OK, I have a windows 98 mavchine that i no longer use, but want to set it up as a test/dev server with redhat on. What I want to know is what is the best way to go about installing Redhat onto it?

Shall I format the drive completely, uninstall windows, both or something else?

Does anyone know any good tutorials or howto's on this subject.

If you're sure youre not going to want to do any gaming/Windows type stuff on it then yes, I would just delete everything and use the whole drive for Redhat. As far as installation goes.. it's pretty darn simple anymore, pretty much completely automated - you don't really need a tutorial. Just pop in the boot disk and go, it'll ask you for the cd, set up your partitions and all your software/passwords etc. IMHO though... that seems to be the only easy thing about Linux.. installing it :(. Damn you Mr. Gates, youve spoiled me with point and click!

So what is the best way of uninstalling windows? Shall I format the drive? Do you know of any good howto's or tutorials for doing so?

Yes, reformat the drive and use the install guide at http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/html_single/Installation-HOWTO.html and you'll be set.

if you want to use windows and red hat on same machine then do followings

1. download any partition manager (partition magic) and resize the partition size of your hard drive. keep at least 1Gb for Linux root and 200 MB for Virtual file.

2. either install boot manager or install lilo boot manager to make your system dul boot to either windows or linux. OR do not install LILO on boot partition you can boot Linux directly from dos.

this is quit simple. like JDF said Linux installation is very easy and wizard kinda thing. Just make sure to write your hardware list before installing Linux. :)

I don't know whether you guys can help, but I am now trying to format my hard drive, but when I type the "format C: /s" i get a command not found error! Can you help?

Are you using a Windows 98 boot disk made via the add/remove programs wizard or is it just a "sys"d floppy? You probably don't have format.com on the floppy... only thing I can think of.

If you want to reformat your harddisk, you must boot from a floppy(boot disk) where you will see a A:> dos prompt.

Another alternative is to use dual os on your computer as already mentioned but before you install Linux, you must have 2GB space for the complete installation


Assuming you have total 4 GB HD space, then you could use FIPS(maybe it's on the CDROM-installation) or use Partition Magic to divide the space to 2 +2GB Harddisk.

Reboot your computer and start the Linux installation from the CDROM selecting the GUI interface which is recommended for beginners. When installation is completed, when you first reboot, LILO(boot loader) will load and a prompt will appear, if you type "dos" you will be in the Win os, if you do nothing after 20 secs(adjustable in LILO) you will be in the Linux os and you will see a login prompt(asking for ROOT/ADMIN id and password ) if everything is installed correctly, you are all set to use your new Linux os. For starters, I would suggest getting a book on basic Linux commands to move around and experiiment/explore your new Linux enviroment.

Good luck

Linux has it's own file system (ext2fs).
So my suggestion would be to boot with the Linux installation CD and let Linux do the rest. It would automatically make the required partitions and format it..

The install is very easy. Just make the CD bootable by changing the BIOS settings.
Then let Linux do the rest..... you just have to click ....

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

There's no need to format. Redhat will take care of that for you during installation.