The Lite and Xtra Lite Desktops

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

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You should consider installing the Lite or Xtra Lite Desktops if you are running low powered or very old machines. As the name suggests, Xtra Lite is the lighter of the two. We recommend that you try Lite first, and if that does not work, try installing Xtra lite. Both support graphic and text based installs, so if the former doesn't work, choose the latter route.

Installation is fairly simple. Pop in Disc 1 and when Anaconda loads up, and displays the Linux mascot, click on next. Select English as the language of installation and US-English as the keyboard. Now, you will get the list of install options. Choose the first one in the list – Lite Workstations and click on next. On the next screen, choose between Lite and Xtra Lite options.

Let us first try Lite. Choose Lite Regular and click on next to bring up the disk partitioning screen. Choose automatic partitioning here and proceed. In the next screen, you get three choices- Remove all Linux partitions, remove all Linux partitions in this system and keep all partitions and use existing free space. Your hard disk will also show up as selected. Once you make your choice ( if this machine is going to run PCQLinux Lite desktop only, then our recommendation is to choose “Remove all partitions in this system”. If you are going to dual boot, then you need to choose “keep partitions and use existing free space. For this, the free space has to be created on the disk before you start the install. 

Use a tool like partition magic), you will be given an alert about the partition being removed. Once you say yes to this, you will get the drive mapping. At first, it looks like a complex table. Ignore it for the time being and click on next. You will move on to the screen that installs Grub, the boot loader. If you have only Linux, then you need not worry and can safely click on next. That brings up the network devices screen. Your network card will show up here. Assuming you have only one, it will be named eth0. Most networks today, including ISPs work on DHCP. If that is the case you do not have to do anything on this screen, other than click on next. However, if you do not have DHCP services available, you will need to click on the edit button next to the details of the network card and remove the tick mark next to “configure using DHCP” in the dialog box that comes up. Now you need to enter the IP address and netmask for your machine and click on OK. Now, you will have to change the “set the hostname” setting to manual, and put in your host name and gateway address. Finally, those without DHCP will have to give the gateway and DNS addresses.

In the next screen, ensure that the default of “enable firewall” is not changed. In the next screen, accept the default, where the language is set to English (USA). Time from the next screen is also set for you to IST. The next screen prompts you for a root password, and once you have done that, the system is ready to install your chosen Lite desktop. In the case of Lite, you do not get to choose packages. 

In all other options, you can modify the package choice at this point. Once installation is over, reboot and you should be up and running.At first boot, the system will downgrade your kernel if you are running Lite or Xtra Lite. This is because the original install is done on the latest kernel, which is not required for Lite. Once this is done, your PC will boot again and load up PCQLinux 2006 Lite , or Xtra Lite as you have chosen.

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