Overall, the CentOS 5.1 installer is fairly self-explanatory. This set of instructions, however, should help you get a machine upon which all the labs will function properly.
Skip the media test, unless you've got a few spare hours to kill.
Set your language to be some form of English, as the instructors are remarkably mono-lingual. The machines in the labs all use US English keyboard layout.
Use CentOS's default partitioning scheme. Tell it to destroy all existing partitions.
Choose the GRUB boot loader. That should be the default. DO NOT specify a boot loader password
Leave the network set to Dynamic IP. Feel free to specify your own custom hostname.
The system clock does Not use UTC, so you should uncheck the box for UTC. Set the time zone to be America/Chicago
Enter an administrator password that you will remember. It may be a good idea to write it down somewhere, as well.
For software installation sets, select
Remove the DVD as requested, and put it back into the protective sleeve. Then reboot the machine.
Accept the license agreement.
In the real world, firewalls are very handy. In a lab such as this, they add an unnecessary level of complexity. DISABLE your firewall.
Set your SELinux to be in permissive mode.
Do not enable kdump. We won't be using it for this class.
Verify that the settings you put in place earlier are still correct. Don't enable NTP.
Add a user for yourself. This is the user account that you will be utilizing on a day to day basis.
Check out your sound card, and see if it works. Your machine may or may not have speakers. If it doesn't have speakers, don't spend too much time bothering with this.
Time to log in with your regular user account! After logging in, the system will run for a few minutes, and then pop up a dialog letting you know that security updates are available. Double-click on the indicated icon in the upper right-hand corner, and enter your root password when prompted. Eventually, all security updates will have been installed, at which point it may be necessary to reboot. If it is, the system will inform you.
Next, we need to run a little script to standardize systems across the class. Download the script at http://www.linux-classes.com/instructions/fix_path.bash, by right clicking on it, and selecting save as. Save it to your Desktop (the default). Next, follow these instructions:
Congratulations, you're done!