centos 5.4 net install (using qemu on winxp)
NOTE: I'm using qemu to do this installation, hence no cd burning required total time estimate: 60 minutes
actual time 4 hours? (apparently the 382 MB download / install took forever!) far better to spend 20 minutes downloading the liveCD iso... then restart the install!
Download your i386 or x64 net install .iso ( http://www.centos.org/mirrors/ )
download & extract qemu for windows (http://homepage3.nifty.com/takeda-toshiya/qemu/)
qemu -L . -cdrom CentOS-5-4-i386-netinstall.iso -hda centos5.img -boot d -m 512 -localtime -net nic -net user -redir tcp:888::80
linux text (I prefer installing this way, TAB to change menus, SPACE/ENTER) HTTP Configure TCP/IP = Dynamic
Web site name: mirror.centos.org Centos Directory: /centos-5/5.4/os/i386/
(to find a closer one: http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/5/isos/i386/ ) e.g. http://mirror.ox.ac.uk/sites/mirror.centos.org/5.4/os/i386/
Web site name: mirror.ox.ac.uk Centos Directory: /sites/mirror.centos.org/5.4/os/i386
Retrieving images/stage2.img (about 10 mins) I had to "initialize" the QEMU HARDDISK
I always use "Custom Layout" for hard drives as I don't need the complexity of LVM on a test machine (or virtual LAMP)
I just created one big ext3 partition... (using the Size of the Disk 1024MB) Mount Point: / ext 3, hda Size (MB) 1024 Fill all available space, Force to be Primary
Which results in hda1 , start = 1, end = 130, Size = 1019M , ext 3 , mount /
NO SWAP may cause problems with some applications (but it shouldn't!)
GRUB boatloader ... on /dev/hda (the Master Boot Record)
Setup eth0 to activate on Boot with DHCP set computer name manually to LAMP pick my location / UTC clock set the root password
Uncheck the Gnome Software package, instead check the "customize software"
Customization for me means unchecking everything...
No editors, not even base (alot of junk)
I prefer knowing what version I've downloaded and installed with yum and also helps netinstall go faster as less unnecessary stuff is downloaded
This step seemed to take about 15 minutes (checking dependencies?)