[brenix]

I know this sounds completely stupid. Although, im pretty much a newb at linux. Im getting sick of windows so I need to try something else. I've gotten all three i386 ISO's for Fedora Core 1 and burnt them to a cd using nero. Im pretty damn good with computers and im getting confused with even getting the installer working.. I've checked all the system requirements and its fine. What I have done so far is delete my partitions so I have nothing right now. I basically want to have the whole partition for linux. So heres my problem, pretty stupid but, how do I even start the installation? I have it boot from cd in bios, but of course its linux stuff, so it doesn't seem to load boot from cd like windows xp/2000/etc. Im confused on how to run the installer from a floppy, considering all the files i've gotten to run it are linux stuff. So if anyone can sorta help me along with this really stupid question that would be helpful. Thanks :P

[Dapper Dan]

brenix don't ever be intimidated about asking a Linux question. All of us here had to ask questions when we started too.

I haven't tried installing Fedora from cd so I'm not sure about how it installs but, if it's like Red Hat 8 and 9, the installation process should just start from boot if your bios is set to boot first from cdrom. If that's not happening, either there is something wrong with the cd's you burned, or Fedora installs in a different way I'm not familiar with. Did you burn the image onto your cd's? When you explore the first cd in Windows, does it show one iso image file or several labeled files and folders? I ask this only because I copied the iso to cd the first time I tried, as several others have.
Brave of you to go Linux all the way from the start though! Once you get the installation going, make sure you put your /home directory on a separate partition, that way you can keep all your valuable files and preferences from installation to installation. If you need further help with that, just let me know..

[Philipp]

The Fedora CDs boot directly from the CD.

Did you burn the right ones (without SRPMS) ?

[brenix]

I downloaded the three Fedora i386 Iso's, which isn't the source code iso's from a bit torrent link. I then burned the iso's to cd's (I can see the files and folders in the cd, not the iso file..) Now I also hear I need to use the anaconda installer program, but whenever I try to get it its gotta be an rpm file so how do I get the anaconda installer in exe or something where I can execute it in dos?

[Philipp]

You need to boot from the first CD or from bootdisks

You find the bootdisks images in the /images directory of the first Fedora CD. Programs to write the images to disk are in the /dosutils or /dosutil/rawritewin (for windows) directory

[Dapper Dan]

Anaconda should be built in. Did you check the size of the ISO for the first cd after downloading to make sure it was the correct size?

[brenix]

The md5 hashes were correct after downloading the iso..so I saw the anacondainstaller.rpm file in the cd directory. I have all the dosutils to but im confused how to use rawrite or what its even for. I have a unpartitioned hard drive so I cant really copy files to that.. any suggestions?

[Dapper Dan]

Just so I'm straight on this, you set your bios to boot first from cd, then you put the 1st cd in the tray and reboot the computer. What happens then?

[brenix]

I have the cd drive to boot before anything. When I have the first Cd in and bootup, it says its searching for a boot on the cd and then the floppy and tells me an operating system couldn't be found and to insert one and press a key. I would think that it would start up like a normal windows cd, but it doesnt...

[Dapper Dan]

And it should do as you expect. I've never run into this before during many Linux installations.. If you have high speed internet access, try downloading the Red Hat 9 ISOs, burn and install.

ftp://chuck.ucs.indiana.edu/pub/linux/redhat/redhat/linux/9/en/iso/i386/

If the same problem occurs then we'll have to consult with other sources..

[brenix]

Yeah, thanks for all the help man. My friend actually bought red hat 9 and is gonna help me get it installed.

[Dapper Dan]

That's great news! Now you can eliminate the cd's as a possible cause of the problem. I use RH 9 and love it. I'll upgrade to Fedora when they work out some of the existing bugs..

Let us know how you come out! Good luck!

[Mel]

Did you try booting from the other CDs?
I'm a noob but I DL'd and burned DEBIAN,
found it wouldn't boot from CD1 but boots
from CD's 2 and 3.

[Maillion]

Chances are you now have a working Red Hat system, but just in case:

My stepson's BIOS has four boot options: First boot device, Second boot device, Third boot device, and Other boot device. When we were trying to get Red Hat installed on his system, it would check the CDROM, and if it was not up to speed, the BIOS would switch to the next boot device in line. We solved this by setting all four to CDROM. It finally worked... :x