Installation Wizard
This method of installation is designed for each user, novice
or experienced administrator.
During the process you will be asked in interactive way for
elements of your future system. This is the short list, what
kind of information you should prepare before you start:
IP Addresses of your machine, network prefix,
gateway, DNS server; if you have DHCP Server in your
subnet, you have to assure it is working
properly.
If you do not have modern hardware, you should
check IRQ and IO address of Network Interface Card.
If you are ready, let us start. Please choose "Installation
Wizard" from main installer menu:
Now you have to point at place which contains distribution
tree:
It may be:
CD-ROM drive with PLD Linux Distro,
Network server, this requires
permanent access to Internet or local
PLD mirror somewhere in Intranet.
Server can be accessed by
FTP or
HTTP
protocols.
NFS, it requires local PLD mirror in
your Intranet, we do not provide
public NFS server with PLD Distro.
Harddrive, if you previously have
downloaded distribution to disk.
In next examples I will try to install PLD from ftp network
server, because I think it is the most common way.
If you would like to use our main FTP server, you can accept
default values, but I strongly recommend to use the nearest
FTP mirror.
For example if you live in US, use
ftp.rpmfind.net server located at
MIT, Boston:
So, choose the desirable mirror, confirm it and we could go to
the next step.
If you have modern hardware, your network card is automatically detected.
If not, or you have PCMCIA card, you have to specify IRQ or/and IO.
If you are ready, we can go to next screen:
Now you have to tell about your harddrive(s), in other words
make and/or specify partitions for new installation.
In above example I use proposed default partition scheme:
small (20 MB) boot partition - the place for keeping
kernel image and initrd file(s),
default (based on counted RAM) swap partition - 322
MB,
one root directory, which takes the rest of the
whole hard drive.
Of course you can divide the disk as you want to, and there is
possibility to share PLD installation with other systems
on different partitions. This option is wider described
later
The Installation Wizard automatically loads indispensable modules
from installation source specified earlier.
If you are using a new hard drive, installer asks you to create disk
label for it. But watch out! - this step is irreparable.
This screenshot presents empty 4 GB SCSI hard drive.
We are going to create 3 GB XFS partition.
Size is given in MB.
In this simple example we make one root partition and one swap
partition, of course if you are planning a real server or
workstation, we are strongly encourage to make different partitions
for /var, /boot,
/usr and /home
mountpoints.
So we have one XFS partition, we can make swap now.
The method of creating all types of partitions is the same, so we
can easy imagine the rest of swap creation process.
We have minimal set of partitions now.
There are several installer pre-sets:
base - Just very basic
packages, don't select unless you're doing embedded
system;
basic - Base PLD Linux
installation, ~200 MB with all docs and locales;
devel - Base PLD Linux
installation + few development packages;
gnome-workstation - X
workstation running GNOME;
kde-workstation - X workstation
running KDE;
wm-workstation - X workstation
running WindowMaker;
mini-iso - Base packages + ppp,
poldek, Select this if you're installing from
MINI-ISO, ~110 MB with docs, all locales;
In our example installation I choose KDE Workstation.
There is a chance for adjusting package selection for your own
needs, but I do not use this option, because default one is enough
for me.
Of course you may select Fine-grained packages
selection to make your own package choice.
Documentation and localization files take a lot of place on hard
drive, so you may give installation of that files up or select only
required parts of i18n files.
Enter allin input box above to install
all languages (safe choice). Otherwise enter eg. string like
'pl_PL:de_DE:en_US' to install Polish, German and American English
locales.
The next quuestion is to specify target network setup.
The network configuration is the same as we do it previously, but
you can choose differenet setup for target system.
Root password is essential for system's security, if you use your
PLD Linux system in network environment, please set it with
particular attention.
Passwords may be displayed on screen to make your life easier.
Optionally it is possible to add regular (non root) users in your
system. Sergiusz Pawlowicz is of course me -)
Almost all my users are Polish native speakers, so I set Polish
locale as default. Warsaw is Polish capital, it is not very big
country and we have one time zone.
The next step is last moment for changing something enetered in
all previous steps if need be. Please to think the matter over
and if you are sure you are ready, select
Finish to run the installer.
Installation process could take serveral minutes or hours, it
depends on source of installation and, if you choose network,
on quality and efficiency of your Internet connection.
That is all - if installation went without problems, you can restart
your machine and login into fresh PLD Linux system.