This guide shows you how to download a Fedora 12 live CD image, burn this image to a disc, and use this disc to install Fedora 12 on a typical desktop or notebook computer. This guide is not a complete description of the installation process and all its options — for greater detail, refer to the Fedora 12 Installation Guide, available from http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/f12/.

To create a Fedora live CD, you need:

If you do not have a fast Internet connection, or if you have a problem creating boot media, downloading may not be an option. Fedora DVD and CD distribution media is available from a number of online sources around the world at a minimal cost. Use your favorite Web search engine to locate a vendor, or refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Distribution.

The computer on which you intend to install Fedora 12 from the live CD should have: These specifications represent a bare minumum to use Fedora in graphical mode. Almost any laptop or desktop computer manufactured during the past ten years will meet these requirements. For more details of the hardware requirements for Fedora 12, refer to the Fedora 12 Release Notes, available from http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f12/.

If your computer does not have a CD or DVD drive, or is not capable of booting from this drive, then you might be able to install Fedora from a USB storage device such as a USB flash drive. Refer to the liveusb-creator page at https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/ for instructions.

The image file for the Fedora 12 live CD is available from http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/12/Live/i686/Fedora-12-i686-Live.iso. Download and save this file to your computer.

The exact series of steps that produces a CD from an image file varies greatly from computer to computer, depending on the operating system and disc burning software installed. Use this procedure as a general guide. You might be able to omit certain steps on your computer, or might have to perform some of the steps in a different order from the order described here.

Make sure that your disc burning software is capable of burning discs from image files. Although this is true of most disc burning software, exceptions exist.

In particular, note that the CD burning feature built into Windows XP and Windows Vista cannot burn CDs from images and that earlier Windows operating systems did not have any CD burning capability installed by default. Therefore, if your computer has a Windows operating system installed on it, you need a separate piece of software for this task. Examples of popular CD burning software for Windows that you might already have on your computer include Nero Burning ROM and Roxio Creator. If you use a Windows operating system on your computer and do not have disc burning software installed (or you are not sure that the software can burn discs from image files) InfraRecorder is a suitable alternative available from http://www.infrarecorder.org/, and is free and open-source.

The Disk Utility software installed by default with Mac OS X on Apple computers has the capability to burn CDs from images built into it already. Most widely-used CD burning software for Linux, such as Brasero and K3b, also includes this capability.

Switch on your computer, load the Fedora 12 live CD into the CD or DVD drive, and restart the computer with the disc still in the drive. Ideally, you should soon see the Fedora boot screen and a ten-second countdown:

If you do not see this screen, you might need to select an option manually to make your computer boot from the CD. Power your computer on, and watch the initial BIOS screen for a prompt that indicates which key to use for either:

The boot menu option is preferable. If you cannot see such a prompt, consult your manufacturer's documentation for your computer system, motherboard, or mainboard for the correct keystroke. On many systems, the required key will be F12, F2, F1, Esc, or Delete.

After a ten-second countdown, your computer loads the Fedora live system and presents you with a login screen:

The Fedora live system desktop consists of menu bars at the top and bottom of the screen, plus four icons on the desktop. Double-click the icon marked Install to Hard Drive to launch the installation program.

The Welcome screen does not prompt you for any input.

Click on the Next button to continue.

Using your mouse, select a language to use for the installation (refer to Figure 4, “Language Selection”).

The language you select here will become the default language for the operating system once it is installed. Selecting the appropriate language also helps target your time zone configuration later in the installation. The installation program tries to define the appropriate time zone based on what you specify on this screen.

Once you select the appropriate language, click Next to continue.

Using your mouse, select the correct layout type (for example, U.S. English) for the keyboard you would prefer to use for the installation and as the system default (refer to the figure below).

Once you have made your selection, click Next to continue.

If no readable partition tables are found on existing hard disks, the installation program asks to initialize the hard disk. This operation makes any existing data on the hard disk unreadable. If your system has a brand new hard disk with no operating system installed, or you have removed all partitions on the hard disk, click Re-initialize drive.

If your system contains a Fedora or Red Hat Linux installation, a dialog appears asking whether you want to upgrade that installation. To perform an upgrade of an existing system, choose the appropriate installation from the drop-down list and select Next.

Setup prompts you to supply a host name and domain name for this computer, in the format hostname.domainname. Many networks have a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) service that automatically supplies connected systems with a domain name, leaving the user to enter a hostname.

Unless you have a specific need to customize the host name and domain name, the default setting localhost.localdomain is a good choice for most users.

Set your time zone by selecting the city closest to your computer's physical location. Click on the map to zoom in to a particular geographical region of the world.

From here there are two ways for you to select your time zone:

Select Next to proceed.

Setting up a root account and password is one of the most important steps during your installation. Your root account is similar to the administrator account used on Microsoft Windows machines. The root account is used to install packages, upgrade RPMs, and perform most system maintenance. Logging in as root gives you complete control over your system.

Enter the root password into the Root Password field. Fedora displays the characters as asterisks for security. Type the same password into the Confirm field to ensure it is set correctly. After you set the root password, select Next to proceed.

On this screen you can choose to create the default layout or choose to manual partition using the Create custom layout option.

The first four options allow you to perform an automated installation without having to partition your drive(s) yourself. If you do not feel comfortable with partitioning your system, it is recommended that you do not choose to create a custom layout and instead let the installation program partition for you.

Create default layout allows you to have some control concerning what data is removed (if any) from your system. Your options are:

Using your mouse, choose the storage drive(s) on which you want Fedora to be installed. If you have two or more drives, you can choose which drive(s) should contain this installation. Unselected drives, and any data on them, are not touched.

Click Next once you have made your selections to proceed.

The installer prompts you to confirm the partitioning options that you selected. Click Write changes to disk to allow the installer to partition your hard drive and install Fedora.

If you are certain that you want to proceed, click Write changes to disk.

Some partitioning options cause the boot loader configuration screen to appear. If you do not see this screen, skip to Section 18, “Package Group Selection”.

GRUB (GRand Unified Bootloader), which is installed by default, is a very powerful boot loader. GRUB can load a variety of free operating systems, as well as proprietary operating systems with chain-loading (the mechanism for loading unsupported operating systems, such as DOS or Windows, by loading another boot loader).

If there are no other operating systems on your computer, or you are completely removing any other operating systems the installation program will install GRUB as your boot loader without any intervention. In that case you may continue on to Section 18, “Package Group Selection”.

If you have other operating systems already installed, Fedora attempts to automatically detect and configure GRUB to boot them. You may manually configure any additional operating systems if GRUB does not detect them.

To add, remove, or change the detected operating system settings, use the options provided.

Select Default beside the preferred boot partition to choose your default bootable OS. You cannot move forward in the installation unless you choose a default boot image.

If you install from a Fedora Live image, you cannot make package selections. This installation method transfers a copy of the Live image rather than installing packages from a repository. To change the package selection, complete the installation, then use the Add/Remove Software application to make desired changes.

If you are installing Fedora from a DVD or set of six CDs, refer to Appendix A, Package Group Selection for details of package selection.

At this point there is nothing left for you to do until all the packages have been installed. How quickly this happens depends on the number of packages you have selected and your computer's speed.

After installation completes, select Reboot to restart your computer. Fedora ejects any loaded discs before the computer reboots.

Firstboot launches the first time that you start a new Fedora system. Use Firstboot to configure the system for use before you log in.

Select Forward to start Firstboot.

This screen displays the overall licensing terms for Fedora. Each software package in Fedora is covered by its own license. All licensing guidelines for Fedora are located at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/Licenses.

If you agree to the terms of the licence, select Forward.

Create a user account for yourself with this screen. Always use this account to log in to your Fedora system, rather than using the root account.

If your system does not have Internet access or a network time server, manually set the date and time for your system on this screen. Otherwise, use NTP (Network Time Protocol) servers to maintain the accuracy of the clock. NTP provides time synchronization service to computers on the same network. The Internet contains many computers that offer public NTP services.

Firstboot displays a screen that allows you to submit your hardware information anonymously to the Fedora Project. Developers use these hardware details to guide further support efforts. You can read more about this project and its development at http://smolts.org/.

To opt in to this important work, select Send Profile. If you choose not to submit any profile data, do not change the default. Select Finish to continue to the login screen.

Fedora is now installed on your computer. Log in with the username and password that you created during the installation process.

To learn more about Fedora, visit the Fedora Project website at http://fedoraproject.org/. If you need help installing or using Fedora, visit http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-help.

If you find a typographical error in this manual, or if you have thought of a way to make this manual better, we would love to hear from you! Please submit a report in Bugzilla: http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/ against the product Fedora Documentation.

When submitting a bug report, be sure to mention the manual's identifier: installation-quick-start-guide

If you have a suggestion for improving the documentation, try to be as specific as possible when describing it. If you have found an error, please include the section number and some of the surrounding text so we can find it easily.