4.3. Starting the Installation Program

4.3.1. Booting the Installation Program on x86 and AMD64 Systems

You can boot the installation program using any one of the following media (depending upon what your system can support):

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD-ROM — Your machine supports a bootable CD-ROM drive and you have the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD-ROM set.

• Boot CD-ROM — Your machine supports a bootable CD-ROM drive and you want to perform network or hard drive installation.

• Boot diskette — Your machine does not support a bootable CD-ROM and you want to install from a local CD-ROM, network, or a hard drive[1]

To create a boot CD-ROM, refer to Section 2.5.2 Making an Installation Boot CD-ROM.

To create a boot diskette, refer to Section 2.5.3 Making an Installation Boot Diskette.

Insert the boot diskette into your computer's first diskette drive and reboot (or boot using the CD-ROM, if your computer supports booting from it). Your BIOS settings may need to be changed to allow you to boot from the diskette or CD-ROM.

Tip

To change your BIOS settings on an x86 or AMD64 system, watch the instructions provided on your display when your computer first boots. A line of text appears, telling you which key to press to enter the BIOS settings. Once you have entered your BIOS setup program, find the section where you can alter your boot sequence. The default is often C, A or A, C (depending on whether you boot from your hard drive [C] or a diskette drive [A]). Change this sequence so that the CD-ROM is first in your boot order and that C or A (whichever is your typical boot default) is second. This instructs the computer to first look at the CD-ROM drive for bootable media; if it does not find bootable media on the CD-ROM drive, it will then check your hard drive or diskette drive. Save your changes before exiting the BIOS. For more information, refer to the documentation that came with your system.

After a short delay, a screen containing the boot: prompt should appear. The screen contains information on a variety of boot options. Each boot option also has one or more help screens associated with it. To access a help screen, press the appropriate function key as listed in the line at the bottom of the screen.

As you boot the installation program, be aware of two issues:

• Once the boot: prompt appears, the installation program automatically begins if you take no action within the first minute. To disable this feature, press one of the help screen function keys.

• If you press a help screen function key, there will be a slight delay while the help screen is read from the boot media.

Normally, you only need to press [Enter] to boot. Watch the boot messages to review if the Linux kernel detects your hardware. If your hardware is properly detected, continue to the next section. If it does not properly detect your hardware, you may need to restart the installation and use one of the boot options provided in Appendix F Additional Boot Options.

4.3.2. Booting the Installation Program on Itanium Systems

Your Itanium system may be able to boot the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation program directly from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD #1. If your Itanium cannot boot the installation program from the CD-ROM (or if you want to perform a hard drive, NFS, FTP, or HTTP installation) you must boot from a diskette. Refer to Section 4.3.2.2 Booting the Installation Program from an LS-120 Diskette for more information on booting from a diskette.

dd if=boot.img of=/dev/hda bs=180k

4.3.3. Additional Boot Options

While it is easiest to boot using a CD-ROM and perform a graphical installation, sometimes there are installation scenarios where booting in a different manner may be needed. This section discusses additional boot options available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

For Itanium users:

To pass options to the boot loader on an Itanium system, enter the following at the EFI Shell prompt:

elilo linux option

For x86 and AMD64 users:

To pass options to the boot loader on an x86 or AMD64 system, use the instructions as provided in the boot loader option samples below.

	Note
	Refer to Appendix F Additional Boot Options for additional boot options not covered in this section.

• To perform a text mode installation, at the installation boot prompt, type:

  linux text

• ISO images have an md5sum embedded in them. To test the checksum integrity of an ISO image, at the installation boot prompt, type:

  linux mediacheck

  The installation program will prompt you to insert a CD or select an ISO image to test, and select OK to perform the checksum operation. This checksum operation can be performed on any Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD and does not have to be performed in a specific order (for example, CD #1 does not have the be the first CD you verify). It is strongly recommended to perform this operation on any Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD that was created from downloaded ISO images. This command works with the CD, DVD, hard drive ISO, and NFS ISO installation methods.

• Also in the images/ directory is the boot.iso file. This file is an ISO image than can be used to boot the installation program. It is a handy way to start network-based installations without having to use multiple diskettes. To use the boot.iso, your computer must be able to boot from its CD-ROM drive, and its BIOS settings must be configured to do so. You must then burn the boot.iso file onto a recordable/rewriteable CD-ROM.

• If you need to perform the installation in serial mode, type the following command:

  linux console=<device>

  For text mode installations, use:

  linux text console=<device>

  In the above command, <device> should be the device you are using (such as ttyS0 or ttyS1). For example, linux text console=ttyS0.

  Text mode installations using a serial terminal work best when the terminal supports UTF-8. Under UNIX and Linux, Kermit supports UTF-8. For Windows, Kermit '95 works well. Non-UTF-8 capable terminals will work as long as only English is used during the installation process. An enhanced serial display can be used by passing the utf8 command as a boot-time option to the installation program. For example:

  linux console=ttyS0 utf8

linux mem=128M

linux text mem=128M

C:\> d:
D:\> cd \dosutils
D:\dosutils> autoboot.bat