Installing Fedora Core 3

[James Wilkinson]

Brian Hall wrote:
> I'm just getting into all this, and have successfully downloaded the 4 
> FC3 iso files, onto my Win98 machine.  I have a blank, unpartitioned HD 
> to take the Fedora, but don't have a CDRW to create a CDROM for the 
> files.  I can't find any clear info anywhere about whether I can use the 
> iso files directly from my existing HD for the install, and, if not, 
> what I need to do to set up the ISOs on the CDR if I get one made -- if 
> anything. 
> All the info available on the web and elsewhere is too far downstream 
> for true newbies.  And the jargon is as thick as pea soup.

Welcome to Fedora!

Are you talking about putting Fedora on the same PC as Windows 98? It
looks like it.

Yes, you can do this. You'll need some way to boot the computer into
Fedora. That's the difficult bit.

One approach is listed at http://www.deesconsulting.com/glbf/ : read the
HOWTO file in that directory, and download the glbf*.img file. Grab a
copy of rawwrite.exe from, say,
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite.htm , and write the glbf
image to a floppy.

The HOWTO says:

# To boot from an ISO image on a hard drive, copy the ISO image to
# 'glbf.iso' in the root (top level) directory of a FAT or EXT
# partition.  Make sure there are no CDs or DVDs present in any drives.
# Insert the GLBF and boot.

It might be easier to download the boot.iso image from a FC3 mirror
(like http://mirrors.kernel.org/fedora/core/3/i386/os/images/ ), rename
that to glbf.iso, and place that in the top level directory of your C:\
drive. Then you chain from GLBF to the renamed boot.iso to the FC3 ISOs
on your hard drive.

Tip: make sure that you have an easy path to the FC3 isos: you'll need
to type it in from memory.

There are other ways, but they might take a bit more hand-holding.

Make sure you've got a good backup first -- you shouldn't need it, but
you will be playing with partitions.

Ask if you want any more help.

Hope this helps,

James.
-- 
E-mail address: james | Dell decided to deck its workstation Itanics late last
@westexe.demon.co.uk  | year citing the compelling reason that it hadn't sold
                      | any.
                      |     -- Mike Magee, The Inquirer, 9 January 2002.