The Debian Installation System
                    ==============================

			  Quick Orientation


  The Debian Installation system can be found at the following location
  on any Debian archive:

    <debian>/dists/potato/main/disks-sparc/current/

  The word `<debian>' 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
  <URL:http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/> 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!

  <subarch>/

      Installation files for a subdivision of the sparc architecture;
      you will need to look under here to find your boot, root, and
      drivers disks.  This architecture has the following <subarch>'s:

           sun4cdm, sun4u, sun4dm-pci

     sun4cdm .... This is used for most non-Ultra systems. This includes
                  SPARCStation 1, 2, ELC, IPC, IPX, 5, 10, 20 as well as
                  SPARC Classics.

     sun4dm-pci . Same as the above kernel but with PCI support for use
                  with systems that have a PCI bus and/or ps2 mouse and
		  keyboard

     sun4u ...... This includes the entire UltraSPARC class of systems,
                  including IDE systems such as UltraSPARC 5. Only the
                  rescue and drivers are different from sun4cdm. The root
                  and base image is the same.



  ** 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
      subarchitectureifdef(FLAVORS,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.

  .../tftpboot.img

      Subarch specific TFTP bootable images.  These images contain the
      kernel and root.bin for booting completely from a TFTP server using
      the PROM "boot net" command.  See docs for details.

  root.tar.gz

      An NFS mountable root tarball.  This is exactly the same as the
      root.bin, but in a tar  so as to be extracted on a net
      server for installing systems via an NFS root.  See docs for
      details.


  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.

  base-contents.txt

      List of packages in the base distribution, and their version
      numbers.


  ** Writing Image Files to Floppies

  You can write the *.bin disk images to floppies with dd.  Replace
  `<file>' with the name of the image file in the following command:

    dd of=/dev/fd0 if=<file> bs=1024

  If you are naturally suspicious, you can make sure the image was
  successfully written:

    cmp /dev/fd0 <file>

  # LocalWords:  ifelse dm pci ps EXE exe docs tarball rawrite