linux a beginner's guide

Posted on 25 Oct 2004 at 10:30

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When its done you'll be taken into YaST (which stands, incidentally, for 'Yet another Setup Tool'). Despite its silly name, YaST is a fantastic setup and installation tool that helps you through all the essential configuration options. To help you understand what's going on and about to happen, YaST presents you with a list of installation elements. The first is to select the language - choose English (UK). Next, YaST will present you with a list of settings and hardware it has found. Generally, YaST's powers of detection are good, so everything in the list should be correct. If you see anything you disagree with, click Change.

The next and most important phase is partitioning. Partitioning governs the way in which space on your PC's hard disk is divided up. If you're starting with a blank hard disk, YaST will allocate space for itself without any difficulty. If you already have Windows installed on your PC, the story is a little different. YaST gives you the option to either delete Windows, or shrink its partition. The latter option will reduce the amount of disk space that's available to Windows, and create an area for Linux. YaST's default Shrink setting worked well for us, so we'd advise leaving it on its own to organise the cohabitation of SuSE and Windows on your hard disk.

If you do decide to use the Shrink option though, remember to back up your essential files. In the unlikely event of the process fouling up, you may lose access to Windows.

The rest of the installation process is fully automated. You will, however, need to think up a root password to protect your computer. This is central to keeping the contents of your PC safe and secure - so choose carefully. Remember too that only the person with the root password can make major system changes.

YaST will also guide you through the process of getting on to the Internet. For the moment, we'll skip through these options as they can be very complex. In the meantime, we've a whole new operating system to explore!

Using SuSE Linux
When you've finished the installation process and rebooted your machine, SuSE Linux will begin loading. As it loads, it will flash up various windows explaining what it's up to - chief among these is loading KDE. KDE is a so-called 'graphical user interface' - that is, a system for controlling the PC by using menus and icons on the screen. It works along on the same principles as Windows. If you're proficient with Windows, SuSE Linux won't seem like another universe.

When SuSE has finally finished loading, you'll be presented with a mountainscape as background wallpaper on the desktop.

Along the bottom of the screen, you'll see a row of icons. The most important one is the green icon with SuSE's chameleon head logo on it (the chameleon is called Geeko, if you were wondering). This button works just the like the Windows Start button. Click on it and a menu of options will leap up. Just like Windows, these will take you to games, office programs, utilities and system tools. Find a program you want, and click on it to run it.

Unlike Windows, you'll find SuSE has many full programs included for free. There is, for example, a fully working office work suite called OpenOffice. This consists of a word processor, spreadsheet, graphics program and presentation software. Not bad! Could you imagine Microsoft giving away a copy of Office with Windows?

The rest of the on-screen icons are very similar to those you'll find on a Windows XP desktop. There is, for example, a My Computer icon, which does exactly the same job as its Microsoft counterpart. The icon with Geeko peering out from behind a red and white life buoy is SuSE's help centre. Click it and you'll be taken to a set of menus and documents which should be able to sort out any gnawing problems.