Hi experts, I am a super newbie to Linux who needs some help. I just downloaded Red Hat 7.3 today and burned them on CD's.

Can anyone tell me how to continue from here? I have a PII 400+ MHZ w/ MSWinXP and I want to have both OS on it. (This is just an older computer I have in hand that I do Music recordings with.)

Pls tell me how to open the installation file and how to do the partition thing... thx

Just change bios settings to boot from cdrom......insert the cd ,it's a nice graphical mode ....select for
workstation installation when prompted for it......u will b asked for partitioning & all that stuff.....do that(it's
easy)......there will somewhere a option for installing LILO on MBR.....select it.....select as many packages
as u want ......the last step involves making a bootable floppy.....after that system will b automatically
rebooted.....boot it (if lilo doesn't appears then boot from that floppy)......make some changes to /etc/lilo.conf
if it's needed & do run /sbin/lilo after making any change......
after that do some reading from a good linux book or from sites like www.yolinux.com or www.tldp.org

Hi,I am just an other begginer.
I think "downloaded" the 3 ISO images is what you mean "downloaded Red Hat 7.3".
They are "useless" to you now ! But don't worry. Go and find someone already running linux, whose machine you will need to
MOUNT those iso, and the command is:
===============================================
mount -o loop -t iso9660 <isofilename> <mountpoint>
===============================================
mountpoint is something relatively like PATH in windows.
/tmp/cd1/ for example.

After mounted. ISO will became boot.img ,RPMs and so on.They are essential to install RedHat. Burn them to CD and boot your computer from cd1.

The next is just to follow the install GUI, good luck.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
For more detail, you can go to www.redhat.com.

For daulboot solution, go to www.masterbooter.com.

if ( your XP is NTFS and you want to install lilo on /dev/hda2) then

Back up your files & favorites on Windows
Point My Doc to d:\my doc...
boot Linux to root
dd if=/dev/hda3 of=boot.lnx bs=512 count=1
cp boot.lnx /mnt/floppy
Boot Windows
copy boot.lnx c:\
edit boot.ini
After multi(0)..., add
C:\boot.lnx="linux"
Reboot

else
ignore_me
endif

How can you "dd" if the linux has not been installed yet?

I think boot linux from floppy without installing Grub or LiLo is the most safe choice for newbie who want daul-boot and not to ruin his or her windows.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Really?! You mean I cant just burn these 3 ISO images with Easy CD creator or Neo or CloneCD or something? So I've wasted my blanks... ouch
But I can view the files on the CD's on XP tho...

Thanks for helping guys. I have another question tho... what are Grub and LILO? and when kindda changes do i need to make to /etc/lilo.conf ???

Thx again

Yes, you can create from image using Easy CD Creator to make CD's from those ISO's...

Grub and LILO are
GRand Unified Bootloader
and
LInux LOader
I use grub. It's easier and just all around nicer IMHO

Yes. I also have 3 cd, each of them contains an ISO, but I can't boot my machine from the ISO.

So I install a older version of RedHat, copy ISO ot haed disk ,try MOUNT command. ISO img put lots of files to the directory you specified, just like being exracted.

I think Mount is something like plug-in. You know when Linux use a floppy or CD-rom , it use mount and unmount command.

In Linux everything is a file. There's not a big difference between an image (ISO) and the cd in your drive. You can mount them in the same way.

Thanks mara.
I've just mount an ISO from CD-rom to /tmp/disk1.

But since then I can't unmount or eject CD-rom, neither can I delete the directory /tmp/disk1.

After I reboot and take out CD and login./tmp/disk1 is now empty.

What's happened?

To unmount:
umount /tmp/disk1

When a drive is mounted, it needs to be unmounted. A reboot does it perfectly

HELP! I tried to install RH7.3 yesterday, but I got stuck at the partition part. Not only it wouldn't let me do the auto partitoin but also it woudln't let me create a new one... I originally had XP on /dev/hda1, i tried to create one on /dev/hda2 for RH7.3....

You may need third party software (Partition Magic) to resize the original partition. And make room to create a new Partition on the disk.

Else you will have to reinstall windows. (I think)