CentOS installation on a new computer without operating system
 

Hi, I am new to Linux. I will receive a new Dell desktop without any operating systems. Can anybody advise me how to install CentOS 5.5 on it?

Thank you.

Are you having some specific problem with installing CentOS? Or is this just a general question?

If there is no existing OS, there will be no issues with repartitioning or dual booting, so you just need to proceed as normal through the installer, which will guide you through all the necessary steps.

Basically this page has your answer. http://www.centos.org/docs/5/

If you get to some spot that you have a question on then let us know.

There may be some issues as to your computer. If dell sells it with red hat installed then it is likely that all will work fine. I would consider live cd's to start and see if they work. Fedora may provide a good one that could help maybe.

Thank you for you messages.

I have no specific problems yet - My computer will arrive next week.

My computer will have no OS installed. So basically, I will heve to do the following:

1) download "CentOS-5.5-i386-LiveCD-Release2.iso" and burn it to a CD
2) Insert the CD to the computer and then turn on the computer

Can this LiveCD boot the computer and allow to install CentOS-5.5?

I just join an office, and have no idea to install a linux system from a computer without OS. The office actually has a linux machine, but it is used only as a WinCVs server. The monitor of this computer is fixed on the machine (uninterchangeable)and is broken. That's why we want to replace it.

Short answer, yes. It will partition and format the drive for you, then install the OS. Follow the prompts and read the instructions carefully.

It's been a couple of years since I messed with CentOS, but, as I recall, it was very easy to set up.

In most cases, it will be enough to accept the default choices. In some cases, for example, if it asks whether you want to install a file server (that means Samba file sharing), you might need to change the defaults.

Here's an installation guide with lots of pictures.

http://www.howtoforge.com/installati...tos5.1-desktop

Thanks a lot.

Most welcome.

Unlike most distros, the Live CD of CentOS is separate from the installer. Read the documentation that Jefro linked to in post #3 and you should be good to go. Personally I find the netinstall is easiest, if you have a reliable internet connection to download the packages.

I have installed Centos many times using the full installation DVD and I have used the Live CD for other purposes. I never figured out how to use the Live CD to install Centos and a quick look at the instructions linked in post #3 didn't answer that for me (maybe because I never took a very detailed look at what is available in the liveCD).
I expect that using the Live CD for installing Centos requires a form of the "netinstall" you mentioned. Hopefully the OP understands what you meant.

What are the hardware specs on the new machine and/or why do you want to stay with the 32 bit version of Centos?

For a while, my office used a Centos system as a WinCVS server. We switched the server from 32 bit Windows to 32 bit Centos while slightly upgrading hardware and got a dramatic improvement in performance. Right after that, we switch 32 bit Centos to 64 bit on the same hardware and got a moderate additional improvement in performance. (Later, unfortunately, we switched to Clearcase dropping all the way back to the original terrible performance despite a further hardware upgrade).

This effect may depend on having a very large number of source modules routinely updated from the CVS repository, but at least for us, the higher level of Linux inode caching that you get in a 64 bit kernel mattered a lot more in a CVS server than it would have mattered in a workstation or in some other server types.

I was answering the OP's question: "Can this LiveCD (CentOS-5.5-i386-LiveCD-Release2.iso) boot the computer and allow to install CentOS-5.5?"

The answer is no, use the netinstall CD (my recommendation) or the full DVD (your recommendation, also a good option), because the Live CD doesn't have an installer.

Sorry if my previous post was unclear.

You might be better off with the DVD than the CD or you'll have a lot of downloading to do, depending on which apps you want to install. In case you change you mind about the CD, here's from the 5.5 release announcement, in the torrents section:

CD:
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.5/...n-1to7.torrent
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.5/...n-1to8.torrent

DVD:
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.5/...in-DVD.torrent
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.5/...in-DVD.torrent

LiveCD:
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.5/...LiveCD.torrent
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.5/...LiveCD.torrent

md5sum's for these torrent files:

cdc45af66bf92987ada310e251d43398 CentOS-5.5-i386-bin-1to7.torrent
5f623a38eab7f5eae21c3c4e3fe80c04 CentOS-5.5-x86_64-bin-1to8.torrent
489aba8ea3d9f82973728813f5c1d0ad CentOS-5.5-x86_64-bin-DVD.torrent
a001e84db58e59113a83cf06730bf7fc CentOS-5.5-i386-bin-DVD.torrent
3836afe12e27435ff928e35f2d85db10 CentOS-5.5-i386-LiveCD.torrent
55a40ba2e170a6bd424732d4c4116041 CentOS-5.5-x86_64-LiveCD.torrent

The installation is relatively straightforward. In case you want to follow documentation, I found the RHEL 5.5 Installation Guide more complete than the CentTOS documentation.

Perhaps I don't understand the rationale for the default partitioning and file system layout but it seems a strange choice. All the HDD but a small /boot is given to LVM which is all used for a single / file system. Doesn't that give all the complexity of LVM with few of its flexibility advantages ... :scratch:

To the OP, I may well have been wrong about the LiveCD and installations. As I said, it's been a while since I've CentOSed.

I would take seriously the posts from others who have used CentOS more recently than I. I certainly will learn from them.

I think I started that live cd deal. I meant it to be used to determine the ability of the system to support an OS not really for installation. A test of sorts.