Chapter 2

Linux Installation and Usage

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ay not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Objectives

• After completing this chapter, you will be able to:

• Prepare for and install Fedora Linux using good practices
• Outline the structure of the Linux interface
• Enter basic shell commands and find command documentation
• Properly shut down the Linux operating system

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Installing Linux (1 of 2)

• Preparing for installation

• All OSs require a minimum set of hardware components to function
properly
• Obtained from manual or file in DVD of OS, or vendor website
• Each hardware component should be checked against the Hardware
Compatibility List (HCL) found on the vendor’s website

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Installing Linux (2 of 2)

Table 2-1: Fedora 28 recommended

minimum hardware requirements
Type of hardware Requirement
Central processing unit (CPU) 1GHz or faster Intel x64 CPU
Random access memory (RAM) 1GB
Free disk space (permanent storage) 10GB free space
Additional drives DVD drive (for DVD-based installation)
Peripheral devices Fedora-compliant peripheral devices (e.g.,
video cards, sound cards, network cards)

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Understanding Installation Media (1 of 6)

• The most common source for Linux packages and installation

program is DVD media
• To install form DVD, place the Linux DVD in the DVD drive and turn on the
computer
• Most Linux distributions provide a website from which you can
download DVD images (called ISO images)
• Can be written to a blank writable DVD using disc burning software

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Understanding Installation Media (2 of 6)

• Many Linux websites also allow you to download a bootable live

media DVD image
• A fully functional graphical Linux OS is loaded into RAM
• Allows you to test the OS on your computer to ensure all hardware drivers
were detected properly
• Computer does not have a DVD drive
• Install Linux by imaging the DVD or live media DVD image to a USB flash
drive

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Understanding Installation Media (3 of 6)

Figure 2-1 The Fedora

Media Writer tool
Source: Red Hat, Inc

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Understanding Installation Media (4 of 6)

• Virtualization software: used to run an OS within an existing OS

concurrently
• Microsoft Hyper-V
• VMWare
• Oracle VM VirtualBox
• Virtual machine (VM): each OS that is run within virtualization
software
• Virtual machine host (VM host): underlying OS running the
virtualization software

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Understanding Installation Media (5 of 6)

• To install Linux as a VM
• Download the standard DVD or live media DVD ISO image to a directory
on your VM host
• Open virtualization software and choose to create a new virtual machine
• Specify the location of the appropriate ISO image
• Virtualization software will boot from the ISO image directly

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Understanding Installation Media (6 of 6)

Figure 2-3 Selecting

installation media within the
Hyper-V New VM Wizard
Source: Red Hat, Inc

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Performing the Installation

• General stages of the installation program for Fedora 28 Linux

• Starting the installation
• Choosing an installation language as well as localization and system
options
• Configuring disk partitions and filesystems
• Configuring user accounts

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Starting the Installation (1 of 2)

• Boot from Fedora installation media

• You will be prompted to:
• Start the installation
• Perform troubleshooting actions
• If you select the troubleshooting option, you will be presented with four
additional options
• Start Fedora-Workstation-Live 28 in basic graphics mode
• Run a memory test
• Boot from local drive
• Return to main menu

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Starting the Installation (2 of 2)

• In most cases, the troubleshooting options are not necessary

when installing Fedora Linux
• Simply choose Start Fedora-Workstation-Live 28 to start a live
Fedora system
• Once loaded, you will be presented with a welcome screen that prompts
you to install Fedora Linux on permanent storage
• If you choose Install to Hard Drive, the Fedora installation program will
start

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Choosing an Installation Language and Localization
and System Options (1 of 4)
• You will be prompted to choose installation language
• Keyboard model and layout are automatically detected
• Network interface is set to obtain network configuration
automatically using the DHCP protocol
• Date and time are automatically obtained from the Internet if
network has Internet connectivity

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Choosing an Installation Language and Localization
and System Options (2 of 4)

Figure 2-8 Selecting an

installation language
Source: Red Hat, Inc

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Choosing an Installation Language and Localization
and System Options (3 of 4)
• You must manually select an installation destination before
installation can continue
• Select a permanent storage device that will contain the Linux OS
• Most common storage devices for storing Linux OS are hard
disks
• Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment (PATA)
• Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA)
• Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe)
• Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI)
• Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Choosing an Installation Language and Localization
and System Options (4 of 4)
• By clicking the Installation Destination icon you will be presented
with a list of the different permanent storage devices
• If you have multiple disk devices select the disk that will be used to
contain Linux
• You can also install Linux on an external iSCSI or FCoE Storage Area
Network (SAN), Direct Access Storage Device (DASD), Multipath IO
(MPIO), or firmware Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Configuring Disk Partitions and Filesystems (1 of 5)

• Each hard disk is divided into partitions

• Partitions are formatted with filesystems
• Filesystem is a structure that specifies how data should reside on the hard disk
• Maximum four primary partitions
• Extended partition can be divided into logical drives
• Master Boot Record (MBR)
• Table of all partition information for a certain hard disk or SSD

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Configuring Disk Partitions and Filesystems (2 of 5)

• Filesystems can be accessed by Linux if it is attached (mounted)

to a certain directory
• Fedora installation program can automatically create partitions
• Generally a good practice to manually partition
• Linux typically requires only two partitions
• Partition mounted to the root directory
• Partition for virtual memory (swap memory)
• Area on hard disk used to store information normally residing in physical memory
(RAM)

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Configuring Disk Partitions and Filesystems (3 of 5)

• Different types of filesystems

• Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, VFAT, and XFS
• Journaling
• Keeps track of the information written to the hard drive
• Installation destination
• Once selected, the installation program will prompt you to choose
automatic or custom partitioning scheme

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Configuring Disk Partitions and Filesystems (4 of 5)

Figure 2-11 Configuring disk

partitions and filesystems
Source: Red Hat, Inc

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Configuring Disk Partitions and Filesystems (5 of 5)

• Instead of standard partitions, choose a partition scheme that

creates logical volumes
• Use the Logical Volume Manager (LVM)
• Support the new B-tree Filesystem (BTRFS)
• Easier system recovery
• Choose a standard partition scheme
• Ensure that contents of disk partitions are not encrypted

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Configuring User Accounts

• Authentication
• Users log in via valid user name and password
• Configure two user accounts
• Administrator account (root): full rights to system
• Regular user account: system administration tasks

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Basic Linux Usage

• Different types of user interface

• Essential to understand
• Basic tasks
• Command execution
• Obtaining online help
• Shutting down the Linux system

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Shells, Terminals, and the Kernel (1 of 4)

• Terminal: channel allowing users to log on to the kernel locally or

across a network
• Shell: user interface which accepts user inputs and transfers
them to the kernel
• BASH Shell (Bourne Again Shell): default Linux shell
• Linux can have many terminals that allow you to log in to the
computer locally or across a network

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Shells, Terminals, and the Kernel (2 of 4)

Figure 2-13 Shells, terminals, and the kernel

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Shells, Terminals, and the Kernel (3 of 4)

• Graphical user interface

• Start GUI environment on top of BASH shell
• Switch to a graphical terminal
• From the local server, use key combinations to change to
separate terminal
• Ctrl+Alt+F2
• Command line prompt reflects the type of user that is logged in
• Root user: #
• Regular user: $

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Shells, Terminals, and the Kernel (4 of 4)

• Default GUI environment in Fedora Linux is GNOME

• Command-line terminal may be accessed through the Activities
menu in the upper left of the desktop
• Navigate to Show Applications, Utilities, Terminal

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Basic Shell Commands

• Commands: indicate the name of program to execute

• Case sensitive
• Options: specific letters starting with a dash “-” and appear after
command name
• Alter the way the command works
• Arguments: specify a command’s specific working parameters
• Do not start with a dash

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Shell Metacharacters

• Metacharacters: keyboard characters with a special meaning

• A $ tells the shell that the following text refers to a variable
• Avoid use of metacharacters when typing commands unless using their
special functionality
• Single quotation marks ‘ ’ protect metacharacter from being interpreted
specially by the shell

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Getting Command Help (1 of 3)

• Manual (man) pages: most common form of documentation for

Linux commands
• At command prompt, type the man command followed by command name
• Manual pages
• Contain different sections
• Section numbers describe the category of the command in the manual page
database
• Searchable by keyword

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Getting Command Help (2 of 3)
Table 2-8 Manual page section numbers
Manual page section Description
1 Commands that any user can execute
2 Linux system calls
3 Library routines
4 Special device files
5 File formats
6 Games
7 Miscellaneous
8 Commands that only the root user can execute
9 Linux kernel routines
n New commands not categorized yet

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Getting Command Help (3 of 3)

• GNU info pages

• Originally intended to replace the man command in Linux
• At command prompt, type the info command followed by a command
name
• Some commands do not have manual or info pages
• Usually functions that are built into the BASH shell

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not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Shutting Down the Linux System (1 of 2)

• OS handles writing data from computer memory to the disk drives

• Simply turning off power to the computer might result in damaged user
and system files
• Shutdown command
• Can halt or reboot your computer after a certain period of time

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Shutting Down the Linux System (2 of 2)
Table 2-9: Commands to halt and
reboot the Linux operating system
Command Description
shutdown –P +4 Powers off your system in four minute
shutdown –H +4 Halts the operating system from executing in four
minutes, but does not invoke the ACPI function in your
BIOS to turn off power to your computer
shutdown –r +4 Reboots your system in four minutes
shutdown –P now Powers off your system immediately
shutdown –r now Reboots your system immediately
shutdown –c Cancels a scheduled shutdown
halt Halts your system immediately, but does not power it off
poweroff Powers off your system immediately
reboot Reboots your system immediately

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Summary (1 of 2)

• Prior to installation, verify hardware requirements and

compatibility
• You can obtain Linux installation media by downloading an ISO
image from the Internet
• Typical Linux installation prompts for language, date, time zone,
keyboard layout, network configuration, user account
configuration, and permanent storage configuration

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Summary (2 of 2)

• Users must log in to a terminal and receive a shell before they

are able to interact with the Linux system and kernel
• Regardless of the type of terminal, you can enter commands,
options, and arguments at a shell prompt to perform system
tasks, obtain command help, or shut down the Linux system. The
shell is case sensitive and understands a variety of special
characters called shell metacharacters, which should be
protected if their special meaning is not required

Eckert, Linux+ and LPIC-1 Guide to Linux Certification, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.