Linux installation hurdle

After Saji offered his desktop, and even installed a new ~150 GB hard disk, to be used as the server, starting of the installation was slow and bumpy. To begin (according to eprint software Prerequisites) we need to install and configure...

- Linux distribution (preferably RedHat)

- Perl with a number of 3rd party Perl Modules

- Apache Web Server

- MySQL database

- Latex, wget, lynx, pdftotext, wvtext, etc.

….and then the eprint software.  

 

Anyone who has worked with linux knows that how things work in real life. We were sure that installation will run into problem, and will take order of magnitude more time compared to that of projected by 'How To's and manuals. Unfortunately, we were right.

 

On first day, virtually every linux installed boot-cd (of around 5-7 different distributions) refused to boot the linux on this desktop, which was running the WindowsXP without any problem. There was not even a hint about what is wrong. To get some direction, we tried hundred things and reached to the limit of reformatting the full hard drive (using alternate method) and even physically disconnected the hard drive and other devices. No luck. After spending full day we finally learn (don’t know how!) that we must give the option ‘acpi off’ in boot option.

 

Still RedHat will not work, but we agreed to go ahead with Fedora 5.