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Step by Step Instructions for Installing Red Hat 5.1 Linux on an IBM ThinkPad 770

Thinking about buying a new computer? Sick of paying more for bloatware and tired of constantly rebooting your crashed machine? Well then, buy a new ThinkPad with an IBM CD-ROM drive and run Linux on it. It's really a very simple equation.

Most computers do not come with all of the

documentation one needs to properly install

Linux. This page exists to provide that missing

information and to get first-time users running

Linux and X Windows in 40 easy steps.

Please note that this configuration is optimized for my own system, but does reflect a common work environment that is well-suited for the typical new user.

Step 1.
Begin by making sure the power is off and connect the floppy drive externally to the back of the ThinkPad with the wire that came with your machine.

Step 2.
Put the CD-ROM drive in the right-hand side UltraBay. The UltraBay holds many kinds of drives including CD-ROM, floppy, DVD and secondary hard drives. It will even house a secondary battery pack (adapter required.) The eject lever at the middle front easily allows you to remove devices.

Step 3.
Put the Red Hat Boot diskette in the external floppy drive and turn the power on the computer. If you need to abort the installation process at any time, simply eject the boot diskette and reboot your machine.

Step 4A.
Press ENTER at the first screen that reads:

Welcome to Red Hat Linux! To install or upgrade a system

running Red Hat Linux 2.0 or later, press the ENTER key.

Step 4B.
The Official Welcome screen from Red Hat appears. Hit OK. The Red Hat Installation Guide greatly helped me to prepare this page.

Step 5.
The next screen displays a default selection for English language. Press ENTER if you speak English.

Step 6.
The next screen displays a default selection for United States-type keyboard. Press ENTER to select US.

Step 7.
We're installing from CD-ROM, so press tab once and select No for PCMCIA Support. Press ENTER.

Step 8.
Local CD-ROM is the media that contains the packages to be installed. Press ENTER to choose the default.

Step 9.
Insert the Red Hat CD in the CD drive and press ENTER.

Step 10.
We will install a new system, so press ENTER to choose the default, a.k.a. Install.

Step 11.
The ThinkPad has an IDE drive, not SCSI. So press ENTER to choose No, the default for no SCSI adapters.

Step 12.
Disk Druid is a great partitioning tool, so press ENTER to choose the default.

Step 13A.
Partitioning the hard drive means dividing up the disk space (my ThinkPad 770 came with 4 GB) into areas that can be accessed separately, e.g. to run other operating systems. We are only going to run Linux and _not_ set up a dual boot machine to run other operating systems. However, the following partitioning scheme will leave a significant amount of space free for future use (approx 1500 MB.) Lastly, please note that partitions can not be moved nor can they be resized later without destroying the files contained in them. So here we go:

Step 13B.
Use tab to choose Add (to add a new partition) and tab past the Mount Point field to the Size (Megs) field. Type in 96. Tab over to the Type field and use the arrow up key to select Linux Swap and hit ENTER, i.e. OK. (Swap partitions are used to support virtual memory. For example, if you have 32 MB of RAM and 96 MB swap space, you'll have a total of about 128 MB virtual memory.)

Step 13C.
Choose Add and type / (which stands for root directory) in the Mount Point field. Tab over to the Size field and type 200. Double check that Linux Native is the default choice for the Type field and hit ENTER.

Step 13D.
Choose Add and type /usr in the Mount Point field. Tab over to the Size field and type 900. Double check that Linux Native is the default choice for the Type field and hit ENTER.

Step 13E.
Choose Add and type /home in the Mount Point field. Tab over to the Size field and type 1000. Double check that Linux Native is the default choice for the Type field and hit ENTER.

Step 13F.
Choose Add and type /var in the Mount Point field. Tab over to the Size field and type 100. Double check that Linux Native is the default choice for the Type field and hit ENTER.

Step 13G.
Choose Add and type /tmp in the Mount Point field. Tab over to the Size field and type 100. Double check that Linux Native is the default choice for the Type field and hit ENTER.

Step 14.
At the main partitioning menu, tab over to OK and hit ENTER. Then choose Yes to save changes to partition tablets.

Step 15.
It may next ask you "What partitioning would you like to use for swap space?" Just hit OK here, we've already set this configuration.

Step 16.
It now asks: What partitions would you like to format? Use the space bar to select an asterisk for each partition. Do the same and select an asterisk for the "check for bad blocks" field. Tab over to OK and press ENTER.

Step 17.
Now you must choose components to install. Since my laptop is used primairily as a productivity desktop workstation with a dial-up connection (there is no network or printer), I only chose the following components:

X Windows, Mail/WWW/News, File Managers, Graphics Manipulation, X games, Consle games, X Multimedia support, Console Multimedia, Dialup Workstation, Web server, DNS server, Postgres SQL server, Emacs, Emacs with X Windows, C Development, Development Libraries, C++ Development, and Extra Documentation.

You could scroll all the way down to the bottom of the list and select "Everything" if you see that you have other components. Bear in mind that dialogue screens will pop-up during this install that are not documented here.

Once you're all set, tab over to OK and press ENTER.

Step 18.
Hit OK to remember that a log of the install will be found in /tmp/install.log

Step 19.
Looking for a mouse, Red Hat finds the trackpad and autodetects it as the PS/2 flavor. If you have another mouse device plugged into the machine, use the space bar to select it from the list. (It may have already been autodetected it.) Select "Emulate 3 Buttons" too. Hit OK.

Step 20.
It autodetects a PCI device which is the Trident Cyber 9397 video card and notes that the X Server is SVGA. Hit OK.

Step 21.
Select Custom from the list of monitor types in order to configure the X server. Hit OK.

Step 22.
Hit OK after you've read the information about vertical and horizontal sync.

Step 23.
Scroll down the list of monitor settings and select High Frequency SVGA, 1024x768 @ 70 Hz. Hit OK.

Step 24.
Select 50-90 as the vertical sync range for the ThinkPad display. Hit OK.

Step 25.
Hit OK to allow the Xconfigurator to probe the factory-installed videocard.

Step 26.
Hit OK to begin probing.

Step 26A.
Hit OK to the fact that the probe could not autodetect the video card clocks.

Step 27.
Select 2 MB of video memory and hit OK.

Step 28.
Select No Clockchip setting and hit OK.

Step 29.
It asks if you want to run "X -probeonly" now? Not really. Hit Skip.

Step 30.
Select both 8 bit: 1024x768 and 16 bit: 1024x768.

Step 31.
I did not configure LAN networking. Select No.

Step 32.
Select your time zone. Hit OK.

Step 33.
Hit OK to select all of the defaulted services that should be automatically started.

Step 34.
I did not configure a printer. Select No.

Step 35.
Now pick a root password, type it twice and don't make a mistake while typing. Hit OK.

Step 36.
Don't create a bootdisk for the system. Choose No.

Step 37.
Choose the default location /dev/hda1 as the location to store the booloader. Hit OK.

Step 38.
Leave the filed for Lilo boot options blank. Hit OK.

Step 39.
Congratulations! Installation is complete. Take the Red Hat boot floppy out of diskette drive. Hit OK.

Linux begins to load...

Step 40.
When you get to the login screen, type root and then type the password you assigned yourself. For fun after that, type startx at the next command line in order to run X Windows.

You're now on your way. So go ahead and add users (hint: try typing man useradd to get help from the on-board technical manual, a.k.a. "the man pages") and have fun!

Jim Gleason
jgleason@electriclichen.com Electric Lichen L.L.C.