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In this lesson we'll see how to download and install Fedora Linux on a standard PC. Please note that we are making the following assumptions: first, that you are installing Linux on a PC that is currently running some version of Windows; and second, that you want this machine to be a dedicated Linux machine. In other words, you won't be able to run Windows on this machine after this procedure, without reinstalling Windows.
If you want to run both Windows and Linux on this machine, please install a virtual machine manager program such as Oracle VirtualBox, and then install Linux into a virtual machine. You can find instructions on how to do that in the following two lessons: How to Install Oracle VM VirtualBox and How to Install Linux on a VirtualBox.
If you have data and files on this machine that you wish to save, make backup copies of them before proceeding. After installing Linux, these files may be missing or corrupted, because they are Windows files, not Linux files. This is true even if you plan to install Linux in a separate partition on the machine.
Before we begin to install Linux, we'll need to make sure we have the following requirements in place:
Open a web browser and navigate to: http://getfedora.org. Click on 'Workstation', which is the version of Fedora most suitable for a personal, home computer. The other available versions are Server and Atomic (the cloud version).
Once on the Workstation page, click on 'Download Now' and then on the following page, click on one of the two links, depending on whether your computer supports 32- or 64-bit software:
The file that will download to your computer is the Fedora Linux disk image, which will be used in the following steps.
Rawrite32 is a free application that will write the Linux disk image file you're downloading on your computer to your USB drive. As of this writing, the current version is 1.0.6.0. To get this application, navigate to the web page: http://www.netbsd.org/~martin/rawrite32/download.html
On this page, there are four options. Click on 'rawriteexe-1.0.6.0.zip'. The file size is approximately 1 MB, so it should download quickly.
Once the Fedora Linux disk image has finished downloading, unzip the Rawrite32 zip file you downloaded earlier and run the Rawrite32 application.
Connect the USB drive to the computer.
In Rawrite32, click 'Open' and select the Fedora disk image file, which by default should be in the Downloads folder. By default, Rawrite looks for (Compressed) fs image files, and will not find the Fedora .iso disk image. Click on '(Compressed) fs image' to get the dropdown menu, and then choose 'All files'. Rawrite will now be able to open the Fedora .iso file.
In Rawrite32, under 'Target', select your USB drive. Then press 'Write to disk'. A confirmation message will be displayed once the disk image has been written to the USB drive.
Assuming your PC has a standard BIOS, to begin installing Linux, restart the computer with the USB drive connected. On some computers, it may be necessary to completely power off the machine and then power on. The computer should boot to the Fedora installer screen.
If you find that the computer restarts into Windows, you will first need to manually enter the BIOS settings and place the USB drive before the hard drive on the list of drives to boot from. The BIOS can be accessed by pressing a specific key immediately after powering on. The key is not the same on all computers, but frequently it is a function key (F1 - F12).
Before the actual installation of Fedora, the first screen to appear will be one prompting to 'Try Fedora' or 'Install to Hard Drive'. For the purpose of this lesson, click 'Install to Hard Drive'.
The next screen will prompt to choose a language.
The next screen of the Fedora Linux installation is the Installation Summary screen. This screen provides the following options:
You can configure all of these settings, but only the Installation Destination is necessary to configure before the 'Begin Installation' button becomes active.
Clicking on the 'Installation Destination' option on the Installation Summary screen allows you to choose where on the computer (i.e. which drive or partition) you want to install Linux.
Having chosen the destination drive, if that drive has Windows, or another operating system, installed, a window titled 'Installation Options' will appear. In this window, click the 'Reclaim Space' button.
The following step may completely remove Windows and delete any existing data.
The Reclaim Space window provides options to shrink or delete a partition, or delete all partitions. PLEASE NOTE that choosing to keep the Windows partition may not preserve any data files or applications you had on the hard drive. Unless you want to keep the Windows partition, select 'Delete All Partitions' and then click 'Reclaim Space'. This will free up the necessary disk space for Fedora to install.
With the installation destination taken care of, you can now press 'Begin Installation' to start the actual installation of Linux. This may take a few minutes.
After the actual installation completes, you will need to reboot your machine. Be sure you are rebooting from the hard drive, and not from the USB drive. You will be prompted to configure certain settings like your network connection, 'Privacy' settings, which includes Location Services, and 'Connect your Online Accounts' which allows you to sign in your various Internet accounts like Gmail, Facebook, etc. The 'About You' and 'Set a Password' screens will prompt you to create a user name and password for the computer. PLEASE NOTE: The user created at this stage will be the only one on the system. Consequently, it is vital to remember this password, as it will be necessary to use the machine.
Once these are configured, you will get the 'You're ready to go' message on the screen, signifying that you have successfully installed Fedora Linux on your PC.
In this lesson, we reviewed the process of downloading the Fedora Linux disk image from http://getfedora.org, downloading the free application Rawrite32 to write that disk image to a USB drive, rebooting the computer with the USB drive connected to start the Fedora installation, and the configurations required during installation so that everything completes successfully.
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Computer Science 106: Introduction to Linux11 chapters | 65 lessons
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