Debian GNU/Linux Installation Guide Copyright © 2004, 2005 the Debian Installer team 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 E, GNU General Public License. Abstract This document contains installation instructions for the Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 system (codename "sarge"), for the ARM ("arm") architecture. It also contains pointers to more information and information on how to make the most of your new Debian system. Warning This installation guide is based on an earlier manual written for the old Debian installation system (the "boot-floppies"), and has been updated to document the new Debian installer. However, for arm, the manual has not been fully updated and fact checked for the new installer. There may remain parts of the manual that are incomplete or outdated or that still document the boot-floppies installer. A newer version of this manual, possibly better documenting this architecture, may be found on the Internet at the debian-installer home page.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 3.1 For arm 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 2.2. Installation Media 2.2.1. CD-ROM/DVD-ROM 2.2.2. Hard Disk 2.2.3. Network 2.2.4. Un*x or GNU system 2.2.5. 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. Fake or "Virtual" Parity RAM 2.5. Memory and Disk Space Requirements 2.6. Network Connectivity Hardware 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 3.6. Pre-Installation Hardware and Operating System Setup 3.6.1. 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. Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting 4.3.1. Setting up RARP server 4.3.2. Setting up BOOTP server 4.3.3. Setting up a DHCP server 4.3.4. Enabling the TFTP Server 4.3.5. Move TFTP Images Into Place 4.4. Automatic Installation 4.4.1. Automatic Installation Using the Debian Installer 5. Booting the Installation System 5.1. Booting the Installer on ARM 5.1.1. Booting from TFTP 5.1.2. Booting from CD-ROM 5.2. Boot Parameters 5.2.1. Debian Installer Parameters 5.3. Troubleshooting the Installation Process 5.3.1. Boot Configuration 5.3.2. Interpreting the Kernel Startup Messages 5.3.3. Bug Reporter 5.3.4. 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. Installing the Base System 6.3.4. Making Your System Bootable 6.3.5. Finishing the First Stage 6.3.6. Miscellaneous 7. Booting Into Your New Debian System 7.1. The Moment of Truth 7.2. Debian Post-Boot (Base) Configuration 7.2.1. Configuring Your Time Zone 7.2.2. Setting Up Users And Passwords 7.2.3. Setting Up PPP 7.2.4. Configuring APT 7.2.5. Package Installation 7.2.6. Prompts During Software Installation 7.2.7. Configuring Your Mail Transport Agent 7.3. Log In 8. Next Steps and Where to Go From Here 8.1. If You Are New to Unix 8.2. Orienting Yourself to Debian 8.2.1. Debian Packaging System 8.2.2. Application Version Management 8.2.3. Cron Job Management 8.3. Further Reading and Information 8.4. Compiling a New Kernel 8.4.1. Kernel Image Management A. Installation Howto A.1. Preliminaries A.2. Booting the installer A.2.1. CDROM A.2.2. Booting from network A.2.3. Booting from hard disk A.3. Installation A.4. Send us an installation report A.5. And finally.. B. Partitioning for Debian B.1. Deciding on Debian Partitions and Sizes B.2. The Directory Tree B.3. Recommended Partitioning Scheme B.4. Device Names in Linux B.5. Debian Partitioning Programs C. Random Bits C.1. Preconfiguration File Example C.2. Linux Devices C.2.1. Setting Up Your Mouse C.3. Disk Space Needed for Tasks C.4. Installing Debian GNU/Linux from a Unix/Linux System C.4.1. Getting Started C.4.2. Install debootstrap C.4.3. Run debootstrap C.4.4. Configure The Base System C.4.5. Install a Kernel C.4.6. Set up the Boot Loader D. Administrivia D.1. About This Document D.2. Contributing to This Document D.3. Major Contributions D.4. Trademark Acknowledgement E. GNU General Public License E.1. Preamble E.2. GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE E.3. How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs List of Tables 3.1. Hardware Information Needed for an Install 3.2. Recommended Minimum System Requirements Installing Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 For arm 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 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 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 Foundation. 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 900 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 (tm) 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 160 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 3.1 pages for any last-minute information about the 3.1 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 minimal working system. (Some background about setting up the partitions for your Debian system is explained in Appendix B, Partitioning for Debian.) 6. Boot into your newly installed base system and run through some additional configuration tasks, from Chapter 7, Booting Into Your New Debian System. 7. Install additional software in Section 7.2.5, "Package Installation". 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 D, 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 2.2. Installation Media 2.2.1. CD-ROM/DVD-ROM 2.2.2. Hard Disk 2.2.3. Network 2.2.4. Un*x or GNU system 2.2.5. 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. Fake or "Virtual" Parity RAM 2.5. Memory and Disk Space Requirements 2.6. Network Connectivity Hardware 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/arm/ for more details on ARM architecture systems which have been tested with Debian. Rather than attempting to describe all the different hardware configurations which are supported for ARM, this section contains general information and pointers to where additional information can be found. 2.1.1. Supported Architectures Debian 3.1 supports eleven major architectures and several variations of each architecture known as "flavors". +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Architecture | Debian | Subarchitecture | Flavor | | | Designation | | | |-------------------+-----------------+--------------------------+------------| | | | |vanilla | | | | |------------| |Intel x86-based |i386 |  |speakup | | | | |------------| | | | |linux26 | |-------------------+-----------------+--------------------------+------------| | | |Atari |atari | | | |--------------------------+------------| | | |Amiga |amiga | | | |--------------------------+------------| | | |68k Macintosh |mac | |Motorola 680x0 |m68k |--------------------------+------------| | | | |bvme6000 | | | | |------------| | | |VME |mvme147 | | | | |------------| | | | |mvme16x | |-------------------+-----------------+--------------------------+------------| |DEC Alpha |alpha |  |  | |-------------------+-----------------+--------------------------+------------| | | | |sun4cdm | |Sun SPARC |sparc |  |------------| | | | |sun4u | |-------------------+-----------------+--------------------------+------------| | | | |netwinder | | | | |------------| | | | |riscpc | |ARM and StrongARM |arm |  |------------| | | | |shark | | | | |------------| | | | |lart | |-------------------+-----------------+--------------------------+------------| | | |CHRP |chrp | | | |--------------------------+------------| |IBM/Motorola | |PowerMac |pmac | |PowerPC |powerpc |--------------------------+------------| | | |PReP |prep | | | |--------------------------+------------| | | |APUS |apus | |-------------------+-----------------+--------------------------+------------| | | |PA-RISC 1.1 |32 | |HP PA-RISC |hppa |--------------------------+------------| | | |PA-RISC 2.0 |64 | |-------------------+-----------------+--------------------------+------------| |Intel ia64-based |ia64 |  |  | |-------------------+-----------------+--------------------------+------------| | | | |r4k-ip22 | | | |SGI Indy/Indigo 2 |------------| |MIPS (big endian) |mips | |r5k-ip22 | | | |--------------------------+------------| | | |Broadcom BCM91250A (SWARM)|sb1-swarm-bn| |-------------------+-----------------+--------------------------+------------| | | |Cobalt |cobalt | | | |--------------------------+------------| |MIPS (little | | |r4k-kn04 | |endian) |mipsel |DECstation |------------| | | | |r3k-kn02 | | | |--------------------------+------------| | | |Broadcom BCM91250A (SWARM)|sb1-swarm-bn| |-------------------+-----------------+--------------------------+------------| | | |IPL from VM-reader and |generic | |IBM S/390 |s390 |DASD | | | | |--------------------------+------------| | | |IPL from tape |tape | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ This document covers installation for the ARM 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 Each distinct ARM architecture requires its own kernel. Because of this the standard Debian distribution only supports installation on a number of the most common systems. The Debian userland however may be used by any ARM CPU including xscale. Most ARM CPUs may be run in either endian mode (big or little). However, almost every current system implementation uses little-endian mode. Debian currently only supports little-endian ARM systems. The commonly supported systems are Netwinder This is actually the name for the group of machines based upon the StrongARM 110 CPU and Intel 21285 Northbridge. It comprises of machines like: Netwinder (possibly one of the most common ARM boxes), CATS (also known as the EB110ATX), EBSA 285 and Compaq personal server (cps, aka skiff). Bast This is a modern ARM 920 board with a 266MHz Samsung processor. It has integrated IDE, USB, Serial, Parallel, audio, video, flash and two ethernet ports. This system has a good bootloader which is also found on the CATS and Riscstation systems. RiscPC This machine is the oldest supported hardware: it was released in 1994. It has RISC OS in ROM, Linux can be booted from that OS using linloader. The RiscPC has a modular CPU card and typically has a 30MHz 610, 40MHz 710 or 233MHz Strongarm 110 CPU fitted. The mainboard has integrated IDE, SVGA video, parallel port, single serial port, PS/2 keyboard and proprietary mouse port. The proprietary module expansion bus allows for up to eight expansion cards to be fitted depending on configuration, several of these modules have Linux drivers. Riscstation This is an inexpensive 56MHz 7500FE based machine with integrated video, IDE, PS/2 keyboard and mouse and two serial ports. Its lack of processing power was made up for by its price. It may be found in two configurations one with RISC OS and one with a simple bootloader. LART This is a modular open hardware platform intended to be built by enthusiasts. To be useful to install Debian it requires its KSB expansion board. 2.1.3. Graphics Card Debian's support for graphical interfaces is determined by the underlying support found in XFree86's X11 system. Most AGP, PCI and PCIe video cards work under XFree86. Details on supported graphics buses, cards, monitors, and pointing devices can be found at http://www.xfree86.org/. Debian 3.1 ships with XFree86 version 4.3.0. 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 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. 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. IDE/ATAPI CD-ROMs are supported on all ARM machines. On RiscPCs, SCSI CD-ROMs are also supported. 2.2.2. 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. 2.2.3. Network You can also boot your system over the network. Diskless installation, using network booting from a local area network and NFS-mounting of all local filesystems, is another option. After the operating system kernel is installed, you can install the rest of your system via any sort of network connection (including PPP after installation of the base system), via FTP or HTTP. 2.2.4. 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 the 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 C.4, "Installing Debian GNU/Linux from a Unix/ Linux System". 2.2.5. 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 8.4, "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. 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. 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. 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. Fake or "Virtual" Parity RAM If you ask for Parity RAM in a computer store, you'll probably get virtual parity memory modules 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 want complete information on ARM RAM issues, and what is the best RAM to buy, see the PC Hardware FAQ. 2.5. Memory and Disk Space Requirements You must have at least 32MB of memory and 110MB of hard disk space. For a minimal console-based system (all standard packages), 250MB is required. If you want to install a reasonable amount of software, including the X Window System, and some development programs and libraries, you'll need at least 400MB. For a more or less complete desktop system, you'll need a few gigabytes. 2.6. Network Connectivity Hardware The following network interface cards are supported directly by the boot disks on NetWinder and CATS machines: * PCI-based NE2000 * DECchip Tulip The following network interface cards are supported directly by the boot disks on RiscPCs: * Ether1 * Ether3 * EtherH If your card is mentioned in the lists above, the complete installation can be carried out from the network with no need for CD-ROMs or floppy disks. Any other network interface card (NIC) supported by the Linux kernel should also be supported by the boot disks. You may need to load your network driver as a module; this means that you will have to install the operating system kernel and modules using some other media. 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 3.6. Pre-Installation Hardware and Operating System Setup 3.6.1. 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 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, and make some initial system settings. 13. Install additional software (tasks and/or packages), at your discretion. 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, and runs debootstrap to install the base system packages. 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. Upon loading the new base system, base-config supervises adding users, setting a time zone (via tzsetup), and setting up the package installation system (using apt-setup). It then launches tasksel which can be used to select large groups of related programs, and in turn can run aptitude which allows you to choose individual software packages. When debian-installer finishes, before the first system load, you have only a very basic command line driven system. The graphical interface which displays windows on your monitor will not be installed unless you select it during the final steps, with either tasksel or aptitude. It's optional 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 system is completely separate from debian-installer, and in fact is much more complicated. Installation and trouble shooting of the X window installation 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 should count on 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 sarge 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. 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. * 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 for Linux is improving daily. However, Linux still does not run as many different types of hardware as some operating systems. 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. Table 3.2. Recommended Minimum System Requirements +----------------------------------------+ |Install Type| RAM | Hard Drive | |------------+-------------+-------------| |No desktop |24 megabytes |450 megabytes| |------------+-------------+-------------| |With Desktop|64 megabytes |1 gigabyte | |------------+-------------+-------------| |Server |128 megabytes|4 gigabytes | +----------------------------------------+ Here is a sampling of some common Debian system configurations. You can also get an idea of the disk space used by related groups of programs by referring to Section C.3, "Disk Space Needed for Tasks". Standard Server This is a small server profile, useful for a stripped down server which does not have a lot of niceties for shell users. It includes an FTP server, a web server, DNS, NIS, and POP. For these 100MB of disk space would suffice, and then you would need to add space for any data you serve up. Desktop A standard desktop box, including the X window system, full desktop environments, sound, editors, etc. You'll need about 2GB using the standard desktop task, though it can be done in far less. Work Console A more stripped-down user machine, without the X window system or X applications. Possibly suitable for a laptop or mobile computer. The size is around 140MB. Developer A desktop setup with all the development packages, such as Perl, C, C++, etc. Size is around 475MB. Assuming you are adding X11 and some additional packages for other uses, you should plan around 800MB for this type of machine. 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. 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 20MB. Also, apt-get puts downloaded packages here before they are installed. You should usually allocate at least 100MB for /var. 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 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. 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 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. 3.6. 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. Hardware Issues to Watch Out For 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. One of the authors of this document over-clocked 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. The gcc compiler is often the first thing to die from bad memory modules (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-existent address. The symptom of this will be gcc dying from an unexpected signal. 3.6.1.1. More than 64 MB RAM The Linux Kernel cannot always detect what amount of RAM you have. If this is the case please look at Section 5.2, "Boot Parameters". 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. Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting 4.3.1. Setting up RARP server 4.3.2. Setting up BOOTP server 4.3.3. Setting up a DHCP server 4.3.4. Enabling the TFTP Server 4.3.5. Move TFTP Images Into Place 4.4. Automatic Installation 4.4.1. 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 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 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/sarge/main/installer-arm/current/images/ -- the MANIFEST lists each image and its purpose. 4.2.1.1. RiscPC Installation Files The RiscPC installer is booted initially from RISC OS. All the necessary files are provided in one Zip archive, .../current/riscpc/dinstall.zip. Download this file onto the RISC OS machine, copy the linloader.!Boot components into place, and run !dInstall. 4.2.1.2. NetWinder Installation Files The easiest way to boot a NetWinder is over the network, using the supplied TFTP image .../current/netwinder/tftpboot.img . 4.2.1.3. CATS Installation Files The only supported boot method for CATS is to use the combined image .../ current/cats/tftpboot.img . This can be loaded from any device accessible to the Cyclone bootloader. 4.3. 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 BOOTP server , or RARP server , or DHCP server. The Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) is one way to tell your client what IP address to use for itself. Another way is to use the BOOTP protocol. 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. 4.3.1. Setting up RARP server To setup RARP, you need to know the Ethernet address (a.k.a. the MAC address) of the client computers to be installed. If you don't know this information, you can boot into "Rescue" mode (e.g., from the rescue floppy) and use the command /sbin/ifconfig eth0. On a RARP server system using a Linux 2.2.x kernel, you need to populate the kernel's RARP table. To do this, run the following commands: # /sbin/rarp -s client-hostname client-enet-addr # /usr/sbin/arp -s client-ip client-enet-addr If you get SIOCSRARP: Invalid argument you probably need to load the RARP kernel module or else recompile the kernel to support RARP. Try modprobe rarp and then try the rarp command again. On a RARP server system using a Linux 2.4.x kernel, there is no RARP module, and you should instead use the rarpd program. The procedure is similar to that used under SunOS in the following paragraph. Under SunOS, you need to ensure that the Ethernet hardware address for the client is listed in the "ethers" database (either in the /etc/ethers file, or via NIS/NIS+) and in the "hosts" database. Then you need to start the RARP daemon. In SunOS 4, issue the command (as root): /usr/etc/rarpd -a; in SunOS 5, use /usr/sbin/rarpd -a. 4.3.2. Setting up BOOTP server There are two BOOTP servers available for GNU/Linux, the CMU bootpd and the other is actually a DHCP server, ISC dhcpd, which are contained in the bootp and dhcp packages in Debian GNU/Linux. 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. Elsewhere, 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 4.3.5, "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 4.3.3, "Setting up a DHCP server". Otherwise, 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/dhcpd restart. 4.3.3. Setting up a DHCP server One free software DHCP server is ISC dhcpd. In Debian GNU/Linux, this is available in the dhcp package. Here is a sample configuration file for it (usually /etc/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; } Note: the new (and preferred) dhcp3 package uses /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf. 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 /dhcpd restart. 4.3.4. 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. Look in that file and remember the directory which is used as the argument of in.tftpd; you'll need that below. The -l argument enables some versions of in.tftpd to log all requests to the system logs; this is useful for diagnosing boot errors. 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. 4.3.5. 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. Generally, this directory will be /tftpboot. You'll 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. 4.4. 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. 4.4.1. 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. Although most dialogs used by debian-installer can be preseeded using this method, there are some notable exceptions. You can (re)partition an entire disk or use available free space on a disk; it is not possible to use existing partitions. You currently cannot use preseeding to set up RAID and LVM. Also, with the exception of network driver modules, it is not possible to preconfigure kernel module parameters. The preconfiguration file is in the format used by the debconf-set-selections command. A well documented and working example that you can edit is in Section C.1, "Preconfiguration File Example". Alternatively, one way to get a complete file listing all the values that can be preseeded is to do a manual install, and then use debconf-get-selections, from the debconf-utils package, to dump both the debconf database and the cdebconf database in /var/log/debian-installer/cdebconf to a single file: $ debconf-get-selections --installer > file $ debconf-get-selections >> file However, a file generated in this manner will have some items that should not be preseeded, and the file in Section C.1, "Preconfiguration File Example" is a better starting place for most users. Once you have a preconfiguration file, you can edit it if necessary, and place it on a web server, or copy it onto the installer's boot media. Wherever you place the file, you need to pass a parameter to the installer at boot time to tell it to use the file. To make the installer use a preconfiguration file downloaded from the network, add preseed/url=http://url/to/preseed.cfg to the kernel boot parameters. Of course the preconfiguration will not take effect until the installer manages to set up the network to download the file, so this is most useful if the installer can set up the network via DHCP without asking any questions. You may want to set the installation priority to critical to avoid any questions while the network is being configured. See Section 5.2.1, "Debian Installer Parameters". To place a preconfiguration file on a CD, you would need to remaster the ISO image to include your preconfiguration file. See the manual page for mkisofs for details. Alternatively, put the preseed file on a floppy, and use preseed/ file=/floppy/preseed.cfg Chapter 5. Booting the Installation System Table of Contents 5.1. Booting the Installer on ARM 5.1.1. Booting from TFTP 5.1.2. Booting from CD-ROM 5.2. Boot Parameters 5.2.1. Debian Installer Parameters 5.3. Troubleshooting the Installation Process 5.3.1. Boot Configuration 5.3.2. Interpreting the Kernel Startup Messages 5.3.3. Bug Reporter 5.3.4. Submitting Installation Reports 5.1. Booting the Installer on ARM 5.1.1. Booting from 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 4.3, "Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting". 5.1.1.1. Booting from TFTP on NetWinder NetWinders have two network interfaces: The 10Mbps NE2000-compatible card is eth0 and the 100Mbps Tulip card is eth1. Note You need NeTTrom 2.2.1 or later to boot the installation system. NeTTrom 2.3.3 is recommended: get these files from ftp://ftp.netwinder.org/pub/netwinder/ firmware/: * nettrom-2.3-3.armv4l.rpm * nettrom-2.3.3.bin * nettrom-2.3.3.bin.md5sum After rebooting and interrupting the boot process during the countdown, you must first configure the network either with a static address: NeTTrom command-> setenv eth0_ip 192.168.0.10/24 where 24 is the number of set bits in the netmask, or a dynamic address: NeTTrom command-> boot diskless You may also need to configure the route1 settings if the TFTP server is not on the local subnet. The rest of the config is pretty standard (the save-all step is optional): NeTTrom command-> setenv kerntftpserver 192.168.0.1 NeTTrom command-> setenv kerntftpfile boot.img NeTTrom command-> save-all NeTTrom command-> setenv netconfig_eth0 flash NeTTrom command-> setenv kernconfig tftp NeTTrom command-> setenv rootdev /dev/ram NeTTrom command-> setenv cmdappend root=/dev/ram Only the last four of these interfere with normal disk booting, so it is safe to issue save-all right before them, which will store the network settings in case you need to boot from the network again. If you want to use the serial console to install your NetWinder, you also need the following setting: NeTTrom command-> setenv cmdappend root=/dev/ram console=ttyS0,115200 Use the printenv command to review your environment settings. Finally, if your cmdappend NeTTrom variable has the noinitrd option, you must remove it so the downloaded kernel can boot with its attached ramdisk. 5.1.1.2. Booting from TFTP on CATS On CATS machines, use boot de0: or similar at the Cyclone prompt. 5.1.2. Booting from 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 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". To boot a CD-ROM from the Cyclone console prompt, use the command boot cd0:cats.bin 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 with a serial console, generally the kernel will autodetect this. If you have a videocard (framebuffer) and a keyboard also attached to the computer which you wish to boot via serial console, you may have to pass the console=device argument to the kernel, where device is your serial device, which is usually something like ttyS0. 5.2.1. Debian Installer Parameters The installation system recognizes a few additional boot parameters^[2] which may be useful. debconf/priority This parameter sets the lowest priority of messages to be displayed. The default installation uses debconf/priority=high. This means that both high and critical priority messages are shown, but medium and low priority messages are skipped. If problems are encountered, the installer adjusts the priority as needed. If you add debconf/priority=medium as boot parameter, you will be shown the installation menu and gain more control over the installation. When debconf /priority=low is used, all messages are shown (this is equivalent to the expert boot method). With debconf/priority=critical, the installation system will display only critical messages and try to do the right thing without fuss. DEBIAN_FRONTEND This boot parameter controls the type of user interface used for the installer. The current possible parameter settings are: * DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive * DEBIAN_FRONTEND=text * DEBIAN_FRONTEND=newt * DEBIAN_FRONTEND=slang * DEBIAN_FRONTEND=ncurses * DEBIAN_FRONTEND=bogl * DEBIAN_FRONTEND=gtk * DEBIAN_FRONTEND=corba The default front end is DEBIAN_FRONTEND=newt. DEBIAN_FRONTEND=text may be preferable for serial console installs. Generally only the newt frontend is available on default install media, so this is not very useful right now. BOOT_DEBUG Setting this boot parameter to 2 will cause the installer's boot process to be verbosely logged. Setting it to 3 makes debug shells available at strategic points in the boot process. (Exit the shells to continue the boot process.) BOOT_DEBUG=0 This is the default. BOOT_DEBUG=1 More verbose than usual. BOOT_DEBUG=2 Lots of debugging information. BOOT_DEBUG=3 Shells are run at various points in the boot process to allow detailed debugging. Exit the shell to continue the boot. INSTALL_MEDIA_DEV The value of the parameter is the path to the device to load the Debian installer from. For example, INSTALL_MEDIA_DEV=/dev/floppy/0 The boot floppy, which normally scans all floppies and USB storage devices it can to find the root floppy, can be overridden by this parameter to only look at the one device. debian-installer/framebuffer Some architectures use the kernel framebuffer to offer installation in a number of languages. If framebuffer causes a problem on your system you can disable the feature by the parameter debian-installer/framebuffer=false. Problem symptoms are error messages about bterm or bogl, a blank screen, or a freeze within a few minutes after starting the install. debian-installer/probe/usb Set to false to prevent probing for USB on boot, if that causes problems. netcfg/disable_dhcp By default, the debian-installer automatically probes for network configuration via DHCP. If the probe succeeds, you won't have a chance to review and change the obtained settings. You can get to the manual network setup only in case the DHCP probe fails. If you have a DHCP server on your local network, but want to avoid it because e.g. it gives wrong answers, you can use the parameter netcfg/ disable_dhcp=true to prevent configuring the network with DHCP and to enter the information manually. hw-detect/start_pcmcia Set to false to prevent starting PCMCIA services, if that causes problems. Some laptops are well known for this misbehavior. preseed/url Specify the url to a preconfiguration file to download and use in automating the install. See Section 4.4, "Automatic Installation". preseed/file Specify the path to a preconfiguration file to load to automating the install. See Section 4.4, "Automatic Installation". ramdisk_size If you are using a 2.2.x kernel, you may need to set ramdisk_size=13000 . 5.3. Troubleshooting the Installation Process 5.3.1. Boot Configuration If you have problems and the kernel hangs during the boot process, doesn't recognize peripherals you actually have, or drives are not recognized properly, the first thing to check is the boot parameters, as discussed in Section 5.2, "Boot Parameters". If you are booting with your own kernel instead of the one supplied with the installer, be sure that CONFIG_DEVFS is set in your kernel. The installer requires CONFIG_DEVFS. Often, problems can be solved by removing add-ons and peripherals, and then trying booting again. If you have a large amount of memory installed in your machine, more than 512M, and the installer hangs when booting the kernel, you may need to include a boot argument to limit the amount of memory the kernel sees, such as mem=512m. 5.3.2. Interpreting the Kernel Startup Messages During the boot sequence, you may see 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 kernel for the installation system 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 later (see Section 8.4, "Compiling a New Kernel"). 5.3.3. Bug Reporter If you get through the initial boot phase but cannot complete the install, the bug reporter menu choice may be helpful. It copies system error logs and configuration information to a user-supplied floppy. This information may provide clues as to what went wrong and how to fix it. If you are submitting a bug report you may want to attach this information to the bug report. Other pertinent installation messages may be found in /var/log/ during the installation, and /var/log/debian-installer/ after the computer has been booted into the installed system. 5.3.4. Submitting Installation Reports If you still have problems, please submit an installation report. We also encourage installation reports to be sent even if the installation is successful, so that we can get as much information as possible on the largest number of hardware configurations. Please use this template when filling out installation reports, and file the report as a bug report against the installation-reports pseudo package, by sending it to . Package: installation-reports Boot method: Image version: Date: Machine: Processor: Memory: Partitions: Output of lspci and lspci -n: Base System Installation Checklist: [O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it Initial boot worked: [ ] Configure network HW: [ ] Config network: [ ] Detect CD: [ ] Load installer modules: [ ] Detect hard drives: [ ] Partition hard drives: [ ] Create file systems: [ ] Mount partitions: [ ] Install base system: [ ] Install boot loader: [ ] Reboot: [ ] Comments/Problems: In the bug report, describe what the problem is, including the last visible kernel messages in the event of a kernel hang. Describe the steps that you did which brought the system into the problem state. -------------- ^[2] Note that the kernel accepts a maximum of 8 command line options and 8 environment options (including any options added by default for the installer). If these numbers are exceeded, 2.4 kernels will drop any excess options and 2.6 kernels will panic. Chapter 6. Using the Debian Installer Table of Contents 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. Installing the Base System 6.3.4. Making Your System Bootable 6.3.5. Finishing the First Stage 6.3.6. Miscellaneous 6.1. How the Installer Works The Debian Installer consists of a number of special-purpose components to perform each installation task. Each component performs its task, asking the user questions as necessary to do its job. The questions themselves are given priorities, and the priority of questions to be asked is set when the installer is started. When a default installation is performed, only essential (high priority) questions will be asked. This results in a highly automated installation process with little user interaction. Components are automatically run in sequence; which components are run depends mainly on the installation method you use and on your hardware. The installer will use default values for questions that are not asked. If there is a problem, the user will see an error screen, and the installer menu may be shown in order to select some alternative action. If there are no problems, the user will never see the installer menu, but will simply answer questions for each component in turn. Serious error notifications are set to priority "critical" so the user will always be notified. Some of the defaults that the installer uses can be influenced by passing boot arguments when debian-installer is started. If, for example, you wish to force static network configuration (DHCP is used by default if available), you could add the boot parameter netcfg/disable_dhcp=true. See Section 5.2.1, "Debian Installer Parameters" for available options. Power users may be more comfortable with a menu-driven interface, where each step is controlled by the user rather than the installer performing each step automatically in sequence. To use the installer in a manual, menu-driven way, add the boot argument debconf/priority=medium. If your hardware requires you to pass options to kernel modules as they are installed, you will need to start the installer in "expert" mode. This can be done by either using the expert command to start the installer or by adding the boot argument debconf/priority=low. Expert mode gives you full control over debian-installer. The normal installer display is character-based (as opposed to the now more familiar graphical interface). The mouse is not operational in this environment. Here are the keys you can use to navigate within the various dialogs. The Tab or right arrow keys move "forward", and the Shift-Tab or left arrow keys move "backward" between displayed buttons and selections. The up and down arrow select different items within a scrollable list, and also scroll the list itself. In addition, in long lists, you can type a letter to cause the list to scroll directly to the section with items starting with the letter you typed and use Pg-Up and Pg-Down to scroll the list in sections. The space bar selects an item such as a checkbox. Use Enter to activate choices. Error messages are redirected to the third console. You can access this console by pressing Left Alt-F3 (hold the left Alt key while pressing the F3 function key); get back to the main installer process with Left Alt-F1. These messages can also be found in /var/log/messages. After installation, this log is copied to /var/log/debian-installer/messages on your new system. Other installation messages may be found in /var/log/ during the installation, and / var/log/debian-installer/ after the computer has been booted into the installed system. 6.2. Components Introduction Here is a list of installer components with a brief description of each component's purpose. Details you might need to know about using a particular component are in Section 6.3, "Using Individual Components". main-menu Shows the list of components to the user during installer operation, and starts a component when it is selected. Main-menu's questions are set to priority medium, so if your priority is set to high or critical (high is the default), you will not see the menu. On the other hand, if there is an error which requires your intervention, the question priority may be downgraded temporarily to allow you to resolve the problem, and in that case the menu may appear. You can get to the main menu by selecting the "Back" button repeatedly to back all the way out of the currently running component. languagechooser Shows a list of languages and language variants. The installer will display messages in the chosen language, unless the translation for that language is not complete. When a translation is not complete, English messages are shown. countrychooser Shows a list of countries. The user may choose the country he lives in. kbd-chooser Shows a list of keyboards, from which the user chooses the model which matches his own. hw-detect Automatically detects most of the system's hardware, including network cards, disk drives, and PCMCIA. cdrom-detect Looks for and mounts a Debian installation CD. netcfg Configures the computer's network connections so it can communicate over the internet. iso-scan Looks for ISO file systems, which may be on a CD-ROM or on the hard drive. choose-mirror Presents a list of Debian archive mirrors. The user may choose the source of his installation packages. cdrom-checker Checks integrity of a CD-ROM. This way the user may assure him/herself that the installation CD-ROM was not corrupted. lowmem Lowmem tries to detect systems with low memory and then does various tricks to remove unnecessary parts of debian-installer from the memory (at the cost of some features). anna Anna's Not Nearly APT. Installs packages which have been retrieved from the chosen mirror or CD. partman Allows the user to partition disks attached to the system, create file systems on the selected partitions, and attach them to the mountpoints. Included are also interesting features like a fully automatic mode or LVM support. This is the preferred partitioning tool in Debian. autopartkit Automatically partitions an entire disk according to preset user preferences. partitioner Allows the user to partition disks attached to the system. A partitioning program appropriate to your computer's architecture is chosen. partconf Displays a list of partitions, and creates file systems on the selected partitions according to user instructions. lvmcfg Helps the user with the configuration of the LVM (Logical Volume Manager). mdcfg Allows the user to setup Software RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks). This Software RAID is usually superior to the cheap IDE (pseudo hardware) RAID controllers found on newer motherboards. base-installer Installs the most basic set of packages which would allow the computer to operate under Linux when rebooted. os-prober Detects currently installed operating systems on the computer and passes this information to the bootloader-installer, which may offer you an ability to add discovered operating systems to the bootloader's start menu. This way the user could easily choose at the boot time which operating system to start. bootloader-installer Installs a boot loader program on the hard disk, which is necessary for the computer to start up using Linux without using a floppy or CD-ROM. Many boot loaders allow the user to choose an alternate operating system each time the computer boots. base-config Provides dialogs for setting up the base system packages according to user preferences. This is normally done after rebooting the computer; it is the "first run" of the new Debian system. shell Allows the user to execute a shell from the menu, or in the second console. bugreporter Provides a way for the user to record information on a floppy disk when trouble is encountered, in order to accurately report installer software problems to Debian developers later. 6.3. Using Individual Components In this section we will describe each installer component in detail. The components have been grouped into stages that should be recognizable for users. They are presented in the order they appear during the install. Note that not all modules will be used for every installation; which modules are actually used depends on the installation method you use and on your hardware. 6.3.1. Setting up Debian Installer and Hardware Configuration Let's assume the Debian Installer has booted and you are facing its first screen. At this time, the capabilities of debian-installer are still quite limited. It doesn't know much about your hardware, preferred language, or even the task it should perform. Don't worry. Because debian-installer is quite clever, it can automatically probe your hardware, locate the rest of its components and upgrade itself to a capable installation system. However, you still need to help debian-installer with some information it can't determine automatically (like selecting your preferred language, keyboard layout or desired network mirror). You will notice that debian-installer performs hardware detection several times during this stage. The first time is targeted specifically at the hardware needed to load installer components (e.g. your CD-ROM or network card). As not all drivers may be available during this first run, hardware detection needs to be repeated later in the process. 6.3.1.1. Check available memory One of the first things debian-installer does, is to check available memory. If the available memory is limited, this component will make some changes in the installation process which hopefully will allow you to install Debian GNU/Linux on your system. During a low memory install, not all components will be available. One of the limitations is that you won't be able to choose a language for the installation. 6.3.1.2. Language selection As the first step of the installation, select the language in which you want the installation process to proceed. The language names are listed in both English (left side) and in the language itself (right side); the names on the right side are also shown in the proper script for the language. The list is sorted on the English names. The language you choose will be used for the rest of the installation process, provided a translation of the different dialogs is available. If no valid translation is available for the selected language, the installer will default to English. The selected language will also be used to help select a suitable keyboard layout. 6.3.1.3. Country selection If you selected a language in Section 6.3.1.2, "Language selection" which has more than one country associated with it (true for Chinese, English, French, and many other languages), you can specify the country here. If you choose Other at the bottom of the list, you will be presented with a list of all countries, grouped by continent. This selection will be used later in the installation process to pick the default timezone and a Debian mirror appropriate for your geographic location. If the defaults proposed by the installer are not suitable, you can make a different choice. The selected country, together with the selected language, may also affect locale settings for your new Debian system. 6.3.1.4. Choosing a Keyboard Keyboards are often tailored to the characters used in a language. Select a layout that conforms to the keyboard you are using, or select something close if the keyboard layout you want isn't represented. Once the system installation is complete, you'll be able to select a keyboard layout from a wider range of choices (run kbdconfig as root after you have completed the installation). 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. An 'extended' keyboard is one with F1 through F10 keys along the top row. 6.3.1.5. Looking for the Debian Installer ISO Image When installing via the hd-media method, there will be a moment where you need to find and mount the Debian Installer iso image in order to get the rest of the installation files. The component iso-scan does exactly this. At first, iso-scan automatically mounts all block devices (e.g. partitions) which have some known filesystem on them and sequentially searches for filenames ending with .iso (or .ISO for that matter). Beware that the first attempt scans only files in the root directory and in the first level of subdirectories (i.e. it finds /whatever.iso, /data/whatever.iso, but not /data/ tmp/whatever.iso). After an iso image has been found, iso-scan checks its content to determine if the image is a valid Debian iso image or not. In the former case we are done, in the latter iso-scan seeks for another image. In case the previous attempt to find an installer iso image fails, iso-scan will ask you whether you would like to perform a more thorough search. This pass doesn't just look into the topmost directories, but really traverses whole filesystem. If iso-scan does not discover your installer iso image, reboot back to your original operating system and check if the image is named correctly (ending in .iso), if it is placed on a filesystem recognizable by debian-installer, and if it is not corrupted (verify the checksum). Experienced Unix users could do this without rebooting on the second console. 6.3.1.6. Configuring Network As you enter this step, if the system detects that you have more than one network device, you'll be asked to choose which device will be your primary network interface, i.e. the one which you want to use for installation. The other interfaces won't be configured at this time. You may configure additional interfaces after installation is complete; see the interfaces(5) man page. By default, debian-installer tries to configure your computer's network automatically via DHCP. If the DHCP probe succeeds, you are done. If the probe fails, it may be caused by many factors ranging from unplugged network cable, to a misconfigured DHCP setup. Or maybe you don't have a DHCP server in your local network at all. For further explanation check the error messages on the third console. In any case, you will be asked if you want to retry, or if you want to perform manual setup. DHCP servers are sometimes really slow in their responses, so if you are sure everything is in place, try again. The manual network setup in turn asks you a number of questions about your network, notably IP address, Netmask, Gateway, Name server addresses, and a Hostname. Moreover, if you have a wireless network interface, you will be asked to provide your Wireless ESSID and a WEP key. Fill in the answers from Section 3.3, "Information You Will Need". Note 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 also guess your gateway. 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/network/interfaces. Alternatively, you can install etherconf, which will step you through your network setup. 6.3.2. Partitioning and Mount Point Selection At this time, after hardware detection has been executed a final time, debian-installer should be at its full strength, customized for the user's needs and ready to do some real work. As the title of this section indicates, the main task of the next few components lies in partitioning your disks, creating filesystems, assigning mountpoints and optionally configuring closely related issues like LVM or RAID devices. 6.3.2.1. Partitioning Your Disks Now it is time to partition your disks. If you are uncomfortable with partitioning, or just want to know more details, see Appendix B, Partitioning for Debian. First you will be given the opportunity to automatically partition either an entire drive, or free space on a drive. This is also called "guided" partitioning. If you do not want to autopartition, choose Manually edit partition table from the menu. If you choose guided partitioning, you will be able to choose from the schemes listed in the table below. All schemes have their pros and cons, some of which are discussed in Appendix B, Partitioning for Debian. If you are unsure, choose the first one. Bear in mind, that guided partitioning needs certain minimal amount of free space to operate with. If you don't give it at least about 1GB of space (depends on chosen scheme), guided partitioning will fail. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Partitioning scheme |Minimum space| Created partitions | |--------------------------+-------------+--------------------------------| |All files in one partition|600MB |/, swap | |--------------------------+-------------+--------------------------------| |Desktop machine |500MB |/, /home, swap | |--------------------------+-------------+--------------------------------| |Multi-user workstation |1GB |/, /home, /usr, /var, /tmp, swap| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ After selecting a scheme, the next screen will show your new partition table, including information on whether and how partitions will be formatted and where they will be mounted. The list of partitions might look like this: IDE1 master (hda) - 6.4 GB WDC AC36400L #1 primary 16.4 MB ext2 /boot #2 primary 551.0 MB swap swap #3 primary 5.8 GB ntfs pri/log 8.2 MB FREE SPACE IDE1 slave (hdb) - 80.0 GB ST380021A #1 primary 15.9 MB ext3 #2 primary 996.0 MB fat16 #3 primary 3.9 GB xfs /home #5 logical 6.0 GB ext3 / #6 logical 1.0 GB ext3 /var #7 logical 498.8 MB ext3 #8 logical 551.5 MB swap swap #9 logical 65.8 GB ext2 This example shows two IDE harddrives divided into several partitions; the first disk has some free space. Each partition line consists of the partition number, its type, size, optional flags, file system, and mountpoint (if any). This concludes the guided partitioning. If you are satisfied with the generated partition table, you can choose Finish partitioning and write changes to disk from the menu to implement the new partition table (as described at the end of this section). If you are not happy, you can choose to Undo changes to partitions, to run guided partitioning again or modify the proposed changes as described below for manual partitioning. A similar screen to the one shown just above will be displayed if you choose manual partitioning except that your existing partition table will be shown and without the mount points. How to manually setup your partition table and the usage of partitions by your new Debian system will be covered in the remainder of this section. If you select a pristine disk which doesn't have neither partitions nor free space on it, you will be offered to create a new partition table (this is needed so you can create new partitions). After this a new line entitled "FREE SPACE" should appear under the selected disk. If you select some free space, you will be offered to create new partition. You will have to answer a quick series of questions about its size, type (primary or logical), and location (beginning or end of the free space). After this, you will be presented with detailed overview of your new partition. There are options like mountpoint, mount options, bootable flag, or way of usage. If you don't like the preselected defaults, feel free to change them to your liking. E.g. by selecting the option Use as:, you can choose different filesystem for this partition including the possibility to use the partition for swap, software RAID, LVM, or not use it at all. Other nice feature is the possibility to copy data from existing partition onto this one. When you are satisfied with your new partition, select Done setting up the partition and you will be thrown back to the partman's main screen. If you decide you want to change something about your partition, simply select the partition, which will bring you to the partition configuration menu. Because this is the same screen like when creating a new partition, you can change the same set of options. One thing which might not be very obvious at a first glance is that you can resize the partition by selecting the item displaying the size of the partition. Filesystems known to work are at least fat16, fat32, ext2, ext3 and swap. This menu also allows you to delete a partition. Be sure to create at least two partitions: one for the root filesystem (which must be mounted as /) and one for swap. If you forget to mount the root filesystem, partman won't let you continue until you correct this issue. Capabilities of partman can be extended with installer modules, but are dependent on your system's architecture. So if you can't see all promised goodies, check if you have loaded all required modules (e.g. partman-ext3, partman-xfs, or partman-lvm). After you are satisfied with partitioning, select Finish partitioning and write changes to disk from the partitioning menu. You will be presented with a summary of changes made to the disks and asked to confirm that the filesystems should be created as requested. 6.3.2.2. Configuring Logical Volume Manager (LVM) If you are working with computers at the level of system administrator or "advanced" user, you have surely seen the situation where some disk partition (usually the most important one) was short on space, while some other partition was grossly underused and you had to manage this situation with moving stuff around, symlinking, etc. To avoid the described situation you can use Logical Volume Manager (LVM). Simply said, with LVM you can combine your partitions (physical volumes in LVM lingo) to form a virtual disc (so called volume group), which can then be divided into virtual partitions (logical volumes). The point is that logical volumes (and of course underlying volume groups) can span across several physical discs. Now when you realize you need more space for your old 160GB /home partition, you can simply add a new 300GB disc to the computer, join it with your existing volume group and then resize the logical volume which holds your /home filesystem and voila -- your users have some room again on their renewed 460GB partition. This example is of course a bit oversimplified. If you haven't read it yet, you should consult the LVM HOWTO. LVM setup in debian-installer is quite simple. At first, you have to mark your partitions to be used as physical volumes for LVM. (This is done in partman in the Partition settings menu where you should select Use as:->physical volume for LVM.) Then start the lvmcfg module (either directly from partman or from the debian-installer's main menu) and combine physical volumes to volume group (s) under the Modify volume groups (VG) menu. After that, you should create logical volumes on the top of volume groups from the menu Modify logical volumes (LV). After returning from lvmcfg back to partman, you will see any created logical volumes in the same way as ordinary partitions (and you should treat them like that). 6.3.2.3. Configuring Multidisk Device (Software RAID) If you have more than one harddrive^[3] in your computer, you can use mdcfg to setup your drives for increased performance and/or better reliability of your data. The result is called Multidisk Device (or after its most famous variant software RAID). MD is basically a bunch of partitions located on different disks and combined together to form a logical device. This device can then be used like an ordinary partition (i.e. in partman you can format it, assign a mountpoint, etc.). The benefit you gain depends on a type of a MD device you are creating. Currently supported are: RAID0 Is mainly aimed at performance. RAID0 splits all incoming data into stripes and distributes them equally over each disk in the array. This can increase the speed of read/write operations, but when one of the disks fails, you will loose everything (part of the information is still on the healthy disk (s), the other part was on the failed disk). The typical use for RAID0 is a partition for video editing. RAID1 Is suitable for setups where reliability is the first concern. It consists of several (usually two) equally sized partitions where every partition contains exactly the same data. This essentially means three things. First, if one of your disks fails, you still have the data mirrored on the remaining disks. Second, you can use only a fraction of the available capacity (more precisely, it is the size of the smallest partition in the RAID). Third, file reads are load balanced among the disks, which can improve performance on a server, such as a file server, that tends to be loaded with more disk reads than writes. Optionally you can have a spare disk in the array which will take the place of the failed disk in the case of failure. RAID5 Is a good compromise between speed, reliability and data redundancy. RAID5 splits all incomming data into stripes and distributes them equally on all but one disks (similar to RAID0). Unlike RAID0, RAID5 also computes parity information, which gets written on the remaining disk. The parity disk is not static (that would be called RAID4), but is changing periodically, so the parity information is distributed equally on all disks. When one of the disks fails, the missing part of information can be computed from remaining data and its parity. RAID5 must consist of at least three active partitions. Optionally you can have a spare disk in the array which will take the place of the failed disk in the case of failure. As you can see, RAID5 has similar degree of reliability like RAID1 while achieving less redundancy. On the other hand it might be a bit slower on write operation than RAID0 due to computation of parity information. To sum it up: +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | |Minimum | Spare | Survives | | |Type |Devices | Device | disk | Available Space | | | | | failure? | | |-----+--------+--------+-----------+-----------------------------------------| |RAID0|2 |no |no |Size of the smallest partition multiplied| | | | | |by number of devices in RAID | |-----+--------+--------+-----------+-----------------------------------------| |RAID1|2 |optional|yes |Size of the smallest partition in RAID | |-----+--------+--------+-----------+-----------------------------------------| |RAID5|3 |optional|yes |Size of the smallest partition multiplied| | | | | |by (number of devices in RAID minus one) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you want to know the whole truth about Software RAID, have a look at Software RAID HOWTO. To create a MD device, you need to have the desired partitions it should consist of marked for use in a RAID. (This is done in partman in the Partition settings menu where you should select Use as:->physical volume for RAID.) Warning Support for MD is a relatively new addition to the installer. You may experience problems for some RAID levels and in combination with some bootloaders if you try to use MD for the root (/) filesystem. For experienced users, it may be possible to work around some of these problems by executing some configuration or installation steps manually from a shell. Next, you should choose Configure software RAID from the main partman menu. On the first screen of mdcfg simply select Create MD device. You will be presented with a list of supported types of MD devices, from which you should choose one (e.g. RAID1). What follows depends on the type of MD you selected. * RAID0 is simple -- you will be issued with the list of available RAID partitions and your only task is to select the partitions which will form the MD. * RAID1 is a bit more tricky. First, you will be asked to enter the number of active devices and the number of spare devices which will form the MD. Next, you need to select from the list of available RAID partitions those that will be active and then those that will be spare. The count of selected partitions must be equal to the number provided few seconds ago. Don't worry. If you make a mistake and select different number of partitions, the debian-installer won't let you continue until you correct the issue. * RAID5 has similar setup procedure as RAID1 with the exception that you need to use at least three active partitions. It is perfectly possible to have several types of MD at once. For example if you have three 200 GB hard drives dedicated to MD, each containing two 100 GB partitions, you can combine first partitions on all three disk into the RAID0 (fast 300 GB video editing partition) and use the other three partitions (2 active and 1 spare) for RAID1 (quite reliable 100 GB partition for /home). After you setup MD devices to your liking, you can Finish mdcfg to return back to the partman to create filesystems on your new MD devices and assign them the usual attributes like mountpoints. 6.3.3. Installing the Base System Although this stage is the least problematic, it consumes most time of the install because it downloads, verifies and unpacks the whole base system. If you have a slow computer or network connection, this could take some time. 6.3.3.1. Base System Installation During the Base installation, package unpacking and setup messages are redirected to tty3. You can access this terminal by pressing Left Alt-F3; get back to the main installer process with Left Alt-F1. The unpack/setup messages generated by the base installation are saved in /var/ log/messages when the installation is performed over a serial console. As part of the installation, a Linux kernel will be installed. At the default priority, the installer will choose one for you that best matches your hardware. In lower priority modes, you will be able to choose from a list of available kernels. 6.3.4. Making Your System Bootable If you are installing a diskless workstation, obviously, booting off the local disk isn't a meaningful option, and this step will be skipped. Note that multiple operating systems booting on a single machine is still something of a black art. This document does not even attempt to document the various boot managers, which vary by architecture and even by subarchitecture. You should see your boot manager's documentation for more information. 6.3.4.1. Detecting other operating systems Before a boot loader is installed, the installer will attempt to probe for other operating systems which are installed on the machine. If it finds a supported operating system, you will be informed of this during the boot loader installation step, and the computer will be configured to boot this other operating system in addition to Debian. Note that multiple operating systems booting on a single machine is still something of a black art. The automatic support for detecting and setting up boot loaders to boot other operating systems varies by architecture and even by subarchitecture. If it does not work you should consult your boot manager's documentation for more information. Note The installer may fail to detect other operating systems if the partitions on which they reside are mounted when the detection takes place. This may occur if you select a mountpoint (e.g. /win) for a partition containing another operating system in partman, or if you have mounted partitions manually from a console. 6.3.4.2. Continue Without Boot Loader This option can be used to complete the installation even when no boot loader is to be installed, either because the arch/subarch doesn't provide one, or because none is desired (e.g. you will use existing boot loader). If you plan to manually configure your bootloader, you should check the name of the installed kernel in /target/boot. You should also check that directory for the presence of an initrd; if one is present, you will probably have to instruct your bootloader to use it. Other information you will need are the disk and partition you selected for your / filesystem and, if you chose to install /boot on a separate partition, also your /boot filesystem. 6.3.5. Finishing the First Stage These are the last bits to do before rebooting to your new Debian. It mostly consists of tidying up after the debian-installer. 6.3.5.1. Finish the Installation and Reboot This is the last step in the initial Debian installation process. You will be prompted to remove the boot media (CD, floppy, etc) that you used to boot the installer. The installer will do any last minute tasks, and then reboot into your new Debian system. 6.3.6. Miscellaneous The components listed in this section are usually not involved in the installation process, but are waiting in the background to help the user in case something goes wrong. 6.3.6.1. Saving the installation logs If the installation is successful, the logfiles created during the installation process will be automatically saved to /var/log/debian-installer/ on your new Debian system. Choosing Save debug logs from the main menu allows you to save the log files to a floppy disk. This can be useful if you encounter fatal problems during the installation and wish to study the logs on another system or attach them to an installation report. 6.3.6.2. Using the Shell and Viewing the Logs There is an Execute a Shell item on the menu. If the menu is not available when you need to use the shell, press Left Alt-F2 (on a Mac keyboard, Option-F2) to switch 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 and by typing help. The text editor is nano. The shell has some nice features like autocompletion and history. 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 Left Alt-F1 to get back to menus, or type exit if you used a menu item to open the shell. 6.3.6.3. Installation Over the Network One of the more interesting components is network-console. It allows you to do a large part of the installation over the network via SSH. The use of the network implies you will have to perform the first steps of the installation from the console, at least to the point of setting up the networking. (Although you can automate that part with Section 4.4, "Automatic Installation".) This component is not loaded into the main installation menu by default, so you have to explicitly ask for it. If you are installing from CD, you need to boot with medium priority or otherwise invoke the main installation menu and choose Load installer components from CD and from the list of additional components select network-console: Continue installation remotely using SSH. Successful load is indicated by a new menu entry called Continue installation remotely using SSH. After selecting this new entry, you will be asked for a new password to be used for connecting to the installation system and for its confirmation. That's all. Now you should see a screen which instructs you to login remotely as the user installer with the password you just provided. Another important detail to notice on this screen is the fingerprint of this system. You need to transfer the fingerprint securely to the "person who will continue the installation remotely". Should you decide to continue with the installation locally, you can always press Enter, which will bring you back to the main menu, where you can select another component. Now let's switch to the other side of the wire. As a prerequisite, you need to configure your terminal for UTF-8 encoding, because that is what the installation system uses. If you do not, remote installation will be still possible, but you may encounter strange display artefacts like destroyed dialog borders or unreadable non-ascii characters. Establishing a connection with the installation system is as simple as typing: $ ssh -l installer install_host Where install_host is either the name or IP address of the computer being installed. Before the actual login the fingerprint of the remote system will be displayed and you will have to confirm that it is correct. Note If you install several computers in turn and they happen to have the same IP address or hostname, ssh will refuse to connect to such host. The reason is that it will have different fingerprint, which is usually a sign of a spoofing attack. If you are sure this is not the case, you will need to delete the relevant line from ~/.ssh/known_hosts and try again. After the login you will be presented with an initial screen where you have two possibilities called Start menu and Start shell. The former brings you to the main installer menu, where you can continue with the installation as usual. The latter starts a shell from which you can examine and possibly fix the remote system. You should only start one SSH session for the installation menu, but may start multiple sessions for shells. Warning After you have started the installation remotely over SSH, you should not go back to the installation session running on the local console. Doing so may corrupt the database that holds the configuration of the new system. This in turn may result in a failed installation or problems with the installed system. Also, if you are running the SSH session from an X terminal, you should not resize the window as that will result in the connection being terminated. 6.3.6.4. Running base-config From Within debian-installer It is possible to configure the base system within the first stage installer (before rebooting from the hard drive), by running base-config in a chroot environment. This is mainly useful for testing the installer and should normally be avoided. -------------- ^[3] To be honest, you can construct MD device even from partitions residing on single physical drive, but that won't bring you anything useful. Chapter 7. Booting Into Your New Debian System Table of Contents 7.1. The Moment of Truth 7.2. Debian Post-Boot (Base) Configuration 7.2.1. Configuring Your Time Zone 7.2.2. Setting Up Users And Passwords 7.2.3. Setting Up PPP 7.2.4. Configuring APT 7.2.5. Package Installation 7.2.6. Prompts During Software Installation 7.2.7. Configuring Your Mail Transport Agent 7.3. Log In 7.1. The Moment of Truth Your system's first boot on its own power is what electrical engineers call the "smoke test". If you are booting directly into Debian, and the system doesn't start up, either use your original installation boot media, or insert the custom boot floppy if you have one, and reset your system. This way, you will probably need to add some boot arguments like root=root, where root is your root partition, such as /dev/sda1. 7.2. Debian Post-Boot (Base) Configuration After booting, you will be prompted to complete the configuration of your basic system, and then to select what additional packages you wish to install. The application which guides you through this process is called base-config. Its concept is very similar to the debian-installer from the first stage. Indeed, base-config consists of a number of specialized components, where each component handles one configuration task, contains "hidden menu in the background" and also uses the same navigation system. If you wish to re-run the base-config at any point after installation is complete, as root run base-config. 7.2.1. Configuring Your Time Zone After a welcome screen, you will be prompted to configure your time zone. First select whether the hardware clock of your system is set to local time or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT or UTC). The time displayed in the dialog may help you decide on the correct option. Depending on the location selected at the beginning of the installation process, you will next be shown either a single timezone or a list of timezones relevant for that location. If a single timezone is shown, choose Yes to confirm or choose No to select from the full list of timezones. If a list is shown, select your timezone from the list, or select Other for the full list. 7.2.2. Setting Up Users And Passwords 7.2.2.1. Set the Root Password The root account is also called the super-user; it is a login that bypasses all security protection on your system. The root account should only be used to perform system administration, and only used for as short a time as possible. Any password you create should contain at least 6 characters, and should contain both upper- and lower-case characters, as well as punctuation characters. Take extra care when setting your root password, since it is such a powerful account. Avoid dictionary words or use of any personal information which could be guessed. If anyone ever tells you they need your root password, be extremely wary. You should normally never give your root password out, unless you are administering a machine with more than one system administrator. 7.2.2.2. Create an Ordinary User The system will ask you whether you wish to create an ordinary user account at this point. This account should be your main personal log-in. You should not use the root account for daily use or as your personal login. Why not? Well, one reason to avoid using root's privileges is that it is very easy to do irreparable damage as root. Another reason is that you might be tricked into running a Trojan-horse program -- that is a program that takes advantage of your super-user powers 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 is new to you. You will first be prompted for the user's full name. Then you'll be asked for a name for the user account; generally your first name or something simi