INSTALLING MANDRIVA 2006
( General instructions )



Please first read the erratum: http://qa.mandriva.com//twiki/bin/view/Mai...Linux2006Errata




- Preparation

If this is your first Linux install, check out Basic Rules for Install

If you are replacing a previous Mandrake Install back up:
- Your browser plugins located in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
- The ~/.evolution directory ( When I restore it, I chown (change ownership) it back to "chown -R bruno:bruno evolution" )
- The ~/.galeon/bookmarks.xml ( or other bookmarks )
- Personal things in your /home directory
- Your /etc/lilo.conf ( if you are booting mutiple distros )
- Your /etc/hosts, /etc/aliases, /etc/rc.d/rc.local, ~/.bashrc, ~/.exrc if you made any modification to these files.


- Set your BIOS to boot from CD and disable PNP aware OS.

- Put the first CD in the CD-ROM drive and boot your computer.




- Install

1st screen: The welcome screen. Press Enter

Before the GUI comes back, the installer is loading into memory and devices are being configured.


2nd screen: Language selection


The default is US English, Press Next



3rd screen: License agreement


Select "accept" and Press Next



4th screen: Is this an install or an upgrade ?


Tick the box of "install" and Press Next Advice: NEVER use Upgrade !!! )



5th screen: Security level


ATTENTION: By default the security level is set to "high", change this to "Standard"
Fill in "root" or your email address and Press Next



6th screen: The DrakX Partitioning wizard found etc. etc.


- If you have your partitions already made: tick the box "use existing partitions" and Press Next
- If you still have to make partitions, or want to change the size of the existing ones: tick the box "Custom Disk Partitioning" and Press Next You will be taken to the very intuitive and easy partitioning tool. Make a 5G partition for / and a 2G for /home.



7th screen: Choose file Mount points


Chose the partitions where you want / and /home and Press Next
( Everybody using partitions for /tmp and /usr too . . you know what to do )



8th screen: Choose the partitions you want to format


. . Leave the /home box unchecked if you want to keep your mail addresses and personal settings Press Next



9th screen: Packages


Do like in the screen shot: tick all the boxes on the left, and only the last 3 on the right and Press Next
NOTE: Including Gnome will also give you all the gnome programs you can also use in KDE . . so even if you intend to never use Gnome it is better to install it anyway.



Now the install really starts. It takes about 16 minutes and you have to change CDs twice



10th screen: Root password


Fill in your root password twice and Press Next



11th screen: Adding a user


Fill in name twice and password twice and Press Accept user



12th screen: Adding a user ( again )


Here you can add another user, or leave it empty and Press Next



13th screen: Auto login


De-select the box, you do not want this, and Press Next
NOTE: It is safer to not use this feature, and it makes sure that you can choose at boot what window manager to start. Also if you ever get a corrupted /home directory the non-autologin makes fixing a lot easier.



14th screen: Boot loader


Select "First sector of drive ( MBR )" and Press Next
NOTE: It will automatically include your Windows partition for dual boot



15th screen: Summary, . . . . This is very important . . check all the settings by clicking on the Configure button, look at the difference I have in the two screenshots:


Before configuring


After configuring



16th screen: Updates


. . . say NO and Press Next
NOTE: This feature rarely works, you will have to do the updates in the MCC after the first reboot



17th screen: Complete . . remove your CD and Press Reboot




- After the install:

After the reboot you absolutely have to install: Anacron, and get the Updates ( see and subscribe to This thread )
Additionally you can add: xmms, xmms-alsa, aumix, galeon, gkrellm, kedit, mplayer, xine etc. etc.

NOTE: I removed "kat" in the MCC after the install because it takes up to many resources ( kat = desktop search prog. )
Info about "kat": http://kat.mandriva.com/

After the first boot please issue the following command ( as root ) to fix a cron/msec bug:

Also read the release notes: Here

Special tweaks:
Menu and kdm: http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.php?showtopic=11825
Smaller fonts: http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.php?showtopic=11824

Extra software sources can be configured, have a look Here

Have FUN !



Bruno


-- Oct 18 2005 ( Revised Dec 14 2005 ) --