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8. Getting and Installing Debian GNU/Linux

8.1 Where/how can I get the Debian installation disks?

You can get the installation disks by downloading the appropriate files from any Debian FTP site: ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/ and its mirrors. From the directory Debian-1.1/disks-i386/current, you'll need:

The Boot Disk.

If your system can boot from a 1.44 MByte floppy disk drive, download the file called boot1440.bin. On the other hand, if your system can boot only from a 1.22 MByte floppy disk drive, download the file called boot1220.bin.

The Root Disk.

Download the file called root.bin. It will fit on either a 1.44 MByte or a 1.2 MByte floppy disk.

The Base Disks.

These disks contain the software that's necessary to have a bare-bones system. Depending on your configuration, you may need 1, 3, or 4 of these disks. (See notes below.)

You may of course get these disks from a friend. You can make as many copies as you want. Debian is freely redistributable, provided you follow a few simple rules. For more information, see The GNU General Public License.

If you cannot get copies of the installation disks from one of the Debian FTP sites or from a friend, then make a request to one of the Debian mailins lists. See the debian-user mailing list. The likelihood is very high that someone will be willing to help.

8.2 OK, I've got the disks; how do I install the system?

Complete, detailed instructions are given in the same FTP sites as the installation disks. Fetch the plain ASCII file, the Postscript file, or view them directly on the WWW.

8.3 How (and on what media) can I get the Debian packages?

Once the base system has been installed, you can complete the installation of your Debian GNU/Linux system by accessing packages on any (or several) of these media:

In each case, you can use either

8.4 How do I get and install the Debian distribution from CD-ROM?

Linux supports the ISO 9660 (CD-ROM) file system with Rock Ridge extensions (formerly known as "High Sierra"). Several vendors provide the Debian distribution in this format; these vendors have directly supported the Debian project:

To install packages provided on a CD-ROM, you must have CD-ROM support built into the kernel you have. This may require a special kernel (see the kernels in the directory Debian-1.1/disks-i386/special/), a custom modification of the file /etc/conf.modules, or (least likely nowadays) a special argument on the boot command line.

To mount a CD-ROM under the mount point /cdrom (a directory which should have been created during installation), use these commands:

8.5 How do I get and install the Debian distribution from an NFS-mounted drive?

Debian packages on remote hosts can be installed via the Network File System using a SLIP, PPP, PLIP or Ethernet connection. SLIP and PPP require that the the netbase and netstd packages be installed first. These packages are not part of the Debian base system, and must be obtained by one of the other methods described in this section.

No special kernel configuration (other than the network drivers for SLIP, PPP, PLIP, or one of the Ethernet cards) is necessary to access a remote filesystem using NFS. As with all network communication, the appropriate ifconfig and route commands will have to be issued before accessing a remote disk using NFS.

To mount a network-accessible file system using NFS (say, /var/spool/debian) under the local directory /mnt, issue the command

To ensure that the filesystem is always accessible, the appropriate string could be added to /etc/fstab:

The preceding example shows the appropriate entry for the NFS site at Leiden University, the Netherlands, which is the only FTP site known to export Debian via NFS officially at this time.

8.6 How can I get/install the Debian distribution from a set of floppy disks?

Copy the Debian packages onto formatted floppy disks. Either a DOS, the native Linux "ext2", or the "minix" format will do; one just has to use a mount command appropriate to the floppy that's being used.

Using floppy disks has these complications:

You must have support in the kernel for floppy disks in order to read and write to floppy disk; most kernels come with floppy drive support included in them.

To mount a floppy disk under the mount point /floppy (a directory which should have been created during installation), use:

8.7 How can I get/install the Debian distribution from my own hard disk?

The Debian packages can be installed from a hard disk on your system, either IDE, EIDE, SCSI (including Jaz drives), or a drive connected through a parallel port.

Kernel support must of course be available for the type of drive you have. The appropriate drivers are:

To mount partition X (X =1,2,3, or 4) for a given drive under the directory /mnt (which should have been created during installation), use:

Note that files on a disk partition having an MS-DOS filesystem must conform to the DOS filename limitation of 8 characters plus a 3 character extension. Files in the Debian-1.1/msdos-i386, non-free/msdos-i386, and contrib/msdos directories conform to this limitation.

8.8 How can I get and install the Debian distribution directly from a remote ftp site?

Install the Debian tool dpkg-ftp. This package is currently installed in the directory project/experimental at ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/ and its mirrors. To do install a package, see notes on dpkg.

Then invoke the program dselect, which will call dpkg-ftp for you, guide you through the selection of packages, then install the packages, without every downloading the packages themselves to your machine. This method is designed to save the user both disk space and time. Note that no special kernel configuration is needed to access and install Debian packages by this method.

To use this service of dselect, you will need to know:

8.9 How can I get and install the Debian distribution from a tape?

At present, installing packages directly from tape is not supported. One can however, use tar, cpio, or afio to copy Debian archive files onto a tape, then copy them onto your local disk for installation. In the same vein, floppy disks containing "tar" files would have to be copied onto a local disk before they could be managed with the Debian package tools.

8.10 What's the latest version of Debian?

Currently there are two versions of the Debian distribution:

Approximately three months from today, the "development" software will have been stabilized and made into Debian 1.2. Further releases will follow at three-month intervals.


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