The Debian Installation System ============================== Quick Orientation The Debian Installation system can be found at the following location on any Debian archive: /dists/potato/main/disks-i386/current/ The word `' may indicate an FTP area, Web distribution area, or official Debian CD-ROM. All the files required for installation can be found under this directory. Full information on how to install Debian can be found in the documentation located under the `doc' subdirectory. Documentation is available in several formats and languages. Bookmark and read for errata, security alerts, and other updated information. Even though the Debian Installation System is also called the `boot-floppies', it is possible (in fact, desirable) to use the system to install without the use of floppies at all. For instance, you may be able to install Debian from bootable CD-ROM, from the network, or from another operating system. The name `boot-floppies' is something of a historical artifact. See the documentation for complete information. ** Layout Of The Installation Files The general organization of files in this directory is described below. If you are copying a subset of these files to local disk or what have you, you should retain the internal directory structure, since the installation system will be looking for files in these locations. doc/ The Debian GNU/Linux Installation Manual, the Beginner's Guide for `dselect', and the Release Notes may be found here in several computer readable and printable formats. Please, Read The Fine Manual (RTFM) before you begin! / There are several `flavors' of installation disk available. In some cases the images contain a Linux kernel compiled with certain options that make it work better on some hardware. See below for information about why you might need to use a flavor. Also in this directory are files for a particular flavor which are not disk images, but may be helpful for network installations or installations from another operating system. During a network, NFS, or CD-ROM install, the install software knows how to find these files, once you have indicated the directory. If you plan to copy these files to a spot on your hard drive in anticipation of using the installer's "from a mounted partition" option, you do not need to duplicate the directory structure of the archive, but you do need to make sure you get a matched set of images, all of the same , or things probably won't work correctly. The flavors available for this architecture are `compact', 'idepci', and `udma66'. compact .... A Linux kernel with some non-critical device drivers removed, and a few of the more common PCI device drivers compiled into the kernel itself. See images-1.44/compact/README.txt idepci .... Similar to compact, but even more PCI device drivers are compiled into the kernel, and SCSI is removed. See images-1.44/idepci/README.txt udma66 ..... Specialized kernel for those who require the UDMA66 IDE patch. This may be needed if you have a Promise Ultra66 IDE controller, among others. See images-1.44/udma66/README.txt images-// Disk images of size . Choose the size that will fit on the media you intend to bootstrap the installation software from, and follow the instructions below under "Writing Image Files to Floppies". ** Specific Files of Interest Using the descriptions above, you need to select the directory containing the set of files which is appropriate to the installation you are doing. You will need all of the following `.bin' images, unless marked otherwise. .../rescue.bin Rescue disk image, containing the kernel and a boot loader. .../root.bin Root disk image, containing the root file system. Not required unless are you are installing from floppies. .../driver-#.bin Device driver disk images, containing kernel modules you can load for hardware for which there is not a driver built into the kernel. For instance, you can use this to install a driver for your network adapter; once you have installed that driver, you can install the rest of the system over the network. Other modules include PPP, parallel support, etc. Not required unless are you are installing from floppies. .../drivers.tgz A compressed tar archive containing the same modules as the above disk images. These are used when installation kernel and drivers from local disk or CD rather than from floppies. Use the file from the appropriate subdirectory based on what flavor you are using, if any. .../base-#.bin The base Debian distribution (base2_2.tgz), split into disk images. If you intend to install from the network, NFS, a mounted partition, or a CD-ROM, you will not need the `base-#.bin' images. (This is good news for the majority of us.) These are for floppy-only installs, or people installing the base system so that they can get PPP started and the rest of their system installed via modem. Not required unless are you are installing from floppies. base2_2.tgz The Debian base system in a compressed tar archive, used for the network, NFS, mounted file system, and CD-ROM installation methods. This contains a complete minimalist Debian GNU/Linux installation, as well as everything required to begin installing everything else you want. basecont.txt List of packages in the base distribution, and their version numbers. .../install.bat DOS batch script for booting into the installation system from DOS. A different version of this batch file is available for each flavor. .../linux A Linux kernel image, used by the batch script above. ** Writing Image Files to Floppies You can write the *.bin disk images to floppies with dd. Replace `' with the name of the image file in the following command: dd of=/dev/fd0 if= bs=1024 If you are naturally suspicious, you can make sure the image was successfully written: cmp /dev/fd0 Alternatively, from DOS, you can use use rawrite2.exe to write the files to floppies: rawrite2 -f -d a # LocalWords: ifelse dm pci ps EXE exe docs tarball rawrite