Fedora is distributed on multiple CD-sized ISO image files, or a single DVD-sized ISO image file. You can use the single DVD ISO file if your computer meets the following requirements:

To write the DVD ISO file to a disc, your computer needs to have a drive that will write to DVD media. If your computer has a drive that only writes CD media and not DVD media, download the CD-sized files instead.

Some file systems cannot store files larger than 2 GB, such as the DVD image. The commonly-used NTFS file system does not have this limitation, but many other non-NTFS formats do, such as FAT32. To check the format of a drive under Windows such as C:, select the Start menu and then My Computer. Right-click the drive you want to check, and choose Properties. The resulting dialog displays the format for that file system. If you do not have an NTFS drive with enough free space, download the CD-sized files instead.

Create a new directory where you can download all of these files. You need approximately 700 MiB of free space available for each CD-sized ISO file, or approximately 3.5 GiB for the DVD-sized ISO file. This document assumes you have downloaded the files to the folder C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Downloads\Fedora.

The exact files you need from the download server depend upon your system and the version of Fedora you are downloading. The files you need are named in the form of FC-<version>-<arch>-disc<count>.iso, where "<version>" is the version of Fedora you wish to download, "<arch>" is your computer's processor architecture, and "<count>" is the disc number for each of the installation CDs.

The computer processor architecture is usually i386 for 32-bit PCs, including the Pentium and Athlon processor families. The architecture is usually x86_64 for 64-bit PCs, including the Athlon 64 processor family. The architecture is usually ppc for PowerPC computers, including most of Apple's Mac offerings. If in doubt, your system probably requires the i386 versions.

If you are downloading Fedora 7 for a Pentium 4 computer, for example, you need these files:

Or, if you prefer to install from a single DVD, you only need this file:

You may also need the SHA1SUM file to verify that the files you have downloaded are complete and correct.