Booting into live CD session & beginning of installation
Before you begin, make sure you have everything ready for the installation:- You have downloaded and burned the Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna .iso to CD.
- You have allocated the required hardware resources, like dual boot, second machine or a virtual machine. In you choose the last option, then install and configure the VMware Server and create a Linux Mint virtual machine. This is optional.
- You know how to boot from CD (regardless of the installation platform).
After a few minutes, you will reach the live desktop. Just like the latest Ubuntu release (7.10 Gutsy Gibbon), Daryna boots into a desktop with a somewhat awkward 1680x1050px resolution. If your monitor does not support this resolution, the live CD will change it to fit the highest available resolution that your monitor can allow.
Personally, I found this resolution to be too big for my taste. However, manually changing the resolution does not work at this stage. For this reason, most of my screenshots will show a truncated section of the desktop centered around relevant windows.
Daryna features a pleasant black-and-green desktop. Windows users will appreciate the location of the would-be Start Menu in the left lower corner, which is more typical for the KDE rather than Gnome.
This is a good opportunity to get accustomed to the menus and features, check the hardware compatibility and test some of the installed programs.
The Start Menu is progressive (similar to SUSE 10.2); in other words, it will change as you hover your mouse over different sections, allowing you to reach the required entry without too many clicks. It also allows quick access to some of the most important functions - different locations on the machine, applications, and system functions, like the Terminal, Control Center, or the Package Manager.
To begin the installation, click on the Install icon. You will first have to select the installation language.
The next step is to choose your location. Amsterdam looks like a good choice. Be aware that the location choice will determine the local time on your machine as well as which servers will be used to download updates; the closer the better.
Next, select your keyboard layout.
Partitioning & Users
If you have read and followed my other articles up until now, you will find the partitioning to be a very simple and painless procedure: We will setup three partitions - swap, root (/), home (/home). We will do it manually.
Since the hard disk is empty, we will first create a partition table. If your system already contains partitions and might have other operation systems installed, you will not have to do this step. Furthermore, you should carefully examine the layout of the partitions and choose accordingly.
To understand the hard disk notation in Linux, please refer to my Installing SUSE Linux - Full tutorial. For more information on partitioning with other operating systems present, for instance, Windows and Linux, please refer to Dual booting - Windows & Linux - Full tutorial.
Click on the listed device (in our case,the single SATA drive, /dev/sda). Next, click on New Partition Table.
If your hard disk is empty, you can ignore the warning. If you have partitions and data that you do not wish to remove, you should not proceed. Instead, use existing partitions to setup your system. Nevertheless, no change will be permanent until you complete the partitioning process.
Click Continue to proceed. Once the Partition table is created, you will have the free space available to create the partitions.
Click on the free space and choose New Partition. We will repeat the process three times, creating the swap, root (/) and home (/home).
Once you are done, click Forward to proceed.
Next, you will have to setup the user. Choose a strong password.
That's it. Review your choices before you click Install. Under Advanced, you can configure the bootloader. For more information, you might want to read yet another one of my articles: GRUB bootloader - Full tutorial.
The distro will now install. It should take only about 5-10 minutes.
Completing installation & Basic configurations
Once the installation is complete, remove the CD from the tray and restart the computer.
After you restart the computer, you will see the GRUB menu. The default timeout is only 5 seconds, but you can change that later if you want.
After several moments, you'll reach the login screen.
The first time you log in, the Linux Mint assistant will pop and ask you a number of questions.
First, you will be asked if you wish to setup the root account. Like Ubuntu, Linux Mint offers full sudoing without the root account. This increases security and therefore, enabling the root account is not recommended. Indeed, you should not enable the root account unless you really feel like it.
Next, you'll be asked whether to enable fortunes in the terminal windows - geeky quotes that are in the best spirit of Linux. It's entirely up to you to decide if you want or need them.
You will be asked to approve your choices.
That should complete the assistant setup.
You will now reach an elegant desktop.
Installation of VMware Tools (valid for VMware Server virtualization only)
Since this install is being done inside a virtual machine, the first thing we will do now is install VMware Tools, a set of drivers that enhances the performance of the guest operating system. If you are installing Linux Mint on physical hardware, you can skip this step. However ...I recommend you do not skip and read through carefully. While the exercise focuses on VMware Tools, it also demonstrates the use of the command line and the installation of some critical system packages using both the command line and the GUI.
All in all, the goal of this procedure is to:
- Use the Package Manager to search and install packages.
Post-install configurations
We have our system running. Now, we will learn to get around, setup the graphics drivers, update the system, and configure the wireless network adapters.
Control Center
Linux Mint has a centralized Control Center that offers easy access to major system functions. This is the best place to start configuring the system. Like all major applications, it is instantly accessible from the Menu.
Update system
Linux Mint uses mintUpdate as the centralized way of system wide updates. This is almost identical to most modern distributions.
Graphic drivers
Linux Mint introduces a fresh way of installing your graphic drivers. It uses Alberto Milone's Envy package, which turns the installation into a completely painless and transparent process. Envy can be accessed via Menu > Applications > System Tools > Envy.
The application will allow you to either automatically or manually install/uninstall the required drivers and will solve the missing dependencies for you. You'll have your drivers running in seconds and be able to enjoy the built-in 3D desktop manager.
Wireless network adapters
Unfortunately, I cannot demonstrate the full installation, because I'm a classic man of wired network persuasions, but again, Linux Mint comes forward with the ease of a breeze. In the Control Center, select Windows Wireless Drivers. This will launch the Ndiswrapper tool.
All you need to is find the Windows wireless driver .inf file somewhere on your hard disk. And that's it. The long manual configurations are no longer needed. That's it.
Other
Well, you have the full read/write NTFS supports, all the required media codecs, a 3D desktop manager, and a truckload of great applications. Have fun. - Show a typical text-guided Linux installation from an archive (tarball).
- Explain the basics of installation and compilation.
- Help us overcome a supposedly difficult installation problem.
- Help us overcome post-installation problems.
- Configure a new program to run at startup.
- Edit system configuration files via the command line and text editor.
- Help us overcome the resolution problem, which we have not been able to fix using the conventional tools; for this purpose, the installation of VMware Tools is similar to the installation of graphical drivers, which help us better control the X Server (and improve performance).
- In the best tradition of Dedoimedo, introduce a new element of a Linux installation unseen in other tutorials.
Installation of VMware Tools (only for virtual machines)
Includes important info about common installation problems & solutions
Note: This is a good exercise! You should read through, at the very least.
For more detailed instructions, please refer to the official Installing VMware Tools how-to, as well as the VMware/Tools Community Ubuntu Documentation.
In the File Menu of the VMware Server, choose VM > Install VMware Tools, OK the warning message. This will mount a virtual CD-ROM drive containing the VMware Tools binaries.
The virtual CD-ROM contains two files - one with the extension .rpm and the other with .tar.gz. The .rpm stands for RedHat Package Manager and is suitable for RedHat-based distributions. Since Linux Mint is Debian-based, this type of file is not suitable for us (instantly). Nevertheless, even if it were, we want to use the archive (.tar.gz.).
First, we need to extract it. This can be done via command line, as I have demonstrated in my Highly useful Linux commands & configurations article, but we'll do it using the GUI.
Right-click on the file > Extract-To...
Choose a destination.
After the archive has been extracted, we need to actually install the Tools. This must be done using the command line. First, we need to open a Terminal. The shortcut to Terminal can be easily found in the Menu, under System.
Once we hit the command line, we need to navigate to the directory containing the VMware Tools files. In the relevant directory, we need to locally execute the installation script (wizard). This can be done using the following command.
sudo ./vmware-install.pl
See below in the image; notice the geeky fortune.
The script is very simple and friendly. It asks questions, with default answers already selected. You will merely need to hit Enter several times - although you should read each step carefully.
After several steps, you'll hit a snag. But don't worry, I led you there deliberately. The purpose of this step is to show you that even when your installation supposedly fails, the workaround is simple and fast.
The reason you see the error below is because the default Linux Mint installation does not come with all the packages needed for compilation of sources. We will install the missing packages and then repeat the installation of VMware Tools.
If you read carefully, you'll notice that the installer even tells you which packages are missing - gcc, binutils, make, and kernel sources - and where to find them, on the installation CD. This means that even if you don't have a working Internet connection, you'll be able to obtain them.
This is extremely important because in a real life situation, the missing modules might be the network adapters, for example. Luckily, you would have the sources on the CDs that came with your hardware. But your compilation would fail, for the same reason the installation of VMware Tools failed. Without a working Internet connection, you would not be able to find the sources using the Synaptic Package Manager. If they were not included on the CD, you would have been stuck.
The missing tools can be found and installed using either the command line or the GUI. I'll show you both ways. First, we will launch Synaptic (System > Package Manager).
Next, we will search for the missing packages and mark them for installation. After you find the right packages, right-click > Mark for installation.
After all the packages are installed successfully, start the installation of VMware Tools again. This time, you should get no error messages and it should work.
You can simply restart the X session (Ctrl + Alt + Backspace) and the network service (sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart) for the relevant changes to take effect. Or if you feel uncomfortable, you can simply reboot the machine.
It is important to remember that the VMware Tools offer you to change the resolution. This is what we aimed for, among other things. Indeed, after you restart, you should enjoy the normal-sized desktop. Don't mind the lack of the bottom panel, I took the screenshot while the desktop was loading.
Now, we could have also installed all of the missing packages (gcc, binutils, make, kernel sources) with one simple command in the Terminal:
sudo apt-get install build-essential
See in the image below:
This comes to show that the command line is often simpler and faster - and should not be feared! Lastly, you might want to setup the VMware Toolbox. This toolbox allows you to synchronize time, the clipboard and the mouse movement between the host and the guest. It will not run by default. You can manually invoke it - or add it to auto-start with the session.
Manually, just type in Terminal:
vmware-toolbox
Alternatively, add the VMware Toolbox to your session. Click on Menu > Preferences > Sessions.
Under Startup Programs tab, you can see all the programs currently listed and enabled for all sessions. This is what we need. You can also configure your Current Session and general Session Options, but that's another subject.
Click Add to create a new Startup Program.
Now, give the new entry a Name (e.g. VMware Toolbox), the Command (path to command) and an optional Comment, which can help you (or others) understand what the program does.
The path to VMware Toolbox is /usr/bin/vmware-toolbox - unless you specified a different path during the installation.
Now, once you restart the machine or manually run the Toolbox, you will see the VMware Tools Properties window come up, with all the relevant options that can be setup. In order to enjoy the extras, you must keep the VMware Toolbox running (most likely minimized). Scripts and Shrink require root permissions.
Now, we're happy. So let's power up a browser and surf a bit.
You will notice that you cannot scroll up and down with the middle-mouse button. This is because the default VMware Tools installation configures the mouse device as a classic three-button mouse that does not have the scrollable middle mouse button. Let's change that.
Again, here's a good exercise in configuring system files and overcoming common installation problems. We will edit the configuration file for X Server - xorg.conf, which controls all aspects of the display - monitor, graphical drivers, mouse, and keyboard.
sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
In the file, look for Identifier "Configured Mouse".
Under Option "Protocol" change whatever is written to "ExplorerPS/2". Save and exit. Restart the X session for the changes to take effect (Ctrl + Alt + Backspace).
And that's it! We have the VMware Tools fully configured and all the installation bugs ironed. This is a very good exercise, because it shows us how to:
- Not panic.
- Successfully perform a guided text installation from an archive.
- Troubleshoot compilation and installation problems.
- Troubleshoot post-installation problems.
- Edit system configuration files.
- Add new startup programs.
- Tweak the resolution and mouse settings.
- Use both the GUI and the command line to achieve desired results.
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