Mandrakesoft Mandrakelinux user guide
Discovering Mandrakelinux
Mandrakelinux 10.1
http://www.mandrakesoft.com
Discovering Mandrakelinux: Mandrakelinux 10.1
Published September 2004
Copyright © 2004 Mandrakesoft SA
by Camille Bégnis, Christian Roy, Fabian Mandelbaum, Roberto Rosselli del
Turco, Marco De Vitis, Alice Lafox, John Rye, Wolfgang Bornath, Funda
Wang, Patricia Pichardo Bégnis, Debora Rejnharc Mandelbaum, Mickael
Scherer, Jean-Michel Dault, Lunas Moon, Céline Harrand, Fred Lepied,
Pascal Rigaux, Thierry Vignaud, Giuseppe Ghibò, Stew Benedict, Francine
Suzon, Indrek Madedog Triipus, Nicolas Berdugo, Thorsten Kamp, Fabrice
Facorat, Xiao Ming, and Snature
Legal Notice
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Front-cover texts
Mandrakesoft October 2004
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/
Copyright © 1999-2004 by Mandrakesoft S.A. and Mandrakesoft Inc.
Tools Used in The Making of This Manual
This manual was written in XML DocBook. The set of files involved were managed using
Borges (http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/doc/project/Borges/). The XML source files
were processed by xsltproc, openjade and jadetex using a customized version of Norman
Walsh’s stylesheets. Screen shots were taken using xwd or GIMP and converted with convert
(from the ImageMagick package). All these programs are free software and are available in
your Mandrakelinux distribution.
Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1. About Mandrakelinux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1. Contacting the Mandrakelinux Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2. Join the Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.3. Subscribe to Mandrakeonline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4. Purchasing Mandrakesoft Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.5. Contribute to Mandrakelinux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. About this Quick-Startup Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
I. Installing Mandrakelinux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1. Installation Warning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. Before Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
2.1. Configuring your BIOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2. Creating a Floppy Boot Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3. Supported Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3. Installation with DrakX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.1. The Mandrakelinux Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.2. Choosing your Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.3. License Terms of the Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.4. Installation Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.5. Configuring the Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.6. Partitioning Your Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.7. Multiple CD-ROM Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.8. Root Password. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.9. Adding a User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.10. Installing a Bootloader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.11. Checking Miscellaneous Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.12. Installing Updates from the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.13. It’s Over! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.14. How to Uninstall Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
II. Discover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4. Migrating to Linux from Windows®and Mac OS®X. . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
4.1. Where’s my...? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.2. A Brave New World! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
5. Linux for Beginners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.2. The Boot-Loader Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.3. Getting Ready for your Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.4. Beginning your Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
v
5.5. Using your Graphical Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.6. Logging Out of your Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
6. Where to Get Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
6.1. Mandrakelinux-Specific Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
6.2. GNU/Linux Useful Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
III. Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
7. Using KDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
7.1. Discovering the K Desktop Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
7.2. Personalizing your Desktop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
7.3. KDE Sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
8. Konqueror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
8.1. Managing your Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
8.2. Browsing the Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
9. Writing E-mails with KMail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
9.1. Configuring KMail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
9.2. KMail’s Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
9.3. Composing a Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
10. Office Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
10.1. Word Processor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
10.2. Spreadsheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
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List of Tables
8-1. Konqueror Sidebar Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
8-2. Konqueror’s Web Browser Tool Bar Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
9-1. KMail’s Toolbar Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
9-2. Message-Compose Toolbar Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
10-1. Suggested Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
List of Figures
2-1. The Rawwrite Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3-1. Very First Installation Welcome Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3-2. Available Installation Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3-3. Choosing the Default Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5-1. The Mandrakefirsttime Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5-2. The Login Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
5-3. The KDE Desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5-4. KDE File Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5-5. KDE’s Virtual Desktop Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
7-1. The KDE Desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
7-2. The KDE Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
7-3. Changing KDE’s Color Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
7-4. Changing KDE’s Background Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
7-5. Available Screen Resolutions List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
7-6. Accept New Resolution Settings? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
8-1. Konqueror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
8-2. Konqueror as a Web Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
8-3. Konqueror’s Bookmarks Manager Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
8-4. Konqueror’s Browser Tabs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
8-5. Plugins Settings under Konqueror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
9-1. Setting General User Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
9-2. Setting the Outgoing Mail Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
9-3. Configuring a POP3 Mail Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
9-4. Mail Client Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
9-5. The Message-Compose Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
10-1. OpenOffice.org Writer’s Main Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
10-2. Rows, Columns and Cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
10-3. Simplifying Data Entry Using Auto-Completion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
10-4. Using a Function in a Formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
10-5. Choosing the Chart Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
10-6. A 3D Chart Inside the Spreadsheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
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viii
Preface
1. About Mandrakelinux
Mandrakelinux is a GNU/Linux distribution supported by Mandrakesoft S.A.
which was born on the Internet in 1998. Its main goal was and still is to
provide an easy-to-use and friendly GNU/Linux system. Mandrakesoft’s two
pillars are open source and collaborative work.
1.1. Contacting the Mandrakelinux Community
The following are various Internet links pointing you to various Mandrakelinuxrelated sources. If you wish to know more about the Mandrakesoft company,
connect to our web site (http://www.mandrakesoft.com/). You can also
check out the Mandrakelinux distribution web site (http://www.mandrakelinux.
com/) and all its derivatives.
Mandrakeexpert (http://www.mandrakeexpert.com/) is Mandrakesoft’s support platform. It offers a new experience based on trust and the pleasure of
rewarding others for their contributions.
We also invite you to subscribe to the various mailing lists (http://www.
mandrakelinux.com/en/flists.php3), where the Mandrakelinux community
demonstrates its vivacity and keenness.
Please also remember to connect to Mandrakesecure (http://www.mandrakesoft.
com/security). It gathers all security-related material about Mandrakelinux
distributions. You will find security and bug advisories, as well as security
and privacy-related articles. A must for any server administrator or user concerned about security.
1.2. Join the Club
Mandrakesoft offers a wide range of advantages through its Mandrakeclub
(http://www.mandrakeclub.com):
• download commercial software normally only available in retail packs,
such as special hardware drivers, commercial applications, freeware, and
demo versions;
1
Preface
• vote for and propose new software through a volunteer-run RPM voting
system;
• access more than 50,000 RPM packages for all Mandrakelinux distributions;
• obtain discounts for products and services on Mandrakestore (http://
store.mandrakesoft.com);
• access a better mirror list, exclusive to Club members;
• read multilingual forums and articles.
By financing Mandrakesoft through the Mandrakeclub you will directly
enhance the Mandrakelinux distribution and help us provide the best possible GNU/Linux desktop to our users.
1.3. Subscribe to Mandrakeonline
Mandrakesoft offers a very convenient way to keep your system up to date
automatically, keeping away bugs and security holes. Visit the Mandrakeonline Web site (https://www.mandrakeonline.net/) to learn more about this
service.
1.4. Purchasing Mandrakesoft Products
Mandrakelinux users may purchase products on-line through the Mandrakestore (http://store.mandrakesoft.com/). You will not only find Mandrakeli-
nux software, operating systems and “live” boot CDs (such as Move), but also
special subscription offers, support, third-party software and licenses, documentation, GNU/Linux-related books, as well as other Mandrakesoft goodies.
1.5. Contribute to Mandrakelinux
The skills of the many talented folks who use Mandrakelinux can be very useful in the making of the Mandrakelinux system:
• Packaging. A GNU/Linux system is mainly made of programs picked up
on the Internet. They have to be packaged in order to work together.
• Programming. There are many, many projects directly supported by Man-
drakesoft: find the one which most appeals to you and offer your help to
the main developer(s).
2
Preface
• Internationalization. You can help us in the translation of web pages,
programs and their respective documentation.
• Documentation. Last but not least, the manual you are currently reading
requires a lot of work to stay up-to-date with regard to the rapid evolution
of the system.
Consult the development projects (http://www.mandrakesoft.com/labs/) page to learn more about how you can contribute to the evolution of Mandrake-
linux.
2. About this Quick-Startup Guide
Welcome, and thank you for choosing Mandrakelinux! This Quick-Startup Guide will help you understand the installation basics of a GNU/Linux distri-
bution, give you pointers as to what you need to do before actually installing the Mandrakelinux operating system (OS), as well as initiate you to the
GNU/Linux environment.
We will first tell you about technical procedures you should follow (“Insta-
llation Warning”, page 5). This is not mandatory, but let us just say we highly
recommend that you follow these instructions! We will talk about data back-
up, scandisk, defrag, and the like.
We cover topics such as BIOS configuration, boot disks and supported hardware in “Before Installation”, page 7.
Then comes the chapter you have been waiting for: “Installation with DrakX”,
page 13. This utility is designed to guide you during the installation process.
After that we discuss the Linux paradigm by comparing it to Windows®and
Mac OS®in “Migrating to Linux from Windows®and Mac OS®X ”, page 37.
The next chapter (“Linux for Beginners”, page 43) was written especially to
help out new users. In it we describe the first steps a new user must master
and we explain concepts such as “logging in/out”, the boot-loader menu,
and more.
We then guide you through a fairly exhaustive list of documentation sources
which you can consult in order to attain a better Linux knowledge (“Where
to Get Documentation”, page 53). A Mandrakelinux-specific section points to
numerous in-house resources which you can find on the Net.
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Preface
In the last chapter (Browsing the Web, page 69) we explain how to browse the
Internet with the Konqueror application.
The last part (Use) gives you a short description of the following daily applications:
• the KDE graphical environment in “Using KDE”, page 57;
• the Konqueror file manager and web browser (see Managing your Files, page
65, and Browsing the Web, page 69);
• the KMail mail client (“Writing E-mails with KMail”, page 77);
• as well as two of OpenOffice.org’s components (see Word Processor, page 85,
and Spreadsheet, page 89).
Enjoy your reading!
4
Chapter 1. Installation Warning
This installation guide only covers the most common steps of the installation process. If you plan on using Windows®as well as GNU/Linux by dualboot (meaning being able to access either OS on the same computer), please
note that it is easier to install Windows®before GNU/Linux. If Windows®is
already set up on your system, and you’ve never installed GNU/Linux before, DrakX –– Mandrakelinux’s installation program –– will have to resize your
Windows®partition. This operation can be harmful to your data. Therefore,
you must perform the following steps before proceeding:
• you must run scandisk on your Windows
®
computer. The resizing program can detect some obvious errors, but scandisk is better suited for this
task;
Before using scandisk (or defrag) make sure your screen saver and
any other program that might write to the hard disk is turned off.
To obtain even better results, you should run scandisk or defrag
from Windows®’s “Safe Mode”.
• For maximum data security, you should also run defrag on your partition.
This further reduces the risk of data loss. This isn’t mandatory, but it’s
highly recommended. Doing so will make the resizing process much faster
and easier.
• The ultimate insurance against problems is to always back up your data!
Of course, you should back up your data on another computer, upload
your back-ups on the web, on a friend’s computer, etc. Do not back it up
onto the computer on which you want to install GNU/Linux.
If neither scandisk nor defrag are installed within Windows®, please refer to
the Windows®documentation for instructions on installing them.
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Chapter 1. Installation Warning
NTFS Partitions. Windows®2000, NT and XP users should
remain careful: even though DiskDrake (through the ntfsresize application) is able to resize NTFS partitions, it’s highly
recommended that you back up your data before starting
the installation. Please see the Linux-NTFS site (http://
linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfs.html##2.6) as well
as the NTFS Resize FAQ (http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/
ezaz/ntfsresize.html) for more information on the subject.
Windows®users can also use Partition MagicTM(http://www.
symantec.com/partitionmagic/) to resize their NTFS partitions
under Windows®.
6
Chapter 2. Before Installation
This chapter covers issues which should be addressed before you start your
new Mandrakelinux installation. Make sure you read it completely since it will
save you a lot of time. Also back up your data (on a different disk to the one
you will install the system into) and plug in and turn on all your external
devices (keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, etc.).
2.1. Configuring your BIOS
The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) is used to find the device on which
the operating system is located and starts it up. It’s also used for the initial
hardware configuration and hardware low-level access.
The appearance of plug’n’play devices and their widespread use means that
all modern BIOSes can initialize these devices. In order for Linux to recognize
plug’n’play devices, your BIOS must be configured to initialize them.
Changing your BIOS’ settings is usually performed by holding down the
Del key (some BIOSes use the F1, F2, F10 or Esc keys instead) right after
the computer is switched on. Unfortunately, there are many types of BIOSes.
Therefore you will have to look for the appropriate option yourself. It’s often
called PNP OS installed (or Plug’n’Play OS installed). Set this option to No
and the BIOS will then initialize any plug’n’play devices, which helps Linux to
recognize them.
All recent systems can boot from a CD-ROM. Look for Boot sequence or First
boot device in the BIOS’ features setup, and set the CD-ROM as the first one.
If your system can’t boot from a CD-ROM you will need to use a floppy boot
disk.
If you want to use a parallel printer connected locally to your machine, make sure the parallel port mode is set to ECP+EPP (or at least
to one of ECP or EPP) and not to SPP, unless you have a really
old printer. If the parallel port is not set this way you might still be
able to print, but your printer will not be detected automatically
and you will have to configure it by hand. Also make sure the printer
is properly connected to your machine and powered on beforehand.
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Chapter 2. Before Installation
2.2. Creating a Floppy Boot Disk
If your system cannot boot from the CD-ROM you will need to create a
floppy boot disk. The CD-ROM contains all of the image files and utility
programs needed to do so.
The floppy boot disk images are in the CD-ROM’s install/images/ directory.
The following is a list of different images and their respective installation
methods:
cdrom.img
To install from a local IDE or SCSI CD-ROM drive.
network.img and network_drivers.img
To install from an NFS, FTP, HTTP repository on your local LAN or via
a PPPoE (DSL line) network connection. The network configuration of
the machine on which you wish to install may be manual or automatic.
Please make sure that you make both floppies.
pcmcia.img
Use this image if the installation medium is reached through a PCMCIA
card (network, CD-ROM, etc.).
Some PCMCIA devices now use common network drivers. If the
PCMCIA device does not work, try again with network.img and
network_drivers.img.
hd_grub.img
Use this image if you want to perform the installation from a hard disk.
You need to copy the contents of the CD onto the hard drive (either on a
FAT, ext2FS, ext3FS or ReiserFS partition). At the hd_grub customization
site (http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/hd_grub.cgi) there is a little tool
which may prove helpful for customizing your boot floppy.
The images/alternatives/* directory provides more or less the same boot
images, but with a different (older) kernel. Actually it provides a 2.4 kernel
(Mandrakelinux 10.1 onwards uses kernel 2.6) which might help you to get
started on older systems.
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Chapter 2. Before Installation
2.2.1. Creating a Boot Disk With Windows
In order to do so, you need to use the rawwrite program. You will find it in
the CD-ROM’s dosutils/ directory.
You may have noticed that there is a DOS version of the same program called
rawrite. In fact, this is the original version of the program. rawwrite is a
graphical front-end to it.
Start the program, as shown in figure 2-1.
Figure 2-1. The Rawwrite Program
Select the boot image to be copied and the target device. In almost every case,
the target device is the A: drive (that is, the first floppy disk drive).
Then if you have not already done so, insert an empty disk into your chosen
floppy drive and click on the Write button. When completed click on the
Exit button: now you have a floppy boot disk to install your Mandrakelinux
distribution.
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Chapter 2. Before Installation
2.2.2. Creating a Floppy Bo ot Disk From GNU/Linux
If you already have GNU/Linux installed (another version, or on another
machine, etc.), then carry out the following steps:
1. Mount the CD-ROM, if needed. Let us suppose that the mount point is
/mnt/cdrom.
2. Log in as root (to do so, open a terminal window, run the su command
and enter root’s password).
3. Insert an empty diskette into the floppy drive and type:
$ dd if=/mnt/cdrom/images/cdrom.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=512
When this operation is completed, your floppy boot disk will be ready
for use.
Replace /dev/fd0 with /dev/fd1 if you are using the second floppy
drive and, of course, the name of the image with the one you want.
2.3. Supported Hardware
Mandrakelinux can handle a large number of hardware devices, and the list is
far too long to be quoted in its entirety. Nevertheless some of the steps we
describe will help you to find out if your hardware is compatible. It will also
guide you in configuring some problematic devices.
You may also consult an up-to-date list of supported hardware on the
Mandrakelinux Hardware Database (http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/
hardware.php3) web site.
USB devices: support for USB 1.x and USB 2.0 is now extensive. Most peripherals are fully supported. You can obtain the list of supported hardware
on the Linux-USB device overview (http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/) site.
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Chapter 2. Before Installation
Legal Disclaimer: The Mandrakelinux Hardware Database contains
information about hardware devices which have been tested and/or
have been reported to function properly with Mandrakelinux. Due
to the wide variety of system configurations, Mandrakesoft cannot
guarantee that a specific device will work properly on your system.
2.3.1. Notes About Winmodems
winmodems are also called controller-less modems or software modems. Support for these peripherals is improving. Drivers do exist, but most of them
are in binary form and available only for newer kernel versions.
If you have a PCI modem, look at the output of cat /proc/pci run as the
root user. This will tell you the I/O port and the IRQ of the device. Then use
the setserial command (for our example, the I/O address is 0xb400, the
IRQ is 10 and the modem will be the 4thserial device) as follows:
setserial /dev/ttyS3 port 0xb400 irq 10 UART 16550A
Then try to query your modem using minicom or kppp. If it does not work,
you may have a software modem. If it does work, create the /etc/rc.d/rc.
setserial file and place the appropriate setserial command line in it.
If you happen to have a software modem in your machine, and you have a
Mandrakeclub account, you might find an RPM package that supports your
modem. You can also take a look at the linmodems (http://linmodems.
org/) web site.
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Chapter 2. Before Installation
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Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX
3.1. The Mandrakelinux Installer
With the Mandrakelinux DrakX installation program, it doesn’t matter whether
you’re a newbie or a GNU/Linux guru. DrakX’s job is to provide you with a
smooth installation and an easy transition to Mandrakelinux’s latest version.
DrakX will work best if all of your hardware is connected to your
computer and powered on during the installation. Printers, modems,
scanners and joysticks are just a few examples of peripherals which
DrakX can automatically detect and configure as Mandrakelinux is
being installed.
Figure 3-1. Very First Installation Welcome Screen
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Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX
The first screen you see displays information and installation options (figure
3-1). Allowing the installation to continue will simply begin the installation
in normal or “linux” mode. Next we’ll go over some options and parameters
which you can pass to the installation program if you run into problems.
Pressing F1 will open a help screen (figure 3-2). Here are some useful options
to choose from:
Figure 3-2. Available Installation Options
• vgalo: if you have tried a default installation and didn’t see the graphical
interface (figure 3-3) you can try to run the installation in low resolution
mode. This happens with certain types of video cards. With Mandrakelinux
we give you a number of options to work around problems related to older
hardware. To try the installation in low resolution mode, type vgalo at the
prompt.
• text: if your video card is very old and the graphical installation doesn’t
work at all, you can always choose to install in text mode. Since all video
cards can display text, this is the “last resort” kind of installation. However
don’t worry: it’s unlikely that you’ll need this option.
• noauto: in some rare cases, your PC may appear to freeze or lock up during
the hardware detection phase. If that happens, adding the word noauto
as a parameter will tell the installation program to bypass hardware detection. With that option DrakX won’t scan for hardware. Therefore you
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Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX
will need to manually specify hardware parameters later in the installation process. The noauto parameter can be added to the previous modes,
so depending on your hardware you may have to specify:
boot: vgalo noauto
to perform a low resolution graphical installation without DrakX performing a hardware scan.
• kernel options: most machines don’t require specific kernel options. Due
to bugs in the design or in the BIOS, there have been a few cases of motherboards incorrectly reporting the amount of memory installed. If you need
to manually specify the amount of DRAM (which stands for Dynamic Random Access Memory) installed in your PC, use the mem= xxxM parameter.
For example, to start the installation in normal mode with a computer containing 256 MB of memory, your command line would look like this:
boot: linux mem=256M
Now let’s move on to the actual installation process. When the installer starts,
you will see a nice graphical interface (figure 3-3). On the left will be the various installation steps. The installation will occur in two phases: installation,
then configuration. The list on the left displays all the steps. The current step
is marked by a highlighted bullet.
Each step may present various screens. Surfing between those screens is made possible through the Next and Previous buttons. Additionally an Advanced
button may be available to show more advanced configuration options. Note
that most of the latter should only be handled by expert users. But there’s no
harm in looking at them!
The Help button will show explanations concerning the current installation step.
3.2. Choosing your Language
The first step is to choose your preferred language.
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Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX
Figure 3-3. Choosing the Default Language
Your choice of preferred language will affect the installer, the documentation,
and the system in general. First select the region you’re located in, then the
language you speak.
Clicking on the Advanced button will allow you to select other languages to
be installed on your workstation, thereby installing the language-specific files for system documentation and applications. For example, if Spanish users
are to use your machine, select English as the default language in the tree
view and Espa˜nol in the Advanced section.
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Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX
About UTF-8 (unicode) support: Unicode is a character encoding
intended to cover all existing languages. However full support for
it in GNU/Linux is still under development. For that reason, Mandrakelinux’s use of UTF-8 will depend on the user’s choices:
1. If you choose a language with a strong legacy encoding
(latin1 languages, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean,
Tha¨ı, Greek, Turkish, and most iso-8859-2 languages),
the legacy encoding will be used by default.
2. Other languages will use Unicode by default.
3. If two or more languages are to be installed, and those
languages are not using the same encoding, then Unicode
will be used for the whole system.
4. Finally, Unico de can also be forced for use throughout the
system at a user’s request by selecting the Use Unicode
by default option independently of which languages have
been chosen.
Note that you’re not limited to choosing a single additional language. You
may choose several, or even install them all by selecting the All languages
box. Selecting support for a language means translations, fonts, spell checkers, etc. will also be installed for that language. Make sure you select all
languages that are likely to be useful on the machine now, it may be difficult
to configure support for languages not chosen at install time at a later time.
To switch between the various languages installed on your system,
you can launch the localedrake command as root to change
the language used by the entire system. Running the command
as a regular user will only change the language settings for that
particular user.
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Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX
3.3. License Terms of the Distribution
Before continuing, you should carefully read the terms of the license. It covers the entire Mandrakelinux distribution. If you agree with all the terms it
contains, select Accept and click on Next. If not, clicking on Quit will reboot
your computer.
If you are curious about any technical changes which have occurred
in the distribution since the last release, you can click on the Release
Notes button to display them.
3.4. Installation Class
This step is activated only if an existing GNU/Linux partition has been found
on your machine.
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Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX
DrakX now needs to know if you want to perform a new installation or to
upgrade your existing Mandrakelinux system:
• Install. For the most part, this completely wipes out the old system. Ho-
wever, depending on your partitioning scheme, you can prevent some of
your existing data (particularly /home directories) from being overwritten.
If you wish to change how your hard drives are partitioned, or to change
the file system, you should use this option.
• Upgrade.This installation class allows you to update the packages currently
installed on your Mandrakelinux system. Your current partitioning scheme
and user data won’t be altered. Most of the other configuration steps remain available and are similar to a standard installation.
Using the“Upgrade”option should work fine on Mandrakelinux systems running version 9.2 or later. Performing an upgrade on versions prior to Mandrakelinux version 9.2 is not recommended.
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Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX
3.5. Configuring the Keyboard
This step only shows if your language settings do not match one
single keyboard. Otherwise, your keyboard map is automatically
selected.
Depending on the language you chose (Choosing your Language, page 15),
DrakX will automatically select a particular type of keyboard configuration.
Check that the selection suits you or choose another keyboard layout.
Also, you may not have a keyboard which corresponds exactly to your language: for example, if you are an English-speaking Swiss native, you may
have a Swiss keyboard. Or if you speak English and are located in Québec,
you may find yourself in the same situation where your native language and
country-set keyboard don’t match. In either case, this installation step will
allow you to select an appropriate keyboard from a list.
Click on the More button to be shown a list of supported keyboards.
If you choose a keyboard layout based on a non-Latin alphabet, the next dialog will allow you to choose the key binding which will switch the keyboard
between the Latin and non-Latin layouts.
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Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX
3.6. Partitioning Your Disk
You now need to decide where you want to install Mandrakelinux on your
hard drive. If your hard drive is empty or if an existing operating system is
using all the available space you will have to re-partition the drive. Basically,
partitioning a hard drive means to logically divide it up in order to create the
space required for your new Mandrakelinux system.
Because the process of partitioning a hard drive is usually irreversible and
can lead to data loss, partitioning can be intimidating and stressful for the
inexperienced user. Fortunately, DrakX includes a wizard which simplifies
this process. Before continuing with this step, read through the rest of this
section and above all, take your time.
Depending on the configuration of your hard drive, several options are available:
• Use free space. This option will perform an automatic partitioning of your
blank drive(s). If you use this option there will be no further prompts.
• Use existing partition. The wizard has detected one or more existing Linux
partitions on your hard drive. If you want to use them, choose this option.
You will then be asked to choose the mount points associated with each of
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Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX
the partitions. The legacy mount points are selected by default, and for the
most part it’s a good idea to keep them. You will also be asked to choose
the partitions to be formatted or preserved.
• Use the free space on the Windows partition. If Microsoft Windows
®
is insta-
lled on your hard drive, you might have to create free space for GNU/Linux.
To do so, you can delete your Microsoft Windows®partition and data (see
the “Erase entire disk” solution below) or resize your Microsoft Windows
FAT or NTFS partition. Resizing can be performed without the loss of
any data, provided you’ve previously defragmented the Windows®partition. Backing up your data is strongly recommended. Using this option
is recommended if you want to use both Mandrakelinux and Microsoft Win-
dows®on the same computer.
Before choosing this option, please understand that after this procedure,
the size of your Microsoft Windows®partition will be smaller then when
you started. You’ll have less free space under Microsoft Windows®to store
your data or to install new software.
• Erase entire disk. If you want to delete all data and all partitions present
on your hard drive and replace them with Mandrakelinux, choose this option. Be careful because you won’t be able to undo this operation after you
confirm.
®
If you choose this option, all data on your disk will be deleted.
• Remove Windows(TM). This option appears when the hard drive is enti-
rely taken by Microsoft Windows®. Choosing this option will simply erase
everything on the drive and begin fresh, partitioning everything from scratch.
If you choose this option, all data on your disk will be lost.
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