installing debian

Posted in Linux |

Apr 16

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/install.txt.en

Debian GNU/Linux Installation Guide

This manual is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License. Please refer to the license in
Appendix F, GNU General Public License.

Abstract

This document contains installation instructions for the Debian GNU/Linux 4.0
system (codename “etch”), for the Intel x86 (”i386″) architecture. It also
contains pointers to more information and information on how to make the most
of your new Debian system.

Note

Although this installation guide for i386 is mostly up-to-date, we plan to make
some changes and reorganize parts of the manual after the official release of
etch. A newer version of this manual may be found on the Internet at the
debian-installer home page. You may also be able to find additional
translations there.

——————————————————————————-

Table of Contents

Installing Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 For i386
1. Welcome to Debian

1.1. What is Debian?
1.2. What is GNU/Linux?
1.3. What is Debian GNU/Linux?
1.4. Getting Debian
1.5. Getting the Newest Version of This Document
1.6. Organization of This Document
1.7. About Copyrights and Software Licenses

2. System Requirements

2.1. Supported Hardware

2.1.1. Supported Architectures
2.1.2. CPU, Main Boards, and Video Support
2.1.3. Graphics Card Support
2.1.4. Laptops
2.1.5. Multiple Processors

2.2. Installation Media

2.2.1. Floppies
2.2.2. CD-ROM/DVD-ROM
2.2.3. Hard Disk
2.2.4. USB Memory Stick
2.2.5. Network
2.2.6. Un*x or GNU system
2.2.7. Supported Storage Systems

2.3. Peripherals and Other Hardware
2.4. Purchasing Hardware Specifically for GNU/Linux

2.4.1. Avoid Proprietary or Closed Hardware
2.4.2. Windows-specific Hardware

2.5. Memory and Disk Space Requirements
2.6. Network Connectivity Hardware

2.6.1. Drivers Requiring Firmware
2.6.2. Wireless Network Cards

3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux

3.1. Overview of the Installation Process
3.2. Back Up Your Existing Data!
3.3. Information You Will Need

3.3.1. Documentation
3.3.2. Finding Sources of Hardware Information
3.3.3. Hardware Compatibility
3.3.4. Network Settings

3.4. Meeting Minimum Hardware Requirements
3.5. Pre-Partitioning for Multi-Boot Systems

3.5.1. Partitioning From DOS or Windows

3.6. Pre-Installation Hardware and Operating System Setup

3.6.1. Invoking the BIOS Set-Up Menu
3.6.2. Boot Device Selection
3.6.3. Miscellaneous BIOS Settings
3.6.4. Hardware Issues to Watch Out For

4. Obtaining System Installation Media

4.1. Official Debian GNU/Linux CD-ROM Sets
4.2. Downloading Files from Debian Mirrors

4.2.1. Where to Find Installation Images

4.3. Creating Floppies from Disk Images

4.3.1. Writing Disk Images From a Linux or Unix System
4.3.2. Writing Disk Images From DOS, Windows, or OS/2

4.4. Preparing Files for USB Memory Stick Booting

4.4.1. Copying the files — the easy way
4.4.2. Copying the files — the flexible way
4.4.3. Adding an ISO image
4.4.4. Booting the USB stick

4.5. Preparing Files for Hard Disk Booting

4.5.1. Hard disk installer booting using LILO or GRUB

4.6. Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting

4.6.1. Setting up a BOOTP server
4.6.2. Setting up a DHCP server
4.6.3. Enabling the TFTP Server
4.6.4. Move TFTP Images Into Place

4.7. Automatic Installation

4.7.1. Automatic Installation Using the Debian Installer

5. Booting the Installation System

5.1. Booting the Installer on Intel x86

5.1.1. Booting from a CD-ROM
5.1.2. Booting from Linux Using LILO or GRUB
5.1.3. Booting from USB Memory Stick
5.1.4. Booting from Floppies
5.1.5. Booting with TFTP
5.1.6. The Boot Prompt

5.2. Boot Parameters

5.2.1. Debian Installer Parameters

5.3. Troubleshooting the Installation Process

5.3.1. CD-ROM Reliability
5.3.2. Floppy Disk Reliability
5.3.3. Boot Configuration
5.3.4. Common Intel x86 Installation Problems
5.3.5. Interpreting the Kernel Startup Messages
5.3.6. Reporting Installation Problems
5.3.7. Submitting Installation Reports

6. Using the Debian Installer

6.1. How the Installer Works
6.2. Components Introduction
6.3. Using Individual Components

6.3.1. Setting up Debian Installer and Hardware Configuration
6.3.2. Partitioning and Mount Point Selection
6.3.3. Setting up the System
6.3.4. Installing the Base System
6.3.5. Installing Additional Software
6.3.6. Making Your System Bootable
6.3.7. Finishing the Installation
6.3.8. Miscellaneous

7. Booting Into Your New Debian System

7.1. The Moment of Truth
7.2. Mounting encrypted volumes

7.2.1. dm-crypt
7.2.2. loop-AES
7.2.3. Troubleshooting

7.3. Log In

8. Next Steps and Where to Go From Here

8.1. Shutting down the system
8.2. If You Are New to Unix
8.3. Orienting Yourself to Debian

8.3.1. Debian Packaging System
8.3.2. Application Version Management
8.3.3. Cron Job Management

8.4. Further Reading and Information
8.5. Setting Up Your System To Use E-Mail

8.5.1. Default E-Mail Configuration
8.5.2. Sending E-Mails Outside The System
8.5.3. Configuring the Exim4 Mail Transport Agent

8.6. Compiling a New Kernel

8.6.1. Kernel Image Management

8.7. Recovering a Broken System

A. Installation Howto

A.1. Preliminaries
A.2. Booting the installer

A.2.1. CDROM
A.2.2. Floppy
A.2.3. USB memory stick
A.2.4. Booting from network
A.2.5. Booting from hard disk

A.3. Installation
A.4. Send us an installation report
A.5. And finally…

B. Automating the installation using preseeding

B.1. Introduction

B.1.1. Preseeding methods
B.1.2. Limitations

B.2. Using preseeding

B.2.1. Loading the preconfiguration file
B.2.2. Using boot parameters to preseed questions
B.2.3. Auto mode
B.2.4. Aliases useful with preseeding
B.2.5. Using a DHCP server to specify preconfiguration files

B.3. Creating a preconfiguration file
B.4. Contents of the preconfiguration file

B.4.1. Localization
B.4.2. Network configuration
B.4.3. Mirror settings
B.4.4. Partitioning
B.4.5. Partitioning using RAID
B.4.6. Clock and time zone setup
B.4.7. Apt setup
B.4.8. Account setup
B.4.9. Base system installation
B.4.10. Boot loader installation
B.4.11. Package selection
B.4.12. Finishing up the first stage install
B.4.13. X configuration
B.4.14. Preseeding other packages

B.5. Advanced options

B.5.1. Running custom commands during the installation
B.5.2. Using preseeding to change default values
B.5.3. Chainloading preconfiguration files

C. Partitioning for Debian

C.1. Deciding on Debian Partitions and Sizes
C.2. The Directory Tree
C.3. Recommended Partitioning Scheme
C.4. Device Names in Linux
C.5. Debian Partitioning Programs

C.5.1. Partitioning for Intel x86

D. Random Bits

D.1. Linux Devices

D.1.1. Setting Up Your Mouse

D.2. Disk Space Needed for Tasks
D.3. Installing Debian GNU/Linux from a Unix/Linux System

D.3.1. Getting Started
D.3.2. Install debootstrap
D.3.3. Run debootstrap
D.3.4. Configure The Base System
D.3.5. Install a Kernel
D.3.6. Set up the Boot Loader
D.3.7. Finishing touches

D.4. Installing Debian GNU/Linux over Parallel Line IP (PLIP)

D.4.1. Requirements
D.4.2. Setting up source
D.4.3. Installing target

D.5. Installing Debian GNU/Linux using PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE)
D.6. The Graphical Installer

D.6.1. Using the graphical installer
D.6.2. Known issues

E. Administrivia

E.1. About This Document
E.2. Contributing to This Document
E.3. Major Contributions
E.4. Trademark Acknowledgement

F. GNU General Public License

List of Tables

3.1. Hardware Information Needed for an Install
3.2. Recommended Minimum System Requirements

Installing Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 For i386

We are delighted that you have decided to try Debian, and are sure that you
will find that Debian’s GNU/Linux distribution is unique. Debian GNU/Linux
brings together high-quality free software from around the world, integrating
it into a coherent whole. We believe that you will find that the result is
truly more than the sum of the parts.

We understand that many of you want to install Debian without reading this
manual, and the Debian installer is designed to make this possible. If you
don’t have time to read the whole Installation Guide right now, we recommend
that you read the Installation Howto, which will walk you through the basic
installation process, and links to the manual for more advanced topics or for
when things go wrong. The Installation Howto can be found in Appendix A,
Installation Howto.

With that said, we hope that you have the time to read most of this manual, and
doing so will lead to a more informed and likely more successful installation
experience.

Chapter 1. Welcome to Debian

Table of Contents

This chapter provides an overview of the Debian Project and Debian GNU/Linux.
If you already know about the Debian Project’s history and the Debian GNU/Linux
distribution, feel free to skip to the next chapter.

1.1. What is Debian?

Debian is an all-volunteer organization dedicated to developing free software
and promoting the ideals of the Free Software community. The Debian Project
began in 1993, when Ian Murdock issued an open invitation to software
developers to contribute to a complete and coherent software distribution based
on the relatively new Linux kernel. That relatively small band of dedicated
enthusiasts, originally funded by the Free Software Foundation and influenced
by the GNU philosophy, has grown over the years into an organization of around
1010 Debian Developers.

Debian Developers are involved in a variety of activities, including Web and
FTP site administration, graphic design, legal analysis of software licenses,
writing documentation, and, of course, maintaining software packages.

In the interest of communicating our philosophy and attracting developers who
believe in the principles that Debian stands for, the Debian Project has
published a number of documents that outline our values and serve as guides to
what it means to be a Debian Developer:

* The Debian Social Contract is a statement of Debian’s commitments to the
Free Software Community. Anyone who agrees to abide to the Social Contract
may become a maintainer. Any maintainer can introduce new software into
Debian — provided that the software meets our criteria for being free, and
the package follows our quality standards.

* The Debian Free Software Guidelines are a clear and concise statement of
Debian’s criteria for free software. The DFSG is a very influential
document in the Free Software Movement, and was the foundation of the The
Open Source Definition.

* The Debian Policy Manual is an extensive specification of the Debian
Project’s standards of quality.

Debian developers are also involved in a number of other projects; some
specific to Debian, others involving some or all of the Linux community. Some
examples include:

* The Linux Standard Base (LSB) is a project aimed at standardizing the basic
GNU/Linux system, which will enable third-party software and hardware
developers to easily design programs and device drivers for
Linux-in-general, rather than for a specific GNU/Linux distribution.

* The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) is an effort to standardize the
layout of the Linux file system. The FHS will allow software developers to
concentrate their efforts on designing programs, without having to worry
about how the package will be installed in different GNU/Linux
distributions.

* Debian Jr. is an internal project, aimed at making sure Debian has
something to offer to our youngest users.

For more general information about Debian, see the Debian FAQ.

1.2. What is GNU/Linux?

Linux is an operating system: a series of programs that let you interact with
your computer and run other programs.

An operating system consists of various fundamental programs which are needed
by your computer so that it can communicate and receive instructions from
users; read and write data to hard disks, tapes, and printers; control the use
of memory; and run other software. The most important part of an operating
system is the kernel. In a GNU/Linux system, Linux is the kernel component. The
rest of the system consists of other programs, many of which were written by or
for the GNU Project. Because the Linux kernel alone does not form a working
operating system, we prefer to use the term “GNU/Linux” to refer to systems
that many people casually refer to as “Linux”.

Linux is modelled on the Unix operating system. From the start, Linux was
designed to be a multi-tasking, multi-user system. These facts are enough to
make Linux different from other well-known operating systems. However, Linux is
even more different than you might imagine. In contrast to other operating
systems, nobody owns Linux. Much of its development is done by unpaid
volunteers.

Development of what later became GNU/Linux began in 1984, when the Free
Software Foundation began development of a free Unix-like operating system
called GNU.

The GNU Project has developed a comprehensive set of free software tools for
use with Unix ™ and Unix-like operating systems such as Linux. These tools
enable users to perform tasks ranging from the mundane (such as copying or
removing files from the system) to the arcane (such as writing and compiling
programs or doing sophisticated editing in a variety of document formats).

While many groups and individuals have contributed to Linux, the largest single
contributor is still the Free Software Foundation, which created not only most
of the tools used in Linux, but also the philosophy and the community that made
Linux possible.

The Linux kernel first appeared in 1991, when a Finnish computing science
student named Linus Torvalds announced an early version of a replacement kernel
for Minix to the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.minix. See Linux International’s
Linux History Page.

Linus Torvalds continues to coordinate the work of several hundred developers
with the help of a few trusty deputies. An excellent weekly summary of
discussions on the linux-kernel mailing list is Kernel Traffic. More
information about the linux-kernel mailing list can be found on the
linux-kernel mailing list FAQ.

Linux users have immense freedom of choice in their software. For example,
Linux users can choose from a dozen different command line shells and several
graphical desktops. This selection is often bewildering to users of other
operating systems, who are not used to thinking of the command line or desktop
as something that they can change.

Linux is also less likely to crash, better able to run more than one program at
the same time, and more secure than many operating systems. With these
advantages, Linux is the fastest growing operating system in the server market.
More recently, Linux has begun to be popular among home and business users as
well.

1.3. What is Debian GNU/Linux?

The combination of Debian’s philosophy and methodology and the GNU tools, the
Linux kernel, and other important free software, form a unique software
distribution called Debian GNU/Linux. This distribution is made up of a large
number of software packages. Each package in the distribution contains
executables, scripts, documentation, and configuration information, and has a
maintainer who is primarily responsible for keeping the package up-to-date,
tracking bug reports, and communicating with the upstream author(s) of the
packaged software. Our extremely large user base, combined with our bug
tracking system ensures that problems are found and fixed quickly.

Debian’s attention to detail allows us to produce a high-quality, stable, and
scalable distribution. Installations can be easily configured to serve many
roles, from stripped-down firewalls to desktop scientific workstations to
high-end network servers.

Debian is especially popular among advanced users because of its technical
excellence and its deep commitment to the needs and expectations of the Linux
community. Debian also introduced many features to Linux that are now
commonplace.

For example, Debian was the first Linux distribution to include a package
management system for easy installation and removal of software. It was also
the first Linux distribution that could be upgraded without requiring
reinstallation.

Debian continues to be a leader in Linux development. Its development process
is an example of just how well the Open Source development model can work –
even for very complex tasks such as building and maintaining a complete
operating system.

The feature that most distinguishes Debian from other Linux distributions is
its package management system. These tools give the administrator of a Debian
system complete control over the packages installed on that system, including
the ability to install a single package or automatically update the entire
operating system. Individual packages can also be protected from being updated.
You can even tell the package management system about software you have
compiled yourself and what dependencies it fulfills.

To protect your system against “Trojan horses” and other malevolent software,
Debian’s servers verify that uploaded packages come from their registered
Debian maintainers. Debian packagers also take great care to configure their
packages in a secure manner. When security problems in shipped packages do
appear, fixes are usually available very quickly. With Debian’s simple update
options, security fixes can be downloaded and installed automatically across
the Internet.

The primary, and best, method of getting support for your Debian GNU/Linux
system and communicating with Debian Developers is through the many mailing
lists maintained by the Debian Project (there are more than 215 at this
writing). The easiest way to subscribe to one or more of these lists is visit
Debian’s mailing list subscription page and fill out the form you’ll find
there.

1.4. Getting Debian

For information on how to download Debian GNU/Linux from the Internet or from
whom official Debian CDs can be purchased, see the distribution web page. The
list of Debian mirrors contains a full set of official Debian mirrors, so you
can easily find the nearest one.

Debian can be upgraded after installation very easily. The installation
procedure will help set up the system so that you can make those upgrades once
installation is complete, if need be.

1.5. Getting the Newest Version of This Document

This document is constantly being revised. Be sure to check the Debian 4.0
pages for any last-minute information about the 4.0 release of the Debian GNU/
Linux system. Updated versions of this installation manual are also available
from the official Install Manual pages.

1.6. Organization of This Document

This document is meant to serve as a manual for first-time Debian users. It
tries to make as few assumptions as possible about your level of expertise.
However, we do assume that you have a general understanding of how the hardware
in your computer works.

Expert users may also find interesting reference information in this document,
including minimum installation sizes, details about the hardware supported by
the Debian installation system, and so on. We encourage expert users to jump
around in the document.

In general, this manual is arranged in a linear fashion, walking you through
the installation process from start to finish. Here are the steps in installing
Debian GNU/Linux, and the sections of this document which correlate with each
step:

1. Determine whether your hardware meets the requirements for using the
installation system, in Chapter 2, System Requirements.

2. Backup your system, perform any necessary planning and hardware
configuration prior to installing Debian, in Chapter 3, Before Installing
Debian GNU/Linux. If you are preparing a multi-boot system, you may need to
create partition-able space on your hard disk for Debian to use.

3. In Chapter 4, Obtaining System Installation Media, you will obtain the
necessary installation files for your method of installation.

4. Chapter 5, Booting the Installation System describes booting into the
installation system. This chapter also discusses troubleshooting procedures
in case you have problems with this step.

5. Perform the actual installation according to Chapter 6, Using the Debian
Installer. This involves choosing your language, configuring peripheral
driver modules, configuring your network connection, so that remaining
installation files can be obtained directly from a Debian server (if you
are not installing from a CD), partitioning your hard drives and
installation of a base system, then selection and installation of tasks.
(Some background about setting up the partitions for your Debian system is
explained in Appendix C, Partitioning for Debian.)

6. Boot into your newly installed base system, from Chapter 7, Booting Into
Your New Debian System.

Once you’ve got your system installed, you can read Chapter 8, Next Steps and
Where to Go From Here. That chapter explains where to look to find more
information about Unix and Debian, and how to replace your kernel.

Finally, information about this document and how to contribute to it may be
found in Appendix E, Administrivia.

1.7. About Copyrights and Software Licenses

We’re sure that you’ve read some of the licenses that come with most commercial
software — they usually say that you can only use one copy of the software on
a single computer. This system’s license isn’t like that at all. We encourage
you to put a copy of on every computer in your school or place of business.
Lend your installation media to your friends and help them install it on their
computers! You can even make thousands of copies and sell them — albeit with a
few restrictions. Your freedom to install and use the system comes directly
from Debian being based on free software.

Calling software free doesn’t mean that the software isn’t copyrighted, and it
doesn’t mean that CDs containing that software must be distributed at no
charge. Free software, in part, means that the licenses of individual programs
do not require you to pay for the privilege of distributing or using those
programs. Free software also means that not only may anyone extend, adapt, and
modify the software, but that they may distribute the results of their work as
well.

Note

The Debian project, as a pragmatic concession to its users, does make some
packages available that do not meet our criteria for being free. These packages
are not part of the official distribution, however, and are only available from
the contrib or non-free areas of Debian mirrors or on third-party CD-ROMs; see
the Debian FAQ, under “The Debian FTP archives”, for more information about the
layout and contents of the archives.

Many of the programs in the system are licensed under the GNU General Public
License, often simply referred to as “the GPL”. The GPL requires you to make
the source code of the programs available whenever you distribute a binary copy
of the program; that provision of the license ensures that any user will be
able to modify the software. Because of this provision, the source code^[1] for
all such programs is available in the Debian system.

There are several other forms of copyright statements and software licenses
used on the programs in Debian. You can find the copyrights and licenses for
every package installed on your system by looking in the file /usr/share/doc/
package-name/copyright once you’ve installed a package on your system.

For more information about licenses and how Debian determines whether software
is free enough to be included in the main distribution, see the Debian Free
Software Guidelines.

The most important legal notice is that this software comes with no warranties.
The programmers who have created this software have done so for the benefit of
the community. No guarantee is made as to the suitability of the software for
any given purpose. However, since the software is free, you are empowered to
modify that software to suit your needs — and to enjoy the benefits of the
changes made by others who have extended the software in this way.

————–

^[1] For information on how to locate, unpack, and build binaries from Debian
source packages, see the Debian FAQ, under “Basics of the Debian Package
Management System”.

Chapter 2. System Requirements

Table of Contents

2.1. Supported Hardware

2.1.1. Supported Architectures
2.1.2. CPU, Main Boards, and Video Support
2.1.3. Graphics Card Support
2.1.4. Laptops
2.1.5. Multiple Processors

2.2. Installation Media

2.2.1. Floppies
2.2.2. CD-ROM/DVD-ROM
2.2.3. Hard Disk
2.2.4. USB Memory Stick
2.2.5. Network
2.2.6. Un*x or GNU system
2.2.7. Supported Storage Systems

2.3. Peripherals and Other Hardware
2.4. Purchasing Hardware Specifically for GNU/Linux

2.4.1. Avoid Proprietary or Closed Hardware
2.4.2. Windows-specific Hardware

2.5. Memory and Disk Space Requirements
2.6. Network Connectivity Hardware

2.6.1. Drivers Requiring Firmware
2.6.2. Wireless Network Cards

This section contains information about what hardware you need to get started
with Debian. You will also find links to further information about hardware
supported by GNU and Linux.

2.1. Supported Hardware

Debian does not impose hardware requirements beyond the requirements of the
Linux kernel and the GNU tool-sets. Therefore, any architecture or platform to
which the Linux kernel, libc, gcc, etc. have been ported, and for which a
Debian port exists, can run Debian. Please refer to the Ports pages at http://
www.debian.org/ports/i386/ for more details on Intel x86 architecture systems
which have been tested with Debian.

Rather than attempting to describe all the different hardware configurations
which are supported for Intel x86, this section contains general information
and pointers to where additional information can be found.

2.1.1. Supported Architectures

Debian 4.0 supports twelve major architectures and several variations of each
architecture known as “flavors”.

+——̵ | Architecture | | |——̵ |Intel x86-based |i386 |——̵ |AMD64 & Intel |EM64T | |——̵ |DEC Alpha |——̵ | | | | | | |ARM and StrongARM |arm | | | | | | |——̵ | | |HP PA-RISC |hppa | | |——̵ |Intel IA-64 |ia64 |——̵ | | | | | | | | |MIPS (big endian) |mips | | | | | | | | |——̵ | | | | | | | | |MIPS (little | |endian) | | | | | | | | | | |——̵ | | | | | | | | | | |Motorola 680×0 |m68k | | | | | | | | | | |——̵ | | |IBM/Motorola | |PowerPC | | | | |——̵ | | | | |Sun SPARC | | | | |——̵ | | |IBM S/390 |s390 | | | | +——̵ 2;——————————————————————–+
Debian | Subarchitecture | Flavor |
| Designation | | |
2;———+—————–+————————-+————–|
| | |
2;———+—————–+————————-+————–|
|amd64 | | |
| | |
2;———+—————–+————————-+————–|
|alpha | | |
2;———+—————–+————————-+————–|
|Netwinder and CATS |netwinder |
|————————-+————–|
|Intel IOP32x |iop32x |
|————————-+————–|
|Intel IXP4xx |ixp4xx |
|————————-+————–|
|RiscPC |rpc |
2;———+—————–+————————-+————–|
|PA-RISC 1.1 |32 |
|————————-+————–|
|PA-RISC 2.0 |64 |
2;———+—————–+————————-+————–|
| | |
2;———+—————–+————————-+————–|
|SGI IP22 (Indy/Indigo 2) |r4k-ip22 |
|————————-+————–|
|SGI IP32 (O2) |r5k-ip32 |
|————————-+————–|
|Broadcom BCM91250A |sb1-bcm91250a |
|(SWARM) | |
|————————-+————–|
|Broadcom BCM91480B |sb1a-bcm91480b|
|(BigSur) | |
2;———+—————–+————————-+————–|
|Cobalt |cobalt |
|————————-+————–|
| |r4k-kn04 |
|DECstation |————–|
| |r3k-kn02 |
|mipsel |————————-+————–|
|Broadcom BCM91250A |sb1-bcm91250a |
|(SWARM) | |
|————————-+————–|
|Broadcom BCM91480B |sb1a-bcm91480b|
|(BigSur) | |
2;———+—————–+————————-+————–|
|Atari |atari |
|————————-+————–|
|Amiga |amiga |
|————————-+————–|
|68k Macintosh |mac |
|————————-+————–|
| |bvme6000 |
| |————–|
|VME |mvme147 |
| |————–|
| |mvme16x |
2;———+—————–+————————-+————–|
|CHRP |chrp |
|————————-+————–|
|powerpc |PowerMac |pmac |
|————————-+————–|
|PReP |prep |
2;———+—————–+————————-+————–|
|sun4m |sparc32 |
|————————-+————–|
|sparc |sun4u | |
|————————-|sparc64 |
|sun4v | |
2;———+—————–+————————-+————–|
|IPL from VM-reader and |generic |
|DASD | |
|————————-+————–|
|IPL from tape |tape |
2;——————————————————————–+

This document covers installation for the Intel x86 architecture. If you are
looking for information on any of the other Debian-supported architectures take
a look at the Debian-Ports pages.

2.1.2. CPU, Main Boards, and Video Support

Complete information concerning supported peripherals can be found at Linux
Hardware Compatibility HOWTO. This section merely outlines the basics.

2.1.2.1. CPU

Nearly all x86-based (IA-32) processors still in use in personal computers are
supported, including all varieties of Intel’s “Pentium” series. This also
includes 32-bit AMD and VIA (former Cyrix) processors, and processors like the
Athlon XP and Intel P4 Xeon.

Note

If your system has a 64-bit processor from the AMD64 or Intel EM64T families,
you will probably want to use the installer for the amd64 architecture instead
of the installer for the (32-bit) i386 architecture.

However, Debian GNU/Linux etch will not run on 386 or earlier processors.
Despite the architecture name “i386″, support for actual 80386 processors (and
their clones) was dropped with the Sarge (r3.1) release of Debian^[2]. (No
version of Linux has ever supported the 286 or earlier chips in the series.)
All i486 and later processors are still supported^[3].

2.1.2.2. I/O Bus

The system bus is the part of the motherboard which allows the CPU to
communicate with peripherals such as storage devices. Your computer must use
the ISA, EISA, PCI, the Microchannel Architecture (MCA, used in IBM’s PS/2
line), or VESA Local Bus (VLB, sometimes called the VL bus). Essentially all
personal computers sold in recent years use one of these.

2.1.3. Graphics Card Support

You should be using a VGA-compatible display interface for the console
terminal. Nearly every modern display card is compatible with VGA. Ancient
standards such CGA, MDA, or HGA should also work, assuming you do not require
X11 support. Note that X11 is not used during the installation process
described in this document.

Debian’s support for graphical interfaces is determined by the underlying
support found in X.Org’s X11 system. Most AGP, PCI and PCIe video cards work
under X.Org. Details on supported graphics buses, cards, monitors, and pointing
devices can be found at http://xorg.freedesktop.org/. Debian 4.0 ships with
X.Org version 7.1.

2.1.4. Laptops

Laptops are also supported. Laptops are often specialized or contain
proprietary hardware. To see if your particular laptop works well with GNU/
Linux, see the Linux Laptop pages

2.1.5. Multiple Processors

Multiprocessor support — also called “symmetric multiprocessing” or SMP — is
available for this architecture. The standard Debian 4.0 kernel image was
compiled with SMP-alternatives support. This means that the kernel will detect
the number of processors (or processor cores) and will automatically deactivate
SMP on uniprocessor systems.

The 486 flavour of the Debian kernel image packages for Intel x86 is not
compiled with SMP support.

2.2. Installation Media

This section will help you determine which different media types you can use to
install Debian. For example, if you have a floppy disk drive on your machine,
it can be used to install Debian. There is a whole chapter devoted to media,
Chapter 4, Obtaining System Installation Media, which lists the advantages and
disadvantages of each media type. You may want to refer back to this page once
you reach that section.

2.2.1. Floppies

In some cases, you’ll have to do your first boot from floppy disks. Generally,
all you will need is a high-density (1440 kilobytes) 3.5 inch floppy drive.

2.2.2. CD-ROM/DVD-ROM

Note

Whenever you see “CD-ROM” in this manual, it applies to both CD-ROMs and
DVD-ROMs, because both technologies are really the same from the operating
system’s point of view, except for some very old nonstandard CD-ROM drives
which are neither SCSI nor IDE/ATAPI.

CD-ROM based installation is supported for some architectures. On machines
which support bootable CD-ROMs, you should be able to do a completely
floppy-less installation. Even if your system doesn’t support booting from a
CD-ROM, you can use the CD-ROM in conjunction with the other techniques to
install your system, once you’ve booted up by other means; see Chapter 5,
Booting the Installation System.

Both SCSI and IDE/ATAPI CD-ROMs are supported. In addition, all non-standard CD
interfaces supported by Linux are supported by the boot disks (such as Mitsumi
and Matsushita drives). However, these models might require special boot
parameters or other massaging to get them to work, and booting off these
non-standard interfaces is unlikely. The Linux CD-ROM HOWTO contains in-depth
information on using CD-ROMs with Linux.

USB CD-ROM drives are also supported, as are FireWire devices that are
supported by the ohci1394 and sbp2 drivers.

2.2.3. Hard Disk

Booting the installation system directly from a hard disk is another option for
many architectures. This will require some other operating system to load the
installer onto the hard disk.

2.2.4. USB Memory Stick

Many Debian boxes need their floppy and/or CD-ROM drives only for setting up
the system and for rescue purposes. If you operate some servers, you will
probably already have thought about omitting those drives and using an USB
memory stick for installing and (when necessary) for recovering the system.
This is also useful for small systems which have no room for unnecessary
drives.

2.2.5. Network

The network can be used during the installation to retrieve files needed for
the installation. Whether the network is used or not depends on the
installation method you choose and your answers to certain questions that will
be asked during the installation. The installation system supports most types
of network connections (including PPPoE, but not ISDN or PPP), via either HTTP
or FTP. After the installation is completed, you can also configure your system
to use ISDN and PPP.

You can also boot the installation system over the network.

Diskless installation, using network booting from a local area network and
NFS-mounting of all local filesystems, is another option.

2.2.6. Un*x or GNU system

If you are running another Unix-like system, you could use it to install Debian
GNU/Linux without using the debian-installer described in the rest of this
manual. This kind of install may be useful for users with otherwise unsupported
hardware or on hosts which can’t afford downtime. If you are interested in this
technique, skip to the Section D.3, “Installing Debian GNU/Linux from a Unix/
Linux System”.

2.2.7. Supported Storage Systems

The Debian boot disks contain a kernel which is built to maximize the number of
systems it runs on. Unfortunately, this makes for a larger kernel, which
includes many drivers that won’t be used for your machine (see Section 8.6,
“Compiling a New Kernel” to learn how to build your own kernel). Support for
the widest possible range of devices is desirable in general, to ensure that
Debian can be installed on the widest array of hardware.

Generally, the Debian installation system includes support for floppies, IDE
drives, IDE floppies, parallel port IDE devices, SCSI controllers and drives,
USB, and FireWire. The supported file systems include FAT, Win-32 FAT
extensions (VFAT) and NTFS.

Disk interfaces that emulate the “AT” hard disk interface — often called MFM,
RLL, IDE, or ATA — are supported. Very old 8-bit hard disk controllers used in
the IBM XT computer are supported only as a module. SCSI disk controllers from
many different manufacturers are supported. See the Linux Hardware
Compatibility HOWTO for more details.

2.3. Peripherals and Other Hardware

Linux supports a large variety of hardware devices such as mice, printers,
scanners, PCMCIA and USB devices. However, most of these devices are not
required while installing the system.

USB hardware generally works fine, only some USB keyboards may require
additional configuration (see Section 3.6.4, “Hardware Issues to Watch Out For”
).

Again, see the Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO to determine whether your
specific hardware is supported by Linux.

2.4. Purchasing Hardware Specifically for GNU/Linux

There are several vendors, who ship systems with Debian or other distributions
of GNU/Linux pre-installed. You might pay more for the privilege, but it does
buy a level of peace of mind, since you can be sure that the hardware is
well-supported by GNU/Linux.

If you do have to buy a machine with Windows bundled, carefully read the
software license that comes with Windows; you may be able to reject the license
and obtain a rebate from your vendor. Searching the Internet for “windows
refund” may get you some useful information to help with that.

Whether or not you are purchasing a system with Linux bundled, or even a used
system, it is still important to check that your hardware is supported by the
Linux kernel. Check if your hardware is listed in the references found above.
Let your salesperson (if any) know that you’re shopping for a Linux system.
Support Linux-friendly hardware vendors.

2.4.1. Avoid Proprietary or Closed Hardware

Some hardware manufacturers simply won’t tell us how to write drivers for their
hardware. Others won’t allow us access to the documentation without a
non-disclosure agreement that would prevent us from releasing the Linux source
code.

Since we haven’t been granted access to the documentation on these devices,
they simply won’t work under Linux. You can help by asking the manufacturers of
such hardware to release the documentation. If enough people ask, they will
realize that the free software community is an important market.

2.4.2. Windows-specific Hardware

A disturbing trend is the proliferation of Windows-specific modems and
printers. In some cases these are specially designed to be operated by the
Microsoft Windows operating system and bear the legend “WinModem” or “Made
especially for Windows-based computers”. This is generally done by removing the
embedded processors of the hardware and shifting the work they do over to a
Windows driver that is run by your computer’s main CPU. This strategy makes the
hardware less expensive, but the savings are often not passed on to the user
and this hardware may even be more expensive than equivalent devices that
retain their embedded intelligence.

You should avoid Windows-specific hardware for two reasons. The first is that
the manufacturers do not generally make the resources available to write a
Linux driver. Generally, the hardware and software interface to the device is
proprietary, and documentation is not available without a non-disclosure
agreement, if it is available at all. This precludes it being used for free
software, since free software writers disclose the source code of their
programs. The second reason is that when devices like these have had their
embedded processors removed, the operating system must perform the work of the
embedded processors, often at real-time priority, and thus the CPU is not
available to run your programs while it is driving these devices. Since the
typical Windows user does not multi-process as intensively as a Linux user, the
manufacturers hope that the Windows user simply won’t notice the burden this
hardware places on their CPU. However, any multi-processing operating system,
even Windows 2000 or XP, suffers from degraded performance when peripheral
manufacturers skimp on the embedded processing power of their hardware.

You can help improve this situation by encouraging these manufacturers to
release the documentation and other resources necessary for us to program their
hardware, but the best strategy is simply to avoid this sort of hardware until
it is listed as working in the Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO.

2.5. Memory and Disk Space Requirements

You must have at least 48MB of memory and 500MB of hard disk space. Note that
these are really bare-minimum numbers. For more realistic figures, see
Section 3.4, “Meeting Minimum Hardware Requirements”.

2.6. Network Connectivity Hardware

Almost any network interface card (NIC) supported by the Linux kernel should
also be supported by the installation system; modular drivers should normally
be loaded automatically. This includes most PCI and PCMCIA cards. Many older
ISA cards are supported as well.

As for ISDN, the D-channel protocol for the (old) German 1TR6 is not supported;
Spellcaster BRI ISDN boards are also not supported by the debian-installer.
Using ISDN during the installation is not supported.

2.6.1. Drivers Requiring Firmware

The installation system currently does not support retrieving firmware. This
means that any network cards that use a driver that requires firmware to be
loaded, is not supported by default.

If there is no other NIC you can use during the installation, it is still
possible to install Debian GNU/Linux using a full CD-ROM or DVD image. Select
the option to not configure a network and install using only the packages
available from the CD/DVD. You can then install the driver and firmware you
need after the installation is completed (after the reboot) and configure your
network manually. Note that the firmware may be packaged separately from the
driver and may not be available in the “main” section of the Debian GNU/Linux
archive.

If the driver itself is supported, you may also be able to use the NIC during
installation by copying the firmware from some medium to /usr/lib/hotplug/
firmware. Don’t forget to also copy the firmware to that location for the
installed system before the reboot at the end of the installation.

2.6.2. Wireless Network Cards

Wireless NICs are in general supported as well, with one big proviso. A lot of
wireless adapters require drivers that are either non-free or have not been
accepted into the official Linux kernel. These NICs can generally be made to
work under Debian GNU/Linux, but are not supported during the installation.

If there is no other NIC you can use during the installation, it is still
possible to install Debian GNU/Linux using a full CD-ROM or DVD image. Use the
same procedure as described above for NICs that require firmware.

In some cases the driver you need may not be available as a Debian package. You
will then have to look if there is source code available in the internet and
compile the driver yourself. How to do this is outside the scope of this
manual. If no Linux driver is available, your last resort is to use the
ndiswrapper package, which allows you to use a Windows driver.

————–

^[2] We have long tried to avoid this, but in the end it was necessary due a
unfortunate series of issues with the compiler and the kernel, starting with an
bug in the C++ ABI provided by GCC. You should still be able to run Debian GNU/
Linux on actual 80386 processors if you compile your own kernel and compile all
packages from source, but that is beyond the scope of this manual.

^[3] Many Debian packages will actually run slightly faster on modern computers
as a positive side effect of dropping support for these old chips. The i486,
introduced in 1989, has three opcodes (bswap, cmpxchg, and xadd) which the
i386, introduced in 1986, did not have. Previously, these could not be easily
used by most Debian packages; now they can.

Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux

Table of Contents

3.1. Overview of the Installation Process
3.2. Back Up Your Existing Data!
3.3. Information You Will Need

3.3.1. Documentation
3.3.2. Finding Sources of Hardware Information
3.3.3. Hardware Compatibility
3.3.4. Network Settings

3.4. Meeting Minimum Hardware Requirements
3.5. Pre-Partitioning for Multi-Boot Systems

3.5.1. Partitioning From DOS or Windows

3.6. Pre-Installation Hardware and Operating System Setup

3.6.1. Invoking the BIOS Set-Up Menu
3.6.2. Boot Device Selection
3.6.3. Miscellaneous BIOS Settings
3.6.4. Hardware Issues to Watch Out For

This chapter deals with the preparation for installing Debian before you even
boot the installer. This includes backing up your data, gathering information
about your hardware, and locating any necessary information.

3.1. Overview of the Installation Process

First, just a note about re-installations. With Debian, a circumstance that
will require a complete re-installation of your system is very rare; perhaps
mechanical failure of the hard disk would be the most common case.

Many common operating systems may require a complete installation to be
performed when critical failures take place or for upgrades to new OS versions.
Even if a completely new installation isn’t required, often the programs you
use must be re-installed to operate properly in the new OS.

Under Debian GNU/Linux, it is much more likely that your OS can be repaired
rather than replaced if things go wrong. Upgrades never require a wholesale
installation; you can always upgrade in-place. And the programs are almost
always compatible with successive OS releases. If a new program version
requires newer supporting software, the Debian packaging system ensures that
all the necessary software is automatically identified and installed. The point
is, much effort has been put into avoiding the need for re-installation, so
think of it as your very last option. The installer is not designed to
re-install over an existing system.

Here’s a road map for the steps you will take during the installation process.

1. Back up any existing data or documents on the hard disk where you plan to
install.

2. Gather information about your computer and any needed documentation, before
starting the installation.

3. Create partition-able space for Debian on your hard disk.

4. Locate and/or download the installer software and any specialized driver
files your machine requires (except Debian CD users).

5. Set up boot tapes/floppies/USB sticks, or place boot files (most Debian CD
users can boot from one of the CDs).

6. Boot the installation system.

7. Select the installation language.

8. Activate the ethernet network connection, if available.

9. Create and mount the partitions on which Debian will be installed.

10. Watch the automatic download/install/setup of the base system.

11. Install a boot loader which can start up Debian GNU/Linux and/or your
existing system.

12. Load the newly installed system for the first time.

For Intel x86 you have the option of using a graphical version of the
installation system. For more information about this graphical installer, see
Section D.6, “The Graphical Installer”.

If you have problems during the installation, it helps to know which packages
are involved in which steps. Introducing the leading software actors in this
installation drama:

The installer software, debian-installer, is the primary concern of this
manual. It detects hardware and loads appropriate drivers, uses dhcp-client to
set up the network connection, runs debootstrap to install the base system
packages, and runs tasksel to allow you to install certain additional software.
Many more actors play smaller parts in this process, but debian-installer has
completed its task when you load the new system for the first time.

To tune the system to your needs, tasksel allows you to choose to install
various predefined bundles of software like a Web server or a Desktop
environment.

One important option during the installation is whether or not to install a
graphical desktop environment, consisting of the X Window System and one of the
available graphical desktop environments. If you choose not to select the
“Desktop environment” task, you will only have a relatively basic, command line
driven system. Installing the Desktop environment task is optional because it
requires a fairly large amount of disk space, and because many Debian GNU/Linux
systems are servers which don’t really have any need for a graphical user
interface to do their job.

Just be aware that the X Window System is completely separate from
debian-installer, and in fact is much more complicated. Installation and
troubleshooting of the X Window System is not within the scope of this manual.

3.2. Back Up Your Existing Data!

Before you start, make sure to back up every file that is now on your system.
If this is the first time a non-native operating system has been installed on
your computer, it’s quite likely you will need to re-partition your disk to
make room for Debian GNU/Linux. Anytime you partition your disk, you run a risk
of losing everything on the disk, no matter what program you use to do it. The
programs used in installation are quite reliable and most have seen years of
use; but they are also quite powerful and a false move can cost you. Even after
backing up, be careful and think about your answers and actions. Two minutes of
thinking can save hours of unnecessary work.

If you are creating a multi-boot system, make sure that you have the
distribution media of any other present operating systems on hand. Especially
if you repartition your boot drive, you might find that you have to reinstall
your operating system’s boot loader, or in many cases the whole operating
system itself and all files on the affected partitions.

3.3. Information You Will Need

3.3.1. Documentation

3.3.1.1. Installation Manual

The document you are now reading, which is the official version of the
Installation Guide for the etch release of Debian; available in various formats
and translations.

3.3.1.2. Hardware documentation

Often contains useful information on configuring or using your hardware.

* Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO

3.3.2. Finding Sources of Hardware Information

In many cases, the installer will be able to automatically detect your
hardware. But to be prepared, we do recommend familiarizing yourself with your
hardware before the install.

Hardware information can be gathered from:

* The manuals that come with each piece of hardware.

* The BIOS setup screens of your computer. You can view these screens when
you start your computer by pressing a combination of keys. Check your
manual for the combination. Often, it is the Delete key.

* The cases and boxes for each piece of hardware.

* The System window in the Windows Control Panel.

* System commands or tools in another operating system, including file
manager displays. This source is especially useful for information about
RAM and hard drive memory.

* Your system administrator or Internet Service Provider. These sources can
tell you the settings you need to set up your networking and e-mail.

Table 3.1. Hardware Information Needed for an Install

+—————————————————————————–+
|Hardware| Information You Might Need |
|——–+——————————————————————–|
| |How many you have. |
| |——————————————————————–|
| |Their order on the system. |
| |——————————————————————–|
|Hard |Whether IDE or SCSI (most computers are IDE). |
|Drives |——————————————————————–|
| |Available free space. |
| |——————————————————————–|
| |Partitions. |
| |——————————————————————–|
| |Partitions where other operating systems are installed. |
|——–+——————————————————————–|
| |Model and manufacturer. |
| |——————————————————————–|
| |Resolutions supported. |
| |——————————————————————–|
| |Horizontal refresh rate. |
|Monitor |——————————————————————–|
| |Vertical refresh rate. |
| |——————————————————————–|
| |Color depth (number of colors) supported. |
| |——————————————————————–|
| |Screen size. |
|——–+——————————————————————–|
| |Type: serial, PS/2, or USB. |
| |——————————————————————–|
| |Port. |
|Mouse |——————————————————————–|
| |Manufacturer. |
| |——————————————————————–|
| |Number of buttons. |
|——–+——————————————————————–|
| |Model and manufacturer. |
|Network |——————————————————————–|
| |Type of adapter. |
|——–+——————————————————————–|
| |Model and manufacturer. |
|Printer |——————————————————————–|
| |Printing resolutions supported. |
|——–+——————————————————————–|
| |Model and manufacturer. |
| |——————————————————————–|
|Video |Video RAM available. |
|Card |——————————————————————–|
| |Resolutions and color depths supported (these should be checked |
| |against your monitor’s capabilities). |
+—————————————————————————–+

3.3.3. Hardware Compatibility

Many brand name products work without trouble on Linux. Moreover, hardware
support in Linux is improving daily. However, Linux still does not run as many
different types of hardware as some operating systems.

In particular, Linux usually cannot run hardware that requires a running
version of Windows to work.

Although some Windows-specific hardware can be made to run on Linux, doing so
usually requires extra effort. In addition, Linux drivers for Windows-specific
hardware are usually specific to one Linux kernel. Therefore, they can quickly
become obsolete.

So called win-modems are the most common type of this hardware. However,
printers and other equipment may also be Windows-specific.

You can check hardware compatibility by:

* Checking manufacturers’ web sites for new drivers.

* Looking at web sites or manuals for information about emulation. Lesser
known brands can sometimes use the drivers or settings for better-known
ones.

* Checking hardware compatibility lists for Linux on web sites dedicated to
your architecture.

* Searching the Internet for other users’ experiences.

3.3.4. Network Settings

If your computer is connected to a network 24 hours a day (i.e., an Ethernet or
equivalent connection — not a PPP connection), you should ask your network’s
system administrator for this information.

* Your host name (you may be able to decide this on your own).

* Your domain name.

* Your computer’s IP address.

* The netmask to use with your network.

* The IP address of the default gateway system you should route to, if your
network has a gateway.

* The system on your network that you should use as a DNS (Domain Name
Service) server.

On the other hand, if your administrator tells you that a DHCP server is
available and is recommended, then you don’t need this information because the
DHCP server will provide it directly to your computer during the installation
process.

If you use a wireless network, you should also find out:

* ESSID of your wireless network.

* WEP security key (if applicable).

3.4. Meeting Minimum Hardware Requirements

Once you have gathered information about your computer’s hardware, check that
your hardware will let you do the type of installation that you want to do.

Depending on your needs, you might manage with less than some of the
recommended hardware listed in the table below. However, most users risk being
frustrated if they ignore these suggestions.

A Pentium 4, 1GHz system is the minimum recommended for a desktop systems.

Table 3.2. Recommended Minimum System Requirements

The actual minimum memory requirements are a lot less then the numbers listed
in this table. Depending on the architecture, it is possible to install Debian
with as little as 20MB (for s390) to 48MB (for i386 and amd64). The same goes
for the disk space requirements, especially if you pick and choose which
applications to install; see Section D.2, “Disk Space Needed for Tasks” for
additional information on disk space requirements.

It is possible to run a graphical desktop environment on older or low-end
systems, but in that case it is recommended to install a window manager that is
less resource-hungry than those of the GNOME or KDE desktop environments;
alternatives include xfce4, icewm and wmaker, but there are others to choose
from.

It is practically impossible to give general memory or disk space requirements
for server installations as those very much depend on what the server is to be
used for.

Remember that these sizes don’t include all the other materials which are
usually to be found, such as user files, mail, and data. It is always best to
be generous when considering the space for your own files and data.

Disk space required for the smooth operation of the Debian GNU/Linux system
itself is taken into account in these recommended system requirements. Notably,
the /var partition contains a lot of state information specific to Debian in
addition to its regular contents, like logfiles. The dpkg files (with
information on all installed packages) can easily consume 40MB. Also, apt-get
puts downloaded packages here before they are installed. You should usually
allocate at least 200MB for /var, and a lot more if you install a graphical
desktop environment.

3.5. Pre-Partitioning for Multi-Boot Systems

Partitioning your disk simply refers to the act of breaking up your disk into
sections. Each section is then independent of the others. It’s roughly
equivalent to putting up walls inside a house; if you add furniture to one room
it doesn’t affect any other room.

If you already have an operating system on your system (Windows 9x, Windows NT/
2000/XP, OS/2, MacOS, Solaris, FreeBSD, …) and want to stick Linux on the
same disk, you will need to repartition the disk. Debian requires its own hard
disk partitions. It cannot be installed on Windows or MacOS partitions. It may
be able to share some partitions with other Linux systems, but that’s not
covered here. At the very least you will need a dedicated partition for the
Debian root.

You can find information about your current partition setup by using a
partitioning tool for your current operating system, such as fdisk or
PartitionMagic. Partitioning tools always provide a way to show existing
partitions without making changes.

In general, changing a partition with a file system already on it will destroy
any information there. Thus you should always make backups before doing any
repartitioning. Using the analogy of the house, you would probably want to move
all the furniture out of the way before moving a wall or you risk destroying
it.

If your computer has more than one hard disk, you may want to dedicate one of
the hard disks completely to Debian. If so, you don’t need to partition that
disk before booting the installation system; the installer’s included
partitioning program can handle the job nicely.

If your machine has only one hard disk, and you would like to completely
replace the current operating system with Debian GNU/Linux, you also can wait
to partition as part of the installation process (Section 6.3.2.1,
“Partitioning Your Disks”), after you have booted the installation system.
However this only works if you plan to boot the installer system from tapes,
CD-ROM or files on a connected machine. Consider: if you boot from files placed
on the hard disk, and then partition that same hard disk within the
installation system, thus erasing the boot files, you’d better hope the
installation is successful the first time around. At the least in this case,
you should have some alternate means of reviving your machine like the original
system’s installation tapes or CDs.

If your machine already has multiple partitions, and enough space can be
provided by deleting and replacing one or more of them, then you too can wait
and use the Debian installer’s partitioning program. You should still read
through the material below, because there may be special circumstances like the
order of the existing partitions within the partition map, that force you to
partition before installing anyway.

If your machine has a FAT or NTFS filesystem, as used by DOS and Windows, you
can wait and use Debian installer’s partitioning program to resize the
filesystem.

If none of the above apply, you’ll need to partition your hard disk before
starting the installation to create partition-able space for Debian. If some of
the partitions will be owned by other operating systems, you should create
those partitions using native operating system partitioning programs. We
recommend that you do not attempt to create partitions for Debian GNU/Linux
using another operating system’s tools. Instead, you should just create the
native operating system’s partitions you will want to retain.

If you are going to install more than one operating system on the same machine,
you should install all other system(s) before proceeding with Linux
installation. Windows and other OS installations may destroy your ability to
start Linux, or encourage you to reformat non-native partitions.

You can recover from these actions or avoid them, but installing the native
system first saves you trouble.

If you currently have one hard disk with one partition (a common setup for
desktop computers), and you want to multi-boot the native operating system and
Debian, you will need to:

1. Back up everything on the computer.

2. Boot from the native operating system installer media such as CD-ROM or
tapes.

3. Use the native partitioning tools to create native system partition(s).
Leave either a place holder partition or free space for Debian GNU/Linux.

4. Install the native operating system on its new partition.

5. Boot back into the native system to verify everything’s OK, and to download
the Debian installer boot files.

6. Boot the Debian installer to continue installing Debian.

3.5.1. Partitioning From DOS or Windows

If you are manipulating existing FAT or NTFS partitions, it is recommended that
you either use the scheme below or native Windows or DOS tools. Otherwise, it
is not really necessary to partition from DOS or Windows; the Linux
partitioning tools will generally do a better job.

But if you have a large IDE disk, and are not using LBA addressing, overlay
drivers (sometimes provided by hard disk manufacturers), or a new (post 1998)
BIOS that supports large disk access extensions, then you must locate your
Debian boot partition carefully. In this case, you will have to put the boot
partition into the first 1024 cylinders of your hard disk (usually around 524
megabytes, without BIOS translation). This may require that you move an
existing FAT or NTFS partition.

3.5.1.1. Lossless Repartitioning When Starting From DOS, Win-32 or OS/2

One of the most common installations is onto a system that already contains DOS
(including Windows 3.1), Win32 (such as Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP), or
OS/2, and it is desired to put Debian onto the same disk without destroying the
previous system. Note that the installer supports resizing of FAT and NTFS
filesystems as used by DOS and Windows. Simply start the installer and when you
get to the partitioning step, select the option for Manual partitioning, select
the partition to resize, and specify its new size. So in most cases you should
not need to use the method described below.

Before going any further, you should have decided how you will be dividing up
the disk. The method in this section will only split a partition into two
pieces. One will contain the original OS and the other will be used for Debian.
During the installation of Debian, you will be given the opportunity to use the
Debian portion of the disk as you see fit, i.e., as swap or as a file system.

The idea is to move all the data on the partition to the beginning, before
changing the partition information, so that nothing will be lost. It is
important that you do as little as possible between the data movement and
repartitioning to minimize the chance of a file being written near the end of
the partition as this will decrease the amount of space you can take from the
partition.

The first thing needed is a copy of fips which is available in the tools/
directory on your nearest Debian mirror. Unzip the archive and copy the files
RESTORRB.EXE, FIPS.EXE and ERRORS.TXT to a bootable floppy. A bootable floppy
can be created using the command sys a: under DOS. fips comes with very good
documentation which you may want to read. You will definitely need to read the
documentation if you use a disk compression driver or a disk manager. Create
the disk and read the documentation before you defragment the disk.

The next thing needed is to move all the data to the beginning of the
partition. defrag, which comes standard with DOS 6.0 and later, can easily do
the job. See the fips documentation for a list of other software that may do
the trick. Note that if you have Windows 9x, you must run defrag from there,
since DOS doesn’t understand VFAT, which is used to support for long filenames,
used in Windows 95 and higher.

After running the defragmenter (which can take a while on a large disk), reboot
with the fips disk you created in the floppy drive. Simply type a:\fips and
follow the directions.

Note that there are many other partition managers out there, in case fips
doesn’t do the trick for you.

3.5.1.2. Partitioning for DOS

If you are partitioning for DOS drives, or changing the size of DOS partitions,
using Linux tools, many people experience problems working with the resulting
FAT partitions. For instance, some have reported slow performance, consistent
problems with scandisk, or other weird errors in DOS or Windows.

Apparently, whenever you create or resize a partition for DOS use, it’s a good
idea to fill the first few sectors with zeros. You should do this prior to
running DOS’s format command by executing the following command from Linux:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdXX bs=512 count=4

3.6. Pre-Installation Hardware and Operating System Setup

This section will walk you through pre-installation hardware setup, if any,
that you will need to do prior to installing Debian. Generally, this involves
checking and possibly changing firmware settings for your system. The
“firmware” is the core software used by the hardware; it is most critically
invoked during the bootstrap process (after power-up). Known hardware issues
affecting the reliability of Debian GNU/Linux on your system are also
highlighted.

3.6.1. Invoking the BIOS Set-Up Menu

BIOS provides the basic functions needed to boot your machine to allow your
operating system to access your hardware. Your system probably provides a BIOS
set-up menu, which is used to configure the BIOS. Before installing, you must
ensure that your BIOS is setup correctly; not doing so can lead to intermittent
crashes or an inability to install Debian.

The rest of this section is lifted from the http://www.faqs.org/faqs/
pc-hardware-faq/part1/, answering the question, “How do I enter the CMOS
configuration menu?”. How you access the BIOS (or “CMOS”) configuration menu
depends on who wrote your BIOS software:

AMI BIOS

Delete key during the POST (power on self test)

Award BIOS

Ctrl-Alt-Esc, or Delete key during the POST

DTK BIOS

Esc key during the POST

IBM PS/2 BIOS

Ctrl-Alt-Insert after Ctrl-Alt-Delete

Phoenix BIOS

Ctrl-Alt-Esc or Ctrl-Alt-S or F1

Information on invoking other BIOS routines can be found in http://www.tldp.org
/HOWTO/Hard-Disk-Upgrade/install.html.

Some Intel x86 machines don’t have a CMOS configuration menu in the BIOS. They
require a software CMOS setup program. If you don’t have the Installation and/
or Diagnostics diskette for your machine, you can try using a shareware/
freeware program. Try looking in ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/.

3.6.2. Boot Device Selection

Many BIOS set-up menus allow you to select the devices that will be used to
bootstrap the system. Set this to look for a bootable operating system on A:
(the first floppy disk), then optionally the first CD-ROM device (possibly
appearing as D: or E:), and then from C: (the first hard disk). This setting
enables you to boot from either a floppy disk or a CD-ROM, which are the two
most common boot devices used to install Debian.

If you have a newer SCSI controller and you have a CD-ROM device attached to
it, you are usually able to boot from the CD-ROM. All you have to do is enable
booting from a CD-ROM in the SCSI-BIOS of your controller.

Another popular option is to boot from a USB storage device (also called a USB
memory stick or USB key). Some BIOSes can boot directly from a USB storage
device, but some cannot. You may need to configure your BIOS to boot from a
“Removable drive” or even from “USB-ZIP” to get it to boot from the USB device.

Here are some details about how to set the boot order. Remember to reset the
boot order after Linux is installed, so that you restart your machine from the
hard drive.

3.6.2.1. Changing the Boot Order on IDE Computers

1. As your computer starts, press the keys to enter the BIOS utility. Often,
it is the Delete key. However, consult the hardware documentation for the
exact keystrokes.

2. Find the boot sequence in the setup utility. Its location depends on your
BIOS, but you are looking for a field that lists drives.

Common entries on IDE machines are C, A, cdrom or A, C, cdrom.

C is the hard drive, and A is the floppy drive.

3. Change the boot sequence setting so that the CD-ROM or the floppy is first.
Usually, the Page Up or Page Down keys cycle through the possible choices.

4. Save your changes. Instructions on the screen tell you how to save the
changes on your computer.

3.6.2.2. Changing the Boot Order on SCSI Computers

1. As your computer starts, press the keys to enter the SCSI setup utility.

You can start the SCSI setup utility after the memory check and the message
about how to start the BIOS utility displays when you start your computer.

The keystrokes you need depend on the utility. Often, it is Ctrl-F2.
However, consult your hardware documentation for the exact keystrokes.

2. Find the utility for changing the boot order.

3. Set the utility so that the SCSI ID of the CD drive is first on the list.

4. Save your changes. Instructions on the screen tell you how to save the
changes on your computer. Often, you must press F10.

3.6.3. Miscellaneous BIOS Settings

3.6.3.1. CD-ROM Settings

Some BIOS systems (such as Award BIOS) allow you to automatically set the CD
speed. You should avoid that, and instead set it to, say, the lowest speed. If
you get seek failed error messages, this may be your problem.

3.6.3.2. Extended vs. Expanded Memory

If your system provides both extended and expanded memory, set it so that there
is as much extended and as little expanded memory as possible. Linux requires
extended memory and cannot use expanded memory.

3.6.3.3. Virus Protection

Disable any virus-warning features your BIOS may provide. If you have a
virus-protection board or other special hardware, make sure it is disabled or
physically removed while running GNU/Linux. These aren’t compatible with GNU/
Linux; moreover, due to the file system permissions and protected memory of the
Linux kernel, viruses are almost unheard of^[4].

3.6.3.4. Shadow RAM

Your motherboard may provide shadow RAM or BIOS caching. You may see settings
for “Video BIOS Shadow”, “C800-CBFF Shadow”, etc. Disable all shadow RAM.
Shadow RAM is used to accelerate access to the ROMs on your motherboard and on
some of the controller cards. Linux does not use these ROMs once it has booted
because it provides its own faster 32-bit software in place of the 16-bit
programs in the ROMs. Disabling the shadow RAM may make some of it available
for programs to use as normal memory. Leaving the shadow RAM enabled may
interfere with Linux access to hardware devices.

3.6.3.5. Memory Hole

If your BIOS offers something like “15-16 MB Memory Hole”, please disable that.
Linux expects to find memory there if you have that much RAM.

We have a report of an Intel Endeavor motherboard on which there is an option
called “LFB” or “Linear Frame Buffer”. This had two settings: “Disabled” and “1
Megabyte”. Set it to “1 Megabyte”. When disabled, the installation floppy was
not read correctly, and the system eventually crashed. At this writing we don’t
understand what’s going on with this particular device — it just worked with
that setting and not without it.

3.6.3.6. Advanced Power Management

If your motherboard provides Advanced Power Management (APM), configure it so
that power management is controlled by APM. Disable the doze, standby, suspend,
nap, and sleep modes, and disable the hard disk’s power-down timer. Linux can
take over control of these modes, and can do a better job of power-management
than the BIOS.

3.6.4. Hardware Issues to Watch Out For

USB BIOS support and keyboards. If you have no AT-style keyboard and only a
USB model, you may need to enable legacy AT keyboard emulation in your BIOS
setup. Only do this if the installation system fails to use your keyboard in
USB mode. Conversely, for some systems (especially laptops) you may need to
disable legacy USB support if your keyboard does not respond. Consult your main
board manual and look in the BIOS for “Legacy keyboard emulation” or “USB
keyboard support” options.

————–

^[4] After installation you can enable Boot Sector protection if you want. This
offers no additional security in Linux but if you also run Windows it may
prevent a catastrophe. There is no need to tamper with the Master Boot Record
(MBR) after the boot manager has been set up.

Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media

Table of Contents

4.1. Official Debian GNU/Linux CD-ROM Sets
4.2. Downloading Files from Debian Mirrors

4.2.1. Where to Find Installation Images

4.3. Creating Floppies from Disk Images

4.3.1. Writing Disk Images From a Linux or Unix System
4.3.2. Writing Disk Images From DOS, Windows, or OS/2

4.4. Preparing Files for USB Memory Stick Booting

4.4.1. Copying the files — the easy way
4.4.2. Copying the files — the flexible way
4.4.3. Adding an ISO image
4.4.4. Booting the USB stick

4.5. Preparing Files for Hard Disk Booting

4.5.1. Hard disk installer booting using LILO or GRUB

4.6. Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting

4.6.1. Setting up a BOOTP server
4.6.2. Setting up a DHCP server
4.6.3. Enabling the TFTP Server
4.6.4. Move TFTP Images Into Place

4.7. Automatic Installation

4.7.1. Automatic Installation Using the Debian Installer

4.1. Official Debian GNU/Linux CD-ROM Sets

By far the easiest way to install Debian GNU/Linux is from an Official Debian
CD-ROM Set. You can buy a set from a vendor (see the CD vendors page). You may
also download the CD-ROM images from a Debian mirror and make your own set, if
you have a fast network connection and a CD burner (see the Debian CD page for
detailed instructions). If you have a Debian CD set and CDs are bootable on
your machine, you can skip right to Chapter 5, Booting the Installation System;
much effort has been expended to ensure the files most people need are there on
the CD. Although a full set of binary packages requires several CDs, it is
unlikely you will need packages on the third CD and above. You may also
consider using the DVD version, which saves a lot of space on your shelf and
you avoid the CD shuffling marathon.

If your machine doesn’t support CD booting, but you do have a CD set, you can
use an alternative strategy such as floppy disk, hard disk, usb stick, net
boot, or manually loading the kernel from the CD to initially boot the system
installer. The files you need for booting by another means are also on the CD;
the Debian network archive and CD folder organization are identical. So when
archive file paths are given below for particular files you need for booting,
look for those files in the same directories and subdirectories on your CD.

Once the installer is booted, it will be able to obtain all the other files it
needs from the CD.

If you don’t have a CD set, then you will need to download the installer system
files and place them on the floppy disk or hard disk or usb stick or a
connected computer so they can be used to boot the installer.

4.2. Downloading Files from Debian Mirrors

To find the nearest (and thus probably the fastest) mirror, see the list of
Debian mirrors.

When downloading files from a Debian mirror, be sure to download the files in
binary mode, not text or automatic mode.

4.2.1. Where to Find Installation Images

The installation images are located on each Debian mirror in the directory
debian/dists/etch/main/installer-i386/current/images/ — the MANIFEST lists
each image and its purpose.

4.3. Creating Floppies from Disk Images

Bootable floppy disks are generally used as a last resort to boot the installer
on hardware that cannot boot from CD or by other means.

Disk images are files containing the complete contents of a floppy disk in raw
form. Disk images, such as boot.img, cannot simply be copied to floppy drives.
A special program is used to write the image files to floppy disk in raw mode.
This is required because these images are raw representations of the disk; it
is required to do a sector copy of the data from the file onto the floppy.

There are different techniques for creating floppies from disk images. This
section describes how to create floppies from disk images on different
platforms.

Before you can create the floppies, you will first need to download them from
one of the Debian mirrors, as explained in Section 4.2, “Downloading Files from
Debian Mirrors”. If you already have an installation CD-ROM or DVD, the floppy
images may also be included on the CD/DVD.

No matter which method you use to create your floppies, you should remember to
flip the write-protect tab on the floppies once you have written them, to
ensure they are not damaged unintentionally.

4.3.1. Writing Disk Images From a Linux or Unix System

To write the floppy disk image files to the floppy disks, you will probably
need root access to the system. Place a good, blank floppy in the floppy drive.
Next, use the command

$ dd if=filename of=/dev/fd0 bs=1024 conv=sync ; sync

where filename is one of the floppy disk image files. /dev/fd0 is a commonly
used name of the floppy disk device, it may be different on your workstation.
The command may return to the prompt before Unix has finished writing the
floppy disk, so look for the disk-in-use light on the floppy drive and be sure
that the light is out and the disk has stopped revolving before you remove it
from the drive. On some systems, you’ll have to run a command to eject the
floppy from the drive .

Some systems attempt to automatically mount a floppy disk when you place it in
the drive. You might have to disable this feature before the workstation will
allow you to write a floppy in raw mode. Unfortunately, how to accomplish this
will vary based on your operating system.

4.3.2. Writing Disk Images From DOS, Windows, or OS/2

If you have access to an i386 or amd64 machine, you can use one of the
following programs to copy images to floppies.

The rawrite1 and rawrite2 programs can be used under MS-DOS. To use these
programs, first make sure that you are booted into DOS. Trying to use these
programs from within a DOS box in Windows, or double-clicking on these programs
from the Windows Explorer is not expected to work.

The rwwrtwin program runs on Windows 95, NT, 98, 2000, ME, XP and probably
later versions. To use it you will need to unpack diskio.dll in the same
directory.

These tools can be found on the Official Debian CD-ROMs under the /tools
directory.

4.4. Preparing Files for USB Memory Stick Booting

To prepare the USB stick, you will need a system where GNU/Linux is already
running and where USB is supported. You should ensure that the usb-storage
kernel module is loaded (modprobe usb-storage) and try to find out which SCSI
device the USB stick has been mapped to (in this example /dev/sda is used). To
write to your stick, you may have to turn off its write protection switch.

Note that the USB stick should be at least 256 MB in size (smaller setups are
possible if you follow Section 4.4.2, “Copying the files — the flexible way”).

4.4.1. Copying the files — the easy way

There is an all-in-one file hd-media/boot.img.gz which contains all the
installer files (including the kernel) as well as SYSLINUX and its
configuration file. You only have to extract it directly to your USB stick:

# zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/sda

Warning

Using this method will destroy anything already on the device. Make sure that
you use the correct device name for your USB stick.

After that, mount the USB memory stick (mount /dev/sda /mnt), which will now
have a FAT filesystem on it, and copy a Debian netinst or businesscard ISO
image to it (see Section 4.4.3, “Adding an ISO image”). Unmount the stick (
umount /mnt) and you are done.

4.4.2. Copying the files — the flexible way

If you like more flexibility or just want to know what’s going on, you should
use the following method to put the files on your stick.

4.4.2.1. USB stick partitioning on Intel x86

We will show how to setup the memory stick to use the first partition, instead
of the entire device.

Note

Since most USB sticks come pre-configured with a single FAT16 partition, you
probably won’t have to repartition or reformat the stick. If you have to do
that anyway, use cfdisk or any other partitioning tool to create a FAT16
partition, and then create the filesystem using:

# mkdosfs /dev/sda1

Take care that you use the correct device name for your USB stick. The mkdosfs
command is contained in the dosfstools Debian package.

In order to start the kernel after booting from the USB stick, we will put a
boot loader on the stick. Although any boot loader (e.g. LILO) should work,
it’s convenient to use SYSLINUX, since it uses a FAT16 partition and can be
reconfigured by just editing a text file. Any operating system which supports
the FAT file system can be used to make changes to the configuration of the
boot loader.

To put SYSLINUX on the FAT16 partition on your USB stick, install the syslinux
and mtools packages on your system, and do:

# syslinux /dev/sda1

Again, take care that you use the correct device name. The partition must not
be mounted when starting SYSLINUX. This procedure writes a boot sector to the
partition and creates the file ldlinux.sys which contains the boot loader code.

Mount the partition (mount /dev/sda1 /mnt) and copy the following files from
the Debian archives to the stick:

* vmlinuz (kernel binary)

* initrd.gz (initial ramdisk image)

* syslinux.cfg (SYSLINUX configuration file)

* Optional kernel modules

If you want to rename the files, please note that SYSLINUX can only process DOS
(8.3) file names.

The syslinux.cfg configuration file should contain the following two lines:

default vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.gz

4.4.3. Adding an ISO image

The installer will look for a Debian ISO image on the stick as its source for
additional data needed for the installation. So your next step is to copy a
Debian ISO image (businesscard, netinst or even a full CD image) onto your
stick (be sure to select one that fits). The file name of the image must end in
.iso.

If you want to install over the network, without using an ISO image, you will
of course skip the previous step. Moreover you will have to use the initial
ramdisk from the netboot directory instead of the one from hd-media, because
hd-media/initrd.gz does not have network support.

When you are done, unmount the USB memory stick (umount /mnt) and activate its
write protection switch.

4.4.4. Booting the USB stick

Warning

If your system refuses to boot from the memory stick, the stick may contain an
invalid master boot record (MBR). To fix this, use the install-mbr command from
the package mbr:

# install-mbr /dev/sda

4.5. Preparing Files for Hard Disk Booting

The installer may be booted using boot files placed on an existing hard drive
partition, either launched from another operating system or by invoking a boot
loader directly from the BIOS.

A full, “pure network” installation can be achieved using this technique. This
avoids all hassles of removable media, like finding and burning CD images or
struggling with too numerous and unreliable floppy disks.

The installer cannot boot from files on an NTFS file system.

4.5.1. Hard disk installer booting using LILO or GRUB

This section explains how to add to or even replace an existing linux
installation using either LILO or GRUB.

At boot time, both bootloaders support loading in memory not only the kernel,
but also a disk image. This RAM disk can be used as the root file-system by the
kernel.

Copy the following files from the Debian archives to a convenient location on
your hard drive, for instance to /boot/newinstall/.

* vmlinuz (kernel binary)

* initrd.gz (ramdisk image)

Finally, to configure the bootloader proceed to Section 5.1.2, “Booting from
Linux Using LILO or GRUB”.

4.6. Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting

If your machine is connected to a local area network, you may be able to boot
it over the network from another machine, using TFTP. If you intend to boot the
installation system from another machine, the boot files will need to be placed
in specific locations on that machine, and the machine configured to support
booting of your specific machine.

You need to setup a TFTP server, and for many machines a DHCP server, or BOOTP
server.

BOOTP is an IP protocol that informs a computer of its IP address and where on
the network to obtain a boot image. The DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol) is a more flexible, backwards-compatible extension of BOOTP. Some
systems can only be configured via DHCP.

The Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is used to serve the boot image to
the client. Theoretically, any server, on any platform, which implements these
protocols, may be used. In the examples in this section, we shall provide
commands for SunOS 4.x, SunOS 5.x (a.k.a. Solaris), and GNU/Linux.

Note

To use the Pre-boot Execution Environment (PXE) method of TFTP booting, you
will need a TFTP server with tsize support. On a Debian GNU/Linux server, the
atftpd and tftpd-hpa packages qualify; we recommend tftpd-hpa.

4.6.1. Setting up a BOOTP server

There are two BOOTP servers available for GNU/Linux. The first is CMU bootpd.
The other is actually a DHCP server: ISC dhcpd. In Debian GNU/Linux these are
contained in the bootp and dhcp3-server packages respectively.

To use CMU bootpd, you must first uncomment (or add) the relevant line in /etc/
inetd.conf. On Debian GNU/Linux, you can run update-inetd –enable bootps, then
/etc/init.d/inetd reload to do so. Just in case your BOOTP server does not run
Debian, the line in question should look like:

bootps dgram udp wait root /usr/sbin/bootpd bootpd -i -t 120

Now, you must create an /etc/bootptab file. This has the same sort of familiar
and cryptic format as the good old BSD printcap, termcap, and disktab files.
See the bootptab manual page for more information. For CMU bootpd, you will
need to know the hardware (MAC) address of the client. Here is an example /etc/
bootptab:

client:\
hd=/tftpboot:\
bf=tftpboot.img:\
ip=192.168.1.90:\
sm=255.255.255.0:\
sa=192.168.1.1:\
ha=0123456789AB:

You will need to change at least the “ha” option, which specifies the hardware
address of the client. The “bf” option specifies the file a client should
retrieve via TFTP; see Section 4.6.4, “Move TFTP Images Into Place” for more
details.

By contrast, setting up BOOTP with ISC dhcpd is really easy, because it treats
BOOTP clients as a moderately special case of DHCP clients. Some architectures
require a complex configuration for booting clients via BOOTP. If yours is one
of those, read the section Section 4.6.2, “Setting up a DHCP server”. In that
case, you will probably be able to get away with simply adding the allow bootp
directive to the configuration block for the subnet containing the client, and
restart dhcpd with /etc/init.d/dhcpd3-server restart.

4.6.2. Setting up a DHCP server

One free software DHCP server is ISC dhcpd. For Debian GNU/Linux, the
dhcp3-server package is recommended. Here is a sample configuration file for it
(see /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf):

option domain-name “example.com”;
option domain-name-servers ns1.example.com;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;
server-name “servername”;

subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.1.200 192.168.1.253;
option routers 192.168.1.1;
}

host clientname {
filename “/tftpboot/tftpboot.img”;
server-name “servername”;
next-server servername;
hardware ethernet 01:23:45:67:89:AB;
fixed-address 192.168.1.90;
}

In this example, there is one server servername which performs all of the work
of DHCP server, TFTP server, and network gateway. You will almost certainly
need to change the domain-name options, as well as the server name and client
hardware address. The filename option should be the name of the file which will
be retrieved via TFTP.

After you have edited the dhcpd configuration file, restart it with /etc/init.d
/dhcpd3-server restart.

4.6.2.1. Enabling PXE Booting in the DHCP configuration

Here is another example for a dhcp.conf using the Pre-boot Execution
Environment (PXE) method of TFTP.

option domain-name “example.com”;

default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;

allow booting;
allow bootp;

# The next paragraph needs to be modified to fit your case
subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.1.200 192.168.1.253;
option broadcast-address 192.168.1.255;
# the gateway address which can be different
# (access to the internet for instance)
option routers 192.168.1.1;
# indicate the dns you want to use
option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.3;
}

group {
next-server 192.168.1.3;
host tftpclient {
# tftp client hardware address
hardware ethernet 00:10:DC:27:6C:15;
filename “pxelinux.0″;
}
}

Note that for PXE booting, the client filename pxelinux.0 is a boot loader, not
a kernel image (see Section 4.6.4, “Move TFTP Images Into Place” below).

4.6.3. Enabling the TFTP Server

To get the TFTP server ready to go, you should first make sure that tftpd is
enabled. This is usually enabled by having something like the following line in
/etc/inetd.conf:

tftp dgram udp wait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd in.tftpd /tftpboot

Debian packages will in general set this up correctly by default when they are
installed.

Note

Historically, TFTP servers used /tftpboot as directory to serve images from.
However, Debian GNU/Linux packages may use other directories to comply with the
Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. For example, tftpd-hpa by default uses /var/lib/
tftpboot. You may have to adjust the configuration examples in this section
accordingly.

Look in /etc/inetd.conf and remember the directory which is used as the
argument of in.tftpd^[5]; you’ll need that below. If you’ve had to change /etc/
inetd.conf, you’ll have to notify the running inetd process that the file has
changed. On a Debian machine, run /etc/init.d/inetd reload; on other machines,
find out the process ID for inetd, and run kill -HUP inetd-pid.

4.6.4. Move TFTP Images Into Place

Next, place the TFTP boot image you need, as found in Section 4.2.1, “Where to
Find Installation Images”, in the tftpd boot image directory. You may have to
make a link from that file to the file which tftpd will use for booting a
particular client. Unfortunately, the file name is determined by the TFTP
client, and there are no strong standards.

For PXE booting, everything you should need is set up in the netboot/
netboot.tar.gz tarball. Simply extract this tarball into the tftpd boot image
directory. Make sure your dhcp server is configured to pass pxelinux.0 to tftpd
as the filename to boot.

4.7. Automatic Installation

For installing on multiple computers it’s possible to do fully automatic
installations. Debian packages intended for this include fai (which uses an
install server), replicator, systemimager, autoinstall, and the Debian
Installer itself.

4.7.1. Automatic Installation Using the Debian Installer

The Debian Installer supports automating installs via preconfiguration files. A
preconfiguration file can be loaded from the network or from removable media,
and used to fill in answers to questions asked during the installation process.

Full documentation on preseeding including a working example that you can edit
is in Appendix B, Automating the installation using preseeding.

————–

^[5] The -l argument enables some versions of in.tftpd to log all requests to
the system logs; this is useful for diagnosing boot errors.

Chapter 5. Booting the Installation System

Table of Contents

5.1. Booting the Installer on Intel x86

5.1.1. Booting from a CD-ROM
5.1.2. Booting from Linux Using LILO or GRUB
5.1.3. Booting from USB Memory Stick
5.1.4. Booting from Floppies
5.1.5. Booting with TFTP
5.1.6. The Boot Prompt

5.2. Boot Parameters

5.2.1. Debian Installer Parameters

5.3. Troubleshooting the Installation Process

5.1. Booting the Installer on Intel x86

Note

For information on how to boot the graphical installer, see Section D.6, “The
Graphical Installer”.

5.1.1. Booting from a CD-ROM

The easiest route for most people will be to use a set of Debian CDs. If you
have a CD set, and if your machine supports booting directly off the CD, great!
Simply configure your system for booting off a CD as described in
Section 3.6.2, “Boot Device Selection”, insert your CD, reboot, and proceed to
the next chapter.

Note that certain CD drives may require special drivers, and thus be
inaccessible in the early installation stages. If it turns out the standard way
of booting off a CD doesn’t work for your hardware, revisit this chapter and
read about alternate kernels and installation methods which may work for you.

Even if you cannot boot from CD-ROM, you can probably install the Debian system
components and any packages you want from CD-ROM. Simply boot using a different
media, such as floppies. When it’s time to install the operating system, base
system, and any additional packages, point the installation system at the
CD-ROM drive.

If you have problems booting, see Section 5.3, “Troubleshooting the
Installation Process”.

5.1.2. Booting from Linux Using LILO or GRUB

To boot the installer from hard disk, you must first download and place the
needed files as described in Section 4.5, “Preparing Files for Hard Disk
Booting”.

If you intend to use the hard drive only for booting and then download
everything over the network, you should download the netboot/debian-installer/
i386/initrd.gz file and its corresponding kernel netboot/debian-installer/i386/
linux. This will allow you to repartition the hard disk from which you boot the
installer, although you should do so with care.

Alternatively, if you intend to keep an existing partition on the hard drive
unchanged during the install, you can download the hd-media/initrd.gz file and
its kernel, as well as copy a CD iso to the drive (make sure the file is named
ending in .iso). The installer can then boot from the drive and install from
the CD image, without needing the network.

For LILO, you will need to configure two essential things in /etc/lilo.conf:

* to load the initrd.gz installer at boot time;

* have the vmlinuz kernel use a RAM disk as its root partition.

Here is a /etc/lilo.conf example:

image=/boot/newinstall/vmlinuz
label=newinstall
initrd=/boot/newinstall/initrd.gz

For more details, refer to the initrd(4) and lilo.conf(5) man pages. Now run
lilo and reboot.

The procedure for GRUB is quite similar. Locate your menu.lst in the /boot/grub
/ directory (sometimes in the /boot/boot/grub/), add the following lines:

title New Install
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/newinstall/vmlinuz
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/newinstall/initrd.gz

and reboot.

Note that the value of the ramdisk_size may need to be adjusted for the size of
the initrd image. From here on, there should be no difference between GRUB or
LILO.

5.1.3. Booting from USB Memory Stick

Let’s assume you have prepared everything from Section 3.6.2, “Boot Device
Selection” and Section 4.4, “Preparing Files for USB Memory Stick Booting”. Now
just plug your USB stick into some free USB connector and reboot the computer.
The system should boot up, and you should be presented with the boot: prompt.
Here you can enter optional boot arguments, or just hit Enter.

5.1.4. Booting from Floppies

You will have already downloaded the floppy images you needed and created
floppies from the images in Section 4.3, “Creating Floppies from Disk Images”.

To boot from the installer boot floppy, place it in the primary floppy drive,
shut down the system as you normally would, then turn it back on.

For installing from an LS-120 drive (ATAPI version) with a set of floppies, you
need to specify the virtual location for the floppy device. This is done with
the root= boot argument, giving the device that the ide-floppy driver maps the
device to. For example, if your LS-120 drive is connected as the first IDE
device (master) on the second cable, you enter install root=/dev/hdc at the
boot prompt.

Note that on some machines, Control-Alt-Delete does not properly reset the
machine, so a “hard” reboot is recommended. If you are installing from an
existing operating system (e.g., from a DOS box) you don’t have a choice.
Otherwise, please do a hard reboot when booting.

The floppy disk will be accessed, and you should then see a screen that
introduces the boot floppy and ends with the boot: prompt.

Once you press Enter, you should see the message Loading…, followed by
Uncompressing Linux…, and then a screenfull or so of information about the
hardware in your system. More information on this phase of the boot process can
be found below in Section 5.3.5, “Interpreting the Kernel Startup Messages”.

After booting from the boot floppy, the root floppy is requested. Insert the
root floppy and press Enter, and the contents are loaded into memory. The
installer program debian-installer is automatically launched.

5.1.5. Booting with TFTP

Booting from the network requires that you have a network connection and a TFTP
network boot server (DHCP, RARP, or BOOTP).

The installation method to support network booting is described in Section 4.6,
“Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting”.

There are various ways to do a TFTP boot on i386.

5.1.5.1. NIC or Motherboard that support PXE

It could be that your Network Interface Card or Motherboard provides PXE boot
functionality. This is a Intel ™ re-implementation of TFTP boot. If so, you
may be able to configure your BIOS to boot from the network.

5.1.5.2. NIC with Network BootROM

It could be that your Network Interface Card provides TFTP boot functionality.

5.1.5.3. Etherboot

The etherboot project provides bootdiskettes and even bootroms that do a
TFTPboot.

5.1.6. The Boot Prompt

When the installer boots, you should be presented with a friendly graphical
screen showing the Debian logo and the boot prompt:

Press F1 for help, or ENTER to boot:

At the boot prompt you can either just press Enter to boot the installer with
default options or enter a specific boot method and, optionally, boot
parameters.

Information on available boot methods and on boot parameters which might be
useful can be found by pressing F2 through F8. If you add any parameters to the
boot command line, be sure to type the boot method (the default is install) and
a space before the first parameter (e.g., install fb=false).

Note

If you are installing the system via a remote management device that provides a
text interface to the VGA console, you may not be able to see the initial
graphical splash screen upon booting the installer; you may even not see the
boot prompt. Examples of these devices include the text console of Compaq’s
“integrated Lights Out” (iLO) and HP’s “Integrated Remote Assistant” (IRA). You
can blindly press F1^[6] to bypass this screen and view the help text. Once you
are past the splash screen and at the help text your keystrokes will be echoed
at the prompt as expected. To prevent the installer from using the framebuffer
for the rest of the installation, you will also want to add fb=false to the
boot prompt, as described in the help text.

5.2. Boot Parameters

Boot parameters are Linux kernel parameters which are generally used to make
sure that peripherals are dealt with properly. For the most part, the kernel
can auto-detect information about your peripherals. However, in some cases
you’ll have to help the kernel a bit.

If this is the first time you’re booting the system, try the default boot
parameters (i.e., don’t try setting parameters) and see if it works correctly.
It probably will. If not, you can reboot later and look for any special
parameters that inform the system about your hardware.

Information on many boot parameters can be found in the Linux BootPrompt HOWTO,
including tips for obscure hardware. This section contains only a sketch of the
most salient parameters. Some common gotchas are included below in Section 5.3,
“Troubleshooting the Installation Process”.

When the kernel boots, a message

Memory:availk/totalk available

should be emitted early in the process. total should match the total amount of
RAM, in kilobytes. If this doesn’t match the actual amount of RAM you have
installed, you need to use the mem=ram parameter, where ram is set to the
amount of memory, suffixed with “k” for kilobytes, or “m” for megabytes. For
example, both mem=65536k and mem=64m mean 64MB of RAM.

If you are booting wi

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