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CentOS 7.5 Installation with GUI and LVM Partition

Red Hat/CentOS Linux is a popular server operating system. Specially who work on mail server, web server, web proxy server, ftp server and file server are so familiar with the Red Hat/CentOS Linux. In my previous article, I discussed how to install CentOS 7.5 Linux step by step with the standard partition. But if you want to work on mail server, web proxy server, ftp server, file server or any other application where disk space changes frequently, the standard partitioning is not recommended in this case because the standard partitioning is not able to manage disk partition dynamically. On the other hand, LVM (Logical Volume Manager) provides opportunity to manage your partition dynamically. So, LVM partitioning is always recommended for Red Hat/CentOS Linux installation. But LVM partitioning is not as easy as the standard partitioning. You should have knowledge about the basic terms of the LVM partitioning. In this article, I will discuss about the basic terms of LVM and the basic architecture of LVM. I will also discuss how to install CentOS 7.5 Linux with LVM partitioning.

LVM Components

The following three terms are the basic components of the LVM partitioning.

Basic Architecture of LVM

In LVM technology, one or more disks or disk partitions are initialized as physical volumes (PV). These physical volumes are then combined into a volume group (VG) which works as a pool of disk space. From volume groups, one or more logical volumes (LV) according to the system requirements can be created. This process is analogous to the way in which disks are divided into partitions. A logical volume is used by the file systems and applications by mounting to a mount point. The following image shows an overview of the LVM architecture.

LVM Basic Architecture

CentOS 7.5 Installation with LVM Partitioning

Now we will start CentOS 7.5 installation with LVM partitioning. CentOS 7.5 can be installed on your server machine if it has minimum 256MB RAM 2GB disk space and 64 bit CPU architecture because CentOS 7.5 does not support 32 bit CPU architecture. We will complete CentOS 7.5 installation with the following 8 steps.

Step 1: Downloading CentOS 7.5 ISO and Making Bootable Drive

Before going to start CentOS 7.5 installation, you have to collect CentOS 7.5 ISO file and then burn this ISO file to a bootable media. The following steps will show how to download CentOS 7.5 ISO file and how to burn ISO file to a bootable media.

Step 2: Beginning Installation

After downloading and making bootable drive, we will now ready to start CentOS 7.5 installation. The following steps will show the initial procedures to start CentOS 7.5 installation.

CentOS Installation Starting Page

Step 3: Choosing Language

From this first graphical window, choose your operating system’s language and then click on Continue button. If you wish to keep English as your server language, just click Continue button. Installation Summery window will now appear to setup Localization, Software and System.

CentOS 7 Language Options

Step 4: Localization Setup

In localization setup, there are three types of configuration. Among them, Keyboard and Language Support will be selected according to previous language setup. Now you need to setup Date & Time. To setup date and time, click on Date & Time icon.

Select your region from Region dropdown menu and select your city from City dropdown menu. You are also able to adjust your Region and City by clicking your city on the map. Your time and date will be adjusted by selecting Region and City but double check your changed date and time below the map and then click on Done button.

CentOS 7 Installation Date and Time Setup

Step 5: Software Setup

In software setup, there are two options. These are:

CentOS 7 Installation Software Selection

Step 6: System Setup

There are two options in System setup. These are Installation Destination and Network & Hostname.In my previous article, I discussed how to configure network with the nmtui tool. So, after installation you can follow that article to configure your network. We will now configure Installation Destination according to the below steps.

LVM Partitioning

Step 7: Root Password and User Creation

While installing required services, you have to provide Root Password and optionally you can create another local user in this time. To provide root password, click on Root Password option from USER SETTINGS area. Now provide root password in Root Password input box and confirm your password by typing again in Confirm input box and then click on Done button. If you wish to create a local user, click on USER CREATION option and provide necessary information.

CentOS 7 Installation User Settings

Step 8: Finalizing GNOME Desktop Configuration

After installing software packages, CentOS will show a complete message and ask you to reboot your system. Reboot your server by clicking Reboot button.

After rebooting, CentOS will start Initial Setup. In Initial Setup page, it will ask to accept license agreement. So click on LICENSE INFORMATION and then click on I accept the license agreement checkbox and click Done button. We will not configure network and hostname at this time. So, click on FINISH CONFIGURTION button.


Now CentOS will ask to login to your system. You will find your local user is listed here if you provide information at the time of package installation. You can login with local user credential but we will now login with root (administrator) user. So, click on Not listed link and it will ask you to provide your known username.  Put root in Username input box and click on Next button. Now it will ask you to provide password for root user. Put your root password that you provided at the time of package installation and click on Sign In button.

You will now be logged in as root user but before getting your Desktop, you will find some gnome initial setup pages. Do nothing here, just click Next or Skip button and finally you will find Start using CentOS Linux button. Click on this button and you will find your Desktop now.

If you face any confusion to follow the above steps, watch the below video about CentOS installation with LVM partitioning.
I hope it will reduce your confusion.

How to install CentOS 7.5 step by step with GNOME Desktop and LVM partitioning has been discussed in this article. I hope you will now be able to install your CentOS Linux server with LVM partitioning successfully. However, if you face any problem to install CentOS 7.5, feel free to discuss in comment or contact with me from Contact page. I will try my best to stay with you. In the next article, I will discuss how to manage LVM with the command line utility. So, keep with the System Zone.

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