If you don't have a FAT or FAT-32 drive available then this method won't work. Last but not least you can boot off the installation floppy or make one if you've lost yours through the rawrite command (be sure you're in real-mode DOS, not a Windows shell before using rawrite -- for Windows-9x, MSDOS-mode is sufficient). A few distributions have a version of rawrite that will work under NT, but usually with a different name. Consult your CD documentation for this.
    Regardless of which method you use, you'll be faced with some installation questions. The one that stumps beginners is the mount point. For your Linux volume, you can just use "/" for everything. As you become more experienced, you'll see the value of having an extra Linux native partition with the mount point "/home". This allows you to protect your data in case you have to reformat and reinstall Linux. Another question is whether to use logical or primary partitions for Linux. In most cases I'd say you're better off using logical partitions for compatibility with Microsoft OS's and also because you can only have 4 primary partitions, so if you for any reason require more than 4, you should use logical partitions.
    The number one installation problem people have is getting their video cards to work. Here are some tricks to try Try lowering the hsync and vsync frequencies to very low values. Do this by selecting as a monitor type something that seems way below the capabilities of your monitor when the Xconfigurator asks you. Sometimes you can trick xconfigurator into giving you settings that your monitor can deal with. Lying a bit and forcing the video mode you want. For example, the only way I could get my 800 x 600 laptop to do 800 x 600 was to lie and say I had a 1024 x 768 display and select the 800 x 600 mode If all else fails try another version of Linux to see if you can uncover the video card and monitor parameters

    FOR NOTEBOOKS (RedHat or Mandrake) If regular installation doesn't work, try expert mode. To use it, first go to MSDOS mode (or real DOS) and use rawrite to create TWO floppies, one to boot with and the other for PCMCIA support. You MUST boot off the boot floppy or CDROM (autoboot won't work). When you see the boot prompt, type 'expert'. Answer 'yes' to the question of whether you want PCMCIA support DURING install and insert the PCMCIA support disk when prompted.

    Also, some PCMCIA cards are not compatible with Linux.

    THE INTERNET is easily reachable with Netscape Communicator, which is being bundled with most of the recent distributions of Linux. As for modems, most HARDWARE modems (those having or using a 16550 UART) will work with Linux. The winmodems usually will not, unless you have one that the Linux community has written a driver for. To see if your "winmodem" is supported under Linux, go to www.linmodems.org for further information. The application kppp will easily set up an Internet connection.