Using the Fedora 12 Live CD

The official Fedora 12 Desktop Live CD is a great way to try out Fedora before you commit to installing it. In addition to answering the obvious question of “does Fedora run on my PC at all?” the CD itself contains useful tools for examining your hardware and preparing your computer for installation.

USB flash drives can be used the same way) that contains an entire operating system. In most cases, you can boot the live CD without touching the contents of your hard drive. With the Fedora 12 Desktop Live CD, you can boot up to a working GNOME desktop that works like most desktop computer systems installed to hard disk. If you don’t like the system, then reboot, remove the CD, and your computer will return to the way it was. If you like it, you can click a single button and install the same desktop system to your hard disk.

Here’s a quick set of steps to try out the Fedora 12 Desktop Live CD (included with this book):

1. Insert the Fedora 12 Desktop Live CD into your CD drive and reboot.

2. From the boot screen, either let the CD timeout and boot or press any key to see other selections. From the boot menu, highlight either Boot or Verify and Boot, and then press Enter. (The verify step makes sure the medium isn’t corrupted.)

3. When you see the login screen, you can select a language or just let the login prompt timeout. (No password is required because this is a live CD.) The GNOME desktop starts up.

4. From the GNOME desktop, here are a few things you can try from the live CD:

• Run applications — Try any of the applications you choose from menus in the top panel. If you have an Internet connection (Fedora will automatically configure most wired Ethernet cards), you can try Web browsing and other Internet applications. You can even add more applications. Select System -> Administration -> Add/Remove Software to select applications to install over the Internet. (Because the live CD is a read-only medium, software you add will disappear when you reboot.)

• Check hardware

• Prepare for dual booting — If you want to keep an installed Windows system that is already on your computer’s hard disk, you can prepare your computer to be able to dual boot both Windows and a new install of Fedora.


If you like the live CD, and your computer is prepared for you to install to it, you can immediately install the contents of the live CD to your computer’s hard drive. Select the Install to Hard Drive icon from the desktop, and then follow along the installation procedure in the next sections.


NOTE: The live CD will not run well on less than 256MB of RAM. Also, if you find that the live CD hangs at some point in the boot process. With the boot label highlighted on the boot menu, press the Tab key to be able to add boot options to the boot command. Keep in mind that the performance of a CD is not comparable to that of a hard disk. Once you have installed Fedora on your hard disk it should be much faster and more responsive.


NOTE: If you prefer the KDE Desktop Environment over GNOME, Fedora offers a live CD spin based on the KDE desktop. You can download that live CD from any Fedora mirror site.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

Using the Fedora 12 Live CD