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94Part I:Getting Your Feet Wet

tools to one another with different configurations, documentation, GUI trap- pings, installation procedures, and other bells and whistles. Even then, somegeneral-purpose distributions serve some markets better than others. Forexample, TurboLinux is popular in Japan, Red Flag Linux is the official choice inChina, and Conectiva is popular in Spanish-speaking countries. More special- purpose distributions exist as well. LiveCDs fall under this category, but eventhey fall into subcategories, with some of them (like Knoppix) serving the general-purpose segment, while others are fine-tuned as multimedia centers, system-rescue environments, and other cool specialist toys. To dig through themany distributions available, check out DistroWatch (www.distrowatch.org) and let your mouse do the walking through over three-hundred distributions. Ifyou can t find enough to choose from here, go to this site s Related Links sec- tion, and you can find plenty more. If you don t want to download and burn all this stuff and don t know any help- ful Linux geeks, you may want to look up a local Linux Users Group (LUG). You can find a list of LUGs worldwide, listed by geographic region, on theGLUE (Groups of Linux Users Everywhere) Web site: www.ssc.com:8080/ glue/groups. These folks are always happy to help the technologically chal- lenged. These user groups also regularly sponsor events, called demo days orinstall-fests,where you can bring your computer and get all the help you need. These events are usually lots of fun for computer enthusiasts hot- andcold-running caffeine and enough know-how to do just about anything with acomputer. 93Chapter 4: Installing Other Linux Distributions08_

Using LiveCDsAs I mention throughout this chapter (and book), LiveCDs(or bootable distri- butions) are versions of Linux that you can launch directly by rebooting a com- puter using a Live CD-ROM (or DVD-ROM). The beauty of these versions, from aLinux newbie s point of view, is that you can try something out without havingto actually install anything on your system. Old-timers love LiveCDs, too. If asystem is broken into, rebooting it with a LiveCD is a way of giving yourself a known good (undamaged) system to work from while repairing the damageon the computer itself. Also, many bootable distributions offer highly special- ized environments for particular tasks . . . but I m getting ahead of myself. You also need to keep in mind that LiveCDs tend to be slower than a tradi- tionally installed system. Everything has to run directly from the CD or DVD- ROM, after all. Make sure, too, that you re able save things if you need to. Doing so canrequire some planning, or at least a bit of thought see Chapter 21 for how toaccomplish this. When all else fails, I quickly configure the mail client and juste-mail attachments to myself. That s how I got those NTFS resizing images (seeChapter 2) from Knoppix over to my Fedora machine while writing this book! You also can usually access your real hard drive space from a bootable distri- bution, though whether it supports NTFS or not depends on the version. Knoppix does support NTFS, though it s best to use it as read-only. Another popular option with LiveCDs is to use portable storage like USB key- chains. That way, you can carry around your keychain and your bootable dis- tribution and have access to your preferred environment andyour data at thesame time. The important thing to know about USB storage is that Linux seesthese items as SCSI drives, so if you have to access them manually (seeChapter 11) you ll access them as SCSI partitions. For example, if you ve gotyour USB keychain plugged into the first SCSI slot, it would probably be/dev/sda1. Finally, not all LiveCDs work with all PCs. The cool thing is that if one doesn twork with yours, you just shrug and download another! Finding Even More LinuxMore than 200 different Linux distributions are available today, with newones being created every year while others fade from existence as the initialenthusiasm or funding behind them dwindles away. Many of these distribu- tions are general purpose, or at least similar purpose (full desktop, fullserver, and so on), and so provide similar base software and surrounding92Part I:Getting Your Feet Wet

Under Registration, it s up to you whether you want to register immedi- ately. You can always register later. You need to register in order to gettechnical support, so you ll probably want to register beforeyou run intotrouble. Registration also lets you download some of the programs avail- able in Xandros Networks (see the section Recognizing some Xandrosspecial features ) for free! When you reach the Finish screen, if you re on a network that s alreadyconnected to the Internet, click the Xandros Networks icon to updateyour system. This action makes sure that you ve got all the latest secu- rity and bug fixes. The updater is automatic. When your update is complete, you re left with the Xandros Networks screenin the foreground and the First Run Wizard in the background. Click the FirstRun Wizard icon on your lower panel to pull this dialog box to the front andthen click Finish to complete your first run process. You may get a messagethat your desktop has to be restarted. Click Yes, which logs you out of youraccount and restarts the GUI, bringing you back to a login prompt. About the various Xandros versionsXandros focuses on the desktop and has offerings for both home and busi- ness users. The free and commercial versions from Xandros include (at thetime of this writing): Xandros 2.5 Open Circulation Edition:A free version, slightly differentfrom the main commercial version, available through bittorrent, a P2Pfilesharing network popular with legitimate software distributors as away to get CD and DVD images quickly to their users. See www.xandros. com/products/home/desktopoc/dsk_oc_download_windows.htmlfor instructions. Xandros Desktop OS Version 2.5 Standard Edition: The primary homeuse version of the Xandros desktop. Xandros Desktop OS Version 2.5 Deluxe Edition:Includes additionalsoftware for interoperating with Windows and Windows software, includ- ing the ability to resize NTFS partitions. Xandros Desktop Version 2.5 Business Edition:Includes extra softwareon top of what you would get with the Deluxe Edition, which allowsXandros to better integrate as a desktop on a Windows network, alongwith Sun s StarOffice, the commercial product behind the OpenOffice. .000.orgsuite covered in Chapter 17. However, Xandros 3 may well beavailable by the time you purchase this book. If so, it s well worth check- ing out. 91Chapter 4: Installing Other Linux Distributions08_

24.Enter your full name in the Full Name text box. This name will, for example, as the full name field in your e-mail. 25.Enter your password in both password text boxes and click OK tocreate the account. 26.Click Next to proceed. The Installation Summary dialog box appears. 27.Inspect the summary. If everything is as it should be, click Finish. Otherwise, click Back as much as you need to in order to fix thingsand then work forward to this step once again. Up until this point, nothing has been changed on your computer. Whenyou click Finish, your installation actually begins. After it s done, theInstallation Complete dialog box appears. 28.If you want to create a boot floppy disk (recommended), then put afloppy disk in your floppy drive and click Create. Otherwise, go toStep 29.29.Click Exit once you re ready to reboot the computer into Xandros. 30.Eject the CD when prompted and press Enter to reboot. When the Xandros boot screen appears, you can either select theXandros option and press Enter, or wait until it starts up on its own. As with the other distributions covered in this book, Xandros has a numberof post-installation setup tasks for you to walk through. When you reach thelogin prompt, use your regular user account, which should automatically beselected. Type your password and click Login (or press Enter) to log into theaccount and start the First Run Wizard. Some notes for walking through thisprocess: Under Regional Settings, Locale is just for your language issues. It doesn thave anything to do with your time zone and whatnot. Also, unless youknow for a fact that you want a particular item in Character set, just stickwith what you re assigned. It s chosen based on your language, because acharacter set is literally the characters you have available to type. It s thesame with keyboard layout. You don t have to set up your printers right now, but if you want to, goahead in the Printers dialog box. I look closer at printers in Chapter 6. Under System Behavior, you re choosing a combination of look and feelelements (will it look like Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Linux referredto as KDE here rather than Linux, you find out more about KDE inChapter 6 , and so on?) along with how the system actually behaves. My coverage of Xandros in this book sticks to the default Xandros setting unless otherwise stated, but feel free to play with yours! 90Part I:Getting Your Feet Wet

17.Click Next to continue your installation. The Administration Configuration dialog box appears. 18.Type your Administrator (root) password in both of the password textboxes. See Chapter 3 for a discussion on safe use of the root account. 19.In case your computer needs to integrate with a Windows network, enter a name for it in the Computer Name text box. You re typing the NETBIOS name if you re familiar with those. Follow therules specified in that part of the dialog box. Traditionally, a NETBIOSname is in all capital letters. 20.Click the Make User Home Folders Private checkbox. This feature not only make it easier for each user to keep data private, but helps the layout conform to what Red Hat uses in Fedora, making iteasier for this book to make sense for you. 21.Click Next to proceed. The User Account Configuration screen appears. 22.Click the Add button to create a normal user s account. The Add/Edit User Account dialog box appears (see Figure 4-12). Because you want to avoid the Administrator (root) account as much aspossible (see Chapter 3), this regular account is the one you use most ofthe time. 23.Enter your login name in the User Name text box. Your login name might be something like bob. Figure 4-12: TheXandros 2.5Add/EditUserAccountdialog box. 89Chapter 4: Installing Other Linux Distributions08_

10.If you want to give a partition over to Xandros, then click that parti- tion in the listing. For an entire hard drive, you see them listed as IDE2, IDE2, and so on (orSCSI1, SCSI2, and so on). 11.Click Next to proceed. The Disk Configuration Summary dialog box appears. 12.Examine the summary and click Back if something s wrong, or Next ifyou re ready to move on. The Network Connection Configuration dialog box appears. 13.Select the network device you want to use. Typically, a desktop machine has only an Ethernet card, modem, or wire- less card. 14.If you re supposed to use DHCP, just click Next and skip to Step 18. Otherwise, click Edit. The Edit Interface dialog box opens. 15.If you re using a dial-up modem, select Do Not Configure NetworkInterface, click OK, and skip to Step 17. Otherwise, select StaticAddress if you were told an IP address to use. Modem setup is covered in Chapter 8.16.Fill in the IP Address and Subnet Mask fields as they were given toyou by your ISP and then click OK. Figure 4-11: TheXandros 2.5Disk Con- figurationdialog box. 88Part I:Getting Your Feet Wet

6.Select the software group you want to install. Unless you re short on space, you might enjoy choosing the CompleteDesktop because it gives you all the software if you want, chooseComplete to start with and then start removing items by clicking theircheckmarks. Or choose Custom and then start adding things. When youclick an item in the lower list, you see a description on the bottom of thescreen. If you do choose Complete, do look in the Servers section and removeApache (the Web server) from the list, along with FTP Server unlessyou know for a fact that you intend to use an FTP server to let peopleget files. 7.After you finish choosing your software, click Next. The Disk Configuration screen appears. 8.Select the disk configuration option that best represents what youneed to do. Handily, in some versions, you can resize Windows partitions, evenNTFS ones. I assume that you have a free hard drive that you want to usefor Linux, just to be different from the other sections in this chapter, so Iassume that you selected Take Over Disk Or Partition. 9.When you re ready to proceed, click Next. The Disk Configuration dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 4-11. Figure 4-10: TheXandros 2.5SoftwareSelectionscreen. 87Chapter 4: Installing Other Linux Distributions08_

If you decide to purchase Xandros, you have a number of options: Purchase it online and have a physical box shipped. Purchase a boxed set in a store. You can find a list of places that carryXandros by going to www.xandros.com/partners/channelpartners.html. Purchase a computer with Xandros pre-installed (www.xandros.com/ partners/oempcs.html).You also have a free option. See the section About the various Xandros versions for more information. Xandros isalso particularly designed to make the transition from Windows to Linuxas simple as possible. As such, you can expect to find the layout and otherissues to be similar to those in Windows XP. One handy item Xandros hasintroduced is the Xandros Networks tool, which is accessible from thedesktop as an icon you can double-click. Xandros Networks lets you seethe latest news from Xandros, browse through an online store for soft- ware, some of which is free to registered users. Downloading and installa- tion through Xandros Networks requires just a few clicks. You can purchase, through Xandros Networks, a Premium Membership to getaccess to discounts, early access to software, and more. Installing XandrosAgain, because I cover the full versions of everything else, I cover the fullDeluxe Xandros Desktop OS Version 2.5 installation here. To install this version: 1.Place the CD-ROM into your CD-ROM drive. 2.Reboot your computer. If your computer ignores the CD, then you need to change your BIOS sothat it looks at the CD-ROM drive before your hard drive(s). (SeeChapters 2 and 3 for more information.) If your computer sees the CDbut seems to have problems launching the installation program, rebootand press the Shift key as the Xandros screen comes up to see your trou- bleshooting options. 3.When you reach the Welcome dialog box, click Next. The End User License Agreement displays. 4.Read the agreement, click I Accept This Agreement and then clickNext. The Installation Selection screen appears. 5.Choose either Express or Custom Install and then click Next. I assume that you ve chosen Custom, because it s the more complexoption. When you click Next, the Software Selection screen appears (see Figure 4-10). 86Part I:Getting Your Feet Wet

dialog box opens. You can browse through its options by clicking the links orclick the Close link to get rid of it and start playing with your new setup. About the various SuSE versionsSuSE has a broad range of server and desktop products, from the home userto the enterprise. As usual, I focus on the desktop. You can examine the fullrange of SuSe offerings at its Web site, www.suse.com, if you re interested infinding out more information. The desktop versions available from SuSEinclude SuSE Linux LiveEval:The SuSE LiveCD. You can download this versionfrom www.suse.com/us/private/download/ftp/live_eval_int. html, burn it to CD, and boot into a SuSE environment without having toinstall. An ISO for this version is included in the distrosfolder of thisbook s DVD-ROM. The LiveCD, however, comes in two versions: the KDE- based version (see Chapter 6), which is the default GUI in SuSE, and aGNOME version. SuSE Linux 9.2 Personal:The SuSE baseline desktop product. Comeswith the LiveEval. You can purchase a boxed set with manuals or down- load the CD-ROM image from www.suse.com/us/private/download/ ftp/personal_iso_int.html. SuSE Linux 9.2 Professional: A far more extensive version of SuSE, withfive CDs and two DVDs worth of material. Useful for both desktop andserver. This is the version of SuSE covered in this chapter. SuSE Linux Download:You can download and install SuSE free of chargebeyond the Personal edition, but you re getting something in betweenthe Personal and Professional, as some of the software included in theboxed sets requires license fees to other companies and so cannot befreely given away without significant cost to Novell. The installationprocess in this case isn t particularly simple, so I don t typically recom- mend it to beginners. If you want to find out more about this version, goto www.suse.com/us/private/download/suse_linux/and read theinstallation guidelines for the FTP install. Zapping Frustration with XandrosXandros (www.xandros.com) is another commercial distribution especiallydesigned for people coming over from the Windows world to Linux and is inparticular designed to integrate well with existing Windows networks in theworkplace. It s another Debian-based distribution that is not meant for thosewho want to become Linux geeks and is instead focused on people who justwant to get their work done. An ISO of the free version of this distribution isincluded in the distrosfolder of this book s DVD-ROM. 85Chapter 4: Installing Other Linux Distributions08_