1.2 Quick Installation Guide¶
Welcome to Calculate Linux !¶
We do our best to offer you a most convenient system for work, using the original installer, a rebranded user interface, configuration templates, Calculate Utilities and Gentoo Portage. The system is distributed as an installation image, which contains chosen software. Most of the software we have included come under the free license, thus allowing you to install, distribute and modify the source code as you feel like.
Below is the complete list of our distributions with their abbreviations:
- CLD - Calculate Linux Desktop KDE
- CLDC - Calculate Linux Desktop Cinnamon
- CLDL - Calculate Linux Desktop LXQt
- CLDM - Calculate Linux Desktop MATE
- CLDX - Calculate Linux Desktop XFCE
- CLS - Calculate Linux Scratch
- CMC - Calculate Media Center
- CDS - Calculate Directory Server
- CSS - Calculate Scratch Server
To gain admin privileges on a system booted from a LiveCD, either su in the graphical console emulator or hit Ctrl+Alt+F[1-8] to operate from a text-mode console. For access to your CLD or CLDX desktop as guest, the password will be, unsurpisingly, guest.
Network configuration¶
As for any other operation performed on the Utilities Server (and this is how you setup your Internet connection with CL), you have three options for network configuration :- the graphical manager,
- the console manager,
- the Utilities Server, directly.
Partition management¶
Before installing, you may need to edit partitions on your hard disk. If you intend to install CLD, CLDM or CLDX, we recommend that you use the partition of at least 10 GB. More detailed hardware requirements can be found here. The swap partition will normally be twice the size of RAM. If the swap partition already exists, the system will use it. Moreover, it is wise to have a separate partition for your personal files (i.e. for the /home directory). See more detailed instructions on partitioning here.
CLD, CLDM and CLDX provide Gparted to edit partitions with, while CLS, CSS and CDS feature only command line utilities for the same purposes, namely fdisk, gdisk or @cfdisk.
To list all existing partitions, open your terminal as root and type:
fdisk -l
Note: To obtain the root priveleges in console mode, use su or sudo.
If you are new to Linux, it may be a while before you get used to the differences between partition names.
In Linux, partitions are referred to as sda1, sda2, etc., instead of the common C:\, D:\, ...
You can also use the existing partitioning or repartition your hard disk from Windows. To define a given partition in Linux, remember its location and size. Typically, C:\ would correspond to sda1, D:\ to sda2, and so on.
Installation variants¶
We provide several tools that get you install Calculate Linux. You can choose between :- the GUI installer, cl-console-gui,
- the command line installer, cl-console,
Either a squashfs image (if you are installing from a LiveCD or a bootable USB media you prepared beforehand) or an ISO image can be the starting point. If the latter, it must be put in /var/calculate/linux or /var/calculate/remote/linux. In the second case, all Calculate Linux flavors are available for install, provided that the architecture you specify matches your hardware.
All three installers are part of CL, but it is possible to use them on any Gentoo-compatible distribution. These are found in the calculate overlay.
The first launch¶
Once your CLD, CLDM or CLDX system is up and running, you get two users: root and guest (if no other user accounts have been specified). Any user can get access to the graphical environment. Please note that the default password for guest is guest.
CLS as it comes out-of-box does not prompt for the password in graphical mode. To launch the window manager, run:
startx
To become root, use the su command. More details on creating user accounts can be found on this page.
By default, you need to be root to log into the system remotely, via the ssh protocole. To add space for other users or to replace the root user edit the AllowUsers line in your /etc/ssh/sshd_config. We recommend that you disable remote root login.
System update¶
Calculate Linux is a rolling-release distribution. You can update the system virtually unlimited number of times with cl-update.
To sync the list of packages and update all of your software, simply run:
cl-update
Or, if you want to update the list only, for the time being:
cl-update --sync-only
After that, you can install any other applications you need with emerge. A quick reference can be found here. It may also be of interest to read our System Update Guide.
Help¶
If you have any difficulties installing Calculate Linux, or if you want to share your impressions, feel free to visit our IRC community channel #calculate on FreeNode. You just have to click on the Hexchat icon on top of your desktop.
The project site:
Our English-speaking IRC community:
You can find like-minded people on Facebook, on the page.
Enjoy!
Calculate Linux Team.