Red Hat Linux 7.2: The Official Red Hat Linux Alpha Installation Guide
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# Starting the Installation Program

To start the installation, you must first boot the installation program. Please make sure you have all the resources you will need for the installation. If you have already read through Chapter 1 and followed the instructions, you should be ready to begin.

| Note
| Occasionally, some hardware components require a driver disk during the installation. A driver disk adds support for hardware that is not otherwise supported by the installation program. Refer to Appendix F for more information.

## Booting the Installation Program

| Note
| If you need to create a boot disk[1], refer to the section called Making Installation Diskettes in Chapter 1.

You can boot the Red Hat Linux installation program using any one of the following media (depending upon what your system can support):

- Bootable CD-ROM — Your machine supports a bootable CD-ROM drive and you want to perform a local CD-ROM installation.

- Local boot disk — Your machine will not support a bootable CD-ROM and you want to install from a local CD-ROM or a hard drive.

- Network boot disk — Use a network boot disk to install via NFS, FTP, and HTTP.

- PCMCIA boot disks — Use PCMCIA boot disks when you need PCMCIA support, but your machine does not support booting from the CD-ROM drive or if you need PCMCIA support in order to make use of the CD-ROM drive on your system. The PCMCIA boot disks can be used for all installation methods (CD-ROM, hard drive, NFS, FTP, and HTTP).

Insert the boot disk into your computer's first diskette drive and reboot (or boot using the CD-ROM, if your computer supports booting from the CD-ROM drive). Your BIOS settings may need to be changed to allow you to boot from the diskette or CD-ROM.

| Tip
| To change your BIOS settings, watch the instructions provided on your display when your computer first begins to boot. Often you will see a line of text telling you to press the [Del] or [F1] key to enter the BIOS settings. Once you've entered your BIOS setup program, find the section where you can alter your boot sequence. The default is often C, A or A, C (depending on whether you boot from your hard drive [C] or a diskette drive [A]). Change this sequence so that the CD-ROM is first in your boot order and that C or A (whichever is your typical boot default) is second. This instructs the computer to first look at the CD-ROM drive for bootable media; if it does not find bootable media on the CD-ROM drive, it will then check your hard drive or diskette drive. Save your changes before exiting the BIOS. For more information, please refer to the documentation that came with your system.

After a short delay, a screen containing the `boot:` prompt should appear. The screen contains information on a variety of boot options. Each boot option also has one or more help screens associated with it. To access a help screen, press the appropriate function key as listed in the line at the bottom of the screen.

As you boot the installation program, be aware of two issues:

- Once you see the `boot:` prompt, the installation program will automatically begin if you take no action within the first minute. To disable this feature, press one of the help screen function keys.

- If you press a help screen function key, there will be a slight delay while the help screen is read from the boot media.

Normally, you only need to press [Enter] to boot. Watch the boot messages to see if the Linux kernel detects your hardware. If your hardware is properly detected, please continue to the next section. If it does not properly detect your hardware, you may need to restart the installation in expert mode.

### Additional Boot Options

Enter expert mode using the following boot command:

    boot: linux expert

If you do not wish to perform a CD-ROM GUI installation, you can start a text mode installation using the following boot command:

    boot: text

For installation instructions, please refer to Chapter 4.

If you are having trouble booting into the graphical installation program, you can try to boot using the no framebuffer (`nofb`) boot option.

At the boot command, enter the following:

    boot: nofb

This option allows you to use the graphical installation program without using a framebuffer.

The command to start a serial installation has changed. If you need to perform the installation in serial mode, type the following command:

    boot: linux console=<device>

In the above command, `<device>` should be the device you are using (such as ttyS0 or ttyS1).

### Kernel Options

Options can also be passed to the kernel. For example, to instruct the kernel to use all the RAM in a system with 128 MB of RAM, enter:

    boot: linux mem=128M

After entering any options, press [Enter] to boot using those options.

If you need to specify boot options to identify your hardware, please write them down. The boot options will be needed during the boot loader configuration portion of the installation (please see the section called Boot Loader Installation for more information).

### Booting Without Diskettes

The Red Hat Linux/x86 CD-ROM can be booted by computers that support bootable CD-ROMs. Not all computers support this feature, so if your system cannot boot from the CD-ROM, there is one other way to start the installation without using a boot disk. The following method is specific to x86-based computers only.

If you have MS-DOS installed on your system, you can boot directly from the CD-ROM drive without using a boot disk. To do this (assuming your CD-ROM is drive `d:`), use the following commands:

    C:\> d:
    D:\> cd \dosutils
    D:\dosutils> autoboot.bat

This method will not work if run in a DOS window — the `autoboot.bat` file must be executed with DOS as the only operating system. In other words, Windows cannot be running.

If your computer cannot boot directly from CD-ROM (and you cannot use a DOS-based autoboot), you will have to use a boot diskette to get things started.

### Notes

[1] | A boot disk is a diskette you create during an installation that can later be used to boot the operating system. Normally, your computer boots from a hard disk, but if the hard disk is damaged, you can boot the computer from a bootable diskette.

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