There have been many changes made to make the Red Hat Linux installation process easier. Here's a list:
The installation program can probe computers with PCI devices. If desired, auto-probing can be disabled by running the installation in expert mode (see Section 1.1.2).
By entering expert at the initial boot: prompt, you can run the installation program in expert mode. Expert mode causes the installation program to revert to an installation style very similar to that used with Red Hat Linux 4.2. This means that most of the new auto-probing code is replaced with dialog boxes that prompt the user to manually enter device information. These dialog boxes also include a field allowing the user to enter options to be passed to the driver module being loaded. Therefore, if a particular hardware configuration requires module options, an expert-mode installation should be used.
It's possible to automate Red Hat Linux installations by using kickstart mode. Instead of asking the user questions during the installation, kickstart mode reads a file that contains all the information necessary to install Red Hat Linux. This is handy when installing many similarly-configured systems. For more information on kickstart mode, please read /doc/README.ks on the Red Hat Linux CD-ROM.
In the past, the installation program used fdisk to set up disk partitions, and a series of dialog boxes to define mount points. While that functionality is still available in Red Hat Linux 5.0, there is an alternative. Disk Druid provides both mount point definition and partition configuration in one concise screen. In addition, Disk Druid supports the concept of ``growable partitions'' -- partitions that can grow beyond a minimum size to allocate all remaining space on a hard disk.
For more information on Disk Druid, please refer to Section 4.3.1.
[SPARC Systems: Disk Druid is not available under the Red Hat Linux/SPARC installation program.]
In prior versions of Red Hat Linux, if you installed a particular service (such bind, samba, etc.) while installing Red Hat Linux, that service configured to automatically start once the installation was complete and the system rebooted. Now, you will have the option, during the installation, to select which services should start and which should not. During the installation, you will be asked to select which services should be started whenever the system is booted. For more information, refer to Section 5.5.
The XFree86 configuration utility Xconfigurator has been enhanced. It will now attempt to probe your system to automatically determine what type of video card is installed. In addition, Xconfigurator will now determine the optimal display resolution and color depth for your hardware configuration.