This seems like a silly question, and I apologize if I'm overlooking something obvious. I can't figure out how to install CentOS 5.5 My experience in Linux thus far is mostly Debian-based distros (Ubuntu, Mint, etc.), for all of which the Live CD is the install cd and installation is rather painless. This seems to not be the case with CentOS.
In any case, I downloaded the CentOS 5.5 x86_64 bin-DVD parts 1 and 2 from a torrent, and verified the md5 sum against the centos website. On a mac, right-clicked on the ISO for part 1 in finder and chose "burn ISO to dvd". But the server I'm trying to install it on won't boot from this disk.
Previously, someone had burned the CentOS LiveCD onto the same kind of dvd, and the server boots from this fine, so I doubt it's a problem with the dvd reader or the dvd itself.
Do I have to do something special when burning the ISO to dvd to ensure that it makes a bootable dvd? Or are the 2-part CentOS dvds not intended to be bootable? This seems very unlikely…
BTW, I'm trying CentOS 5.5 because we're running a Hadoop cluster where the existing machines are running this OS so I wanted to play it safe. I realize 5.5 is no longer officially supported, though, so if there are good reasons for switching to 6 (I'm assuming it won't cause compatibility issues in the cluster, since Hadoop is running at the JVM level anyway) I'm open to it.
Best Answer
The CentOS live CD has a "net install" feature. If your machine is connected to internet, you can install CentOS from the live CD.
More info:
To "net install" from a Live CD, let the BIOS boot from the disc and then hit any key when you see the bootloader (during the countdown that says "Will boot automatically in 10...") and you can choose "install over network". CentOS hosts http://vault.centos.org/5.5/os/x86_64 that has the correct net install image and all the necessary packages. Connection is relatively slow depending on how many packages you're installing, but all the other mirrors I can find only have CentOS 5.7 and 6.0 as of this posting.