Appendix A

Media

In This Appendix
Getting Linux distributions
Creating a bootable CD or DVD

Unless you bought a computer with Linux pre-installed, or had someone install it for you, you need to find a way to get a Linux distribution, and then either install or run it live on your computer. Fortunately, Linux distributions are widely available and come in a variety of forms.

In this Appendix, you learn how to:

  • Get a few different Linux distributions
  • Create a bootable disk to install your distribution
  • Boot Linux from a USB drive

To use this book effectively, you should have a Linux distribution in front of you to work on. It's important to be able to experience Linux as you read. So, try the examples and do the exercises.

Linux distributions are most commonly available from the websites of the organizations that produce them. The following sections describe websites associated with Linux distributions that offer ISO images you can download.

Note
An ISO is a disk image that is formatted in the ISO 9660 file system format, a format that is commonly used with CD and DVD images. Because this is a well-known format, it is readable by Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.
An ISO image can be burned to a CD or DVD medium, depending on the size of the image. An ISO image that is in your file system can be mounted in a Linux in loopback mode, so you can view or copy its contents.
When an ISO image contains a Linux Live CD or installation image, the images are bootable. That means that instead of starting up an operating system, such as Windows or Linux, from the computer's hard disk, you can tell your computer to boot from the CD or DVD instead. This enables you to run a totally different operating system than is installed on your hard disk without changing or damaging the data on that disk.

Getting Fedora

An actual “Get Fedora” page is available from the Fedora website (http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora). That page contains links to download ISOs, information on the type of computer you need, and an overview of how to turn the ISO into burned media.

Note
I recommend downloading the Fedora Desktop Live CD to work along with this book because most of the book will work with that distribution. You can run it live without committing to overwriting your computer's hard disk until you feel comfortable enough to install it permanently.

To test the examples in this book, I used Fedora 16, 32-bit desktop Live CD (GNOME). If you have a 64-bit machine, the 64-bit ISO would be fine. Later versions of Fedora that come with a GNOME desktop should work as well. Here's a link to the exact ISO used: http://download.fedora.devel.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/16/Live/i686/Fedora-16-i686-Live-Desktop.iso

You can download the ISOs you need from any computer that has a CD/DVD burner. See the descriptions of CD/DVD burning tools available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux later in this appendix.

Figure A.1 shows an example of the Get Fedora page.

Figure A.1 Download Fedora ISO images from the Get Fedora page.

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The default download is a CD ISO image of a 32-bit PC-type Fedora Desktop (GNOME) Live CD. You will be able to boot this image on your computer and, if you choose, you can permanently install it to your computer's hard disk. To download this image, do the following:

1. Select the Download Now button. A pop-up should appear, asking what you want to do with the ISO.
2. Select to download the ISO. Depending on your settings, either you will be asked where you want to download it or it will simply begin downloading to a default folder.
3. If you are prompted for where to put the ISO, select a folder that has enough space to hold it. Remember where this folder is because you will need to locate the ISO when you go to burn it later.

If you need more information about what to do with the downloaded image, there are links to help you on the Fedora page that appears. At the time of this writing there are links to What should I do with this ISO file?, I need help running or installing Fedora, and I want to learn more about Fedora.

You have other choices for downloading ISOs from Fedora. From the Get Fedora page, select the More download options link. Here are some alternatives to the 32-bit Fedora Desktop Live CD:

  • 64-bit Fedora—If you know you have a 64-bit computer, download that ISO instead of the 32-bit version. If you are in doubt, the 32-bit will work on either type of computer, but won't take full advantage of performance gains of the 64-bit system.
  • Spins—There are special versions of Fedora that are referred to as spins. Examples of special Fedora spins include those that offer different desktop interfaces than you get with GNOME (KDE, LXDE, or Xfce). If you are getting poor performance from the GNOME desktop, LXDE and Xfce are good, lightweight alternatives.
  • Installation media—Select the All Download Methods link to see some alternative download methods and different ISO images. In particular, DVD ISO images are available from this page that let you do full Fedora installations from scratch (similar to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation described in Chapter 9, “Installing Linux”). A Network Install CD, which is a small CD that can launch the installation process, can then be completed over the network or from other media.

Once you have the ISO image you want, proceed to the description later in this chapter of how to burn that image to CD or DVD.

Getting Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Many large corporations, government agencies, and universities use Red Hat Enterprise Linux to run their mission-critical applications. While most of the procedures in this book will run well on Fedora, there are many references to how things are done differently in Red Hat Enterprise Linux because, when you go to get a job as a Linux system administrator, you will, in most cases, be working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems.

While the source code for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is freely available, the ISOs containing the packages you install (often referred to as the binaries) are available only to those who have accounts on the Red Hat customer portal (https://access.redhat.com).

If you don't have an account, you can try signing up for a 30-day trial. If either you or your company has an account with Red Hat, you can download the ISOs you need. Go to the following site and follow the instructions to download a Red Hat Enterprise Linux server ISO or sign up to get an evaluation copy:

https://access.redhat.com/downloads

Red Hat does not offer Live CD versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Instead, you can download installation DVDs that you can install as described in Chapter 9 of this book.

Note
If you are unable to obtain a Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation DVD, you can get a similar experience using the CentOS installation DVD. CentOS is not exactly the same as RHEL. However, if you download the CentOS installation DVD for CentOS 6.2 from a CentOS mirror site, the installation procedure will be similar to the one described for Red Hat Enterprise Linux in Chapter 9.

Getting Ubuntu

Many people new to Linux begin by downloading and installing Ubuntu. Ubuntu has a huge fan base and many active contributors. If you have problems with Ubuntu, there are large, active forums where many people are willing to help you overcome problems.

If you already have an Ubuntu system installed, you can follow along with most of the first half of this book. You can get Ubuntu with a GNOME desktop, and its default dash shell is similar to bash (or you can switch to bash in Ubuntu to match the shell examples in this book).

As the book progresses into system administration topics, however, the procedures may not exactly match the way you would do them in Ubuntu, with Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux serving as better options for the system administration, server administration, and security topics covered in later chapters.

To get Ubuntu, you can download a Live CD or installation medium from the Download Ubuntu page: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download

Figure A.2 shows an example of the Ubuntu download page.

Figure A.2 Download Ubuntu Live CD ISO images or choose an alternative download.

b01.1

As with Fedora, the easiest way to download Ubuntu is to select the 32-bit Ubuntu Live CD, download it, and burn it. Here's how to do that from the Download Ubuntu page:

1. Click the Start Download button. By default, this downloads the most recent 32-bit Ubuntu GNOME desktop Live CD ISO image.
2. Either you will be asked where you want to download the ISO image or it will simply begin downloading to a default folder.
3. If you are asked where to put the ISO, select a folder that has enough space to hold the ISO. Remember where this folder is because you will need to locate the ISO when you go to burn it later.

After the download is complete, burn the ISO image to a CD using procedures described shortly in the “Creating Linux CDs and DVDs” section.

Other types of Ubuntu installation media are also available. Here are some examples:

  • Ubuntu Windows Installer—To run Ubuntu as an application within a Windows system, you can download this special version of Ubuntu and follow the link to information on that page about how to install it:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/windows-installer

  • Alternate Downloads—You can select different versions of Ubuntu to download from the Alternative Downloads page. There are versions specific for servers, desktops, and netbooks. There are also DVD images that offer more packages than you get with the live CDs. The Alternative Downloads page is located at:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/alternative-download

Creating Linux CDs and DVDs

Once you have downloaded a Linux CD or DVD image, you can use several tools to create bootable CDs or DVDs for either installing or just running Linux live from those media. Before you begin, you must have the following:

  • DVD or CD ISO images—Download the ISO images to your computer that represent the physical DVD or CD you will ultimately burn.
  • Blank DVDs/CDs—You need blank DVDs or CDs to burn the images to. CDs hold up to about 700MB; DVDs hold up to about 4.7GB (single layer).
  • CD burner—You need a drive that is capable of burning CDs or DVDs, depending on which you are burning. Not all CD/DVD drives can burn CDs (especially older ones). So, you might need to find a computer with a drive that has that capability.

The following sections describe how to burn bootable CDs and DVDs from Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux systems.

Burning CDs/DVDs in Windows

If you have downloaded your Linux ISO image to a Windows system, you can burn that image to CD or DVD in different ways, depending on which release of Windows you are using. Here are some examples:

  • Windows 7—In Windows 7, the function of burning ISO images to CD or DVD is built into the operating system. Once an ISO image is downloaded, simply insert the appropriate CD or DVD into your computer's drive (assuming the drive is writeable), right-click on the ISO image icon from the folder you downloaded it to, and select Burn disc image. When the Windows Disc Image Burner window appears, select Burn to burn the image.
  • Roxio Creator—This third-party Windows application contains many features for ripping and burning CDs and DVDs. You can read about the product here:

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/creator/

  • Nero CD/DVD Burning ROM—Nero is another popular CD/DVD burning software product for Windows systems. You can find out more about Nero here:

http://www.nero.com

Burning CDs/DVDs on a Mac OS X system

Like Linux, Mac OS X has CD/DVD burning software built into the operating system. To burn an ISO image to disk on a Mac OS X system, follow these steps:

1. Download the ISO image you want on your Mac OS X system. An icon representing the ISO should appear on your desktop.
2. Insert a blank CD or DVD into your CD/DVD burner, as appropriate for the size of the image.
3. Right-click the icon representing the Linux ISO you just downloaded and select Burn “Linux” to Disk. A pop-up window appears, asking if you are sure you want to burn the image.
4. Fill in the name you want to give the ISO and the write speed. Then select Burn. The image begins burning to disk.
5. After the image has been burned, eject the disk and you are ready to boot the CD or DVD on an appropriate computer.

Burning CDs/DVDs in Linux

Linux has both graphical and command-line tools for burning CD and DVD images to physical media. Examples in this section show how to use K3b from the desktop or cdrecord (or wodim) to burn ISO images to CD or DVD.

Burning CDs from a Linux desktop

Here's how to create bootable Linux CDs from a running Linux system (such as Fedora) using K3b. K3b comes with the KDE desktop, but will run on the GNOME desktop as well.

1. Download the ISO images you want to your computer's hard drive. (A CD image is under about 700MB in size. Single-layer DVD images are under 4.7GB.)
2. Open a CD/DVD burning application. For this procedure, I recommend K3b CD and DVD Kreator (http://www.k3b.org). In Fedora, select the Applications menu and choose Sound & Video cmdarr; K3b (or type k3b from a Terminal window). The K3b – CD and DVD Kreator window appears.
Note
If K3b is not installed on your Linux system, you can install it on most Linux distributions. For Fedora, install K3b by typing yum install k3b as root user from a Terminal window.
3. From the K3b window, select Tools cmdarr; Burn CD ISO Image to burn a CD image or Tools cmdarr; Burn DVD ISO Image to burn a DVD image. You are asked to choose an image file.
4. Browse to the image you just downloaded or copied to hard disk and select it. After you select the image you want, the Burn CD Image window appears, as does a checksum on the image. (Often, you can compare the checksum number that appears against the number in an md5 file from the download directory where you got the live CD to be sure that the CD image was not corrupted.) Figure A.3 shows the Burn CD Image window ready to burn an image of Fedora.
5. Insert a blank CD or DVD into the CD/DVD drive, which may be a combination CD/DVD drive. (If a CD/DVD Creator window pops up, you can just close it.)
6. Check the settings in the Burn CD Image window (often, the defaults are fine, but you may want to slow down the speed if you get some bad burns). You can also select the Simulate check box to test the burn before actually writing to the CD/DVD. Click Start to continue.
7. When the CD is done burning, eject it (or it may eject automatically) and mark it appropriately (information such as the distribution name, version number, date, and name of the ISO image).

Figure A.3 Use K3b to burn your Linux CDs or DVDs.

b01.1

Now you're ready to begin installing (or booting) the Linux distribution you just burned.

Burning CDs from a Linux command line

If you have no GUI, or don't mind working from the shell, you can use the cdrecord command to burn the ISOs. With a blank CD inserted and the ISO image you want to burn in the current directory, you can use the following simple command line for burning a CD image to CD using cdrecord:

# cdrecord -v whatever.iso

See the cdrecord man page (man cdrecord) for other options available with the cdrecord command.

Booting Linux from a USB Drive

Instead of burning ISO images to a CD or DVD, you can put your Linux system on a USB drive. USB drives offer the advantage of being writable as well as readable, so you can save your content between sessions. Most modern computers can boot from a USB drive, although you may have to interrupt the boot process to tell the BIOS to boot from USB instead of hard drive or CD/DVD drive.

You can find procedures for putting Fedora and Ubuntu on a USB drive in the following locations:

  • Fedora on USB drive—Using a tool called Live USB Creator (https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/), you can install a Fedora ISO image to a USB drive. To run Fedora from that drive, insert it into a USB port on your computer, reboot the computer, interrupt the BIOS as it is booting (possibly F12), and select to boot from a USB drive. The procedure for using Live USB creator is located at:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/16/html/Installation_Guide/Making_USB_Media.html
  • Ubuntu on USB drive—Ubuntu has procedures for creating a bootable USB drive with Ubuntu on it that work from Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux. To find out how to do this, go to the Ubuntu Download page and select the type of medium (USB) and operating system (Windows, Mac, or Linux) you want to use to create the bootable USB drive:
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download
Visit the Linux Bible website
To find links to various Linux distributions, tips on gaining ons to the book as they become available, go to http://www.wiley.com/go/linuxbible.
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