Installation of a workstation with the operating-system Linux** Fedora Core 3

Fedora Core 3 is the successor of the RedHat**-Linux**. It has a pretty good support for USB-devices and modern internet-access technologies (e.g. xDSL-modems).

The set-back is, that it needs a personal-computer with a good video-graphics-adaptor (VGA) as older models of VGA are no longer supported.

If you have an older model with a no longer supported VGA, there is an installation-instruction for RedHat**-Linux** 9; for the installation-instruction please follow this link.
For pretty weak machines (with Pentium I processors), there is an installation-instruction for RedHat**-Linux** 7.1; for the installation-instruction please follow this link.

All following instruction are for installing Linux** based on Fedora Core 3.

Select Graphic Mode for the installation:

Shortly after the boot-process from diskette or CD beginns, a selection for text-based or graphical-installation can be done.
As configuration-utilities need a graphic-user-interface, a suitable video-graphic-adapter has to be installed.
Therefore the following installation-instructions are for Graphic Mode.

Language Selection, Keyboard Configuration and Mouse Configuration:

Please select the appropriate values according to your configuration.

Installation Type:

This computer is powerful - particularly the RAM (random-access-memory) and the hard-disk-system are fast and of best quality.
To utilise all capabilities an avoid to waste capacity with not used functions Linux** will be installed as Custom System..

Disk Partitioning:

Select Manually partition with Disk Druid

Boot Loader Configuration:

Do not change the default values.

Network Configuration:
This option is not shown if the NIC (network interface card) is not detected during the installation-process.
In that case the instruction for 'Configure the Network Interface Card' apply after finishing the stardard-installation.

Activate on boot: Yes (check)

Then click the 'Edit'-Button and modify the following values:
Configure using DHCP: No (do not check)
Activate on boot: Yes (check)
IP Adress: enter the TCP-IP-address (use the TCP/IP-Address as described under NetBIOS- and TCP/IP-Setup of a workstation)
Netmask: 255.255.255.0

Set the hostname: manually (check this selection) and enter the hostname (use the NetBIOS-Name as described under NetBIOS- and TCP/IP-Setup of a workstation)

Gateway: 192.168.0.254
Primary DNS, Secondary and Tertiary DNS:
The TCP/IP-Addresses of the Domain-Name-Server of the Internet-Service-Provider (ISP).
For Austrian ISP these are:
for A-ON: 195.3.96.67, 195.3.96.68
for t-online: 194.25.2.129
for UTA: 195.70.224.61, 195.70.224.62

Firewall Configuration:

No firewall (check)

Do not change all other values.

N.B.: The protection of the internal network is done with the firewall installed at the Installation of the Router with Linux** for the connection to an Internet-Service-Provider.

Language Support Selection:

English(USA) (check)

N.B.: If necessary more than one language can be chosen.

Time Zone Selection:

System clock uses UTC: Yes (check)

Europe/Vienna (check) - or whereever the server is located ;-)

Set Root Password:

Choose a Root Password (for Administrator-functions).

N.B.: Passwords are case sensitive; so check if 'caps-lock' is enabled when you enter the Root Password.
My recomendation is, to use only lower case character for passwords.

Selecting Package Groups:

The following list comprises only those packages which have to be installed.

• X Window System
  all detail-packages

• GNOME Desktop Environment
  all detail-packages

• Editors
  all detail-packages

• Engineering and Scientific
  default detail-packages

• Graphical Internet
  firefox
  gftp
  thunderbird
  xchat

• OfficeProductivity
  ggv
  gpdf
  openoffice.org
  openoffice.org-i18n
  planner
  tetex-xdvi
  xpdf

• Sound und Video
  all detail-packages

• Authoring and Publishing
  all detail-packages

• Graphics
  all detail-packages

• Games and Entertainment ;-)
  all detail-packages

• Administration Tools
  all detail-packages

• System Tools
  all detail-packages

• Printing Support
  all detail-packages

After the completion of the copy-process, the PC restarts and the following configuration has to be done:

License Agreement:

Yes, I agree to the license agreement (check).

Date and Time:

Verify Date and Time and correct if neccessary.

Display:

Select the Monitor (if not auto-detected).
Select the Resolution.
Select the Color Depth.

System User:

Standard Users are defined by a script (); so leave the fields blank.

Sound Card:

Verify if the Sound Card was detected correctly.

Additional CDs:

Additional applications are not installed now.

The instructions for the standard-installation end here.
Installation-steps which have to be done manually are described in the following steps.

Under certain circumstances the TCP-/IP-address defined during standard-installation is not put to the configuration-file /etc/hosts.
If you do not find a line starting with the chosen TCP/IP-address (192.168.0.127 in this example), please insert the missing line.
Here is an example how the configuration-file /etc/hosts should look like :
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that requiere network functionality will fail
127.0.0.1       localhost.localdomain  localhost
192.168.0.127   entwicklung.javascout.biz   entwicklung

The above example assumes, that the TCP/IP--Hostname as described under NetBIOS- and TCP/IP-Setup of a workstation was entwicklung.javascout.biz .

Configure the Network-Interface-Card, setting the TCP/IP-Adresses and the Domain-Name-Services:

If the Network-Interface-Card (NIC) was not detected during the installation-process, a comfortable setup of the network-hardware and -configuration can be done by a graphical tool. This tool is started by selecting Applications - System Settings - Network .

Special procedure for notebooks (pc-card).

NIC-function is available after starting pc-card-services.
For this reason, NICs can not be detected during installation but are available after a restart of Linux.

Checking for a correct installation of the network:

If the drivers where installed correctly is shown during startup in the step
'Bringing up interface eth0' ([OK])

or
can be checked after a restart with the following command:.

modprobe eth0
dmesg | tail

There are shown the last lines of the log.
Unfortunately each driver logs its special message; but if the Hardware-ID of the Network-Interface-Card is shown (e.g. 0060 97 72 b0 93) it is a good sign.

Then correct setup of the own TCP/IP-Address can be checked with the following command.

ping 192.168.0.127 (where the TCP/IP-Address of the just installed machine must be used - if you did not take the one from the examples)

shows the result:

PING 192.168.0.127 (192.168.0.127) from 192.168.0.127 : 56(84) bytes of data
64 bytes from 192.168.0.127: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=2.0 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.127: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=1.3 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.127: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=1.1 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.127: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=0.9 ms

The 'Pinging' can be interrupted with the key-combination CTRL-C and thereafter a statistic is shown (example):

--- 192.168.0.127 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.9/1.2/2.0 ms

If the computer is already connected to a local area network (LAN), then the correct connection can be checked by 'Pinging' a known TCP/IP-Address of another computer connected to the LAN.

ping 192.168.0.1 (where the Operatins-System of the pinged computer must be running - of course)

shows the result:

PING 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) from 192.168.0.127 : 56(84) bytes of data
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=3.2 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=1.4 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=1.3 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=1.3 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=1.3 ms

The 'Pinging' can be interrupted with the key-combination CTRL-C and thereafter a statistic is shown (example):

--- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 1.3/1.7/3.2 ms

Further steps of installation:

Further steps of installation of a Router with Fedora-Core-3-Linux** are lined out in the following documents:

• Linux-Workstation - file-structure and users.

• Printer Setup under RedHat-Linux 9 or Fedora Core 3 - Setup of a local printer under GNOME

• Service-applications for a Linux-Workstation

• Business-applications for a Linux**-Workstation