Table of Contents
The installation program developed by MandrakeSoft for Mandrake distributions is also used for the installation of ALT Linux 2.3 Compact. The program has a graphical user interface and is very simple in use. It allows to return to stages already passed in the installation process and even to choose a different type of installation once again.
In order to begin the installation, all you need to do is boot from the CD-ROM containing the distribution (to do this, it may be necessary to turn the CD-ROM bootup option on in BIOS). In the beginning of the installation, a list of possible installation modes is given. If no action is taken for 5 seconds, or if Enter is pressed, the installation program will be launched. The following installation modes are available:
The default installation mode.
The noapic parameter is passed to the installation kernel.
In some rare cases, hardware identification may cause the computer to freeze. If this happens, use the expert mode to prevent freezing. This type of installation should be chosen only if you have sufficient knowledge and experience of working with Linux. Installation in the expert mode will enable you to do a customized setup, but you will have to answer sufficiently difficult questions, and thus you must know what you are doing quite well. Please note that the peculiarities of the Expert mode are not covered in this manual.
If you have a vintage video card or small amount of RAM, text installation mode may be chosen. This mode can also be accessed by pressing F2. Peculiarities of the Text mode are not covered in this manual.
In the lower part of the screen the boot options string contains a clue about those parameters which will be passed to the installation kernel. These parameters should not be edited unless you are absolutely clear about the necessity of your actions. In the boot options string, installation mode options may be specified, for instance, the amount of free RAM available (which can be used when the system fails to identify the RAM size by itself): mem=xxxM. In order to launch the installation on a computer with 256 MB of RAM available, the following command string should be passed:
linux mem=256M
By pressing the keys F3, F4 and F5, display resolution may be selected, which will also be used for launching the system after installation.
The following bootup modes are also available:
A memory test for x86 systems is launched. This test uses the “moving inversions” algorithm, effective when memory malfunctions are encountered. This option can also be used to create a boot floppy to run the test.
System rescue mode is launched. You can mount the required hard drive partition with the mount command and then move into it with the chroot command.
Launches the installed operating system.
This manual assumes that you are conducting a standard step-by-step installation, following the instructions closely.
When the installation program is launched, various stages of the installation are shown in the left-hand part of the screen. Depending on the installation stage reached, the list of accessible stages is changed. During the installation process, if the cursor is placed at a particular stage name, this stage is highlighted with a certain color, depending on the current status of a stage:
Red means that this installation stage has not been passed yet;
Orange means that this stage is being passed at a particular moment;
Green means that this installation stage has already been passed, but nothing prevents you from returning to it another time.