step by step installation

Ok, here is a write-up of a complete installation from start to finish.

The machine I did this on is a white-label PC, a 256M Ram, Celeron 1.4 GHz
box with a 6 G harddrive, a CD player, an audio card (some soundblaster
clone), 1024x768 graphics and a monitor, keyboard and mouse attached.

The 'steps' are really small, that is because I did not want to leave anything
to coincidence and because I have no idea how linux savvy the people are
that are reading this, I'm assuming that you have no prior experience with
linux.

Simply print this out or have it handy on another screen while you install your
media exchange.

I am assuming that at this point in time you have the media exchange
ISO burned to a CD and ready to use.

Here it goes:

- power on PC
- hit 'del' a couple of times to get in to the BIOS
- changed the settings to boot from the CD rather than the HD
(left the HD in as secondary device for later)
- saved the settings (F10 in my case, could be different for you)
- reboot PC
- insert CD in CD drive
- wait for CD to spin up

boot:_

appears on the screen, this is the Knoppix CD bootprompt,
(the _ is the cursor)

- I hit 'Enter' to make it continue, alternatively you can wait for a bit.

after 2 seconds the Linux Penguin logo appears on the top of the screen
below that the OS starts it's auto configuration (lots of colourful
text appears)

this may take a few minutes

X windows starts up, and a browser screen opens

This shows you the basics about the media exchange and a bunch of warnings
to discourage people from wiping their windows machine in case they should
feel ready to do that. (more power to them if they do it anyway !)

- click on the terminal icon (bottom left, fourth icon in the row)

after a few seconds an xterm window opens up (it's slow because it
loads from CD)

- type

su {enter}

the prompt changes in to a '#' to indicate you are now 'root'
(that's the super user on a unix machine, required to install
stuff)

the {enter} is of course just a single key...

- type

knx2hd {enter}

a line is printed in the terminal window that I don't have a valid
partition table (I ignore that)

now a small gray window pops up with a bunch of warnings,
that this script will install Knoppix to harddisk

- I click {OK}

Another window appears with more warning

- I click {OK}

A window pops up which has two choices, the first to partition the
harddisk, the second to quit

- I select the 'Partition' option (1)

- I click {OK}

A window opens where I can select a harddisk (I only have one so
that's easy, it's labelled hda)

- I click {Next}

A window opens that asks me if I'm sure I want to partition
the harddisk

- I click {Yes}

Another window, same question but now it asks me if I'm really really
sure

- I click {Yes}

The same dialogue window of a few steps earlier appears again

- I click {OK}

The partition menu appears again

- I Click {OK}

The harddisk menu appears again

- I Click {Next}

The are you really sure question appears again

- I Click {Ok}

The are you really really sure question appears again

- I Click {Ok}

now a new dialogue appears, it has 6 options

- I select the second option , 'Start Installation'

- I Click {Ok}

a window appears that allows me to select my installation
partition, there is only one that is available

- I Click {Next}

a window appears that asks me for my whole name

- I type in my name

- I Click {Next}

a window appears that asks for my user name

- I change my username to 'jam' from what it picked

- I click {Next}

- I have to input my user password

- I click {Next}

- I have to input my user password (again)

- I click {Next}

- I have to enter my administration (root) password

- I click {Next}

- I have to enter my administration (root) password again

- I click {Next}

- I have to choose a name for the machine (default 'mxchg')

the default is fine, so I don't change it

- I click {Next}

a windows appears where I can choose where the boot loader
gets installed

- I choose mbr (IMPORTANT, DO NOT CHOOSE ANYTHING ELSE
UNLESS YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!)

- I click {Next}

A final overview of the chosen installation options appears

- I click {Next}

an 'installing' window appears, and after a little while
the computer starts formatting hda2 (the partition where
the software is going to be installed).

A little while later it shows 'copying files, this can
take a while' (and it does... about 5 minutes on this
old box)

a dialogue appears where I can make a floppy

- I click {No}

a dialogue appears that says the installation was successful

- I click {Ok}

the dialogue goes away and the # prompt is displayed again

- I type

reboot {enter}

the windows close (the browser and the xterm), x windows
exits and the CD ejects after a while

- I remove the CD from the tray

- I hit {enter}

the machine reboots

a blue screen appears, and after a few seconds the
boot procedure starts again

the Penguin appears once more and the system autoconfigures,
but this time it goes *much* faster than the first time

after less than a minute X windows starts up again

I see a gray login screen asking for my login and password

- I type my login name (the one I changed above) and {enter}

- I type my password {enter}

a browser opens with the media exchange login screen

- I type

admin {enter}

admin {enter}

the login page is replaced by a page complaining that my
catalogue is empty

Congratualations, if you got this far you now have a working
media exchange. To fill it with data you can drag files to
it from any windows machine through the share that it exposes
on your lan, I use:

\\mxchg\

and then choose the

import

folder, but you can also do it by IP number if your lan does
not allow DHCP hosts to tell the router their own host name.

You can drag your music files (mp3 format only for now) in to
the import directory and they should appear in the 'catalogue'
of the media exchange, click on the 'home' link (top left)
after dragging a bunch of files in and you should be able to
search and list them (click on the '0' block under html in
the catalogue). You can also list them by artist (click on
'artists' in the top menu). Now you can start to rate your
music (using the thumbs up / down in the catalogue or in
the player), play them (click the 'play' button next to
a song in a catalogue listing). Experiment and play around
a bit, you should not be able to break anything.

While you're at it edit the lanuser and admin entries and
change their passwords (useful if you ever decide to poke
a hole in your firewall exposing your media exchange to
the big bad world out there).

Because I already have another media exchange on my lan the
two of them see each other within a few minutes.