Installing Linux Mint 11 Katya

Now that we've created a bootable USB drive with Katya on it, we need to place the drive in the computer and reboot to change the boot priority in the BIOS to make our USB drive the first in the boot-up sequence.

Once the computer begins to boot up, you will see the Linux Mint bootloader counting down. You can just press any key to continue to the a live version of Linux Mint where you can choose to play with the operating system or install Mint if you decide that you like it:



Installing Linux Mint:

- Click on "Install Linux Mint" located on the desktop.

- Select your language and press Forward until you are greeted by a screen similar to the one below.



This screen will look different for most people, depending on if you have a Linux distribution and Windows installed which I did. My three options were: Install Linux Mint alongside them, Erase disk and Install Linux Mint, and finally "Something else." I'll be covering the something else option on my laptop since the other two are fully automated.

- Once you select "Something else", you will be greeted with a screen that allows you to partition your disks into different sizes and asking you to select the sizes you wish to allow for each partition. To add a new partition, select the "Add" button. I recommend a swap file equal to the amount of ram in your computer, and then another partition mounted to "/" also known as root with the ext3 file system using the remaining free space on your hard drive. I won't go over more advanced assignment of drive structure at this time (such as giving the /home a percentage of your drive) because everyone has different needs.



Once you've partitioned the drive to your needs, the next series of screens will be very straightforward prompting you for questions about your timezone and keyboard until you reach a security question about your computer:



In particular, the username and password are *very* important for you to remember. If you are not used to remembering a username and a password, write these down! Software upgrades, program installations and many other things in Linux all require you to type in a password to grant permission to run certain things. These are also case sensitive.

Once you have finished this, you will see a progress bar for the installation and once completed you'll be see a prompt asking you to restart.



Success! Now reboot your computer and select something that looks like this: Linux Mint 11 64-bit, 2.6.38-9-generic (/dev/sda6) to boot into Linux Mint 11 for the first time. If everything went according to plan, you should be greeted by the Linux Mint welcome screen. Welcome to the world of Linux!