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How do I get Linux? (For free)

© Robin Friedman

In theory Linux is freely downloadable and completely the public domain. In practice, it's almost impossible for a first-time user to get his or her hands on Linux for free. With little or no documentation, and cryptic sets of files to download, It's easy to give up and shell out $50 for a RedHat CD.

But to uphold the principles of Open Source Software, I'd like to offer a quick howto on downloading Linux for free. This article is a compilation of a discussion I had with Art Bouchard, Editor of Y2k here at Suite101. thanks to him for the idea.

First and foremost, before you start trying this, make sure you know what you're getting into. Linux is no easy task to set up. Start on a weekend when you don't need your computer up for a while.

Next, know that you will need to partition your hard drive, meaning split it into a Linux section and a Windows section. If you don't know what that is, I'd suggest buying Partition Magic, or you can use the free DOS fdisk if you're comfortable with it. No need to partition just yet, though.

Now you'll need a good ftp site. This is a list of sites where Linux can be freely downloaded. I'll use ftp://ftp.cc.gatech.edu/ as an example. Since installation for each distribution is different, I'll go over just one, Slackware. It's one of my favorites.

First things first, you'll need a bootdisk to begin the installation. Check out ftp://ftp.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/slackware/bootdsks.144/README.TXT

For some info on how to create the disk. In that same ftp directory, ftp://ftp.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/slackware/bootdsks.144 is the files you'll need to download to make your disk.

Similarly, you'll need a rootdisk, and check out:

ftp://ftp.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/slackware/rootdsks/README.TXT

That will give you your installation disks, then you'll need some of the files from the slakware sets a and ap. That's explained here:

ftp://ftp.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/slackware/INSTALL.TXT

The file INSTALL.TXT above is also a more in-depth set of instructions.

Basically, how things are supposed to go is, once you've created your boot and root disk, you restart your computer with the bootdisk in the drive. It loads the installer, then you switch to your root disk. Then it reads the rest of your files from your hard drive (with a little prodding). I urge you to pick through the INSTALL.TXT file above for more explanation.

If this method of installation doesn't suit you, check out some of the other distributions on the ftp sites listed, such as RedHat and S.u.S.E. They all have slightly different installation processes.

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