A New Installation

Now with the FIS in place I make network installation floppies from the images (copied to /var/ftp/redhat/9/images/): 

  bootdisk.img (was bootnet.img in RHL 7.3 and 8.0)
  drvnet.img
The second image file was for more uncommon network cards in versions 7.3 and 8.0, but in Red Hat 9 it seems that the Network Card Driver disk is needed for any network install. The most common NIC drivers were found on the first image in versions 7.3 and 8.0, so you may not have needed the drivers disk at all for those versions. I put a new blank floppy in the drive and type: 
  # dd if=/var/ftp/redhat/9/images/bootdisk.img of=/dev/fd0
and remove the disk when the floppy LED shuts off (and I got the "green light" from 'dd'). I do the same for the other image.

Now, I hook up the hardware (hopefully correctly, the first time), put the 'bootdisk.img' floppy in the floppy drive, and hit the power button. If I set my BIOS to boot from floppy disk first I will see the 'SYSLINUX' boot messages. I hit the enter button at the 'boot:' prompt, but because I will be doing an FTP install, only the text installation menus will be available. The installation program will load the kernel (vmlinuz), initial ram disk (initrd), display many kernel boot messages (a few full screens will scroll by), and then begin its text menu prompts.

I select my hardware and language choices in the early installation menus, and then choose "FTP" as my installation method. I select 'Use a driver disk' and put the 'drvnet.img' disk in the floppy drive and select 'OK'. Hopefully my network card is autodetected and it then asks me for my IP networking information. I put the proper and correct information in the dialog boxes and select 'OK'. In the 'FTP Setup' dialog box I type: 

  FTP site name:     ftp.example.com
  Red Hat directory: /pub/redhat/9/
leave the 'Use non-anonymous ftp' checkbox unchecked, and select the 'OK' button. If the installation program displays an error about not being able to find the FTP site, I will try to use the FTP installation servers IP address instead. Sooner, or later for slower and slow link boxes, I will see the 'Running anaconda,...' message and some hardware detection messages.

After that, I follow the instructions and install RHL9 with whatever packages I need. Detailed installation instructions can be found here. I will probably turn my various "needs" into 'kickstart' configurations, but I haven't acheived that level of efficiency yet.

After installation, I log in and tweak a couple things, and then I get ready to install Yum.