Evans Computer Consulting

This is a  simple walk through on how to install Fedora^® 13.
I presume that you already have Windows installed on your system.   This is not intended for laptops.  If you find that this procedure works for your laptop,  great.  Laptops have a wide variety of wireless devices that can be difficult to configure and are beyond the scope of this walk through.

1) First determine whether you would prefer the 32 bit or 64 bit version. If you are uncertain, select the 32 bit version.  If your system is less than 2 years old, you could install the 64 bit version for added performance.  If your system does not have an AMD or Intel Core 2 Duo or newer processor, use the 32 bit version.

2) Download the .iso file for the installation:

Download for 32 bit version

Download for 64 bit version

3) Once you have downloaded the .iso file you will need to burn the .iso to a DVD.
You can not use a CD burner for this. You must have a DVD burner, and a DVD burner program, such as Nero, Roxio Easy CD and DVD creator, or Nero Lite.

4) Next you need to boot your system using the DVD you created in step 3. Most systems allow you to press F8 (some use F2 and some systems require changing the default boot devices in the BIOS) during boot for the boot menu options. Then select your DVD drive from the menu. Next you will be prompted to either check the DVD for errors or skip forward to begin installation. It is always a good idea to check the media of the DVD the first time you use it.  This will verify the DVD was burned correctly and has the necessary files for the installation. If the DVD integrity check fails toss it in the trash. Repeat step 3.

5) After you have verified the DVD successfully, you will be prompted for the language you prefer, a root password and your time zone selections.  If you are planning to dual boot between Windows and Fedora, be sure to deselect the system uses NTC time box.

6) Next up you will be presented with a choice of which drive types. Standard is the default choice. Next a menu will offer various partitioning schemes.   I always choose CUSTOM.  Then the partitioning menu will be presented. A standard SATA or IDE drive can have 4 primary partitions maximum. Your system may have 2 partitions already.  One for Windows and one for a recovery partition. DO NOT modify the recovery partition.  Select the custom layout and then re-size your OS partition to a smaller size. This is done to create the room for a new partition for the Fedora installation. I use EXT4 to format the new partition and create a separate swap file partition.  Fedora requires a lot less hard drive space than Windows does.
I create a  Fedora EXT4 partition between 20G- 100G. Your swap partition needs to be roughly the size of the amount of ram of your computer. When in doubt make the swap partition 8G. There is very limited value in making a swap partition larger than 8G unless you have 16G of RAM.  A typical Fedora 13 installation will only occupy about 4-8G of hard drive space.

7) After you have set up your partitions, you will be prompted for the installation type. If you accept the defaults, gnome will be installed as your desktop manager.  I prefer KDE as my desktop manager. I often leave gnome installed in case KDE has a problem.

The installation should begin and may take approximately 45 minutes.  You will not be prompted again, until the installation is complete.

9) Once the install is done there will be a reboot now button.  Press it.

10) When your system reboots after the installation, you will boot directly to Fedora the first time and be prompted to create a user name and password and select your time zone and send system hardware data to Fedora.  After you reboot again, you should see a prompt saying booting to, then either Fedora or Other or Windows. You can press the up and down arrows at that point to select which Operating system to boot into.

Congratulations you now have a system that will dual boot Windows and Fedora.