4.7. Hardware Configuration

After package installation, Red Hat will begin configuring the devices on your system. In most cases, except with very new hardware that may not be fully supported by Linux, the installation program does a good job of automatic configuration.

The prompts you will see are very straightforward:

• Detection of your mouse (including choosing between 2- and 3-button models. If you have a 2-button mouse you'll likely want to enable 3-button emulation.)

• Detection of your video card

• Choosing your monitor

• Running of ``XConfigurator'' to configure the X Window System (you'll want to "Probe" your card. If you get an error here, don't worry as you can take care of X configuration later, after your system is up and running; see Chapter 5 for details.)

• Selection of video modes (you can choose the defaults, or you can fine- tune the video modes you'll want to use under the X Window System)

• LAN configuration

• Clock and timezone configuration

• Startup services (the default selection is probably best, but again, you can press <F1> for a description of what a given service does)

• Printer configuration

• Assignment of root password (choose something secure!)

• Creation of a boot disk [ don't be lazy! Make one! :-) ]