Installing CentOS in VirtualBox [How To]
This is the first of several posts on installing CentOS in VirtualBox. Even though I am using a virtual machine, the same procedure would apply to a full computer installation.
I mentioned CentOS in my series of Fedora posts: It is a free implementation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
I decided to mess with CentOS because I have decided to study for Red Hat certification, which requires me to know RHEL backwards and forwards and CentOS is the closest thing to RHEL without a licensing fee. I’ve spent much of the last week buried in a book about Red Hat certification (if I actually take the test, I’m betting I’ll be the oldest person in the room, but that’s another story).
Although it is billed as an enterprise OS, CentOS is also quite easy to configure for personal use.
This picture shows the settings of the virtual machine:
The installation process is identical to the one I described in my series about Fedora, so I decided to illustrate the text-based install. When the system booted to the installation DVD, I followed the instructions to enter “linux text” from the command line. In the following dialogs, I used the tab and arrow keys to navigate the dialog boxes and the space bar to toggle radio buttons.
The next screen gave me the option to test the installation media to verify that the disc was valid. If the disc has not been used before, this is not a bad idea, particularly in a business environment:
I selected yes; the media test took about 10 minutes. (Note: This was more clearly worded than the equivalent dialog box in the Fedora v. 14 installation process; I’ve clarified that in the relevant Fedora post.)
Once it was complete, CentOS displayed a welcome message and asked me to choose a language; the default choices were the correct ones:
This done, the actual installation could start. We’ll pick up with that in the next episode.
Next: Hard drive and formatting choices.