19.When you re finished with the additional CDs, click Next to continue. That s it! Click Finish Setup. You ve just survived the second Linuxgauntlet! Your computer now brings you to a graphical login prompt. SeeChapter 5 for instructions on how to proceed. 64Part I:Getting Your Feet Wet
This password is the one for your personal account and has nothing todo with your root (administrator) account. Feel free to use a differentpassword than you did for root. In fact, it s a good idea to do so. If youaccidentally don t type the password the same both times, you rewarned in Step 14 and returned to this step. 15.Click the Next button to proceed. The Sound Card screen appears. 16.Make sure that your speakers or headphones are on and click the PlayTest Sound button. You should hear a sound from the right channel, the left, and then bothat the same time. 17.When asked whether you heard the sound properly, click Yes if youheard all three sounds and No if you did not. If you didn t hear the sounds properly, see Chapter 18 for help with get- ting your sound working later. 18.Click Next to proceed. The Additional CDs screen appears. You probably don t have any extraCDs you want to install things from at this point. If you do, go ahead andclick the Install button. I ll assume that you don t. Figure 3-17: The SystemUser firstboot screen. 63Chapter 3: Installing Fedora Core07_
If it looks like your graphics capabilities were guessed wrong or if a specific monitor doesn t appear next to the first button in this dialogbox, click the Configure button, which lets you open a set of dialogboxes allowing you to choose your graphics card and/or monitor. 10.In the Color Depth drop-down list box, select the number of colorsyou want to be able to use. Again, you re offered what the installer thinks your system supports. You ll probably want Millions Of Colors. 11.Click Next to continue your firstboot machine setup. The System User screen appears, as shown in Figure 3-17.12.Type the name you want for your personal account into the Usernametext box. For example, zorro. 13.Type your name into the Full Name text box. For example, Zorro the Dog. 14.Enter your account password both in the Password and ConfirmPassword text boxes. Figure 3-16: The Displayfirst bootscreen. 62Part I:Getting Your Feet Wet
4.Click the Enable Network Time Protocol check box to enable this fea- ture and click the Use Local Time Source check box to disable localtime control. 5.In the Server drop-down list box, click one of the time servers avail- able, or enter the address for the time server your network adminis- trator gave you. 6.Click Add to choose this server. 7.If you intend to control the date and time on the machine manually, verify that the date and time are accurate; if they re not correct, fixthese settings now. 8.After you ve finished adjusting the date and/or network time server, click Next to proceed. If you told the system to use the Network Time Protocol (NTP), it maytake a moment for the system to contact the server you selected. After afew seconds, the Display dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 3-16.9.In the Resolution drop-down list box, select the video resolution youwant to use. You re only offered the resolutions the installer thinks your monitor andvideo card support. If you find that you aren t offered a full range, goahead and select the best you can get, and you can change the video set- tings later. A popular setting is 1,024 x 768. Figure 3-15: The FedoraCoreLicenseAgreement. 61Chapter 3: Installing Fedora Core07_
Your First BootThe first time your Fedora Core system boots, you have the first chance tosee your new boot menu. Select the Linux entry and press Enter, or just sitback and let it boot on its own. If for any reason your computer fails to bootat this point, see Chapter 5.The first time your computer boots up, you seethe first boot Welcome screen, as shown in Figure 3-14. Do the following inorder to complete your machine s initial setup: 1.Click Next to proceed to the setup routine. The License Agreement screen appears, as shown in Figure 3-15. 2.Read through this text, select Yes, I Agree To The License Agreementand then click Next. The Date And Time screen appears. 3.If you re on a computer network that is currently connected to theInternet, and is usually connected to the Internet (or your networkadministrator told you to use a time server), click the Network TimeProtocol tab. Otherwise, skip to Step 7. Letting a time servercontrol your date and time makes sure that yourcomputer gets regular input on what time and day it really is. Otherwise, over time your computer s clock actually drifts. Figure 3-14: The FedoraCoreFirstbootWelcomescreen. 60Part I:Getting Your Feet Wet
27.When you have selected all the packages and package groups that youwant to install, click Next. First, a dialog box appears telling you that the installer is looking overyour list of selected software. If it discovers that you have left out pro- grams that software you chose depends on, it offers you the chance toadd those, too. Say yes! Then, once that s done, the About To Installscreen appears. If you fear at all that your machine may be too slow to run a regulardesktop, make sure to click the XFCE box under Desktops. That way, ifyou find that GNOME or KDE slows your computer down too much, youcan try using XFCE instead to speed things up. Chapter 6 explains moreabout these various desktops. If you want to stop your installation of Linux, the About To Install screenis the lastplace where you can stop without changing anything on yourhard drive(s). To stop the installation, press Ctrl+Alt+Del, and yoursystem reboots. Be sure to pull out the DVD or first CD if you don tintend to restart your installation. 28.Once you re ready to commit to the installation, click Next. The Required Install Media dialog appears. This handy dialog tells youexactly what DVDs (though there s just one if you re using a DVD!) orCDs (one through four) you need for the installation. If you re using CDs, you may not need all four of them, depending on the software yourequested. Often, a desktop install only needs the first two. Okay, you can still stop or restart the install at this point without chang- ing anything on your computer! If you chicken out or realize you messedsomething up, click Reboot. 29.When you re ready to proceed, click Continue. The Installing Packages screen appears. The system first prepares forthe install and then starts the install. As the system is installing, you see progress bars for each individual package being installed and totalinstallation progress. You re also given a Remaining time value that ismore or less accurate. Obviously, if it takes you five minutes to noticethat the installer has asked for another CD, then this delay adds to yourtotal installation time! After the package installation has finished, you reach the final installationscreen, which has text beginning with Congratulations, the installation iscomplete. The CD or DVD is automatically ejected (if not, manually ejectit); if you used a floppy disk, remove this as well. Once the media has allbeen removed, click Reboot to restart your machine and proceed to thenext section, Your First Boot. 59Chapter 3: Installing Fedora Core07_
26.Click Next to proceed to the next item in the installation process. The Package Group Selection screen appears (see Figure 3-13). There aretwo different ways of selecting programs in the Fedora Core (and manyother Linux distribution) installer: by group or individually. You start bychoosing groups. For example, the first group is X Window System, whichyou can think of as the wireframe of your point and click interface. Thesecond is the GNOME Desktop, which is one form of paper mache thatcan be placed on top of the X Window System for a consistent look andfeel. Third is the KDE (K Desktop Environment), which is another versionof papier m che (see Chapter 6 for more on these and their differences). If you want access to both environments, be sure to click the box next toKDE to put a check in it. Next to each group that you have marked with a check (or that sselected by default), you see the word Details with an underline beneathit. If you click Details, a dialog box appears with two different lists ofpackages: Base and Optional. The Base items are always installed whenyou select this group of software. The Optional items are up to you. If you want to try everything available the first time around, you canscroll down to the bottom and select Everything (which in fact doesn tinstall everything,but mostly everything). Otherwise, play around andpick and choose. You can add more software later (see Chapter 12) ifyou realize you left something out. Figure 3-13: ThePackageGroupSelectionscreen. 58Part I:Getting Your Feet Wet
22.Click Next to proceed to the next step in your installation. The Set Root Password screen appears. 23.In the Root Password screen, type the root (administrator) accountpassword into the Root Password field and then type the same pass- word in the Confirm field. You don t see the password when you type it just an asterisk for eachcharacter. The asterisks prevent unauthorized individuals from seeingthe password. If you mistype something in one of the boxes, you rewarned when you try to move on to the next step of the installation andhave the chance to re-enter the values. Don t forget your root password! You need it to do to do any administra- tion task on your Linux box. 24.After you ve entered your root password twice, click Next. The Package Installation Defaults screen appears. You can choose toinstall the current default list of packages or choose to customize the setof packages25.Choose the Install Default Software Packages option or the CustomizeSoftware Packages To Be Installed option. I recommend selecting the Customize option so that you can have morecontrol over what you put on your system. I assume that this option isthe one you selected. 57Chapter 3: Installing Fedora CoreIntroducing SELinuxSecurity-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) was devel- oped by the USA s NSA (National SecurityAgency, www.nsa.gov/selinux/) and givesyou more fine-grained control over everythingthat s happening on your system than the stan- dard user, group, and owner permissions usedby default in the Linux world. SELinux is not lim- ited to Fedora Core; it s available as an exten- sion in a growing number of Linux distributions. In general, solid computer security policiesinvolve giving people and programs only theamount of access that they strictly require, sothose who have a heavy need for limiting whatpeople and software can do because they rerunning mission-critical servers or are operat- ing in a realm that has a need for serious secu- rity measures find that SELinux lets them havefar more control of who can do what on theirsystem. For the average home or small businessuser s desktop system, SELinux can be overkill, though if you re looking to play with this tech- nology and become familiar with it for yourresume or other reasons, your home desktopcan be an ideal trial platform for such a purpose. Because SELinux is quite extensive, I only touchon it in Chapter 12, but I do give you enoughinformation to get you started.
Figure 3-12: The TimeZoneSelectionscreen. Figure 3-11: TheAdditionalLanguageSupportscreen. 56Part I:Getting Your Feet Wet
17.If you intend to use SELinux, determine whether you want to actuallyactivate it or put it into a warning state; otherwise, under EnableSELinux, select Disabled and skip to Step 19. I highly recommend that if you do intend to play with SELinux, you fornow set it to Warn. This way, you can see what it does without it gettingin your way, which is a handy method of learning how it works. 18.If you didn t disable SELinux, select Active or Warn. I assume that you selected Warn for the remainder of this book. 19.Click Next to proceed to the next stage of your installation. The Additional Language Support screen appears, as shown in Figure 3-11. Your Linux system can support multiple languages at the same time. If youadd languages, be sure to set which you want for your default. 20.Select the languages for your Linux installation and click the Nextbutton to continue. The Time Zone Selection screen appears, as shown in Figure 3-12. If youdon t find the exact name of the city you re in, choose another city inyour same time zone that supports the same options, such as daylightsavings time. You can also click the UTC (Universal Time, Coordinated) Offset tab at the top of the screen and select your offset from UTC timeand whether you use daylight savings time. If your computer uses UTC, you can also choose this option. If it turns out that your computer is (or isn t) using UTC and you chosethe wrong way, you can change this value after you ve installed the com- puter, so don t sweat this setting too much. 21.Choose the time zone in which your Linux system resides. If you travel, set it to where you are now. You can change this settingwhenever you need to later. 55Chapter 3: Installing Fedora CoreFirewalls and youAnyone connected to the Internet, especiallyusing broadband(see Chapter 7 for more on thedifferent types of connections available; broad- band tends to be DSL and Cable), really shouldhave a firewall of some sort. You can purchasea firewall appliance (a special little box that youuse to connect to the Internet and then hook upyour other computer[s] to) or have a Linux boxdoing your firewalling for just itself, or even foryour whole home or business network. Although this is quite an extensive topic thatcan easily take an entire book of its own, I coversome of the basics in Chapter 7. In the mean- time, protect at least this machine with a fire- wall of its own.