Go here and choose your mirror, then your ISO. The KDE-Live and GNOME-Live don’t install, just run from DVD to get a preview. The other Live-CD is GNOME but a lot of larger packages removed so it fits on a CD. There’s a regular installer DVD, then a much larger “Everything” DVD. I chose the Netinstall.
For now, only the 64-bit is available. The CentOS developers are working in a 32-bit version but, it’s a bit of work since the sources (Red Hat) didn’t release a 32-bit version. Keep in mind: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the source and it is sold as industrial grade software. It’s not as if you can’t run 32-bit stuff on it, but you have deal with dual libraries for 64 and 32. If you don’t have 4GB of RAM or more, you should wait for the 32-bit release coming out later.
If you want to try booting with UEFI enabled on your system, feel free. It does boot on most hardware, but tends to freeze at some point on a lot of machines. Be prepared to reset your BIOS to legacy boot. There is a very brief visual walk-through here at Red Hat. A more detailed installation guide is here.
Most of the stuff requiring your direction attention is collected as icons on one single masterpage once you get past the most basic hardware configuration. You’ll see a caution icon on those items which absolutely require your attentions. However, take a look at all of them. You can’t proceed until all the icons have the caution marker removed. I wish I could give you a simple walk-through on setting up your install medium (hard drive, usually), but they made it complicated. Don’t be afraid to go back through it several times until you get it right. Look around at each page you see and realize a great many items are icons you can click. For example, when you finish each item, the “Done” button is oddly placed near the upper left.
If you choose the Netinstall ISO as I did, one of the first things you’ll need to do is set up networking before trying to select your download mirror. You’ll have to supply the URL by typing it in manually. The complete mirror list is here and what you have to type into the installer follows a standard format: baseURL followed by /centos/7/os/x86_64. Have this ready at hand when you start the installer.
Under the heading of software, you can choose one of several profiles. I am assuming most of my readers will want a standard workstation desktop. For now, you can choose between GNOME3 and KDE4. If you like GNOME3, there’s no sense in discussing it. If you don’t know what you want, you had best try KDE as less painful for most people rather new to Linux. There are plenty of places scattered around the Net on how to configure KDE4 once installed, so I won’t duplicate that here. Maybe later the CentOS folks will offer something more sane like XFCE or Mate (GNOME2 continued) for a default desktop. Right now, Mate is an add-on and XFCE is not available from any existing software repository that I know about.
One more point for installation: passwords. Again, this is industrial-grade software and annoyingly elitist on some things. One of them is passwords. The installer will grouch about almost any passwords you are likely to choose. It won’t be happy until you type in something you can’t possibly remember, so don’t be surprised when it complains. While the Netinstaller is pulling down the packages, you’ll be presented with a page that notes both the root account and the user account(s) don’t have passwords. You can set the passwords while its downloading everything.
I recommend the same thing I always have because it has never failed: Use a phrase or line from a song you know you’ll remember. Don’t try to string together recognizable words or names. Take the first letter from each word, making sure it adds up to at least ten characters, and twelve is probably close to max. Use upper case where it makes sense. Substitute digits and symbols so that you are likely to remember it. For example, in the old days one of my first passwords was based on the song by Twila Paris, “God Is in Control”:
Ginctrl!God is in … and “ctrl” is the abbreviation for the Control key on your keyboard … followed by an exclamation point
Try to avoid repeating any character and consider using digits (4=for, 2=to or too, 7=t, 5=s, etc.) and other symbols for some letters (@=at or e, !=L or I, $=s, #=h, etc.) and don’t be afraid to punctuate as normal, such as using a comma or ampersand where appropriate. The point is that you can repeat the phrase or line of the song and type out your password consistently.
You will need two such passwords; one for the user account and one for the administrator (“root”) account.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten something, so feel free to remind me in the comments.
