Before you install Red Hat Linux, you will need to perform the following steps:
If you have purchased the Official Red Hat Linux boxed set, you are ready to go! However, mistakes occasionally happen, so now is a good time to double-check the contents of your boxed set.
A black, red and white Registration Information card is included in your boxed set. A list of the contents of your boxed set version is on the back of the card. Please read over the list and check to make sure that you have all the CDs and manuals that are included with the version of Red Hat Linux that you purchased.
If you have purchased the Official Red Hat Linux boxed set from Red Hat, Inc. (or one of its distributors), and you are missing one or more of the items listed, please let us know! Contact information is also available on the Registration Information card.
How to identify our official boxed set: The bottom of our box has an ISBN number next to one of the bar codes. That ISBN number should be in this form:
1-58569-x-y |
(The x and y will be unique numbers.)
Red Hat partners with companies (international and domestic) so that we can make Red Hat Linux available to you in the most convenient form. Because of these partnerships, you might find that your Red Hat Linux boxed set may not have been actually produced by Red Hat.
If your box has a different ISBN number (or none at all), you will need to contact the company that produced your boxed set. Normally, third-party producers will include their logo and/or contact information on the outside of the box; an official Red Hat Linux boxed set lists only our name and contact information.
If your particular boxed set did not include all of the printed Red Hat Linux manuals, you can find them online or on the Red Hat Linux Documentation CD.
To find the manuals in both HTML and PDF formats online, visit http://www.redhat.com/support/manuals.
If you have purchased an official Red Hat Linux 7.1 boxed set, you should register your product. Registration offers many useful services, such as installation support, priority FTP access, and more.
To register your product, go to http://www.redhat.com/apps/activate/. You will find your Product ID on the Registration Information card in your Official Red Hat Linux boxed set. Once registered, you will have access to all the extras that Red Hat provides to its registered users.
For more information on registering and the scope of Red Hat's technical support offerings, see Appendix D.
Of course, not everyone purchases a Red Hat Linux boxed set. It is entirely possible to install Red Hat Linux using a CD created by another company, or even via FTP. In these cases, you may need to create one or more diskettes to get started.
For information on downloading and installing Red Hat Linux, refer to http://www.redhat.com/download/howto_download.html.
For people installing Red Hat Linux from a CD-ROM not from Red Hat, you may need a boot disk, or if you are using a PCMCIA device during the installation (such as a laptop), a PCMCIA boot disk. It may also be possible to start the installation directly from the CD. We will discuss this in more detail when we outline the various installation methods.
For information on making diskettes, see the section called Making Installation Diskettes .