PCLinuxOS New User Guide: Installing PCLinuxOS to your Hard Drive

Installing PCLinuxOS to your Hard Drive

Back to Partitioning Your Hard Drive

Step 1 of 6 - Drive Partitioning

The first step in your installation is setting up your partitions. Take a look at the Partitioning Your Hard Drive page first. Once you have partitioned your hard drive you are ready to move on.

Step 2 of 6 - Partition Selection

This might sound confusing because you just identified partitions, but now they will really be assigned.

At the top of the page it reads: "Choose the partitions to be associated with different mountpoints. You need to specify the root and swap locations. A separate home partition is recommended, not required."

Under Required Partitions you will see one labeled Root (/) device and a button to click to format the partition. You will want to check the format box and then use the down arrow to change this to the partition you created. Select the largest partition you created and identify this as your / (root) partition.

Next select the swap partition you created. Remember this will be the very small partition. Select swap from the drop down menu and check the format box.

If you formatted a third partition then go down to the section labeled "Optional Partitions" and select the third partition for your /home.

Click on the next button and you are ready to move to the next screen.

Step 3 of 6 - Partition Verification

This page reads: "Warning: The following changes will be made to your system to install PCLinuxOS. To correct your selections, press the Back button, otherwise press Next to start the installation process."

If you are happy with how things look all you need to do here is to press next. If you think you messed up, then simply press the back button to go back and make changes.

Step 4 of 6 - PCLinuxOS Installation

This page reads: Installation of PCLinuxOS to your hard disk is currently in progress. Please be patient as this process does take some time."

You will see bars that move across the page showing you how much has been completed. Go get a cup of tea or kick back and do something for about the next 15 to 20 minutes.

When it is finished then you will press next to move to the next page.

Step 5 of 6 - Bootloader Installation

This is the step that sets up how your computer will work. It will set it up so that your computer can boot into either Windows or PCLinuxOS. It will assume that you have windows on any windows-formatted partition and will give you a link there. You will not lose your Windows access, but simply have a menu that gives you a choice of which way you want to go when you turn on your computer. PCLinuxOS uses a program called Lilo. Lilo allows this dual-boot setup. In addition, you can, as you become more advanced, add additional distros if you desire. Lilo is very intuitive and we will now set it up on the "Master Boot Record" or "MBR". This is the first part of your hard drive and it is the first place accessed when the computer is ready to find where to boot. As you become more advanced, you will learn that there are other options for booting.

Bootloader Installation and Logging "Installation of the bootloader will now take place. Please select the drive or partition on which you would like to install it and press install to install the bootloader.

The normal spot is /dev/hda (Master boot record of drive). The term /dev/hda refers to the dev or device that is an HD or harddrive and it is the very first one thus the a. When a device is mounted it is then referred to as /mnt or mounted thus /mnt/hda and /dev/hda refer to the same place. Because we are turning on the computer the drive is not mounted yet so it is still /dev instead of /mnt.

This will add your Linux to the menu that boots your computer. When done you will need to click Install. Then click next.
[Please take note that the photo below shows an incorrect selection. You should have the line
/dev/hda (Master boot record of drive)
selected by clicking on it so it shows the blue highlight.]

Step 6 of 6 - Customization

Congratulations. You have installed PCLinuxOS to your local drive. Now you can customize it.
1. Type the root password. Here you will need to type a root password. Your root password is the same thing as administrator privileges. If you select less than 8 characters you will get a warning telling you that a short password may be unsafe. Then click on the button "Write Password".

2. Delete guest. This is important for security purposes. You will then go down to create new user. This is what you will use to log in on a regular basis. However, it is currently disabled on the version 9 cd. This means you can skip this step here but when you get it installed and boot into it from your hard drive you want to take a look at the PCLinuxOS Control Center and remove guest from your user list.

3. Create New User: Here you will create your user name. Remember that this is done in lower case letters. Enter your user password. This is what you will use when you log in each time. Then click on the button to "Write Password".

You have now installed PCLinuxOS. Be sure to restart your computer and remove the LiveCD. Once you have done this you will be on your way to fine-tuning your distro the way you want.

Continue to Using Lilo to start PCLinuxOS

Category Installation
CategoryInstallation