Welcome to the Official Red Hat Linux Itanium Installation Guide.
The Official Red Hat Linux Itanium Installation Guide contains useful information to assist you during the installation of Red Hat Linux. From fundamental concepts such as installation preparation (gathering information about your current system) to the step-by-step installation procedure, this book will be a valuable resource as you install Red Hat Linux.
This manual will walk you through a typical installation using the Red Hat Linux CD-ROMs. Once you have completed the installation as outlined in this manual, you will have a fully functioning Red Hat Linux desktop system.
When you read this manual, you will see that certain words are represented in different fonts, typefaces, sizes and weights. This highlighting is systematic; different words are represented in the same style to indicate their inclusion in a specific category. The types of words that are represented this way include the following:
Linux commands (and other operating system commands, when used)
are represented this way. This style should indicate to you that
you can type in the word or phrase on the command line and press
Use the cat testfile command to view the contents of a file, named testfile, in the current working directory.
Filenames, directory names, paths and RPM package names are represented this way. This style should indicate that a particular file or directory exists by that name on your Red Hat Linux system. Examples:
The .bashrc file in your home directory contains bash shell definitions and aliases for your own use.
The /etc/fstab file contains information about different system devices and filesystems.
The /usr/share/doc directory contains documentation for various programs.
Install the webalizer RPM if you want to use a Web server log file analysis program.
This style should indicate to you that the program named is an end-user application (as opposed to system software). For example:
Use Netscape Navigator to browse the Web.
A key on the keyboard is shown in this style. For example:
To use
A combination of keystrokes is represented in this way. For example:
The
A title, word or phrase found on a GUI interface screen or window will be shown in this style. When you see text shown in this style, it is being used to identify a particular GUI screen or an element on a GUI screen (e.g., text associated with a checkbox or field). Examples:
On the GNOME Control Center screen, you can customize your GNOME window manager.
Select the Require Password checkbox if you would like your screensaver to require a password before stopping.
When you see a word in this style, it indicates that the word is the top level of a pulldown menu. If you click on the word on the GUI screen, the rest of the menu should appear. For example:
Under Settings on a GNOME terminal, you will see the following menu items: Preferences, Reset Terminal, Reset and Clear, and Color selector.
If you need to type in a sequence of commands from a GUI menu, they will be shown like the following example:
Click on Programs=>Applications=>Emacs to start the Emacs text editor.
This style indicates that the text will be found on a clickable button on a GUI screen. For example:
Click on the Back button to return to the Web page you last viewed.
When you see text in this style, it indicates text displayed by the computer on the command line. You will see responses to commands you typed in, error messages and interactive prompts for your input during scripts or programs shown this way. For example:
Use the ls to display the contents of a directory:
$ ls Desktop axhome logs paulwesterberg.gif Mail backupfiles mail reports |
The output returned in response to the command (in this case, the contents of the directory) is shown in this style.
A prompt, which is a computer's way of signifying that it is ready for you to input something, will be shown in this style. Examples:
$
#
[stephen@maturin stephen]$
leopard login:
Text that the user has to type, either on the command line, or into a text box on a GUI screen, is displayed in this style. In the following example, text is displayed in this style:
To boot your system into the text based installation program, you will need to type in the text command at the boot: prompt.
Another example, with the word root displayed as something the user needs to type in:
If you need to log in as root when you first log into your system, and you are using the graphical login screen, at the Login prompt, type root. At the Password prompt, type in the root password.
Additionally, we use several different strategies to draw your attention to certain pieces of information. In order of how critical the information is to your system, these items will be marked as a note, a caution or a warning. For example:
![]() | Note |
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Remember that Linux is case sensitive. In other words, a rose is not a ROSE is not a rOsE. |
![]() | Caution |
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Do not do routine tasks as root — use a regular user account unless you need to use the root account to administer your system. |
![]() | Warning |
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If you choose not to partition manually, a server installation will remove all existing partitions on all installed hard drives. Do not choose this installation class unless you are sure you have no data you need to save. |