Choosing Desired Packages to Install

Next, you'll be presented with a list of system components and asked to specify which ones should be installed. If you are an experienced Linux user, you can pick and choose according to your needs. If you are new to Linux, you'll likely want to select the bottom option, “Everything”.

What I usually do is select the components I know I'll need, and then enable the “Select individual packages” option, which allows me to control the installation in finer detail.

Once you have chosen your desired components, select “Ok” to begin installation. If you have enabled the “Select individual packages”, you'll be asked the specify which individual packages should be installed. This is fairly straightforward, and if you are unsure of what a given package is for, you can press the <F1> key for a brief description of what it does.

Don't worry if you make a mistake choosing (or not choosing) a package or two. After all, all the packages are on your CD-ROM (or other source media), so you can use the handy Red Hat RPM tool to make adjustments after your system is up and running (see the section called Using the Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) in Chapter 10 for details).

After you have chosen the packages you wish to install, the installation program will now format the partitions you have defined. This may take several minutes, especially for larger partitions or if you've enabled bad block checking, so please don't think your system has frozen during this procedure!

After the format completes, Red Hat Linux will begin installation of the selected packages. This should take between five and fifteen minutes to complete, depending on the speed of your system.