quick installation instructions
These are the quick installation instructions that I am sending out with
my CD until the real installation manual is done. They say at the end how
to make floppies (my instructions assume you've been sent floppies) and
they assume you have Debian on a CD. Fortunately, if you have the base
system on floppies, the only thing that changes is that you tell the system
you are installing from floppy instead of from CD.
These instructions completely punt explaining how to run fdisk and dselect,
referring the user to the online help. Obviously, I wrote them in a hurry
and they are _not_ intended to replace the real installation manual.
Obviously, if you haven't purchased my CD you'll find support here rather
than at the address mentioned in the instructions.
Thanks
Bruce
Quick Installation Instructions for the Debian 0.93R6 System.
Hopefully these instructions will be adequate until our 100-page
installation manual is done. If you do get stuck, please contact
Support@Hams.com via e-mail.
You should find in your package the following materials:
Boot floppy (either 3.5 inch or 5.25 inch, depending on the size
you specified for your "A" drive). If you got that size wrong or
lose or damage the floppy disk, don't despair - you can make your
own floppies. Instructions on that are at the end of this message.
Root floppy (3.5 inch). You must have one drive capable of
reading 1.44 MB floppy disks on the system.
Debian 0.93R6 CD-ROM disc.
In addition, you'll need a formatted floppy disk that fits in your
"A" drive, and you'll need paper and pencil to take notes.
IMPORTANT: if you haven't backed up every disk on your system, do so
now. There have been two reported incidents of the installation program
creating the swap partition on the wrong disk. Thus, you should back up
all of your disks! No un-delete program can rescue data when it's been
overwritten by Linux.
Place the "Boot" floppy in the "A" drive of the system upon which you'd
like to install Linux. Place the Debian CD-ROM disc in the CD-ROM drive.
Reboot the PC by pressing the RESET button or pressing Control, Alt, and
Del on the keyboard simultaneously. The system should bootstrap itself
from the floppy disk. If it doesn't do so, it may be that you've put the
wrong floppy in the drive, you're using the "B" drive instead of the "A"
one, your BIOS ROM is set up to boot from the hard disk even when there's
a bootable floppy disk in drive "A", or the floppy disk is unreadable.
Contact technical support by e-mail to Support@Hams.com if you can't
resolve the problem.
If your screen goes dark at any time during the installation, it's
most likely the screen saver. Press the SHIFT" key on the keyboard if
this happens.
Once the system boots, you should see a screen full of instructions
with the "boot:" prompt at the bottom. If you wish, you may press the
function key F1 to read the on-line help for the bootstrap procedure. If
your "A" drive is a 3.5 inch one, press ENTER to boot the system. If
the "A" drive is a 5.25 inch one, type "linux root=/dev/fd1" and press
ENTER. If the bootstrap process is unsuccessful, repeat the installation
procedure until you reach the "boot:" prompt, and read the on-line help.
As it bootstraps itself, Linux will scroll a few pages of cryptic
information about the hardware it finds on the system. It may pause for
30 seconds or so while it looks for certain devices. Eventually, it will
print the message "Insert Root Disk and press <ENTER>". Do what it says.
If the "A" drive is the 3.5 inch one, you'll have to remove the "Boot"
disk to insert the "Root" disk. Keep the "Boot" disk nearby, as you'll
be asked to re-insert it later on.
The system should print "Loading 1440 blocks into RAM disk", and then
print dots as it reads the "Root" floppy. Eventually, you should see a
dialogue box with a "welcome" message and an "OK" button at the bottom.
Read the entire message and press ENTER. Don't bother with your mouse,
it won't work (and won't be needed) during the installation procedure.
The next screen contains a menu and two buttons. At this point, try to
move the highlight between the two different items on the menu by pressing
the up-arrow and down-arrow keys. Don't press ENTER yet. Then try the
left-arrow and right-arrow keys. Notice that they move the highlight
between the "OK" and "Cancel" buttons. To select an item in the menu,
move the highlight to that item with the up-arrow and down-arrow keys.
Move the highlight to the "OK" button with the left-arrow key, and
press ENTER to communicate your selection to the system. You can
generally get back to a previous menu by pressing the ESC key, or by
using the right-arrow key to move the highlight to the "Cancel" button
and pressing ENTER.
If your system does not have a color display, use the "Toggle between
color and monochrome" menu item to get a clearer display. Once you're
satisfied with the display, use the "Continue with the installation
program" menu item.
We'll now start the actual installation process. Don't be afraid to
repeat the installation process if you're not entirely satisfied with
it. At any time, you can press RESET or Control-Alt-Del and start over.
The next menu allows you to choose between the "Novice" and "Custom"
mode of installation. If you wish to keep data belonging to a different
operating system such as Dos, Windows, or another version of Linux on
your system, use the "Custom" mode. The Novice mode is only useful if
you are willing to dedicate at least one entire disk to the Debian
Linux system. If you want to try the "Novice" mode, select it and
follow the instructions on the screen. If you do try the Novice mode,
you can skip the following instructions up to the point where they say
"IF YOU'VE USED THE NOVICE INSTALL METHOD, RE-JOIN THE INSTRUCTIONS HERE".
Once you've selected the "Custom" mode, you should see a menu screen
with 10 items. You will go through these in order.
The first item is "Partition a Hard Disk". There is a bug in this menu
item that prevents it from being able to partition a hard disk that is
2048 Megabytes (2 Gigabytes) or larger. If this is the case, you'll have
to partition the disk using a slightly less friendly interface. Only do
this if your disk is 2 Gigabytes or larger: select the "Execute a Shell"
menu item and then type "fdisk". Use the "?" key to see the fdisk commands.
You should create a "Linux Swap" partition with at least twice as many
megabytes as your system has RAM memory. This partition will provide
"virtual memory", as if you'd added more RAM to the system. You should
create a "Linux" partition to hold the system and all of your data.
"fdisk" provides a command to set the partition type. "Linux Swap" and
"Linux" are both partition types that can be set with this command.
Write down the partition names (these will look like "/dev/hda1") and
types ("Linux" or "Linux Swap", you'll need this information later.
Once you've exited the "fdisk" program, type Control-D to get back to
the menu.
If your disk is under 2048 Megabytes in size (and most are), you'll
be able to partition the disk using the simple method. Select the
"Partition a Hard Disk" menu item. The next dialogue box allows you to
select a disk. Once you've selected the disk, you'll be able to add or
delete disk partitions. Use the "h" key to see the help for the disk
partitioning menu. You should create a "Linux Swap" partition with
at least twice as many megabytes as your system has RAM memory. This
partition will provide "virtual memory", as if you'd added more RAM to
the system. You should create a "Linux" partition to hold the system
and all of your data. Write down the partition names (these will look
like "/dev/hda1") and types ("Linux" or "Linux Swap"), you'll need this
information later. Use the "Write" and then the "Quit" menu item when
you are done.
Once you've made the disk partitions, use the "Prepare a Swap Partition"
menu item. When you're done with that, select the "Prepare a Linux
Partition" menu item.
Once you've prepared your partitions, use the "Mount/Unmount File Systems"
menu item to mount the Linux partition. At least one Linux partition must
be mounted on "/" (that single slash refers to the "root filesystem"). If
you've created more than one Linux partition, you can mount additional
ones during this step.
Now you're ready to install the system. Select the "Install Debian
GNU/Linux" menu item. This will guide you through installing the "base
system", that is the small portion of the system that is absolutely
essential. You'll be asked to insert the "Boot" disk, and you'll be
led through the steps necessary to read the base system in through the
CD-ROM. When you are asked what media to use to install the system, be
sure to select "CD-ROM".
Once you've installed the base system, it's time to configure it.
Don't skip this step! The system won't run without it. Select the
"Configure the Debian GNU/Linux System" menu item. You'll be asked to
tell the system about your network address and other details. If you had
to load a "module" to read the CD-ROM, be sure to select that module to
be installed in the system.
Now, make a boot diskette. Your system will not boot Linux from the hard
disk as soon as you install it - you'll have to use the boot diskette
to boot it until you read the on-line documentation for the LILO program
and install that. You'll need to place a pre-formatted floppy disk in the
"A" drive to create the boot diskette.
Once you've made the boot diskette, place it in the "A" drive and select
the "Reboot The System" menu item. You should still have the Debian CD
in the CD drive, as the system will need to read more software from it
once it has started.
IF YOU'VE USED THE NOVICE INSTALL METHOD, RE-JOIN THE INSTRUCTIONS HERE.
As the system reboots, it will print cryptic information, and then
print the "login:" prompt. At that point, type "root" and press ENTER.
Be sure to read the screen full of information you see at this point.
You'll be asked a few more configuration questions, and then the "dselect"
program will start.
Once dselect starts, select the first menu item "Access methods". Once
in the "Access methods" menu, select the "cdrom" method. When the
program asks for the name of the CD-ROM device, press ENTER to
accept "/dev/cdrom". It will then ask for the name of the binary
directory. Press ENTER to accept "/binary". Press ENTER again to accept
the location of the "Packages" file. Dselect will return to its top-level
menu. Now select the "Update" menu item. That should do its work without
asking any questions. Finally, select the "Select" menu item.
You will now be presented with the package-selection screen. The first
thing you should do is read the on-line help. Press "?" to get to the
first help menu, and then that menu will give you four selections for
additional help. Read them all.
Use the package-selection screen to select all of the packages you wish to
install on your system. This could take you an hour, and is complicated by
the fact that packages sometimes require that you install other packages,
or conflict with packages so that you can not install both of a pair of
packages that conflict with each other. Dselect will present you with
information about conflicts and requirements and ask you to resolve it.
Refer to the on-line help as you do this, and be patient.
Once you've selected all of the packages you want to install, use ENTER
to return to the top-level "dselect" menu. Select the menu item "Install".
If you've selected a lot of packages, this is a good time to take a break.
All of the selected packages will be read from the CD before you have
to pay attention to the system again.
Once all of the selected packages have been installed, select the
"Configure" menu item. Most of the packages will configure themselves
without your attention, but some will ask questions. Wait around and
respond to the packages prompts as appropriate.
Finally, select the "Quit" menu item. You've installed your system!
WHERE TO FIND DOCUMENTATION:
If you've never used a Unix or Linux system, now's a good time to get a
book on one and read it. O'Reilly and Associates publishes a full library
on Unix topics, and a version of Matt Welsh's book "Running Linux".
Many other publishers make Unix and Linux books as well. I have found
most of the O'Reilly books at my local Barnes and Noble bookstore.
There are three places on the system where you'll find documentation:
in the "man" pages, in the "info" pages, and in files under /usr/doc .
Unfortunately, you'll need to learn all three ways of reading
documentation, as there is no unified interface to all documents at this
time. To learn how to read "man" pages, type "man man". To learn how to
read "info" pages, type "info". To consult documentation in /usr/doc,
change directory to /usr/doc and look for a directory name matching the
topic you are curious about.
HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BOOTSTRAP FLOPPIES
You won't need to do this unless you've lost the installation floppies
that came with your CD, or there is some problem with them.
You will need a 1.2 MB or a 1.44 MB floppy for the bootstrap disk, and
a 1.44 MB floppy for the root disk.
Load the CD into any Unix system or any system capable of running DOS
programs and reading CD-ROMS. Change to the "dos" directory on the CD. If
you are on a DOS system, read rawrite2.txt and learn how to operate the
rawrite2 program. On a Unix/Linux system, read your system's manual page
for the "dd" program, and find out which file (often /dev/fd0) is used
to access the floppy disk device.
Use "rawrite2" or "dd" to copy the raw disk image from either the boot1200
or boot1440 file to floppy disk. Choose boot1200 if the "A" drive on the
system upon which you'd like to install Linux has a 1.2 MB (5.25 inch)
"A" floppy drive. Choose boot1440 if the "A" drive is a 1.44 MB (3.5
inch) one. Mark this disk as the "boot" floppy.
Write a 1.44 MB floppy from the root1440 file. Mark this second disk as
the "root" floppy. Note, you are writing raw disk images onto raw disks,
not copying the files into floppy disk directories.
Good Luck!
--
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