First Created: Wednesday 19th April 2006 Last updated: Monday 24th April 2006, 08:04 PT, AHD Instructions for installing Linux on a Windows machine ------------------------------------------------------ and get ready for installing Moodle ----------------------------------- Bought a new Dell Dimension 3100 in February 2006 installed with Windows XP Home Edition. This machine will be loaded with Red Hat Linux Fedora Core 3 as a server, and will have Moodle installed for online course delivery. The P3 Dell machine loaded with Linux FC3 and Koha is still on the same network, along with 2 Windows machine: a P3 and a new P4 (Dell Dimension 8400). For loading Linux FC3 and Moodle on the Dell 3100, the following operations have been performed to date: Wed 19 April 2006: Download Fedora Core 3 Linux ---------------------------- http://fedora.redhat.com/Download/mirrors.html ftp://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/fedora/linux/core/ ftp://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/fedora/linux/core/3/i386/iso/ Download the following six files to C:\FC3 FC3-i386-disc1.iso FC3-i386-disc2.iso FC3-i386-disc3.iso FC3-i386-disc4.iso FC3-i386-rescuecd.iso MD5SUM http://www.etree.org/md5com.html Download md5sum.exe to C:\FC3 Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt C:\>cd \fc3 C:\FC3>dir Volume in drive C has no label. Volume Serial Number is 58C8-07CE Directory of C:\FC3 19/04/2006 17:56 . 19/04/2006 17:56 .. 19/04/2006 11:27 646,987,776 FC3-i386-disc1.iso 19/04/2006 14:39 668,520,448 FC3-i386-disc2.iso 19/04/2006 15:04 667,498,496 FC3-i386-disc3.iso 19/04/2006 15:28 404,764,672 FC3-i386-disc4.iso 19/04/2006 15:33 79,908,864 FC3-i386-rescuecd.iso 19/04/2006 15:31 809 MD5SUM 19/04/2006 17:56 49,152 md5sum.exe 19/04/2006 18:01 235 readme 8 File(s) 2,467,730,452 bytes 2 Dir(s) 129,029,693,440 bytes free Run md5sum on each file and check the output matches content in MD5SUM file downloaded with the .iso files. C:\FC3>md5sum FC3-i386-disc1.iso db8c7254beeb4f6b891d1ed3f689b412 *FC3-i386-disc1.iso C:\FC3>md5sum FC3-i386-disc2.iso 2c11674cf429fe570445afd9d5ff564e *FC3-i386-disc2.iso C:\FC3>md5sum FC3-i386-disc3.iso f88f6ab5947ca41f3cf31db04487279b *FC3-i386-disc3.iso C:\FC3>md5sum FC3-i386-disc4.iso 6331c00aa3e8c088cc365eeb7ef230ea *FC3-i386-disc4.iso C:\FC3>md5sum FC3-i386-rescuecd.iso 07bb34ce97b62b99f84d32812a2eec75 *FC3-i386-rescuecd.iso All check out ok. Now can burn each iso to a separate CD ready for installing the Red Hat Linux Fedora Core 3 operating system... IMPORTANT: Make sure to select to burn as an iso image. I used free software DeepBurner from: http://www.deepburner.com/ Make sure each CD is labelled correctly, disk 1, disk 2 etc. Once all 5 CD's are ready, prepare the computer to be loaded with Linux so that it will boot from CD first. To do this, when you switch on the computer, press key F2 and set the boot option to CD first, saving this new setting. When the new setting is saved, put the Fedora Core 3 Disk 1 into the drive and shut down the computer. Turn on the computer, it will boot to Fedora Core 3 Disk 1 and follow the instructions. The first thing to do when FC3 Disk 1 loads is to do a media check on each disk. Before continuing, each disk MUST pass the media check. If any fail, reburn. Do NOT attempt to install Linux without doing a media check on the CDs. I did (having a set of disks I'd previously used successfully, but in the meantime one CD was corrupted), and regretted it. The machine was left in a corrupt state meaning I had to reinstall Windows XP Home Edition - which included a reformat, and had to start all over. NOTE! I never got a full set of ok disks for FC3 using my new P4 Dell Dimension 8400. I did get the first one written ok and passed the media check but no others, but this, with my previous set of disks for FC3 burned at the college, gave me a full working set which I then did a media check on. After the media check shows all CDs pass, get ready for the installation of Linux for Moodle, by reading this page first: http://docs.moodle.org/en/RedHat_Linux_installation#Make_sure_you_have_installed_the_following_packages When all disks pass the media check, put in Disk 1 and press Continue to start the installation. You need to select the type of Linux installation required. For Moodle you need the Server installation. Mostly I accepted the defaults, but some options like Firewall and FTP have to be explicitly selected. When all is done and the system boots up you get the status messages. I got a smartd FAIL on startup. Invesigating this on Google I found this: http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ Question: My Fedora Core Linux system displays the startup message: smartd [FAILED] Answer: Fedora Core is distributed with a smartd configuration file /etc/smartd.conf that monitors the first IDE disk /dev/hda. If this device does not exist (or lacks SMART capability) you will get the error message above. Look in SYSLOG (/var/log/messages) for additional details about what is going wrong. The solution: If your system has only SCSI disks, or has IDE disk(s) on a non-primary controller, just edit /etc/smartd.conf to reflect the correct location of the drive(s). Please also read the 'smartd.conf' man page for additional information. For now I won't worry about this issue, I'll work on it later if it proves to be a problem. IMPORTANT --------- Once Linux has been installed, to install any extra packages needed, e.g. Firefox, MySQL, openoffice, GIMP etc, proceed as follows. In the Linux desktop top left corner, click on Applications -> System Settings -> Add/Remove Applications and have the installation disks ready. Select what you need. For Moodle you need Apache, MySQL and PHP packages. Beware, PHP has to be downloaded and installed separately, before packages which depend on it can be installed. Read on... Before installing PHP I first tested Apache web server as follows: Testing Apache -------------- Test that Apache web server is working correctly by going to this address in a web browser on the Linux system: http://localhost/ where the Fedora Core Test Page displays is all is well. For me it displayed ok. Installing PHP -------------- Note the you have to get the PHP package from www.php.net see: http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.unix.php http://www.web-tech-india.com/articles/php/compiling_php_apache/#why Now at this point I not too sure why my machine was not preinstalled with packages for PHP which WERE installed when I last did the install for FC3 on my old Dell P3 machine - which is still on my network, and I still use for reference purposes. So I decided to bite the bullet and rather than installing individual packages for FC3, install a brand new version of the latest version of Fedora to date - Fedora Core 5. see www.annedawson.com/FedoraCore5.html and I also obtained the domain name: www.annedawson.net so I can use that as the domain name for my new website on my new Dell 3100 when I eventually get the webserver and DNS up and running on FC5.