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Installation Howto

This document describes how to install &debian; &releasename; for the &arch-title; (<quote>&architecture;</quote>) with the new &d-i;. It is a quick walkthrough of the installation process which should contain all the information you will need for most installs. When more information can be useful, we will link to more detailed explanations in other parts of this document.

Preliminaries

<phrase condition="unofficial-build"> The debian-installer is still in a beta state. </phrase> If you encounter bugs during your install, please refer to <xref linkend="submit-bug"/> for instructions on how to report them. If you have questions which cannot be answered by this document, please direct them to the debian-boot mailing list (&email-debian-boot-list;) or ask on IRC (#debian-boot on the OFTC network).

Booting the installer

<phrase condition="unofficial-build"> For some quick links to CD images, check out the <ulink url="&url-d-i;"> &d-i; home page</ulink>. </phrase> The debian-cd team provides builds of CD images using &d-i; on the <ulink url="&url-debian-cd;">Debian CD page</ulink>. For more information on where to get CDs, see <xref linkend="official-cdrom"/>.

Some installation methods require other images than CD images. <phrase condition="unofficial-build"> The <ulink url="&url-d-i;">&d-i; home page</ulink> has links to other images. </phrase> <xref linkend="where-files"/> explains how to find images on Debian mirrors.

The subsections below will give the details about which images you should get for each possible means of installation.

CDROM

There are two different netinst CD images which can be used to install &releasename; with the &d-i;. These images are intended to boot from CD and install additional packages over a network, hence the name 'netinst'. The difference between the two images is that on the full netinst image the base packages are included, whereas you have to download these from the web if you are using the business card image. If you'd rather, you can get a full size CD image which will not need the network to install. You only need the first CD of the set.

Download whichever type you prefer and burn it to a CD. <phrase arch="x86">To boot the CD, you may need to change your BIOS configuration, as explained in <xref linkend="bios-setup"/>.</phrase> <phrase arch="powerpc"> To boot a PowerMac from CD, press the <keycap>c</keycap> key while booting. See <xref linkend="boot-cd"/> for other ways to boot from CD. </phrase>

Floppy

If you can't boot from CD, you can download floppy images to install Debian. You need the <filename>floppy/boot.img</filename>, the <filename>floppy/root.img</filename> and one or more of the driver disks.

The boot floppy is the one with <filename>boot.img</filename> on it. This floppy, when booted, will prompt you to insert a second floppy &mdash; use the one with <filename>root.img</filename> on it.

If you're planning to install over the network, you will usually need the <filename>floppy/net-drivers-1.img</filename>. For PCMCIA or USB networking, and some less common network cards, you will also need a second driver floppy, <filename>floppy/net-drivers-2.img</filename>.

If you have a CD, but cannot boot from it, then boot from floppies and use <filename>floppy/cd-drivers.img</filename> on a driver disk to complete the install using the CD.

Floppy disks are one of the least reliable media around, so be prepared for lots of bad disks (see <xref linkend="unreliable-floppies"/>). Each <filename>.img</filename> file you downloaded goes on a single floppy; you can use the dd command to write it to /dev/fd0 or some other means (see <xref linkend="create-floppy"/> for details). Since you'll have more than one floppy, it's a good idea to label them.

USB memory stick

It's also possible to install from removable USB storage devices. For example a USB keychain can make a handy Debian install medium that you can take with you anywhere.

The easiest way to prepare your USB memory stick is to download <filename>hd-media/boot.img.gz</filename>, and use gunzip to extract the 256 MB image from that file. Write this image directly to your memory stick, which must be at least 256 mb in size. Of course this will destroy anything already on the memory stick. Then mount the memory stick, which will now have a FAT filesystem on it. Next, download a Debian netinst CD image, and copy that file to the memory stick; any filename is ok as long as it ends in <literal>.iso</literal>.

There are other, more flexible ways to set up a memory stick to use the debian-installer, and it's possible to get it to work with smaller memory sticks. For details, see <xref linkend="boot-usb-files"/>.

Some BIOSes can boot USB storage directly, and some cannot. You may need to configure your BIOS to boot from a <quote>removable drive</quote> or even a <quote>USB-ZIP</quote> to get it to boot from the USB device. For helpful hints and details, see <xref linkend="usb-boot"/>.

Booting Macintosh systems from USB storage devices involves manual use of Open Firmware. For directions, see <xref linkend="usb-boot"/>.

Booting from network

It's also possible to boot &d-i; completely from the net. The various methods to netboot depend on your architecture and netboot setup. The files in <filename>netboot/</filename> can be used to netboot &d-i;.

The easiest thing to set up is probably PXE netbooting. Untar the file <filename>netboot/pxeboot.tar.gz</filename> into <filename>/var/lib/tftpboot</filename> or wherever is appropriate for your tftp server. Set up your DHCP server to pass filename <filename>/pxelinux.0</filename> to clients, and with luck everything will just work. For detailed instructions, see <xref linkend="install-tftp"/>.

Booting from hard disk

It's possible to boot the installer using no removable media, but just an existing hard disk, which can have a different OS on it. Download <filename>hd-media/initrd.gz</filename>, <filename>hd-media/vmlinuz</filename>, and a Debian CD image to the top-level directory of the hard disk. Make sure that the CD image has a filename ending in <literal>.iso</literal>. Now it's just a matter of booting linux with the initrd. <phrase arch="x86"> <xref linkend="boot-initrd"/> explains one way to do it. </phrase>

Installation

Once the installer starts, you will be greeted with an initial screen. Press &enterkey; to boot, or read the instructions for other boot methods and parameters (see <xref linkend="boot-parms"/>).

After a while you will be asked to select your language. Use the arrow keys to pick a language and press &enterkey; to continue. Next you'll be asked to select your country, with the choices including countries where your language is spoken. If it's not on the short list, a list of all the countries in the world is available.

You may be asked to confirm your keyboard layout. Choose the default unless you know better.

Now sit back while debian-installer detects some of your hardware, and loads the rest of itself from CD, floppy, USB, etc.

Next the installer will try to detect your network hardware and set up networking by DHCP. If you are not on a network or do not have DHCP, you will be given the opportunity to configure the network manually.

If you have an existing DOS or Windows partition that you want to preserve, be very careful with automatic partitioning. If you choose manual partitioning, you can use the installer to resize existing FAT or NTFS partitions to create room for the Debian install: simply select the partition and specify its new size.

Now &d-i; formats your partitions and starts to install the base system, which can take a while. That is followed by installing a kernel.

The base system that was installed earlier is a working, but very minimal installation. To make the system more functional the next step allows you to install additional packages by selecting tasks. Before packages can be installed <classname>apt</classname> needs to be configured as that defines from where the packages will be retrieved. The <quote>Standard system</quote> task will be selected by default and should normally be installed. Select the <quote>Desktop environment</quote> task if you would like to have a graphical desktop after the installation. See <xref linkend="pkgsel"/> for additional information about this step.

The last step is to install a boot loader. If the installer detects other operating systems on your computer, it will add them to the boot menu and let you know. <phrase arch="x86">By default GRUB will be installed to the master boot record of the first harddrive, which is generally a good choice. You'll be given the opportunity to override that choice and install it elsewhere. </phrase>

&d-i; will now tell you that the installation has finished. Remove the cdrom or other boot media and hit &enterkey; to reboot your machine. It should boot up into the newly installed system and allow you to log in. This is explained in <xref linkend="boot-new"/>.

If you need more information on the install process, see <xref linkend="d-i-intro"/>.

Send us an installation report

If you successfully managed an installation with &d-i;, please take time to provide us with a report. The simplest way to do so is to install the reportbug package (<command>aptitude install reportbug</command>), configure <classname>reportbug</classname> as explained in <xref linkend="mail-outgoing"/>, and run <command>reportbug installation-reports</command>.

If you did not complete the install, you probably found a bug in debian-installer. To improve the installer it is necessary that we know about them, so please take the time to report them. You can use an installation report to report problems; if the install completely fails, see <xref linkend="problem-report"/>.

And finally&hellip;

We hope that your Debian installation is pleasant and that you find Debian useful. You might want to read <xref linkend="post-install"/>.