GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
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System Install

Choose, for example, language as English, region as Australia, and keyboard as American English. Your hardware will be auto-detected.

The network will then be automatically configured using DHCP. If you have a network and there is no DHCP on the local network you can manually configure your network (e.g., IP=105.229.8.158, NetMask=255.255.255.192, Gateway=105.229.8.190, DNS=125.83.72.15 125.83.72.1). If you have no network then choose not to configure the network at this time. Also supply a host name for your machine.

Now, generally choose the defaults for all options unless you know better. There should only be one or two questions (e.g., to partition disks). You will eventually be informed that the installation is complete and asked to remove the CD and reboot.

Configure the time zone (e.g., Australia/ACT). Add Root and User accounts. Do some software selection if you want to, or else do it all later on. For the email setup, choose local delivery. Note that to reconfigure, run the base-config program.

And that is it. The system is ready to use! The user account is quite spartan and there aren't many applications installed, so these are the next steps.