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Chapter 8 . Running Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 279 The highly touted hardware detection done by the KNOPPIX bootable Linux distribution is based on the kudzu libraries from Red Hat, Inc. While the kudzu hardware detection is quite good in Fedora Core and RHEL, if you don t need hardware detection from kudzu, you can save significant time in rebooting if you disable kudzu. Red Hat Desktop Look-and-Feel To add a level of consistency to the desktops on its Linux systems, Red Hat created a look-and-feel that is pretty much the same for both GNOME and KDE. Of course there are some differences in color and logos, but a user can expect to find menus, panels, workspaces, and other desktop features in Fedora Core and RHEL systems to be very similar. System Configuration Tools Red Hat created a set of simplified, graphical tools for configuring and administering many basic administrative features in Red Hat systems. Using these tools, you can add printers, configure your network, add users, set up your sound card, and tune up your video card, to name a few of the features they cover. Red Hat s graphical configuration tools (which are described in Chapter 4) can be launched from the System Tools or Systems Settings menu or from the command line. Recently, the beginnings of these configuration tools command names changed from redhat-config to system-config. For example, the tool to configure your network in Fedora is now called system-config-network (instead of redhat-config-network). Going Forward with Fedora Core With the original Red Hat Linux, you could have the exact same Linux system for free (to run in your home or small business) that was being used in large-scale enterprise deployments. For just a few dollars, you could add official Red Hat support for that system, which included official security patches and upgrade paths for the future. Today, with the different free (Fedora Core) and subscription-based (RHEL) Linuxes from Red Hat, some of the same basic advantages hold true if you are a bit more adventurous. Because Red Hat Linux is such a successful operating system, many who have developed skills in using and deploying Red Hat Linux have rallied to support Fedora in areas where Red Hat, Inc. has bowed out. The following sections explore some of those support efforts. Note
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278 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution . Upgrades With an existing Fedora system installed, Anaconda enables you to easily upgrade to a newer Fedora system. A lot of nice features for saving backups of configuration files and logging the upgrade activities are built into that process. During an upgrade, Anaconda takes into consideration any dependency issues, so the upgraded software packages will have all the libraries and commands that the features in those packages need. You ll find a detailed description of installing Fedora using the Anaconda installer at the end of this chapter. RPM Package Management All Red Hat Linux distributions use the RPM Package Management (RPM) software packaging format to store and maintain software that the distributions use. Fedora Core and RHEL contain a set of tools for installing, upgrading, maintaining, and querying software packages in RPM format. Essentially, the RPM software packages that are installed are maintained in a database, so you can list the contents of packages, view descriptions, and even check for tampering of the files in those packages. Using RPM, add-on software can also be easily included in and maintained for Fedora systems. So users who once had to know how to deal with tarballs and makefiles to compile their own software can now simply install an RPM package to get the features they want. With other Linux distributions (such as SUSE and Mandrake) also using RPM packaging, your RPM tool skills can help you manage software on those distributions as well. Because of the popularity of Red Hat Linux systems, lots of software repositories and third-party software management tools have been created to further automate and simplify handling software in Red Hat systems. Tools such as yum (www.linux.duke.edu/projects/yum) and apt4rpm (http://apt4rpm .sourceforge.net) are available for updating selected software. AutoRPM (www.autorpm.org) was created to automatically get RPM updates from Red Hat and install them on a single system or a cluster of machines. Kudzu Hardware Detection Early Linux systems required that someone installing Linux know a lot about their hardware and the Linux drivers needed for that hardware to work. The kudzu feature was created by Red Hat to detect and configure a lot of computer hardware automatically. This feature is a great boost to those who don t want to worry about finding and selecting the drivers needed for their computer hardware. Kudzu runs during your initial Red Hat installation to detect your system s hardware. It also runs each time you start your Fedora or RHEL system so that if you add or remove hardware and restart the system, it can try to determine what the hardware is and offer you the opportunity to configure it or remove the driver, as appropriate.
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Chapter 8 . Running Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 277 Hat Enterprise Linux 4. Features in the current Fedora Core 4 are those that are being prepared for the next RHEL release. Both Fedora and RHEL are discussed in this chapter, so you can determine which distribution is right for you. Digging into Features There are many opinions on why Red Hat Linux and other distributions from Red Hat Inc. have been so popular. The following sections describe some features of Red Hat Linux distributions commonly believed to have led to its success and that add to the popularity of Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux distributions. Red Hat Installer (Anaconda) When many Linux distributions still had you struggling from the command line to get the distribution installed, Red Hat created its own installer called Anaconda. Anaconda includes both graphical and text-based procedures for installing Linux. When you re done installing Red Hat Linux, you have the following: . A set of software packages installed that suits how you want to use your computer (as a desktop, workstation, server, or some custom configuration). . Standard information, such as date, time, time zone, and language set. . A configured mouse, keyboard, video card, and monitor. . An appropriately partitioned hard disk. . A configured network card and firewall, to immediately connect to a LAN. . A configured boot loader, to define how Linux starts up. Besides being easy to use, Anaconda is loaded with features to make it easy to manage the installation of many Red Hat systems. For example, these power features are built into the Anaconda installer: . Network installs After booting the install process, the actual Fedora or RHEL distribution can be on a network server that is accessible via a Web server (http), FTP server (ftp), or UNIX file server (NFS). . Kickstart installs It s not so bad to sit there and click through the answers to run the installation of one Fedora Core system, but if you re doing dozens or hundreds of installs (especially on similar computers), automating that task can be a major time-saver. Anaconda supports kickstart installs, for which you use a preconfigured kickstart file to answer the questions that come up during a Red Hat installation. If you answer all the questions in the file, you can launch the installation and have it run from start to finish without you in attendance.
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276 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution Fedora Core includes features being developed for future Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases. Fedora Core is intended to include the latest Linux technology and be a proving ground for features slated to go into Red Hat Enterprise Linux products. It is a freely distributed operating system for the Linux community. Although it is sponsored and directed by Red Hat, Inc., the Fedora Project encourages community involvement. The latest Fedora Core includes many more features than Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but those features have less guarantee of stability and no guarantee of support. And while there are plans underway to create a Fedora Foundation intended to expand collaboration with the open source community, make no mistake about it: Important decisions about the direction of Fedora Core are still very much under the control of Red Hat, Inc. Fedora Core follows the legacy of Red Hat Linux. The final version of Red Hat Linux was version 9. Fedora Core 1 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 followed Red Hat Linux 9. At the time of this writing, Fedora Core 4 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 are the latest versions of those two operating systems. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), which is actually represented by multiple products for desktop, server, and workstation computer systems, is licensed commercially. Red Hat puts all its documentation, training, and support effort behind RHEL, which it sells to customers in the form of subscriptions. The intent is to have RHEL be a rock-solid Linux system that can be deployed across entire enterprises. Despite the confusion it unleashed by dumping its flagship Red Hat Linux line and fears by some that Red Hat might become another Microsoft, Red Hat is still the dominant player when it comes to commercial Linux products. Many people have been happy to upgrade their critical Linux systems to Red Hat Enterprise Linux products. To its credit, Red Hat has managed to become a profitable venture while making some remarkable contributions to the open source effort. Releasing its installer (Anaconda) and software packaging tools (RPM Package Management) under the GNU Public License (GPL) has enabled other Linux distributions to use and enhance those features. Within Red Hat Linux and now Fedora Core, Red Hat, Inc. has worked hard to include only software that could be freely distributed (removing most software with patent and copyright issues). Despite continued emphasis from Red Hat, Inc. that Fedora comes with no guarantees (presumably to sell more Red Hat Enterprise Linux products), Fedora is an excellent Linux distribution. I know of universities that have deployed hundreds of Fedora desktop systems in their computer labs and small companies that run their businesses exclusively with Fedora. Even if you prefer to bet your business on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Fedora Core is a great way to evaluate and use technology that is in all Linux distributions from Red Hat. Features in Fedora Core 3 are in Red Note
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Running Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux In September 2003, the world s leading Linux distribution, Red Hat Linux, disappeared. Red Hat, Inc., the company that created Red Hat Linux, divided its development efforts in two directions: the Fedora Project, which produces the Fedora Core operating system, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The split came from trying to better serve two diverse groups with one operating system. Fedora aimed at encouraging the open source development community interested in helping develop and test software that would one day go into Red Hat products; Red Hat Enterprise Linux aimed at the needs of paying customers who needed enterprise computing solutions. Fedora Core 4 is included on the DVD that comes with this book. You can install the entire distribution from this DVD, using descriptions in Appendix A and the Installing Fedora Core section later in this chapter. If you don t have a DVD drive, you can obtain the same software on four CDs by downloading them from the Internet (http://fedora .redhat.com/download) and burning them to CD as described in Appendix A. Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux both come from a base of code that stems from the Red Hat Linux legacy. The two distributions have different goals and audiences and may drift farther apart over time. For the time being, however, On the DVD-ROM C8H A P T E R . . . . In This Chapter Digging into Fedora Core Going forward with Fedora Core Installing Fedora Core . . . .
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Chapter 7 . Installing Linux 273 Installing from the Linux Bible CD or DVD With the knowledge you ve gained in this chapter, you re ready to select a Linux distribution to install. Read the descriptions of Linux distributions in the other chapters in Part II of this book. Each chapter includes an On the DVD or On the CD icon box that tells you if the distribution described there is on the DVD or, if it isn t, where you can get it. If you need more information about the DVD, Appendix A describes the contents of the CD and DVD. It also tells you which Linux distributions can be booted directly from the CD or DVD and which have to be burned to CD before you can boot or install the distribution. Summary While every Linux distribution includes a different installation method, there are many common activities you need to do, regardless of which Linux system you install. For every Linux system, you need to deal with issues of disk partitioning, network configuration, and boot loaders. Linux Bible 2006 Edition includes a DVD and a CD with several different Linux systems you can install. If you prefer, you can instead download and burn your own CDs or DVDs to install Linux. If you go the route of burning your own CDs, this chapter helps you find Linux distributions you can download and describes tools you can use to verify their contents. . . .
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272 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution . Set the host name This is the name identifying your computer within your domain. For example, if your computer were named baskets in the handsonhistory.com domain, your full host name may be baskets. handsonhistory.com. You can either set the domain name yourself (manually) or have it assigned automatically, if that information is being assigned by a DHCP server (automatically via DHCP). . Gateway This is the IP number of the computer that acts as a gateway to networks outside your LAN. This typically represents a host computer or router that routes packets between your LAN and the Internet. . Primary DNS This is the IP address of the host that translates computer names you request into IP addresses. It is referred to as a Domain Name System (DNS) server. You may also have Secondary and Tertiary name servers in case the first one can t be reached. (Most ISPs will give you two DNS server addresses.) Configuring Other Administrative Features Depending on which Linux install you are using, there are other types of information you will be asked to enter. These might involve: . Firewall Most Linux distributions these days use iptables to configure firewalls. Older Linux systems use ipchains. When you configure a default firewall, you typically choose which ports will be open to outside connections on your system (although there are many other things a firewall can be configured to do as well). The iptables firewall facility is described in Chapter 18 when you configure a router/firewall. . Languages While Linux itself doesn t include support for lots of different languages, some Linux distributions (such as Fedora) and desktop environments (such as KDE) offer support for many different languages. Nearly all Linux distributions will let you configure language-specific keyboards. . Root password and additional user Every Linux system that uses passwords will have you add at least the root user s password when you install Linux. Some distributions will require that you add at least one additional non-root user as well. Besides the features just mentioned, every distribution needs to have some initial configuration done before you have a fully functional Linux system. See Chapter 4 for information on basic administrative tasks for Linux.
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Chapter 7 . Installing Linux 271 1. Configure the /etc/lilo.conf file as described in the Booting Your Computer with LILO section. 2. As root user from a Terminal window, type the following: # lilo 3. The new Master Boot Record is written, including the entries in /etc/lilo.conf. 4. Reboot your computer. You should see the LILO boot screen. To change your boot loader from LILO to GRUB, do the following: 1. Configure the /boot/grub/grub.conf file as described in the Booting Your Computer with GRUB section. 2. You need to know the device on which you want to install GRUB. For example, to install GRUB on the master boot record of the first disk, type the following as root user from a Terminal window: # grub-install /dev/hda The new Master Boot Record is written to boot with the GRUB boot loader. 3. Reboot your computer. You should see the GRUB boot screen. Configuring Networking If you are connecting your computer to an Ethernet LAN that has a DHCP server available, you probably don t need to do anything to start up automatically on your LAN and even be connected to the Internet. However, if there is no DHCP server on your LAN and you have to configure your TCP/IP connection manually, here is the information you will probably be prompted for during Linux installation: . IP address If you set your own IP address, this is the four-part, dot-separated number that represents your computer to the network. How IP addresses are formed and how you choose them is more than can be said in a few sentences (see Chapter 5 for a more complete description). An example of a private IP address is 192.168.0.1. . Netmask The netmask is used to determine what part of an IP address represents the network and what part represents a particular host computer. An example of a netmask for a Class C network is 255.255.255.0. Applying this netmask to an IP address of 192.168.0.1, for example, the network address would be 192.168.0 and the host address 1. Because 0 and 255 can t be assigned to a particular host, that leaves valid host numbers between 1 and 254 available for this local network. . Activate on boot Some Linux install procedures ask you to indicate if you want the network to start at boot time (you probably do if you have a LAN).
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270 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution /boot/boot.message file and add the following words to that file: Choose linux, new, or dos. To have that message appear before the boot prompt, add the following line to /etc/lilo.conf: message=/boot/boot.message All per-image options begin with either an image= line (indicating a Linux kernel) or other= (indicating some other kind of operating system, such as Windows XP). The per-image options apply to particular boot images rather than to all images (as global options do). Along with the image or other line is a label= line, which gives a name to that image. The name is what you select at boot time to boot that image. Here are some of the options that you can add to each of those image definitions: . lock This enables automatic recording of boot command lines as the defaults for different boot options. . alias=name You can replace name with any name. That name becomes an alias for the image name defined in the label option. . password=password You can password-protect all images by adding a password option line and replacing password with your own password. The password would have to be entered to boot any of the images. . restricted This option is used with the password option. It indicates that a password should be used only if command-line options are given when trying to boot the image. For Linux kernel images, there are specific options that you can use. These options let you deal with hardware issues that can t be autodetected, or provide information such as how the root file system is mounted. Here are some of the kernel image-specific options: . append Add a string of letters and numbers to this option that need to be passed to the kernel. In particular, these can be parameters that need to be passed to better define the hard disk when some aspect of that disk can t be autodetected. For example: append= hd=64,32,202 . ramdisk Add the size of the RAM disk that you want to use in order to override the size of the RAM disk built into the kernel. . read-only Mount the root file system read-only. It is typically remounted read-write after the disk is checked. . read-write Mount the root file system read/write. Changing Your Boot Loader If you don t want to use the GRUB boot loader, or if you tried out LILO and want to switch back to GRUB, it s not hard to change to a different boot loader on Linux distributions that support both boot loaders. To switch your boot loader from GRUB to LILO, do the following:
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Chapter 7 . Installing Linux 269 After you change lilo.conf, you then must run the lilo command for the changes to take effect. You may have different boot images for kernels that include different features. Here is the procedure for modifying the lilo.conf file: 1. Copy the new image from the directory in which it was created (such as /usr/src/kernels/ 2.6.12-1.1398_FC4-i386/arch/i386/boot) to the /boot directory. Name the file something that reflects its contents, such as zImage-2.6.z13-1.1526_FC4-i386. 2. Add several lines to the /etc/lilo.conf file so that the image can be started at boot time if it is selected. For example: image=/boot/zImage-2.6.13-1.1526_FC4-i386 label=new 3. Type the lilo -t command (as root user) to test that the changes were okay. 4. Type the lilo command (with no options) for the changes to be installed. To boot from this new image, either select new from the graphical boot screen or type new and press Enter at the LILO boot prompt. If five seconds is too quick, increase the timeout value (such as 100 for 10 seconds). Options that you can use in the /etc/lilo.conf file are divided into global options, per-image options, and kernel options. There is a lot of documentation available for LILO. For more details on any of the options described here or for other options, you can see the lilo.conf manual page (type man lilo.conf) or any of the documents in /usr/share/doc/lilo*/doc. A few examples follow of global options that you can add to /etc/lilo.conf. Global options apply to LILO as a whole, instead of just to a particular boot image. You can use the default=label option, where label is replaced by an image s label name, to indicate that a particular image be used as the default boot image. If that option is excluded, the first image listed in the /etc/lilo.conf file is used as the default. For example, to start the image labeled new by default, add the following line to lilo.conf: default=new Change the delay from 5 seconds to something greater if you want LILO to wait longer before starting the default image. This gives you more time to boot a different image. To change the value from 5 seconds (50) to 15 seconds (150), add the following line: delay=150 You can change the message that appears before the LILO prompt by adding that message to a file and changing the message line. For example, you could create a
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