Welcome to your first lesson! We'll start by laying the essential groundwork for your gesture-controlled IoT system. Today's goal is to get Rocky Linux, a stable and secure operating system, installed on your dedicated project machine (the one with the AMD 3300X processor). This will be the server that orchestrates your entire system.
This lesson focuses on creating a bootable USB drive and installing the "Server with GUI" version of Rocky Linux. While your final system will run automated scripts, having a Graphical User Interface (GUI) is invaluable for initial setup, development, and troubleshooting, especially since we'll be working with camera feeds. We'll move step-by-step through the installation, focusing on the critical configuration choices you'll need to make.
1. Preparing the Installation Media
Our first task is to create a bootable USB drive containing the Rocky Linux installer. This involves two steps: downloading the official installation image (an .iso file) and then "burning" that image onto a USB drive.
This infographic provides a great high-level overview of the entire process, from creating the USB drive to booting the installer.
First, you'll need to download the correct ISO file.
Installing Rocky Linux 9 - Documentation
This is the official Rocky Linux documentation. It contains the link to download the ISO file and instructions on how to verify its integrity, which is a good practice to ensure your download is not corrupted.
On the documentation page, find the download link under the "Operating System Installation Prerequisites" section. The link is provided here. On the download page, select version 9 for the x86_64 architecture. Make sure you download the "DVD" version, as it's the largest and contains all the packages we'll need, including the GUI. The file will be quite large, around 9-10 GB. After downloading, you can optionally follow the steps for verifying the file using sha256sum. Given your development background, you'll appreciate that this checksum verification ensures the file's integrity.
Once the ISO file is downloaded, you need to write it to a USB drive. While the infographic shows the command-line dd method, a graphical tool like Balena Etcher is often faster and more intuitive. The following video demonstrates this process clearly.
Rocky Linux 9.4 Install Guide | NVIDIA Drivers | Install Apps with one click 🏔️
This video from The Linux IT Guy provides a concise walkthrough of creating a bootable USB drive using Balena Etcher.
Watch the segment from the beginning where the host downloads the ISO and uses Etcher. Pay attention to how he selects the ISO file, the target USB drive, and starts the flashing process.
With your bootable USB drive ready, you can now proceed with the installation on your target machine.
2. The Installation Process
Now it's time to boot your dedicated PC from the USB drive you just created.
- Plug the USB drive into the 3300X machine.
- Power on the machine and immediately enter the BIOS/UEFI setup. This is usually done by pressing a key like
F2,F11,F12, orDeleteduring startup. The correct key is typically displayed on the initial boot screen. - Change the boot order to prioritize the USB drive over your internal hard drive or SSD.
- Save and exit the BIOS/UEFI setup. The system will now boot from the USB drive and load the Rocky Linux installer.
We will follow the excellent and thorough walkthrough from Learn Linux TV. It covers not just the installation but also a common issue with the GUI, which presents a valuable learning opportunity.
Rocky Linux: Full Installation Walkthrough
This video provides a complete installation walkthrough. We'll use it to guide us through the main configuration steps.
First, watch the initial steps covering boot selection and language choice. Next, see how to configure the network. It's best to use a wired Ethernet connection for the installation if possible. Watch the section on network setup. Then, follow the steps for selecting the disk. For this project, you can simply accept the automatic partitioning to reclaim all space. This will erase all data on the target disk.
Software Selection: The Most Important Step
This is the most critical decision in the installation process. Your goal is to install a "Server with GUI". The installer presents this in a specific way.
Your goal is to reach this screen and select 'Server with GUI' from the 'Base Environment' options.
Now, let's watch how the presenter in the video makes his selection. He adds the GUI components to the base Server install.
Rocky Linux: Full Installation Walkthrough
This segment shows exactly how to select the right components for a server with a graphical interface.
Watch carefully from this section. The presenter selects "Server" as the base environment and then, from the "Additional software" panel on the right, he adds the components for a GUI. This is the correct procedure. Notice he warns that it might not boot into the GUI by default, a point we'll address shortly.
After setting your software selection, you need to create a user account. It's standard security practice to create a regular user for daily operations rather than using the root account directly.
Rocky Linux: Full Installation Walkthrough
This part of the video covers setting the root password and creating your own administrative user account.
Follow the instructions from this segment. First, set a strong password for the root account (and store it securely). Then, create your personal user account. Crucially, check the box to "Make this user administrator." This will grant your user the ability to perform administrative tasks using sudo, which we'll cover in the next lesson.
Once all these settings are configured (marked with a check or without a warning icon), you can click "Begin Installation".
3. First Boot and Finalizing the GUI
The installation will take some time. Once it's finished, the installer will prompt you to reboot. After rebooting, you may encounter the exact issue the video host predicted: the system might boot into a command-line prompt instead of a graphical login screen.
This is a fantastic real-world troubleshooting scenario. Resolving this will give you your first hands-on experience with system administration on a Red Hat-based Linux distribution.
Rocky Linux: Full Installation Walkthrough
This final, crucial segment demonstrates how to fix the GUI if it doesn't load automatically.
Watch from the first boot. Follow the presenter's steps precisely: Log in as root at the command-line prompt, using the password you set during installation. Run the command dnf groupinstall "Server with GUI". This command uses the dnf package manager to ensure all necessary files for the graphical environment are installed. The groupinstall command is a powerful tool for installing collections of related software. Run the command systemctl set-default graphical.target. This command tells systemd, the system and service manager, to always boot into the graphical target (the GUI) by default, instead of the multi-user target (the command line). Finally, reboot the system. After this reboot, you should be greeted by the GNOME desktop's welcome screen.
Congratulations on completing the installation! You now have a stable, powerful Linux server ready for the next stages of your project.
Key Takeaways
- You learned how to create a bootable Rocky Linux USB drive from an ISO file using a tool like Balena Etcher.
- You walked through the Anaconda installer, making key decisions about storage, networking, and user accounts.
- You correctly selected the "Server with GUI" environment, which is essential for the initial development phase of this project.
- You encountered and solved a common real-world issue by using
dnfandsystemctlto manually enable the graphical boot target, giving you a deeper understanding of how the system operates.
Next Steps
In our next lesson, we will secure and prepare this new installation for development. We'll perform the first system update, confirm your user has the correct administrative (sudo) privileges, and begin setting up the environment for your gesture recognition application.