Installing Libranet Linux
This was a special request from Framework, so I wrote it.
Installing Operating Systems with GORE.
How to install Libranet Linux. A step by step tutorial/guide by gore.
Part 2 of “Easy Linux installations by gore”. Or part 3 if you count my SuSE Linux installation tutorial.
Libranet Linux is a Debian based Linux distribution. It is easier to install than Debian, but this tutorial is more aimed at people who are in a hurry.
This is another tutorial I’m writing that will be pretty much step by step. The reason I write these tutorials; To make installing Linux not only easy, but very easy to understand. If more people see how easy it really is, than more people may use Linux.
This is why my first one was for Slackware. Slackware has a horrid reputation for being hard to install, so I made a tutorial to show it was not. Hopefully I can keep doing these and more people will see how easy this really is.
I have NOT read any manuals or books for installing Slackware, Libranet, or most others. The reason I don’t is because most of these are just easy. Slackware for example, does not need a book. You can fallow along on the screen and it pretty much walks you through it. But not everyone has the time to look for that when they install like I do.
Libranet is pretty easy to install. I didn’t use the manuals for this either. And as long as I have time, I’ll even go through the first few configuration options to get you started after installation has finished.
Let’s begin.
I am again going to be making a few assumptions here. I’m not using any hard to find or hard to get hardware for this. The box is the same one I used to install Slackware.
The machine is an HP Pavilion, Pentium 3 733 megahertz processor, 384 MB RAM, Sound Blaster Live! Sound card, SMC EZ Card 1255tx NIC, 42.9 GB HD. Used to be top of the line, but now they come cheap. The sound card was put in later on and the **** win modem/soundcard was taken out.
The video card is an Nvidia Riva TNT2 with 16 MB memory.
I am assuming you are using a similar machine, or at least one that can be booted from CD. Check Libranet’s website to be sure your hardware is compatible if you are unsure.
Take the Libranet CD, and put it in the drive you are booting from. Shut the machine down, or reboot.
When your computer boots, you see a colorful text version of what you see in the
Slackware install.
Press enter.
You see text scroll and then come to a screen like you’d see in Slackware. Not graphical but not all text. Ncurses I think it is called.
Press enter at this screen to continue.
The next screen is the directions. Read these and then hit enter.
The loading modules screen appears, and then you select your keyboard. If you live in the US like me, press enter, as it default selects the US layout. If you live somewhere else, hit the down arrow key and hit enter to select another keyboard.
After you select the keyboard it scans your drive/drives.
The next screen is for HD partitioning.
Press enter.
Select automatically partition and layout drives. After this you come to another screen. I am using the entire disk so I just hit enter. If you have partitions pre defined you may want to hit the down arrow key to use free space by pressing the down arrow key, and hitting enter.
But like I said, I am using the entire disk, so I just press enter at this screen.
The next screen asks you to select the disk to install on. I only have one hard drive in this box so there is only one on here. So just press enter at this screen.
The next screen warns you that it is about to format the hard drive and that all data will be lost. Don’t worry about this, it is just a little warning for people that they are now locked into the choice to install. Press the right arrow key to select yes, then press enter.
You then see it is creating the file system and setting the drive lay out. After this is done you see another screen saying it is complete. Just hit enter here.
You know come back to the partition screen. It default selects finished partitioning, so just hit enter. At this point you tell it where the CD-ROM you are installing from is located. Just select which drive you put the CD-ROM in and hit enter. You now see it installing the base system. This can take a while as the screen says, so get some coffee, or some money you plan on sending me. After a little bit you see a blue screen. Just wait a few and you’ll see it asking how to handle system booting.
If for some reason you are dual booting, then you may have a boot manager already installed. If you do NOT have one installed, then select yes at this screen and let Libranet take care of it by pressing enter.
It installs the boot loader, then asks you where your country is. I am in America, so I hit the down arrow key two times and hit enter, then I hit the down arrow key until my state, Michigan, is selected, and hit enter again.
After this screen, you come to the boot floppy creation screen. If you plan on using this system for more than testing, you should make a boot floppy. Since I am not using it for more than testing as of now though, I am not going to create one. Mainly because I have home work to do and have a class in like a half an hour.
So I hit the right arrow key and select no. by pressing enter. The next screen you see asks for a reboot and stage one is now completed. It defaults with a reboot highlighted, so just press enter. When you press enter, a screen comes up warning you to take out the CD-ROM. Open your CD-ROM drive, and take the Libranet CD out.
After you take it out, close the drive, and hit enter. After you hit enter, you see the system rebooting. After it reboots, it gives you a time limit. Just leave the keyboard alone and it auto selects to boot Libranet Linux.
After Libranet boots, you come to a command prompt to set the root password. Do not pick a password that can be guessed easy. You should use letters and numbers in your password as it will make it a lot harder to crack.
A good way to make passwords, is to make little sentences and use the first letter from each word as your password. For example, say you like the band GWAR. Well, your password could be something like “I like GWAR, I have 12 of their albums”. To turn this into a password, you would use the first letter of each word, and the numbers, and your password would be “ilgih12ota”.
This is a decent password, and hard as hell to remember if you are trying to guess it. So using a sentence in the password helps a lot. After you enter the password, you enter it again to be sure you got the spelling right. After you enter the password, and have the spelling right, you see a new screen asking you to create a new user account.
Even if you are the only one using your machine, you really should create a user account. Mainly because it is so damned tempting to see what rm -rf / actually does. After you enter a username, hit enter. You then see a prompt to give this username a password. Enter the password, and then you will be entering it again as always. Also, note that the password does not show up on the screen in command line mode. No ******* or anything.
After you enter the password, it says “password updated successfully” And gives you another prompt. Enter the name of the user here, and press enter, after pressing enter, it prompts you again and again and again for information.
If you are setting this machine up in a business then you should enter this all in, but if you are using it only at home for yourself, this information will only be good for when you are too drunk to remember your name address and phone number.
After entering in all the information you wanted too, you see a new prompt asking you “Is the information correct?” Just type “y” here and press enter unless you ****ed some of it up and need to retype it. If you ****ed up and need to re type it, press the letter “n” on your keyboard, and press enter to re enter it. If you got it right and are happy with it, press the letter “y” on your keyboard and press enter.
After you press enter and all information is added, it asks you if you would like to add another user. If you are setting this up for business use, or you are setting it up for more than just yourself to use the machine, then you should enter in the users you need to give access too. If you don’t want to enter in anymore, just type “n” and press enter.
At this point, you add your host name. You can enter whatever the hell you really want here, unless you are setting this up in a business environment, in which case you should enter company information from your system admin, or whatever you need to enter here. After you enter the information, press enter after you are sure of the information, and sure that “OK” is highlighted.
After pressing enter, you come to a screen telling you that the host name was set. Press enter. After this you are asked to put the Libranet CD-ROM back in the CD-ROM drive. After you have put the CD-ROM back in, press enter.
After you press enter, you see a screen saying please wait. Then you see it installing the kernel source, and then you come up to a nicely designed installation screen for software. The arrow keys and the TAB key are used for navigation.
If you are installing on a laptop, you should select the PCMCIA software. Select the software you want by pressing the arrow and TAB keys and using the spacebar to select software. If you select something by accident and don’t want it selected, just hit space bar again.
After you have used the up and down arrow keys to select what you want, hit the TAB key to highlight install, and press enter. You come to a screen telling you what you have selected, and asking to proceed. It is already highlighting “CONTINUE”, so just press enter.
After you press enter, you see it installing all of the software you selected in the previous screen. You’ll notice that it is using .deb packages. This is because Libranet is Debian based. This will take a while to install everything, so relax. If you have money lying around you can send it to me.
Leave the keyboard alone during this time. At some points it may seem like it is freezing up, but give it a few minutes and it will be back to installing software. Also, don’t worry about the “oasis-open.org” thing, just leave it alone.
After a while you see a screen saying it is safe to remove the CD-ROM now. Remove the CD-ROM, and press enter. If the CD-ROM Doesn’t want to come out yet, then **** it, leave it in.
You can press enter anyway, and when you press enter, you go to another screen asking you if you’d like to configure sound. If you have a sound card and want sound like I do, press “y” here, and press enter.
After pressing enter, you see a new colorful screen with some options. It auto highlights “detect”, so just press enter to have it detect the card for you. After you press enter it looks for sound modules for your card. After this screen it shows you what it found. It found my card, so I press enter and select detected modules.
After pressing enter, it tries loading the module. Now another screen shows up saying it has finished loading modules. Press enter. Now you are at the network set up screen. Press “y” and press enter. After pressing enter you come to a new screen telling you stuff and things. Read them and press enter.
After pressing enter you come to a screen showing you different connection types. I’m using my LAN so I press the down arrow key to highlight network and press enter. You see a screen saying no Ethernet devices have been configured yet, which is not shocking considering the installation is still going, so just press enter.
After you press enter, you come to the same style screen you were at for sound. Press enter for Libranet to try and detect your NIC. After pressing enter, you come to another screen saying it is detecting the card. Then it flashes by and you’re at another screen saying it found the card. Unless your NIC is a piece of ****. Mine however is not, and was found.
Press enter at this screen. It loads the module, saves it, and then tells you about it. Press enter. Now you select how you want the connection for the network to go about. I have my router assign IP addresses, so I select DHCP by pressing the down arrow key, to highlight dynamic and hit enter. If you need to send your host name or some other **** select it here. I don’t so I hit the right arrow key and press enter.
Another screen shows up saying the configuration is done. Press enter. You then enter the address of your name servers. It should be automatically enter, but if it is not, then enter it, and then press enter.
ANOTHER damn screen shows up saying name server set. Press enter and watch how another screen shows up. It’s the same one where you started configuring the network. If you screwed up the settings you can enter them again here, or press the down arrow key 3 times and press enter to exit that screen.
After pressing enter you come to another screen for CD-ROM drive detection. Press “y” and hit enter. The next screen should be fairly self explanatory even if you live in Alabama. Press enter.
Then press enter again unless you want SCSI on all your devices. After pressing enter you’re at another screen. Select a drive for the default CD-ROM and press enter.
Then you see another screen saying done. Press enter. Now you are at the X configuration screen. Press enter for auto. After pressing enter, your hardware is detected and you press enter unless it was not correct. Guess what you do if it’s not? Press the right arrow key and select no if it was not found correctly. If it was, leave it the hell alone and press enter.
Now it detects the mouse. Don’t move your mouse. After it is detected, press enter. If it was not select no. If it was however, press enter. Now it detects your monitor. Make sure it was done correctly. Read the screen and be sure it is all done correctly. Then press enter if it was, or hit the right arrow key and highlight no and press enter if it was not.
After you have to correct settings, you come to another screen asking for the resolution. I’m going with 1024x768. Press enter. Press enter at the next screen too. I have no idea why they have so many damned screen during the install but there has to be like 700 of the ****ing things. After you get from that screen that wrote the X configuration, ANOTHER screen comes up asking to test it. Go ahead and test it, read the screen and follow the direction. I’m not walking you through this part because it tells you what to do its self.
Now another screen comes up to tell you it’s done…Press enter.
Then enter again.
Then it’s back into text mode. Press enter again.
You’re done.
