)
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| JUS A MINUTE |
If your attempt to create the partition fails for some reason, an error window pops up, explaining what the error is. More than likely the error is that Disk Druid could not allocate the disk space for the drive currently and you will need to edit the partition to be smaller or make other alterations to accommodate the partition. |
Once you're done selecting the new partitions for your drive, select Ok or F12 and confirm that you want to make the changes. The install goes to the next stage.
Figure 2.8.
It's a good idea to
have Linux check for
bad blocks during
formatting.
Once the partitions have been created, the install program searches for swap partitions. If it doesn't find any it will warn you, and you can go back to the previous step of partitioning the drives and set up a section to be swapped. If one or more swap spaces were detected, a screen, shown in Figure 2.8, asks which partitions you wish to use for swap. Select the check boxes of the partitions you want to use, and also select whether or not you want to check for bad blocks when it does the swap formatting. Once you are ready to continue, choose Ok.
Once the swap space has been selected, the next screen brings up a dialog box of the Linux Native partitions you need to format. You need to format any new partitions you created in the install process, and you should reformat any old partitions from previous Linux installs that do not contain data you want to keep.
Toggle the checkbox for each partition you want to format, and toggle whether you want to check for bad blocks during the format.
The next stage of the install is to select which packages you want on your Linux Box.
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Figure 2.9.
This dialog box gives
you a list of packages
you can install.
)
A screen, shown in Figure 2.9, asks which components you would like to install on your machine. These components are sets of packages that work together or are similar in nature. The X Window System is all of the packages that give most of the X functionality (server, basic libraries, window manager, and some clients). Adding the X Games package installs various amusements.
If you want to install a minimal base 50 megabyte system, you need to unselect everything that has been auto-selected.
Figure 2.10.
Selecting individual
packages for installation.
Not recommended
for beginners.
)
For the person wanting to fine-tune the items in the component listings, you can select individual packages by toggling the so named switch. If chosen, another screen, shown in Figure 2.10, enables you to pick and choose which sub-packages you want to install. A scrolling menu of all the package groups available is displayed, and you can select or deselect any package inside of a grouping. In selecting or deselecting individual packages, the install program may ask you to either choose them again or will need to install other packages. This is due to the fact that other packages may depend on the un-selected package to properly work.
Finally, in this mode, you also can get more information on what each package contains or is supposed to do, by pressing the F1 key. To continue onto the next stage of the install, tab over to the Ok button and the installation begins.
Once any dependency issues have been resolved, the installation program lets you know that a complete listing of packages installed will be put in the /tmp/install.log file. Press Enter to continue on to the next stage. This stage is where each of the partitions that you chose previously to be formatted have new file systems placed upon them. Packages are now installed. You can follow the progress in the Install Status window.
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This final section of the chapter covers the items needed to finish the install and get your Linux system booted. You still need the pre-planning pad of paper.
The program probes your system for a mouse, and if it finds one, indicates the type and port that the mouse is connected to. Depending on the mouse, you may be asked for the number of buttons the mouse has, what protocol it uses, and if you need your 2-button mouse to emulate a 3-button model.
| JUST MINUTE |
After the install has occurred, if you need to change the values for the mouse, you can use the program /usr/sbin/mouseconfig. |
The next window that comes up asks you about the X Window server that you want to run. The configuration of X Window is detailed more in Hour 3, "Configuring the X Window System." However, this section walks you through a quick rundown so you can finish the initial installation.
Scroll down the list of video cards listed and try to find the card that is in your machine. One thing to note is that video cards, like cars, may have brand names very similar to one another, but the items under the hood (chipset in the case of the card) can be very different. If you can't find a card that matches what you have in your machine, choose the Generic VGA compatible card that every video card should be able to emulate. Once a card has been selected, the appropriate X server will be installed onto your machine.
The next screen tries to determine the model of monitor you have. It is very important that you select a monitor that matches your model exactly. If your model isn't listed, you need to choose custom and fill in the values that were researched earlier for your monitor.
| CAUTION |
Entering incorrect values for your monitor can cause damage to the monitor. The author has smoked a monitor in the past by putting the wrong model's data into the settings. |