Installing Debian GNU/Linux 1.3
About Copyrights and Software Licenses
I'm sure you've read the licenses that come with most commercial
software - they say you can only use one copy of the software on one
computer. The Debian GNU/Linux System isn't like that. We encourage
you to put a copy on every computer in your school or place of
business. Lend it to your friends, and help them install it on their
computers. You can even make thousands of copies and sell them - with
a few restrictions. That's because Debian is based on free software.
Free software doesn't mean that it doesn't have a copyright, and it
doesn't mean that the CD you buy containing this software is
distributed at no charge, it simply means that the licenses of
individual programs do not require you to pay for the privilege of
copying the programs. There are other sorts of restrictions on how you
copy the software, which you can read about once you've installed the
system. For example, many of the programs in the system are licensed
under the GNU General Public License, or GPL. The GPL requires that
you make the source code of the programs available whenever you
distribute a copy of the program. Thus, we've included the source code
for all of those programs in the Debian system. There are several
other forms of copyright and software license used on the programs in
Debian. You can find the copyrights and licenses of every program by
looking in the directory /usr/doc/program-name/copyright once you've
installed your system.
The most important legal notice is that this software comes with no
warranties. People who write free software can't afford to be sued.
System Requirements
CPU
Your computer must have a 386, 486, Pentium, or Pentium Pro processor,
or one of the clones of those processors made by manufacturers such as
Cyrix, AMD, TI, IBM, etc. If your processor has letters like "sx",
"sl", "slc", etc. after the number as in "386sx", that's fine. The
system will not run on the 286 or lower processors.
I/O Bus
Your computer must use the ISA, EISA, PCI, or VL bus. The VL bus is
also known as VESA Local Bus or VLB. Computers that have PCI or VLB
generally have ISA or EISA slots as well. Linux offers some support
for the Micro-Channel bus used in IBM PS/2 computers, but this is not
included on the Debian rescue disk.
RAM and Disk
You must have at least 4MB of RAM and 40MB of hard disk. If you want
to install everything from the chess game through the printed-circuit
design software, you'll need 300MB or more. The disk interfaces that
emulate the "AT" hard disk interface which are often called MFM, RLL,
IDE, or ATA are supported. SCSI disk controllers from many different
manufacturers are supported. See the [1]Linux Hardware Compatibility
HOWTO for more details.
Display
You should be using a VGA-compatible display interface for the console
terminal. Nearly every modern display card is compatible with VGA.
CGA, MDA, or HGA work OK for text, but they won't work with the X
Window System, and we haven't tested them. Use of a serial terminal
for the console is not yet supported.
Other Hardware
Linux supports a large variety hardware devices such as mice,
printers, scanners, modems, network cards, etc. However, none of these
devices are required while installing the system.
Before You Start
Backups
Before you start, make sure to back up every file that is now on your
system. The installation procedure can wipe out all of the data on a
hard disk!
Information You'll Need
Besides this document, you'll need the [2]cfdisk manual page, the
[3]Dselect Tutorial, the [4]Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO, and
the [5]X11 Release note for non-US-keyboard users.
If your computer is connected to a network, 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 your network.
* The broadcast address to use on 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.
* Which network type you use to connect to the network (Ethernet,
Token Ring).
Configuring Your System
Disks
There are some hardware details you should look into. First, decide
which disk you want to place the Linux system on. You've backed that
up along with your other disks already, right?
The BIOS Set-Up Menu
Your motherboard probably provides a BIOS set-up menu. Some systems
start this menu if you press DEL while the system is booting, some
require a SETUP disk, and some have other means of invoking the BIOS
set-up menu. If you can start this menu, use it to control the
features discussed in the following several paragraphs.
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), and then c: (the
first hard disk). Since you'll boot Linux from a floppy while
installing it, it's important that the BIOS enables booting from a
floppy disk.
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 can not use expanded
memory.
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 Linux. These aren't
compatible with Linux, and Linux has a better method of protecting you
from viruses.
Shadow Ram
Your motherboard probably provides shadow RAM. You may see settings
for "Video BIOS Shadow", "C800-CBFF Shadow", etc. Disable all shadow
RAM. Shadow RAM is used to accellerate access to the ROMs on your
motherboard and on some of the controller cards. Linux avoids using
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.
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 power-down timer. Linux can take over control of these
modes, and can do a better job of power-management than the BIOS. The
version of the operating system kernel on the installation floppies
does not, however, use APM, because we've had reports of one laptop
system crashing when the Linux APM driver is configured. Once you've
installed Linux, you can install the kernel-source package and build a
custom-configured version of the operating system kernel to enable APM
and other features.
The Turbo Switch
Many systems have a turbo switch that controls the speed of the CPU.
Select the high-speed setting. If your BIOS allows you to disable
software control of the turbo switch (or software control of CPU
speed), do so and lock the system in high-speed mode. We have one
report that on a particular system, while Linux is auto-probing
(looking for hardware devices) it can accidentaly touch the software
control for the turbo switch.
Over-Clocking your CPU
Many people have tried operating their 90 MHz CPU at 100 MHz, etc. It
sometimes works, but is sensitive to temperature and other factors and
can actually damage your system. The author of this document
overclocked his own system for a year, and then the system started
aborting the gcc program with an unexpected signal while it was
compiling the operating system kernel. Turning the CPU speed back down
to its rated value solved the problem.
Bad RAM
The gcc compiler is often the first thing to die from bad RAM (or
other hardware problems that change data unpredictably) because it
builds huge data structures that it traverses repeatedly. An error in
these data structures will cause it to execute an illegal instruction
or access a non-existant address. The symptom of this will be gcc
dying from an unexpected signal.
The very best motherboards support parity RAM and will actually tell
you if your system has a single-bit error in RAM. Unfortunately, they
don't have a way to fix the error, thus they generally crash
immediately after they tell you about the bad RAM. Still, it's better
to be told you have bad memory than to have it silently insert errors
in your data. Thus, the best systems have motherboards that support
parity and true-parity SIMMs.
Fake or ("virtual") Parity RAM
If you ask for Parity RAM in a computer store, you'll probably get
virtual parity SIMMs instead of true parity ones. Virtual parity SIMMs
can often (but not always) be distinguished because they only have one
more chip than an equivalent non-parity SIMM, and that one extra chip
is smaller than all the others. Virtual-parity SIMMs work exactly like
non-parity memory. They can't tell you when you have a single-bit RAM
error the way true-parity SIMMs do in a motherboard that implements
parity. Don't ever pay more for a virtual-parity SIMM than a
non-parity one. Do expect to pay a little more for true-parity SIMMs,
because you are actually buying one extra bit of memory for every 8
bits.
If you do have true-parity RAM and your motherboard can handle it, be
sure to enable any BIOS settings that cause the motherboard to
interrupt on memory parity errors.
Cyrix CPUs and Floppy Disk Errors
Many users of Cyrix CPUs have had to disable the cache in their
systems during installation, because the floppy disk has errors if
they do not. If you have to do this, be sure to re-enable your cache
when you are finished with installation, as the system runs much
slower with the cache disabled.
We don't think this is necessarily the fault of the Cyrix CPU. It may
be something that Linux can work around. We'll continue to look into
the problem. For the technically curious, we suspect a problem with
the cache being invalid after a switch from 16-bit to 32-bit code.
Multiple Processors
We have several reports that Debian runs well (and very fast) on
systems with two (or more) Pentium or Pentium Pro processors on the
same motherboard. To take advantage of multiple processors, you'll
have to install the kernel-source package and then re-compile the
kernel with symmetric multiprocessing support enabled. At this time
(kernel version 2.0.30) the way you enable that is to edit the
top-level Makefile for the kernel and un-comment the line that says
"SMP = 1". If you compile software on a multiprocessor system, look
for the "-j" flag in the documentation on "make".
BIOS Settings to Watch Out For
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.
Hardware Settings to Watch Out For
If any cards provide "mapped memory", the memory should be mapped
somewhere between 0xA0000 and 0xFFFFF (from 640K to just below 1
megabyte) or at an address at least 1 megabyte greater than the total
amount of RAM in your system.
Windows-specific Hardware
A disturbing trend is the proliferation of Windows 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 expecially 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
intellegence.
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 its 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 95 or NT, is
degraded when peripheral manufacturers skimp on the embedded
processing power of their hardware.
You can help 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 [6]Linux
Hardware Compatibility HOWTO.
Other Closed Hardware
Some hardware manufacturers simply won't tell us how to write drivers
for their hardware, or they won't allow us access to the documentation
without a non-disclosure agreement that would prevent us from
releasing the Linux source code. One example is the IBM laptop DSP
sound system used in recent ThinkPad systems - some of these systems
also couple the sound system to the modem. 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 Linux is an important market. The [7]Linux Hardware
Compatibility HOWTO provides information about what devices currently
have Linux drivers.
Methods for Installing Debian
In order to install Debian you need an Initial Boot Medium. After
booting from this you install the Kernel and the Modules, the Base
System and the Debian Packages. (Detailed installation instructions
follow below.)
The following list shows which media can be used as source for these
components.
Initial Boot Medium
The Initial Boot Medium is used to start the Debian
installation. It boots the installation system and runs the
installation program. The installation system can be booted
from:
floppy disk
The required disk is called the Rescue Disk. The Rescue Disk
(usually) contains the kernel and the root filesystem that
provides the files and programs needed for the basic
installation.
CD-ROM
You need Debian on a bootable CD and the computer must be
able to boot from the CD-ROM drive.
Loadlin on a running DOS system
You need an already-running DOS system. Copy linux and
root.bin on this system, in addition you need loadlin from
the tools directory.
Loadlin is used to boot the kernel: loadlin linux
root=/dev/ram initrd=root.bin
In some cases the root filesystem must be loaded from an extra
disk:
When you boot from a 1.2MB floppy disk, you need the Root Disk
because the disk image file doesn't fit on the first 1.2MB
floppy disk.
When you have less than 6MB RAM, you need a special Low-Memory
Root Disk. You must boot from floppy disk.
Kernel and Driver Modules
The Linux kernel and the modules can be installed from:
floppy disk (Rescue Disk and Driver Disk)
filesystem on the local harddisk (msdos, minix or ext2)
CD-ROM
In all but the first case you need a directory that contains
the files [8]resc1440.bin and [9]drv1440.bin on the medium.
If you have a CD-ROM drive with a proprietary interface
(neither SCSI nor ATAPI) you need the Driver Disk in order to
install the CD-ROM interface driver from floppy.
Base system
The Base system contains the initial Debian system that will be
copied to the hard disk. The Base system can be installed from:
floppy disk (five 3,5" or 5,25"floppies)
filesystem on a local harddisk (msdos, minix or ext2)
CD-ROM
NFS (Network File System)
In all but the first case you need a directory that contains
the file [10]base1_3.tgz on the medium.
Debian Packages
Once you installed the Base system and rebooted into the fresh
system dselect offers install more Debian Packages. These
Packages can be installed from:
floppy disk (you will need many floppies, try to avoid this!)
filesystem on a local harddisk (msdos, minix or ext2)
CD-ROM
NFS
FTP
Writing the Floppy Disk Image Files to Floppy Disk
The following disks may be needed for installing Debian (Read above
section to decide which disks you need) :
Rescue Disk
If your a: drive of the system upon which you will install
Linux uses 1.44MB floppy disks, you will need the file
[11]resc1440.bin; if it uses 1.2MB floppy disks, you will need
the file [12]resc1200.bin,
Driver Disk
If your a: drive of the system upon which you will install
Linux uses 1.44MB floppy disks, you will need the file
[13]drv1440.bin; if it uses 1.2MB floppy disks, you will need
the file [14]drv1200.bin,
Root Disk
The Root Disk can be created from the file [15]root.bin.
Low-Memory Root Disk
The Low-Memory Root Disk can be created from the file
[16]lmemroot.bin. This file is 1.2MB large, so it fits on both
3,5" and 5,25" high density floppies.
Base Disks
These disks will be generated from the files files
[17]base-1.bin, [18]base-2.bin, [19]base-3.bin, [20]base-4.bin,
and [21]base-5.bin. These files are 1.2MB large, so they fit on
both 3,5" and 5,25" high density floppies.
If you are using a web browser on a networked computer to read this
document, you can probably retrieve the files by selecting their names
in your web browser. Otherwise, you can retrieve them from
[22]ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/stable/disks-i386/current/ , or a
similar directory in any of the Debian FTP mirror sites. All of these
are floppy disk image files, which means that each file contains the
complete contents of a floppy disk in raw form. A special program is
used to write the image files to floppy disk in raw mode.
Find (up to) 8 formatted floppy disks. Mark them with as "Rescue",
"Device Drivers", "Custom Boot", "Base 1", "Base 2", "Base 3", and
"Base 4".
No file is written to the Custom Boot floppy, that will be written by
the Debian system while it is being installed.
Writing from a DOS, Windows, or OS-2 System
You'll find the [23]rawrite2.exe program in the same directory as the
floppy disk images. There's also a [24]rawrite2.txt file containing
instructions for rawrite2.exe .
To write the floppy disk image files to the floppy disks, use the
command
rawrite2 -f file -d drive
where file is one of the floppy disk image files, and drive is either
a: or b:.
Special Installation disk sets
Sometimes certain hardware requires special Linux kernel versions or
specially patched kernels are needed in order to run Linux. Therefore
disk images using these special kernels are available. They are placed
in subdircetories of [25]special/. If you have any problems with
installing Debian check the README files in these diretories in order
to find out whether you should try these disk images.
Writing from a Linux or Unix System
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, I don't know the command necessary to do this for your
particular workstation. Ask your system administrator.
To write the floppy disk image files to the floppy disks, use the
command
dd if=file of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 conv=sync ; sync
where file 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.
Installing the System
Floppy-disk Reliability
The number one problem of people installing Debian for the first time
seems to be floppy-disk reliability.
The Rescue Floppy is the one with the worst problems, because that
floppy is read by BIOS before Linux boots. BIOS doesn't seem to read
as reliably as the Linux floppy disk driver, and may just stop without
printing an error message if it reads incorrect data. There can also
be failures in the drivers floppy and the base floppies, most of which
indicate themselves with a flood of messages about disk I/O errors.
If you are having the installation stall at a particular floppy, the
first thing you should do is re-download the floppy disk image and
write it to a different floppy. Simply reformatting the old floppy is
not sufficient, even if it appears that the floppy was reformatted and
written with no errors. It's sometimes useful to try writing the
floppy on a different system.
One user reports he had to write three boot floppies before one
worked, and then everything was fine with the third floppy.
The Rescue Floppy
Place the Rescue floppy in the a: floppy drive, and reset the system
by pressing reset, turning the system off and then on, or by pressing
Control-Alt-Del on the keyboard. The floppy disk should be accessed,
and you should then see a screen that introduces the rescue floppy and
ends with the boot: prompt. It's called the Rescue floppy because you
can use it to boot your system and perform repairs if there is ever a
problem that makes your hard disk unbootable. Thus, you should save
this floppy after you've installed your system. Pressing F3 will give
further information on this.
You can do two things at the boot: prompt. You can press the function
keys F1 through F10 to view a few pages of helpful information, or you
can boot the system. If you have less than 6MB RAM, you have to use a
floppy boot method (the boot methods are listed by pressing F3), and
you have to insert the Low-Memory Root Disk when being prompted for
the root floppy. This floppy must not be write proteced. If you boot
from a 1.2MB floppy drive, you have to use a ramdisk boot method, and
you will need the Root Disk. If you have any hardware devices that
aren't made accessable from Linux correctly when Linux boots, you may
find a parameter to add to the boot command line in the screens you
see by pressing F4 and F5. If you add any parameters to the boot
command line, be sure to type the boot method (the default is linux)
and a space before the first parameter. If you simply press Enter,
that's the same as typing linux without any special parameters.
If this is the first time you're booting the system, just press Enter
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.
Once you press Enter, you should see the message Loading..., and then
Uncompressing Linux..., and then a page or so of cryptic information
about the hardware in your system. There may be a many messages in the
form can't find something, or something not present, can't initialize
something, or even this driver release depends on something. Most of
these messages are harmless. You see them because the installation
boot disk is built to run on computers with many different peripheral
devices. Obviously, no one computer will have every possible
peripheral device, so the operating system may emit a few complaints
while it looks for peripherals you don't own. You may also see the
system pause for a while. This happens when it is waiting for a device
to respond, and that device is not present on your system. If you find
the time it takes to boot the system unacceptably long, you can create
a custom kernel once you've installed your system without all of the
drivers for non-existant devices.
If you choose a non-default boot method, e.g. ramdisk or floppy, you
will be prompted to insert the Root floppy. Insert the Root Floppy
into the first disk drive and press Enter. (If you choose floppy1
insert the Root Floppy into the second disk drive.)
Low-Memory Systems
If you system has less than 6MB RAM , a paragraph about low memory and
a text menu with four choices can be displayed. This means that the
system detected that you don't have enough memory for a normal
installation, hence must follow a special low-memory installation
procedure. Go through the menu selections in order:
Use fdisk to create a Linux Swap partition (type 82). The swap
partition is needed to provide virtual memory during the
installation process, since that process will use more memory than
you have in your system. Select the size for the amount of virtual
memory you intend to use once your system is installed. 16
megabytes is probably the lowest amount that's practical, use 32
megabytes if you can spare the space, and 64 if your disk is large
enough that you won't miss that much.
In addition create a MINIX partition (type 81). This will hold the
root filesystem in the early installation process. Its size should
be at least 2 megabytes. This partition can be deleted when the
installation is finished.
Now create the ext2 partitions (type 83) on which you will install
Debian.
Activate the swap partition.
Copy the root filesystem to disk.
Reboot: boot the system again using the boot options that are shown.
The Color-or-Monochrome Dialog Box
Once the system has finished booting, you should see the color or
monochrome choice dialog box. If your monitor displays
black-and-white, press Enter to continue with the installation.
Otherwise, use the arrow key to move the cursor to the Color menu item
and then press Enter. The display should change from black-and-white
to color. Then press Enter again to continue with the installation.
The Main Menu
You may see a dialog box that says The installation program is
determining the current state of your system. On some systems, this
will go by too quickly to read. You'll see this dialog box between
steps in the main menu. The installation program will check the state
of the system in between each step. This checking allows you to
re-start the installation without losing the work you have already
done if you happen to halt your system in the middle of the
installation process. If you have to restart an installation, you will
have to configure color-or-monochrome, configure your keyboard,
re-activate your swap partition, and re-mount any disks that have been
initialized. Anything else that you have done with the installation
system will be saved.
During the entire installation process, you will be presented with the
main menu. The choices at the top of the menu will change to indicate
your progress in installing the system. Phil Hughes wrote in Linux
Journal that you could teach a chicken to install Debian! He meant
that the installation process was mostly just pecking at the return
key. The first choice on the installation menu is the next action that
you should perform according to what the system detects you have
already done. It should say Next, and at this point the next item
should be Configure the Keyboard.
Configuring the Keyboard
Make sure the highlight is on the Next item, and Press Enter to go to
the keyboard configuration menu. Select a keyboard that conforms to
the layout used for your national language, or select something close
if the keyboard layout you want isn't represented. Once the system is
installed, you'll be able to select a keyboard layout from a wider
range of choices. Move the highlight to the keyboard selection you
desire and press Enter. Use the arrow keys to move the highlight -
they are in the same place in all national language keyboard layouts,
so they are independent of the keyboard configuration.
The Shell
If you are an experienced Unix or Linux user, press LeftAlt-F2 to get
to the second virtual console. That's the Alt key on the left-hand
side of the space bar, and the F2 function key, at the same time. This
is a separate window running a Bourne shell clone called ash. At this
point you are booted from the RAM disk, and there is a limited set of
Unix utilities available for your use. You can see what programs are
available with the command ls /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin. Use the
menus to perform any task that they are able to do - the shell and
commands are only there in case something goes wrong. In particular,
you should always use the menus, not the shell, to activate your swap
partition, because the menu software can't detect that you've done
this from the shell. Press LeftAlt-F1 to get back to menus. Linux
provides up to 64 virtual consoles, although the Rescue floppy only
uses a few of them.
Last Chance!
Did we tell you to back up your disks? Here's your first chance to
wipe out all of the data on your disks, and your last chance to save
your old system. If you haven't backed up all of your disks, remove
the floppy from the drive, reset the system, and run backups.
Partition Your Hard Disks
If you have not already partitioned your disks for Linux native and
Linux swap filesystems, the menu item Next will be Partition a Hard
Disk. If you have already created at least one Linux Native and one
Linux Swap disk partition, the Next menu selection will be Initialize
and Activate the Swap Disk Partition, or you may even skip that step
if your system had low memory and you were asked to activate the swap
partition as soon as the system started. Whatever the Next menu
selection is, you can use the down-arrow key to select Partition a
Hard Disk.
The Partition a Hard Disk menu item presents you with a list of disk
drives you can partition, and runs the cfdisk program, which allows
you to create and edit disk partitions. The [26]cfdisk manual page is
included with this document, and you should read it now. You must
create at least one "Linux" (type 83) disk partition, and one "Linux
Swap" (type 82) partition.
Your swap partition will be used to provide virtual memory for the
system and should be between 16 and 128 megabytes in size, depending
on how much disk space you have and how many large programs you want
to run. Linux will not use more than 128 megabytes of swap, so there's
no reason to make your swap partition larger than that. A swap
partition is strongly recommended, but you can do without one if you
insist, and if your system has more than 16 megabytes of RAM. If you
wish to do this, please select the Do Without a Swap Partition item
from the menu.
The "Linux" disk partition will hold all of your files, and you may
make it any size between 40 megabytes and the maximum size of your
disk minus the size of the swap partition. If you are already familiar
with Unix or Linux, you may want to make additional partitions - for
example, you can make partitions that will hold the /var, and /usr,
filesystems.
Initialize and Activate the Swap Disk Partition
This will be the Next menu item once you have created one disk
partition. You have the choice of initializing and activating a new
swap partition, activating a previously-initialized one, and doing
without a swap partition. It's always permissible to re-initialize a
swap partition, so select Initialize and Activate the Swap Disk
Partition unless you are sure you know what you are doing. This menu
choice will give you the option to scan the entire partition for
un-readable disk blocks caused by defects on the surface of the hard
disk platters. This is useful if you have MFM, RLL, or older SCSI
disks, and never hurts. Properly-working IDE disks don't need this
choice, as they have their own internal mechanism for mapping out bad
disk blocks.
The swap partition provides virtual memory to supplement the RAM
memory that you've installed in your system. It's even used for
virtual memory while the system is being installed. That's why we
initialize it first.
Initialize a Linux Disk Partition
At this point, the Next menu item should be Initialize a Linux Disk
Partition. If it isn't, it's because you haven't completed the disk
partitioning process, or you haven't made one of the menu choices
dealing with your swap partition.
You can initialize a Linux Disk partition, or alternatedly you can
mount a previously-initialized one.
These floppies will not upgrade an old system without removing the
files - Debian provides a different procedure than using the boot
floppies for upgrading existing Debian systems. Thus, if you are using
old disk partitions that are not empty, you should initialize them
(which erases all files) here. You must initialize any partitions that
you created in the disk partitioning step. About the only reason to
mount a partition without initializing it at this point would be to
mount a partition upon which you have already performed some part of
the installation process using this same set of installation floppies.
Select the Next menu item to initialize and mount the / disk
partition. The first partition that you mount or initialize will be
the one mounted as / (pronounced root). You will be offered the choice
to scan the disk partition for bad blocks, as you were when you
initialized the swap partition. It never hurts to scan for bad blocks,
but it could take 10 minutes or more to do so if you have a large
disk.
Once you've mounted the / partition, the Next menu item will be
Install the Operating System Kernel and the Device Drivers unless
you've already performed some of the installation steps. You can use
the arrow keys to select the menu items to initialize and/or mount
disk partitions if you have any more partitions to set up. If you have
created separate partitions for /var, /usr, or other filesystems, you
should initialize and/or mount them now.
Install the Operating System Kernel and the Device Drivers
This should be the Next menu step after you've mounted your / disk,
unless you've already performed some of the installation steps on /.
Select it, and you will be offered a menu of drives to use to read the
kernel. If you choose to install from floppy disk insert the Rescue
Floppy as requested, and the kernel will be copied on to the hard
disk. In a later step this kernel will be used to create a custom boot
floppy for your system, and to make the hard disk bootable without a
floppy.
If you choose to install from floppy disk you will be prompted to
insert the device drivers floppy. The device drivers will be copied to
your hard disk.
Configure the Device Drivers
Select the Configure Device Drivers menu item and look for devices
that are on your system. Configure those device drivers, and they will
be loaded whenever your system boots. If you want to install the base
system via NFS you must load and configure the driver module for your
network card.
You can't load PCMCIA device drivers here. Once your system is
installed, you can install the pcmcia-cs package. This detects
PCMCIA cards automatically, and configures the ones it finds. It also
copes with hot-plugging the cards while the system is booted - they
will all be configured as they are plugged in, and de-configured when
you unplug them.
Configure the Network
You'll have to configure the network even if you don't have a network,
but you'll only have to answer the first two questions - what is the
name of your computer?, and is your system connected to a network?.
If you are connected to a network, here come some questions that you
may not be able to figure out on your own - check with your network
administrator if you don't know:
* Your host name.
* Your domain name.
* Your computer's IP address.
* The netmask to use with your network.
* The broadcast address to use on 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.
* The type of your network (Ethernet, Token Ring) and whether you
use a PCMCIA adapter. (If you choose to configure a PCMCIA network
adapter it won't work yet. You have to get and install the
pcmcia-cs package first.)
Some technical details you might, or might not, find handy: the
program assumes the network IP address is the bitwise-AND of your
system's IP address and your netmask. It will guess the broadcast
address is the bitwise OR of your system's IP address with the bitwise
negation of the netmask. It will guess that your gateway system is
also your DNS server. If you can't find any of these answers, use the
system's guesses - you can change them once the system has been
installed, if necessary, by editing /etc/init.d/network .
Install the Base System
Select the Install the Base System menu item. You'll be offered a menu
of drives to use to read the base floppies. Select the appropriate
drive. If you choose to install from floppy disk feed in the Base 1,
2, 3, 4 and 5 as requested by the program. If one of the base floppies
is unreadable, you'll have to create a replacement floppy and feed all
floppies into the system again. Once the floppies have all been read,
the system will install the files it's read from them. This could take
10 minutes or more on slow systems, less on faster ones.
Configure the Base System
At this point you've read in all of the files that make up a minimal
Debian system, but you must perform some configuration before the
system will run. Select the Configure the Base System menu item.
You'll be asked to select your time zone. Look for your time zone or
region of the world in the menu, and type it at the prompt. This may
lead to another menu, in which you can select your actual time zone.
Next, you'll be asked if your system clock is to be set to GMT or
local time. Select GMT if you will only be running Linux and Unix on
your system, and select local time if you will be running another
operating system such as DOS or Windows. Unix and Linux keep GMT time
on the system clock and use software to convert it to the local time
zone. This allows them to keep track of daylight savings time and leap
years, and even allows users who are logged in from other time zones
to individually set the time zone used on their terminal. If you run
the system clock on GMT and your locality uses daylight savings time,
you'll find that the system adjusts for daylight savings time properly
on the days that it starts and ends.
Make the Hard Disk Bootable
If you select to make the hard disk boot directly to Linux, you will
be asked to install a master boot record. If you aren't using a boot
manager (and this is probably the case if you don't know what a boot
manager is), answer yes to this question. The next question will be
whether you want to boot Linux automatically from the hard disk when
you turn on your system. This sets Linux to be the bootable partition
- the one that will be loaded from the hard disk. If you answer no to
this question, you can set the bootable partition later using the DOS
fdisk program, or with the Linux fdisk or activate programs.
If you are installing Linux on a drive other than the first hard disk
in your system, be sure to make a boot floppy. The boot ROM of most
systems is only capable of directly booting from the first hard drive,
not the second one. You can, however, work around this problem once
you've installed your system. To do so, read the instructions in the
directory /usr/doc/lilo.
Make a Boot Floppy
You should make a boot floppy even if you intend to boot the system
from the hard disk. The reason for this is that it's possible for the
hard disk bootstrap to be mis-installed, but a boot floppy will almost
always work. Select Make a Boot Floppy from the menu and feed the
system a blank floppy as directed. Make sure the floppy isn't
write-protected, as the software will format and write it. Mark this
the "Custom Boot" floppy and write-protect it once it has been
written.
The Moment of Truth
This is what electrical engineers call the smoke test - what happens
when you turn on a new system for the first time. Remove the floppy
disk from the floppy drive, and select the Reboot the System menu
item. If the Linux system doesn't start up, insert the Custom Boot
floppy you created and reset your system. Linux should boot. You
should see the same messages as when you first booted the installation
boot floppy, followed by some new messages.
Set the Root Password
This is the password for the super-user, a login that bypasses all
security protection on your system. It should only be used to perform
system administration, and only for as short a time as possible. Do
not use root as your personal login. You will be prompted to create a
personal login as well, and that's the one you should use to send and
receive e-mail and perform most of your work - not root. The reason to
avoid using root's privileges is that you might be tricked into
running a trojan-horse program - that is a program that takes
advantage of your super-user power to compromise the security of your
system behind your back. Any good book on Unix system administration
will cover this topic in more detail - consider reading one if it's
new to you. The good news is that Linux is probably more secure than
other operating systems you might run on your PC. DOS and Windows, for
example, give all programs super-user privilege. That's one reason
that they have been so plagued by viruses.
All of the passwords you create should contain from 6 to 8 characters,
and should contain both upper and lower-case characters, as well as
punctuation characters.
Once you've added both logins, you'll be dropped into the dselect
program. The [27]Dselect Tutorial is required reading before you run
dselect. Dselect allows you to select packages to be installed on your
system. If you have a CD-ROM or hard disk containing the additional
Debian packages that you want to install on your system, or you are
connected to the Internet, this will be useful to you right away.
Otherwise, you may want to quit dselect and start it later, once you
have transported the Debian package files to your system. You must be
the super-user (root) when you run dselect. If you are about to
install the X Window system and you do not use a US keyboard, you
should read the [28]X11 Release note for non-US-keyboard users.
Log In
After you've quit dselect, you'll be presented with the login prompt.
Log in using the personal login and password you selected. Your system
is now ready to use.
Technical Information on the Boot Floppies
Source Code
The "boot-floppies" package contains all of the source code for the
installaton floppies.
The Rescue Floppy
The Rescue Floppy is an MS-DOS filesystem, and you should be able to
access it from a DOS or Windows system or anything else that can mount
DOS disks. The Linux kernel is in the file "linux". The file root.bin
is a gzip-compressed disk image of a 1.44 MB Minix filesystem, and
will be loaded into the RAM disk and used as the root filesystem.
Replacing the Kernel
If you find it necessary to replace the kernel on the Rescue Floppy,
you must configure your new kernel with these features linked in, not
in loadable modules:
* Initial RAM disk.
* MSDOS, Minix, and EXT2 filesystems.
* ELF executables.
Copy your new kernel to the file "linux" on the Rescue Floppy, and
then run the shell script "rdev.sh" that you'll find on the floppy.
The Base Floppies
The base floppies contain a 512-byte header followed by a portion of a
gzip-compressed "tar" archive. If you strip off the headers and then
concatenate the contents of the base floppies, the result should be
the compressed tar archive. The archive contains the base system that
will be installed on your hard disk. Once this archive is installed,
you must go through the Configure the Base System menu item in the
installation system and other menu items to configure the network and
install the operating system kernel and modules before the system will
be usable.
Last Update
The last update of this document was made on October 12, 1997.
Copyright of This Document
Copyright 1996 Bruce Perens; 1996, 1997 Sven Rudolph. This document
may be distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
Trademark Acknowledgement
Trademarks that are not explicitly acknowledged here are the property
of their respective holders. 386, 386sx, 486, Pentium, and Pentium Pro
are the property of Intel. Windows and WinModem are a trademark of
Microsoft. ThinkPad and PS/2 are the property of IBM.
References
1. http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO.html
2. ftp:cfdisk.txt
3. ftp:dselect.beginner.8.html
4. http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO.html
5. ftp:X11_release_note.txt
6. http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO.html
7. http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO.html
22. ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/stable/disks-i386/current/
23. ftp:rawrite2.exe
24. ftp:rawrite2.txt
25. ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/stable/disks-i386/current/special
26. ftp:cfdisk.txt
27. ftp:dselect.beginner.8.html
28. ftp:X11_release_note.txt