Migrating from Windows to Linux Written By Justin Browning
Email: judstin1@bigpond.net.au Document Revision 1.00 This guide is formatted for easy printing. Table of Contents:
With the ever-growing hassles of Microsoft Windows, more and more people are deciding to switch over to Linux or wanting to see what Linux is all about. It is the conception that installing and using Linux is a difficult task and only really managed by highly skilled computer nerds, but in actual fact, installing and using Linux is no harder than using Windows. My theory is… ”If you can spend hours on end dealing with Windows' crashes and removing spyware, then you'll have the skills to operate Linux”. Linux is a very powerful operating system and has been said that is can perform” up to 90-95% of what Windows can do” . So with that said, most of what you are currently using Windows for, you will be able to still do under Linux. So, you are currently running Windows and want to change to the Open Source world of Linux. Linux is not just 1 operating system; there are hundreds of them typically called Distributions . It is important to choose the distribution that is right for you, with many catering to differing purposes such as workstations, servers, etc. A list of commonly used Linux Distributions suited for our purposes are: • Fedora Core (Formerly Red Hat) • Debian • SuSE These distributions have a very clear and easy installation process, all using graphical installation setups (more advanced distros are setup with a command line interface). Most modern linux operating systems can be downloaded off the internet for free or bought for a small fee. A great place to find more information and to download the CD .ISO's, check out http://www.linuxiso.org/. Differences Between Windows and Linux: Being a seasoned Windows user, you have become familiar with concepts such as the taskbar, start menu and drives being refered to as C: drive or D: drive. Linux does still contain these aspects of windows that you have become acustomed to, but work in a slightly different way. As with drives in Windows, they are accessed by way of letters such as c, d, e and so on, but with the filesystem structure Linux uses, these are accessed slightly different, especially removable media such as CD-ROM's. The drive in which your Windows installation is installed to would be drive C, but in Linux, your system will be installed to / which is known as root. Also, the / is not a physical hard drive in your computer like C: in Windows is. The / is a "mount point" in which a drive can be accessed. Think of a mount point as a folder where which ever device is attached to it, can be accessed from it. For more information on Linux File Systems, visit http://www.novell.com/documentation/suse91/suselinux-adminguide/html/apas02.html Another thing that a new Linux user should be aware of is the idea of multiple users. Windows has support for multiple users, but it is nowhere as important as it is in Linux. In Linux, you have a user kind of like the Windows Administrator user which is called ROOT. The Root user has permissions to access ANYTHING on the PC, regardless of ownership. With this power, the root can also change system settings, modify boot options and so on. Section 1: Backing up Files & Setting up Hard Disks Backing up Files: It is important to back up your files for use later when you have your Linux Operating System running. Most commonly used methods for backing up large amounts of data include: • 2nd Hard Drive • CD-R (700MB CD) You will want your backed up files to be easily accessible so when your Linux installation is complete and you are ready to start using it, you can easily copy your files over to your newly created linux partition. Setting up Hard Disks: Since you still have Windows installed, it might be a good idea to resize your Windows partition and give yourself a little free (unpartitioned space) to work with during the Linux Setup. A great program to do this with is PowerQuest Partition Magic or Paragon Partition Resizer. Most people will tell you "Why do that when the Linux Installation will do that for me?" That is true. The Linux installation will be able to automatically resize your partitions for you, but I think it's a good idea to have your drive ready to go before your start. Resizing your partiton is something you want to get right. You don't want to be in the Linux setup and start resizing, only to find you didn't do it right, and end up loosing your Windows Partiton. So I always make sure that I've given myself free space to work with before proceeding, just to be safe. Section 2: Getting Started with the Linux Installation: Now that you have backed up all of your data you wish to keep, lets move onto the Linux Installation.
To be able to boot your computer with the Linux Installation CD-ROM/s, you will need to tell your computer that you want to boot from your CD-ROM Drive First. Different motherboard's BIOS's are different, but you will usually be able to find this setting under --> ADVANCED BIOS FEATURES --> or simply the BOOT menu. Once the CD-ROM has been set to 1st bootable device, go back and SAVE CHANGES to CMOS. Your computer will restart. Section 3: The Linux Installation: For the purpose of this guide, as I regularly install Fedora Core 3 on my PC, I will be taking you through the installation process for the Fedora Core 3 (formerly Redhat) Linux Distribution. Most modern linux distributions have similar installations so I wouldn't worry too much if you are installing another distribution other than Fedora. Install Screen: Main Installation Screen: Language Selection: Keyboard Selection: Mouse Configuration: Installation Type:
What these four options do is they install the default packages that you would normally use for that type of computer configuration. For example, the Personal Computer option will have packages such as Office & Productivity, games, Internet, etc installed. The one thing with selecting the default package installations (Personal Computer, Workstation or Server) is that you limit yourself to what you are installing onto your system. For the most flexibility, you should select CUSTOM as your installation type. This way, you will be able to install which ever packages you like, and leave the ones out that you would not use at all. For our purposes here, we will select CUSTOM. Select CUSTOM, then click NEXT. Disk Partitioning: Ok, as you can see, we have a list of all our drives and their partitions. A thing to note is that each physical hard drive in linux is given the name HDX. So your first hard drive would be HDA, your second hard drive would be HDB and so on. HDA1 refers to the 1st partition on the first hard drive. HDB2 refers to the 2nd partition on the 2nd hard drive (just to give you an understanding!). You will now be back to the Disk Partitioning screen as we saw before. As you can see, we have our 2 newly created partitions, 1 / partition and 1 SWAP partition. When you can see these 2 new partitions, select NEXT. Boot Loader: The default OS that will load at the moment is our Windows partition. We want to make Fedora load as the default when we start our computer so we will click the checkbox next to FEDORA, and that will select our Linux partition to boot first. Simple enough! Once that's done, click NEXT. Network Configuration: Firewall Configuration: Timezone & City Selection: Set Root Password Screen: For now, choose a password for the ROOT user, one that is easy to remember. When that has been done, click NEXT to continue. Package Selection Screen: To save time explaining what each package is for (its pretty obvious anyway by the name) I've listed all the packages availiable along with the selections that I believe we will need.
Ready to Install Screen: The installation of Linux can be quite lengthy so be prepared for a bit of a wait, a typical linux installation can take anywhere from 1 to 2 hours, depending on how fast your computer is. If you have a really fast computer, it could only take 10 mins. It also depends on how many software packages you are installing. When everything has finished installing, a screen will be displayed saying "Congratulations, you have successfully installed Fedora Core 3 to your system..." the usually thing you see when you install a new operating system. Thats it, well done. You've successfully installed Linux to your machine. When you reboot your computer after the installation has completed, linux will begin to load, ready for you to start exploring the wonderful world of crash free operating systems (you will really come to hate windows once you get familiar with linux its not funny). If some things are still a little unclear, I stumbled across a great video clip released by Tomshardware.com which outlines the installation process, as well as how to use your new system. They also have many other videos on other aspects of linux from using the desktop, to installing apps, a very useful resource. Other video clip sources released by Toms Hardware Guide: Setting up and Installing Linux - Video 1 - Toms Hardware Guide (very useful) |