Learning Red Hat Enterprise Linux & Fedora, Fourth Edition

Start the Installation

To begin installing Linux, you must boot your system from the installation media. Most recently manufactured PCs can boot the Installation CD 1 CD-ROM. However, unless you generally boot from a CD-ROM—which is quite unlikely—you’ll need to reconfigure your PC’s BIOS so your PC is able to boot from a CD-ROM. To do so, enter your PC’s BIOS screen and look for a configuration item titled something like Boot Order or Boot Priority. Change the configuration so that the CD-ROM drive has the highest boot priority. Consult your PC’s documentation for details on entering and using its BIOS configuration screens.

Creating a Boot Floppy

If your PC can’t boot from a CD-ROM, you must create a boot floppy disk. Creating a boot floppy requires some special measures; you can’t simply copy files onto a disk and then boot it. To create a Linux installation boot floppy by using a PC that runs Microsoft Windows, perform the following steps:

1. Format a floppy.

2. Insert Disc 1 of Linux into your system’s CD-ROM drive.

3. Click My Computer and then your CD-ROM drive. Navigate to the d:\dosutils\rawritewin directory, where d is the drive letter associated with your CD-ROM drive. Double-click the program rawwritewin. The RawWrite dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 3-1. Specify the floppy drive and image file (images\bootdisk.img or other), and click Write. It takes perhaps a minute or so for the rawrite utility to create the floppy diskette.

Figure 3-1. Using rawrite to make a boot diskette ...