Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 5 - VIRTUAL SERVER ADMINISTRATION, Installation Manual

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Chapter 2.
5
Steps to Get You Started
2.1. Upgrade or Install?
For information to help you determine whether to perform an upgrade or an installation refer to
Chapter 24, Upgrading Your Current System
.
2.2. Is Your Hardware Compatible?
Hardware compatibility is particularly important if you have an older system or a system that you built
yourself. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 should be compatible with most hardware in systems that were
factory built within the last two years. However, hardware specifications change almost daily, so it is
difficult to guarantee that your hardware is 100% compatible.
The most recent list of supported hardware can be found at:
http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/
2.3. Do You Have Enough Disk Space?
Nearly every modern-day operating system (OS) uses
disk partitions
, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux is
no exception. When you install Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you may have to work with disk partitions. If
you have not worked with disk partitions before (or need a quick review of the basic concepts), refer to
Chapter 26, An Introduction to Disk Partitions
before proceeding.
The disk space used by Red Hat Enterprise Linux must be separate from the disk space used by other
OSes you may have installed on your system, such as Windows, OS/2, or even a different version of
Linux. For x86, AMD64, and Intel
®
64 systems, at least two partitions (
/
and
swap
) must be dedicated
to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. For Itanium systems, at least three partitions (
/
,
/boot/efi/
, and
swap
) must be dedicated to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Before you start the installation process, you must
• have enough
unpartitioned
1
disk space for the installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or
• have one or more partitions that may be deleted, thereby freeing up enough disk space to install
Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
To gain a better sense of how much space you really need, refer to the recommended partitioning
sizes discussed in
Section 4.19.4, “Recommended Partitioning Scheme”
.
If you are not sure that you meet these conditions, or if you want to know how to create free disk
space for your Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation, refer to
Chapter 26, An Introduction to Disk
Partitions
.
2.4. Can You Install Using the CD-ROM or DVD?
There are several methods that can be used to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux.