Linux® For Dummies®, 8th Edition

Your First Boot

The first time your Fedora system boots, you have your first chance to see your boot menu fly by. It’s the blue screen that offers you three seconds before proceeding to boot into your default choice. If you set Windows as your default, press a key (such as the spacebar) to enter the menu, select the Linux entry, and press Enter. If Linux is the default — or the only — operating system installed, just sit back and let the machine boot on its own. If, for any reason, your computer fails to boot at this point, see Chapter 4.

The first time your computer boots, you see the first boot Welcome screen. Do the following to complete your machine’s initial setup:

1.

Click Forward to proceed to the setup routine. The License Agreement screen appears.

2.

Read through this text, select Yes, I Agree To The License Agreement and then click Forward. The Firewall screen appears, as shown in Figure 3-9. Firewalls protect your system from unauthorized access and discovery. When you’re connected to the Internet at high speed, your computer becomes one of hundreds of thousands. I wish that I could tell you that there aren’t tons of nasty people and programs trying to break into your computer, but I can’t; unfortunately, there’s a horde of them. A firewall is your first (but not only) protective barrier against cyber-hoodlums, viruses, worms, and a host of other items that might try to skulk in through doors that should have been kept closed; see the sidebar “Firewalls and you” for ...