Lab 4: Installing a Linux Distribution

The purpose of this lab is to install a Linux distribution on one of the four machines in The Shire (Lab 2504) given a set of specifications. If an installation has already been performed, you may remove existing Linux partitions with fdisk. Just make certain you are not on drive I; all installs should be done on drive II
Note: Choose "Custom" install so that you have the option to make the choices you need for this lab. If you choose "Workstation" or "Server" you won't have the ability to follow the instructions below. Once you have done this lab, I encourage you to install a different distribution of Linux to see the similarities and differences of various vendors. You might want to see what you get with a minimal install vs. a default istallation in terms of the packages that are installed.

Procedure

  1. Check out a Linux Distribution CD from whoever is tending the Lab. (CDs are in the CD Case in Room 2503). Be prepared to exchange a driver's license or id card for the CD you are checking out.
    You have a choice of 3 distributions:
    1. Redhat 7.1
    2. Mandrake 8.0
    3. Slackware 8.0
        Or bring in your own distribution e.g. RedHat 7.3 from the textbook.
  2. You will install on Disk II of one of The Shire machines. That means you will have to press the middle button on the drive panel before you turn on the machine. All four machines have been configured to boot from CD-ROM, so you will not have to make boot diskettes.
  3. The hardware configuration of each of these machines is that each has a primary master 4 GB hard drive, and a primary slave 4 GB IDE drive. The CD-ROM is a secondary master. The mice are Microsoft PS/2 Wheel mice that act as generic wheel mice. The monitors are AOC 7Glr, and the video card is an ATI Mach 64 Rage with 8MB of video RAM.
  4. Installation Specifications
    1. File System Layout
      • Windows-XP partition - you will dual boot with this partition;
        You may have to reduce the size of this partition with Partition Magic.
      • boot partition of 128 MB
      • root partition of 512 MB
      • usr partition of 2 GB
      • home partition of 512 MB
      • swap partition 256 MB
      • Make the boot partition the active partition
    2. Lilo Configuration
      • Dual boot with WIN-XP
      • Install Lilo in the boot sector of the Boot partition
      • Specify no special boot parameters
    3. Network Configuration
      • IP Address: 172.30.4.1xx where xx is your 2 digit station number
      • Netmask: 255.255.255.0
      • Gateway: 172.30.4.1
      • DNS Name Server: 207.62.187.54
      • The Network Interface Card is an Intel EtherExpress Pro 100
    4. Graphics Configuration
      • Boot into X Windows
      • Choose 800x600 Display Resolution
      • Choose 24-bit color if given the option.
      • Specify the correct video card and monitor type
    5. Account Configuration
      • Machine name should be as labeled on the computer box, (Frodo, Samwise, ...)
      • Root password: theshire
      • Make a guest account with password: penguin
      • Use password shadowing with MD5 encryption (the default)
    6. Miscellaneous
      • You should make an emergency boot disk!
      • Use the default package list for installing.
      • If you alter the /etc/lilo.conf file to complete your installation, you must compile it by running the command: lilo after editting it.

To turn in

Log in to your new installation as root and save the output of the following commands to a file called lab4:
  1. fdisk -l > lab4
  2. mount >> lab4
  3. cat /etc/lilo.conf >> lab4
  4. ifconfig >> lab4
  5. cat /etc/X11/XF86Config >> lab4
  6. cat /etc/passwd >> lab4
(These earlier versions of RedHat Linux do not have an anaconda-ks.cfg file!)
  Copy the lab4 file to the CIS191 account on opus.cabrillo.edu using the following command:
scp lab4 CIS191@opus.cabrillo.edu:lab4.logname
Note: you should have access to opus from the lab in room 2504.

Grading Rubric

4 points -
For setting up the partition table correctly on both master and slave disks
4 points -
For setting the mountpoints up correctly as specified in /etc/fstab
4 points -
For installing LILO on the boot sector of your boot partition
4 points -
Configuring the X Window system in 800x600 resolution with 24 bit color.
2 points -
For setting the network up with the proper IP addressm Netmask, Gateway and Name Server
2 points -
For adding the guest user account with password of penguin