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Installing Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 For PowerPC

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 Installing Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 For
PowerPC
Bruce Perens
Sven Rudolph
Igor Grobman
James Treacy
Adam Di Carlo

version 3.0.24, 18 December, 2002

Abstract

This document contains installation instructions for the Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 system, for
the PowerPC (“powerpc”) architecture. It also contains pointers to more information and in-
formation on how to make the most of your new Debian system.
Copyright Notice

This document may be distributed and modified under the terms of the GNU General Public
License.
© 1996 Bruce Perens
© 1996, 1997 Sven Rudolph
© 1998 Igor Grobman, James Treacy
© 1998–2002 Adam Di Carlo
This manual is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the
GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2,
or (at your option) any later version.
This manual is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without
even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the GNU
General Public License for more details.
A copy of the GNU General Public License is available as /usr/share/common-licenses
/GPL in the Debian GNU/Linux distribution or on the World Wide Web at the GNU website
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html). You can also obtain it by writing to the
Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
We require that you properly attribute Debian and the authors of this document on any mate-
rials derived from this document. If you modify and improve this document, we request that
you notify the authors of this document, via <[email protected]>.
 i

Contents

1 Welcome to Debian 1
1.1 What is Debian? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 What is GNU/Linux? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 What is Debian GNU/Linux? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 What is Debian GNU/Hurd? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.5 Getting Debian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.6 Getting the Newest Version of This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.7 Organization of This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.8 This Document Has Known Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.9 About Copyrights and Software Licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2 System Requirements 9
2.1 Supported Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1.1 Supported Architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1.2 CPU, Main Boards, and Video Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1.3 Multiple Processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2 Installation Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.1 Supported Storage Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.3 Memory and Disk Space Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.4 Network Connectivity Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.5 Peripherals and Other Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.6 Purchasing Hardware Specifically for GNU/Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.6.1 Avoid Proprietary or Closed Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
CONTENTS ii

3 Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 17

3.1 Overview of the Installation Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2 Back Up Your Existing Data! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3 Information You Will Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3.1 Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3.2 Finding Sources of Hardware Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3.3 Hardware Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.3.4 Network Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.4 Planning Use of the System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.5 Meeting Minimum Hardware Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.6 Pre-Partitioning for Multi-Boot Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.6.1 MacOS/OSX Partitioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.7 Installing Debian GNU/Linux from a Unix/Linux System . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.7.1 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.7.2 Install debootstrap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.7.3 Run debootstrap (Network-connected) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.7.4 Run debootstrap (Using basedebs.tar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.7.5 Configure The Base System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.7.6 Install a Kernel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.7.7 Set up the Boot Loader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.8 Pre-Installation Hardware and Operating System Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.8.1 Invoking OpenFirmware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.8.2 Hardware Issues to Watch Out For . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

4 Obtaining System Installation Media 33

4.1 Official Debian GNU/Linux CD-ROM Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.2 Downloading Files from Debian Mirrors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.2.1 Installation Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.2.2 Choosing the Right Installation Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.2.3 Where to Find Installation Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.3 Creating Floppies from Disk Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
CONTENTS iii

4.3.1 Writing Disk Images From a Linux or Unix System . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

4.3.2 Writing Disk Images From DOS, Windows, or OS/2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.3.3 Modifying the Rescue Floppy to Support National Language . . . . . . . 39
4.3.4 Writing Disk Images From MacOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.4 Preparing Files for Hard Disk Booting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.4.1 Hard Disk Installer Booting for OldWorld Macs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.4.2 Hard Disk Installer Booting for NewWorld Macs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.5 Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.5.1 Setting up BOOTP server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.5.2 Setting up a DHCP server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.5.3 Enabling the TFTP Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.5.4 Move TFTP Images Into Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.5.5 Installing with TFTP and NFS Root . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.6 Automatic Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

5 Booting the Installation System 47

5.1 Boot Parameter Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.1.1 dbootstrap Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5.2 Booting from a CD-ROM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5.3 Booting from Floppies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.4 Booting From a Hard Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.4.1 Booting CHRP from OpenFirmware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.4.2 Booting OldWorld PowerMacs from MacOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.4.3 Booting NewWorld Macs from OpenFirmware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.4.4 Installing PReP from OpenBug . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.5 Booting from TFTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.6 Troubleshooting the Install Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.6.1 Floppy Disk Reliability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.6.2 Boot Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.6.3 Interpreting the Kernel Startup Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.6.4 dbootstrap Problem Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
CONTENTS iv

5.6.5 Submitting Bug Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

5.7 Introduction to dbootstrap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.7.1 Using the Shell and Viewing the Logs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
5.8 “Choose The Language” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5.9 “Release Notes” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5.10 “Debian GNU/Linux Installation Main Menu” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5.11 “Configure the Keyboard” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
5.12 Last Chance! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

6 Partitioning for Debian 57

6.1 Deciding on Debian Partitions and Sizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
6.2 The Directory Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
6.3 Recommended Partitioning Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
6.4 Device Names in Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
6.5 Debian Partitioning Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
6.6 Partitioning Newer PowerMacs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.7 “Initialize and Activate a Swap Partition” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.8 “Initialize a Linux Partition” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
6.9 “Mount a Previously-Initialized Partition” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
6.9.1 NFS Root Installation Workaround . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
6.10 Mounting Partitions Not Supported by dbootstrap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

7 Installing the Kernel and Base Operating System 67

7.1 “Install Kernel and Driver Modules” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
7.2 NFS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
7.3 Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
7.4 NFS Root . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
7.5 “Configure PCMCIA Support” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
7.6 “Configure Device Driver Modules” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
7.7 “Configure the Network” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
7.8 “Install the Base System” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
CONTENTS v

8 Booting Into Your New Debian System 73

8.1 “Make System Bootable” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
8.1.1 “OldWorld” PowerMacs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
8.1.2 “NewWorld” PowerMacs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
8.2 The Moment of Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
8.3 Debian Post-Boot (Base) Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
8.4 Configuring your Time Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
8.5 MD5 Passwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
8.6 Shadow Passwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
8.7 Set the Root Password . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
8.8 Create an Ordinary User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
8.9 Setting Up PPP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
8.10 Removing PCMCIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
8.11 Configuring APT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
8.11.1 Configuring Network Package Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
8.12 Package Installation: Simple or Advanced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
8.13 Simple Package Selection — The Task Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
8.14 Advanced Package Selection with dselect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
8.15 Prompts During Software Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
8.15.1 Settings for the X Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
8.16 Log In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

9 Next Steps and Where to Go From Here 83

9.1 If You Are New to Unix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
9.2 Shutting Down the System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
9.3 Orienting Yourself to Debian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
9.3.1 Debian Packaging System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
9.3.2 Application Version Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
9.3.3 Cron Job Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
9.4 Further Reading and Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
9.5 Compiling a New Kernel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
9.5.1 Kernel Image Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
CONTENTS vi

10 Technical Information on the Boot Floppies 89

10.1 Source Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
10.2 Rescue Floppy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
10.3 Replacing the Rescue Floppy Kernel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

11 Appendix 91
11.1 Further Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
11.1.1 Further Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
11.2 Obtaining Debian GNU/Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
11.2.1 Official Debian GNU/Linux CD Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
11.2.2 Debian Mirrors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
11.2.3 Description of Installation System Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
11.3 Linux Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
11.3.1 Setting Up Your Mouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
11.4 Disk Space Needed for Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
11.5 Effects of Verbose and Quiet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

12 Administrivia 101
12.1 About This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
12.2 Contributing to This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
12.3 Major Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
12.4 Trademark Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
 1

Chapter 1

Welcome to Debian

We are delighted that you have decided to try Debian, and are sure that you will find that
Debian’s GNU/Linux distribution is unique. Debian GNU/Linux brings together high-quality
free software from around the world, integrating it into a coherent whole. We believe that you
will find that the result is truly more than the sum of the parts.
This chapter provides an overview of the Debian Project and Debian GNU/Linux. If you
already know about the Debian Project’s history and the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, feel
free to skip to the next chapter.

1.1 What is Debian?

Debian is an all-volunteer organization dedicated to developing free software and promot-

ing the ideals of the Free Software Foundation. The Debian Project began in 1993, when
Ian Murdock issued an open invitation to software developers to contribute to a complete
and coherent software distribution based on the relatively new Linux kernel. That rela-
tively small band of dedicated enthusiasts, originally funded by the Free Software Foundation
(http://www.fsf.org/fsf/fsf.html) and influenced by the GNU (http://www.gnu.
org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html) philosophy, has grown over the years into an organi-
zation of around 800 Debian Developers.
Debian Developers are involved in a variety of activities, including Web (http://www.
debian.org/) and FTP (ftp://ftp.debian.org/) site administration, graphic design, le-
gal analysis of software licenses, writing documentation, and, of course, maintaining software
packages.
In the interest of communicating our philosophy and attracting developers who believe in the
principles that Debian stands for, the Debian Project has published a number of documents
that outline our values and serve as guides to what it means to be a Debian Developer:
• The Debian Social Contract (http://www.debian.org/social_contract) is a
statement of Debian’s commitments to the Free Software Community. Anyone who
agrees to abide to the Social Contract may become a maintainer (http://www.debian.
Chapter 1. Welcome to Debian 2

org/doc/maint-guide/). Any maintainer can introduce new software into Debian —

provided that the software meets our criteria for being free, and the package follows our
quality standards.
• The Debian Free Software Guidelines (http://www.debian.org/social_
contract#guidelines) are a clear and concise statement of Debian’s criteria
for free software. The DFSG is a very influential document in the Free Soft-
ware Movement, and was the foundation of the The Open Source Definition
(http://opensource.org/docs/definition_plain.html).
• The Debian Policy Manual (http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/) is an
extensive specification of the Debian Project’s standards of quality.
Debian developers are also involved in a number of other projects; some specific to Debian,
others involving some or all of the Linux community. Some examples include:
• The Linux Standard Base (http://www.linuxbase.org/) (LSB) is a project aimed at
standardizing the basic GNU/Linux system, which will enable third-party software and
hardware developers to easily design programs and device drivers for Linux-in-general,
rather than for a specific GNU/Linux distribution.
• The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (http://www.pathname.com/fhs/) (FHS) is an
effort to standardize the layout of the Linux file system. The FHS will allow software
developers to concentrate their efforts on designing programs, without having to worry
about how the package will be installed in different GNU/Linux distributions.
• Debian Jr. (http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-jr/) is an internal project,
aimed at making sure Debian has something to offer to our youngest users.
For more general information about Debian, see the Debian FAQ (http://www.debian.
org/doc/FAQ/).

1.2 What is GNU/Linux?

The GNU Project has developed a comprehensive set of free software tools for use with Unix™
and Unix-like operating systems such as Linux. These tools enable users to perform tasks rang-
ing from the mundane (such as copying or removing files from the system) to the arcane (such
as writing and compiling programs or doing sophisticated editing in a variety of document
formats).
An operating system consists of various fundamental programs which are needed by your
computer so that it can communicate and receive instructions from users; read and write data
to hard disks, tapes, and printers; control the use of memory; and run other software. The most
important part of an operating system is the kernel. In a GNU/Linux system, Linux is the ker-
nel component. The rest of the system consists of other programs, many of which were written
by or for the GNU Project. Because the Linux kernel alone does not form a working operating
system, we prefer to use the term “GNU/Linux” to refer to systems that many people casually
refer to as “Linux”.
The Linux kernel (http://www.kernel.org/) first appeared in 1991, when a Finnish com-
puting science student named Linus Torvalds announced an early version of a replacement
Chapter 1. Welcome to Debian 3

kernel for Minix to the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.minix. See Linux International’s Linux
History Page (http://www.li.org/linuxhistory.php).

Linus Torvalds continues to coordinate the work of several hundred developers with the help
of a few trusty deputies. An excellent weekly summary of discussions on the linux-kernel
mailing list is Kernel Traffic (http://kt.zork.net/kernel-traffic/). More informa-
tion about the linux-kernel mailing list can be found on the linux-kernel mailing list FAQ
(http://www.tux.org/lkml/).

1.3 What is Debian GNU/Linux?

The combination of Debian’s philosophy and methodology and the GNU tools, the Linux
kernel, and other important free software, form a unique software distribution called Debian
GNU/Linux. This distribution is made up of a large number of software packages. Each pack-
age in the distribution contains executables, scripts, documentation, and configuration infor-
mation, and has a maintainer who is primarily responsible for keeping the package up-to-date,
tracking bug reports, and communicating with the upstream author(s) of the packaged soft-
ware. Our extremely large user base, combined with our bug tracking system ensures that
problems are found and fixed quickly.

Debian’s attention to detail allows us to produce a high-quality, stable, and scalable distribu-
tion. Installations can be easily configured to serve many roles, from stripped-down firewalls
to desktop scientific workstations to high-end network servers.

The feature that most distinguishes Debian from other GNU/Linux distributions is its package
management system. These tools give the administrator of a Debian system complete control
over the packages installed on that system, including the ability to install a single package or
automatically update the entire operating system. Individual packages can also be protected
from being updated. You can even tell the package management system about software you
have compiled yourself and what dependencies it fulfills.

To protect your system against “trojan horses” and other malevolent software, Debian’s servers
verify that uploaded packages come from their registered Debian maintainers. Debian pack-
agers also take great care to configure their packages in a secure manner. When security prob-
lems in shipped packages do appear, fixes are usually available very quickly. With Debian’s
simple update options, security fixes can be downloaded and installed automatically across
the Internet.

The primary, and best, method of getting support for your Debian GNU/Linux system and
communicating with Debian Developers is through the many mailing lists maintained by the
Debian Project (there are more than 90 at this writing). The easiest way to subscribe to one
or more of these lists is visit Debian’s mailing list subscription page (http://www.debian.
org/MailingLists/subscribe) and fill out the form you’ll find there.
Chapter 1. Welcome to Debian 4

1.4 What is Debian GNU/Hurd?

Debian GNU/Hurd is a Debian GNU system that replaces the Linux monolithic kernel with
the GNU Hurd — a set of servers running on top of the GNU Mach microkernel. The Hurd
is still unfinished, and is unsuitable for day-to-day use, but work is continuing. The Hurd is
currently only being developed for the i386 architecture, although ports to other architectures
will be made once the system becomes more stable.
For more information, see the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page (http://www.debian.org/
ports/hurd/) and the <[email protected]> mailing list.

1.5 Getting Debian

For information on how to download Debian GNU/Linux from the Internet or from
whom official Debian CDs can be purchased, see the distribution web page (http://
www.debian.org/distrib/). The list of Debian mirrors (http://www.debian.org/
distrib/ftplist) contains a full set of official Debian mirrors.
Debian can be upgraded after installation very easily. The installation procedure will help
setup up the system so that you can make those upgrades once installation is complete, if need
be.

1.6 Getting the Newest Version of This Document

This document is constantly being revised. Be sure to check the Debian 3.0 pages (http:
//www.debian.org/releases/woody/) for any last-minute information about the 3.0 re-
lease of the Debian GNU/Linux system. Updated versions of this installation manual are also
available from the official Install Manual pages (http://www.debian.org/releases/
woody/powerpc/install).

1.7 Organization of This Document

This document is meant to serve as a manual for first-time Debian users. It tries to make as
few assumptions as possible about your level of expertise. However, we do assume that you
have a general understanding of how the hardware in your computer works.
Expert users may also find interesting reference information in this document, including min-
imum installation sizes, details about the hardware supported by the Debian installation sys-
tem, and so on. We encourage expert users to jump around in the document.
In general, this manual is arranged in a linear fashion, walking you through the installation
process from start to finish. Here are the steps in installing Debian GNU/Linux, and the sec-
tions of this document which correlate with each step:
Chapter 1. Welcome to Debian 5

1 Determine whether your hardware meets the requirements for using the installation sys-
tem, in ‘System Requirements’ on page 9.

2 Backup your system, perform any necessary planning and hardware configuration prior
to installing Debian, in ‘Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux’ on page 17. If you are
preparing a multi-boot system, you may need to create partition-able space on your hard
disk for Debian to use.

3 In ‘Obtaining System Installation Media’ on page 33, you will obtain the necessary instal-
lation files for your method of installation.

4 ‘Booting the Installation System’ on page 47, describes booting into the installation sys-
tem. This chapter also discusses troubleshooting procedures in case you have problems
with this step.

5 Setting up the Linux partitions for your Debian system is explained in ‘Partitioning for
Debian’ on page 57.

6 Install the kernel and configure peripheral driver modules in ‘Installing the Kernel and
Base Operating System’ on page 67. Configure your network connection so that remain-
ing installation files can be obtained directly from a Debian server, if you are not installing
from a CD.

7 Initiate automatic download/install/setup of a minimal working system in “‘Install the

Base System”’ on page 71.

8 Boot into your newly installed base system and run through some additional configura-
tion tasks, from ‘Booting Into Your New Debian System’ on page 73.

9 Install additional software in ‘Package Installation: Simple or Advanced’ on page 79. Use
tasksel to install groups of packages which form a computer ‘task’, dselect to select
individual packages from a long list, or apt-get to install individual packages when
you already know the package names you want.

Once you’ve got your system installed, you can read ‘Next Steps and Where to Go From Here’
on page 83. That chapter explains where to look to find more information about Unix and
Debian, and how to replace your kernel. If you want to build your own install system from
source, be sure to read ‘Technical Information on the Boot Floppies’ on page 89.
Finally, information about this document and how to contribute to it may be found in ‘Admin-
istrivia’ on page 101.

1.8 This Document Has Known Problems

This document is still in a rather rough form. It is known to be incomplete, and probably
also contains errors, grammatical problems, and so forth. If you see the words “FIXME” or
“TODO”, you can be sure we already know that section is not complete. As usual, caveat emptor
(buyer beware). Any help, suggestions, and, especially, patches, would be greatly appreciated.
Chapter 1. Welcome to Debian 6

Working versions of this document can be found at http://www.debian.org/releases/

woody/powerpc/install. There you will find a list of all the different architectures and
languages for which this document is available.

Source is also available publicly; look for more information concerning how to contribute in
‘Administrivia’ on page 101. We welcome suggestions, comments, patches, and bug reports
(use the package boot-floppies, but check first to see if the problem is already reported).

1.9 About Copyrights and Software Licenses

We’re sure that you’ve read some of the licenses that come with most commercial software —
they usually say that you can only use one copy of the software on a single computer. The
Debian GNU/Linux system’s license isn’t like that at all. We encourage you to put a copy
of Debian GNU/Linux on every computer in your school or place of business. Lend your
installation media to your friends and help them install it on their computers! You can even
make thousands of copies and sell them — albeit with a few restrictions. Your freedom to
install and use the system comes directly from Debian being based on free software.

Calling software “free” doesn’t mean that the software isn’t copyrighted, and it doesn’t mean
that CDs containing that software must be distributed at no charge. Free software, in part,
means that the licenses of individual programs do not require you to pay for the privilege
of distributing or using those programs. Free software also means that not only may anyone
extend, adapt, and modify the software, but that they may distribute the results of their work
as well.1

Many of the programs in the system are licensed under the GNU General Public License, often
simply referred to as “the GPL”. The GPL requires you to make the source code of the programs
available whenever you distribute a binary copy of the program; that provision of the license
ensures that any user will be able to modify the software. Because of this provision, the source
code for all such programs is available in the Debian system.2

There are several other forms of copyright statements and software licenses used on the pro-
grams in Debian. You can find the copyrights and licenses for every package installed on your
system by looking in the file /usr/share/doc/package-name/copyright once you’ve
installed a package on your system.

For more information about licenses and how Debian determines whether software is free
enough to be included in the main distribution, see the Debian Free Software Guidelines
(http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines).
1
Note that the Debian project, as a pragmatic concession to its users, does make some packages available that
do not meet our criteria for being free. These packages are not part of the official distribution, however, and are
only available from the contrib or non-free areas of Debian mirrors or on third-party CD-ROMs; see the Debian
FAQ (http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/), under “The Debian FTP archives”, for more information about the
layout and contents of the archives.
2
For information on how to locate, unpack, and build binaries from Debian source packages, see the Debian
FAQ (http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/), under “Basics of the Debian Package Management System”.
Chapter 1. Welcome to Debian 7

The most important legal notice is that this software comes with no warranties. The program-
mers who have created this software have done so for the benefit of the community. No guar-
antee is made as to the suitability of the software for any given purpose. However, since the
software is free, you are empowered to modify that software to suit your needs — and to enjoy
the benefits of the changes made by others who have extended the software in this way.
Chapter 1. Welcome to Debian 8
 9

Chapter 2

System Requirements

This section contains information about what hardware you need to get started with Debian.
You will also find links to further information about hardware supported by GNU and Linux.

2.1 Supported Hardware

Debian does not impose hardware requirements beyond the requirements of the Linux kernel
and the GNU tool-sets. Therefore, any architecture or platform to which the Linux kernel,
libc, gcc, etc. have been ported, and for which a Debian port exists, can run Debian. Please
refer to the Ports pages at http://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/ for more details on
powerpc architecture systems which have been tested with Debian.
Rather than attempting to describe all the different hardware configurations which are sup-
ported for PowerPC, this section contains general information and pointers to where additional
information can be found.

2.1.1 Supported Architectures

Debian 3.0 supports eleven major architectures and several variations of each architecture
known as ’flavors’.

Architecture | Debian Designation / Flavor

---------------------+----------------------------
Intel x86-based | i386
| - vanilla
| - idepci
| - compact
| - bf2.4 (experimental)
|
Motorola 680x0: | m68k
Chapter 2. System Requirements 10

- Atari | - atari
- Amiga | - amiga
- 68k Macintosh | - mac
- VME | - bvme6000
| - mvme147
| - mvme16x
|
DEC Alpha | alpha
| - generic
| - jensen
| - nautilus
|
Sun SPARC | sparc
| - sun4cdm
| - sun4u
|
ARM and StrongARM | arm
| - netwinder
| - riscpc
| - shark
| - lart
|
IBM/Motorola PowerPC | powerpc
- CHRP | - chrp
- PowerMac | - powermac, new-powermac
- PReP | - prep
- APUS | - apus
|
HP PA-RISC | hppa
- PA-RISC 1.1 | - 32
- PA-RISC 2.0 | - 64
|
Intel ia64-based | ia64
|
MIPS (big endian) | mips
- SGI Indy/I2 | - r4k-ip22
|
MIPS (little endian) | mipsel
- DEC Decstation | - r4k-kn04
| - r3k-kn02
|
IBM S/390 | s390
| - tape
| - vmrdr
|
---------------------+----------------------------
Chapter 2. System Requirements 11

This document covers installation for the powerpc architecture. If you are looking for infor-
mation on any of the other Debian-supported architectures take a look at the Debian-Ports
(http://www.debian.org/ports/) pages.

2.1.2 CPU, Main Boards, and Video Support

There are four major supported powerpc flavors: PMac (Power-Macintosh) PReP, Apus, and
CHRP machines. Ports to other powerpc architectures, such as the Be-Box and MBX architec-
ture, are underway but not yet supported by Debian. We may have a 64bit port (Power3) in
the future.
Apple (and briefly a few other manufacturers - Power Computing, for example) makes a se-
ries of Macintosh computers based on the PowerPC processor. For purposes of architecture
support, they are categorized as NuBus, OldWorld PCI, and NewWorld.
Macintosh computers using the 680x0 series of processors are not in the PowerPC family but
are instead m68k machines. Those models start with ‘Mac II’ or have a 3-digit model number
such as Centris 650 or Quadra 950. Apple’s pre-iMac PowerPC model numbers have four
digits.
NuBus systems are not currently supported by debian/powerpc. The monolithic Linux/PPC
kernel architecture does not have support for these machines; instead, one must use the Mk-
Linux Mach microkernel, which Debian does not yet support. These include the following:

• Power Macintosh 6100, 7100, 8100

• Performa 5200, 6200, 6300

• Powerbook 1400, 2300, and 5300

• Workgroup Server 6150, 8150, 9150

A linux kernel for these machines and limited support is available at http://nubus-pmac.
sourceforge.net/
OldWorld systems are most Power Macintoshes with a floppy drive and a PCI bus. Most 603,
603e, 604, and 604e based Power Macintoshes are OldWorld machines. The beige colored G3
systems are also OldWorld.
The so called NewWorld PowerMacs are any PowerMacs in translucent colored plastic cases.
That includes all iMacs, iBooks, G4 systems, blue colored G3 systems, and most PowerBooks
manufactured in and after 1999. The NewWorld PowerMacs are also known for using the
‘ROM in RAM’ system for MacOS, and were manufactured from mid-1998 onwards.
Recently introduced Macintosh systems have hardware which is more well supported by the
2.4 Linux kernel. For some, the 2.2 kernel just doesn’t work. The new-powermac flavor, which
uses the 2.4 kernel, has been added to keep up with the hardware. The new-powermac flavor
may also be installed on other OldWorld and NewWorld machines. Machines for which new-
powermac is highly recommended are flagged with an asterisk below.
Chapter 2. System Requirements 12

Specifications for Apple hardware are available at AppleSpec (http://www.info.apple.

com/support/applespec.html), and, for older hardware, AppleSpec Legacy (http://
www.info.apple.com/support/applespec.legacy/index.html).

Model Name/Number Architecture

---------------------------------------------- ---------------

Apple
iMac Bondi Blue, 5 Flavors, Slot Loading powermac-NewWorld
iMac Summer 2000, Early 2001 powermac-NewWorld
* iBook, iBook SE, iBook Dual USB powermac-NewWorld
* iBook2 powermac-NewWorld
Power Macintosh Blue and White (B&W) G3 powermac-NewWorld
* Power Macintosh G4 PCI, AGP, Cube powermac-NewWorld
* Power Macintosh G4 Gigabit Ethernet powermac-NewWorld
* Power Macintosh G4 Digital Audio, Quicksilver powermac-NewWorld
PowerBook G3 FireWire Pismo (2000) powermac-NewWorld
PowerBook G3 Lombard (1999) powermac-NewWorld
* PowerBook G4 Titanium powermac-NewWorld

Performa 4400, 54xx, 5500 powermac-OldWorld

Performa 6360, 6400, 6500 powermac-OldWorld
Power Macintosh 4400, 5400 powermac-OldWorld
Power Macintosh 7200, 7300, 7500, 7600 powermac-OldWorld
Power Macintosh 8200, 8500, 8600 powermac-OldWorld
Power Macintosh 9500, 9600 powermac-OldWorld
Power Macintosh (Beige) G3 Minitower powermac-OldWorld
Power Macintosh (Beige) Desktop, All-in-One powermac-OldWorld
PowerBook 2400, 3400, 3500 powermac-OldWorld
PowerBook G3 Wallstreet (1998) powermac-OldWorld
Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh powermac-OldWorld
Workgroup Server 7250, 7350, 8550, 9650, G3 powermac-OldWorld

Power Computing
PowerBase, PowerTower / Pro, PowerWave powermac-OldWorld
PowerCenter / Pro, PowerCurve powermac-OldWorld

UMAX
C500, C600, J700, S900 powermac-OldWorld

APS
APS Tech M*Power 604e/2000 powermac-OldWorld

Motorola
Starmax 3000, 4000, 5000, 5500 powermac-OldWorld
Firepower, PowerStack Series E, PowerStack II prep
Chapter 2. System Requirements 13

MPC 7xx, 8xx prep

MTX, MTX+ prep
MVME2300(SC)/24xx/26xx/27xx/36xx/46xx prep
MCP(N)750 prep

IBM RS/6000
40P, 43P prep
Power 830/850/860 (6070, 6050) prep
6030, 7025, 7043 prep
p640 prep
B50, 43P-150, 44P chrp

Amiga Power-UP Systems (APUS)

A1200, A3000, A4000 apus

Graphics Card

Debian’s support for graphical interfaces is determined by the underlying support found in
XFree86’s X11 system. The newer AGP video slots are actually a modification on the PCI
specification, and most AGP video cards work under XFree86. Details on supported graphics
buses, cards, monitors, and pointing devices can be found at http://www.xfree86.org/.
Debian 3.0 ships with X11 revision 4.1.0.

2.1.3 Multiple Processors

Multi-processor support — also called “symmetric multi-processing” or SMP — is supported

for this architecture. However, the standard Debian 3.0 kernel image does not support SMP.
This should not prevent installation, since the standard, non-SMP kernel should boot on SMP
systems; the kernel will simply use the first CPU.
In order to take advantage of multiple processors, you’ll have to replace the standard Debian
kernel. You can find a discussion of how to do this in ‘Compiling a New Kernel’ on page 85.
At this time (kernel version 2.2.20) the way you enable SMP is to select “symmetric multi-
processing” in the “General” section of the kernel config.

2.2 Installation Media

In many cases, you’ll have to do your first boot from floppy disks, using the rescue floppy.
Generally, all you will need is a high-density (1440 kilobytes) 3.5 inch floppy drive. For CHRP
floppy support is currently broken.
CD-ROM based installation is supported for some architectures. On machines which support
bootable CD-ROMs, you should be able to do a completely floppy-less installation. Even if
Chapter 2. System Requirements 14

your system doesn’t support booting from a CD-ROM, you can use the CD-ROM in conjunc-
tion with the other techniques to install your system, once you’ve booted up by other means;
see ‘Booting from a CD-ROM’ on page 48.
Installation system booting from a hard disk is another option for many architectures.
You can also boot your system over the network. Diskless installation, using network booting
from a local area network and NFS-mounting of all local filesystems, is another option — you’ll
probably need at least 16MB of RAM for a diskless installation. After the operating system
kernel is installed, you can install the rest of your system via any sort of network connection
(including PPP after installation of the base system), via FTP, HTTP, or NFS.

2.2.1 Supported Storage Systems

The Debian boot disks contain a kernel which is built to maximize the number of systems it
runs on. Unfortunately, this makes for a larger kernel, which includes many drivers that won’t
be used for your machine (see ‘Compiling a New Kernel’ on page 85 to learn how to build your
own kernel). Support for the widest possible range of devices is desirable in general, to ensure
that Debian can be installed on the widest array of hardware.
Any storage system supported by the Linux kernel is also supported by the boot system. Note
that the current Linux kernel does not support floppies on CHRP systems at all.

2.3 Memory and Disk Space Requirements

You must have at least 16MB of memory and 110MB of hard disk space. For a minimal console-
based system (all standard packages), 250MB is required. If you want to install a reasonable
amount of software, including the X Window System, and some development programs and li-
braries, you’ll need at least 400MB. For a more or less complete installation, you’ll need around
800MB. To install everything available in Debian, you’ll probably need around 2 GB. Actually,
installing everything doesn’t even make sense, since some packages conflict with others.

2.4 Network Connectivity Hardware

Any network interface card (NIC) supported by the Linux kernel should also be supported by
the boot disks. You may need to load your network driver as a module.

2.5 Peripherals and Other Hardware

Linux supports a large variety of hardware devices such as mice, printers, scanners, PCM-
CIA and USB devices. However, most of these devices are not required while installing the
system. This section contains information about peripherals specifically not supported by the
installation system, even though they may be supported by Linux.
Chapter 2. System Requirements 15

2.6 Purchasing Hardware Specifically for GNU/Linux

There are several vendors, who ship systems with Debian or other distributions of GNU/Linux
pre-installed. You might pay more for the privilege, but it does buy a level of peace of mind,
since you can be sure that the hardware is well-supported by GNU/Linux.
Whether or not you are purchasing a system with Linux bundled, or even a used system, it is
still important to check that your hardware is supported by the Linux kernel. Check if your
hardware is listed in the references found above. Let your salesperson (if any) know that you’re
shopping for a Linux system. Support Linux-friendly hardware vendors.

2.6.1 Avoid Proprietary or Closed Hardware

Some hardware manufacturers simply won’t tell us how to write drivers for their hardware.
Others won’t allow us access to the documentation without a non-disclosure agreement that
would prevent us from releasing the Linux source code.
Since we haven’t been granted access to the documentation on these devices, they simply won’t
work under Linux. You can help by asking the manufacturers of such hardware to release the
documentation. If enough people ask, they will realize that the free software community is an
important market.
Chapter 2. System Requirements 16
 17

Chapter 3

Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux

3.1 Overview of the Installation Process

Here’s a road map for the steps you will take during the installation process.

1 Create partition-able space for Debian on your hard disk

2 Locate and/or download kernel and driver files (except Debian CD users)

3 Set up boot floppies or place boot files (except most Debian CD users can boot from one
of the CDs)

4 Boot the installation system

5 Configure the keyboard

6 Create and mount Debian partitions

7 Point the installer to the location of the kernel and drivers

8 Select which peripheral drivers to load

9 Configure the network interface

10 Initiate automatic download/install/setup of the base system

11 Configure Linux or multi-system boot loading

12 Boot the newly installed system and do some final configuration

13 Install additional tasks and packages, at your discretion

Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 18

3.2 Back Up Your Existing Data!

Before you start, make sure to back up every file that is now on your system. If this is the first
time a non-native operating system has been installed on your computer, it’s quite likely you
will need to re-partition your disk to make room for Debian GNU/Linux. Anytime you par-
tition your disk, you should count on losing everything on the disk, no matter what program
you use to do it. The programs used in installation are quite reliable and most have seen years
of use; but they are also quite powerful and a false move can cost you. Even after backing up
be careful and think about your answers and actions. Two minutes of thinking can save hours
of unnecessary work.
If you are creating a multi-boot system, make sure that you have the distribution media of any
other present operating systems on hand. Especially if you repartition your boot drive, you
might find that you have to reinstall your operating system’s boot loader, or in many cases the
whole operating system itself and all files on the affected partitions.

3.3 Information You Will Need

3.3.1 Documentation

Installation Manual

This file you are now reading, in plain ASCII, HTML or PDF format.

• install.en.txt
• install.en.html
• install.en.pdf

Dselect for Beginners

Tutorial for using the dselect program. This is one means of installing additional packages
onto your system after the basic install is complete.

• dselect-beginner

Partitioning Program Manual Pages

Manual pages for the partitioning software used during the installation process.

• cfdisk.txt
• mac-fdisk.txt
Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 19

MD5 checksums

List of MD5 checksums for the binary files. If you have the md5sum program, you can ensure
that your files are not corrupt by running md5sum -v -c md5sum.txt.

• . . . /current/md5sum.txt (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/
main/disks-powerpc/current/md5sum.txt)

3.3.2 Finding Sources of Hardware Information

Hardware information can be gathered from:

• The manuals that come with each piece of hardware.

• The BIOS setup screens of your computer. You can view these screens when you start
your computer by pressing a combination of keys. Check your manual for the combina-
tion. Often, it is the Delete key.

• The cases and boxes for each piece of hardware.

• System commands or tools in another operating system, including file manager displays.
This source is especially useful for information about RAM and hard drive memory.

• Your system administrator or Internet Service Provider. These sources can tell you the
settings you need to set up your networking and e-mail.

Hardware Information Needed for an Install

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Hardware| Information You Might Need |
|--------+----------------------------------------------------------|
| | * How many you have. |
| | * Their order on the system. |
|Hard | * Whether IDE or SCSI (most computers are IDE). |
|Drives | * Available free space. |
| | * Partitions. |
| | * Partitions where other operating systems are |
| | installed. |
|--------+----------------------------------------------------------|
| | * Model and manufacturer. |
| | * Resolutions supported. |
|Monitor | * Horizontal refresh rate. |
| | * Vertical refresh rate. |
| | * Color depth (number of colors) supported. |
| | * Screen size. |
|--------+----------------------------------------------------------|
Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 20

| | * Type: serial, PS, or USB. |

|Mouse | * Port. |
| | * Manufacturer. |
| | * Number of buttons. |
|--------+----------------------------------------------------------|
|Network | * Model and manufacturer. |
| | * Type of adapter. |
|--------+----------------------------------------------------------|
|Printer | * Model and manufacturer. |
| | * Printing resolutions supported. |
|--------+----------------------------------------------------------|
| | * Model and manufacturer. |
|Video | * Video RAM available. |
|Card | * Resolutions and color depths supported (these should |
| | be checked against your monitor’s capabilities). |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

3.3.3 Hardware Compatibility

Many brand name products work without trouble on Linux. Moreover, hardware for Linux
is improving daily. However, Linux still does not run as many different types of hardware as
some operating systems.
You can check hardware compatibility by:

• Checking manufacturers’ web sites for new drivers.

• Looking at web sites or manuals for information about emulation. Lesser known brands
can sometimes use the drivers or settings for better-known ones.

• Checking hardware compatibility lists for Linux on web sites dedicated to your architec-
ture.

• Searching the Internet for other users’ experiences.

3.3.4 Network Settings

If your computer is connected to a network 24 hours a day (i.e., an Ethernet or equivalent

connection — not a PPP connection), you should ask your network’s system administrator
for this information. On the other hand, if your administrator tells you that a DHCP server is
available and is recommended, then you don’t need this information because the DHCP server
will provide it directly to your computer during the installation process.

• Your host name (you may be able to decide this on your own).

• Your domain name.

Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 21

• Your computer’s IP address.

• The IP address of your network.

• The netmask to use with your network.

• The broadcast address to use on your network.

• The IP address of the default gateway system you should route to, if your network has a
gateway.

• The system on your network that you should use as a DNS (Domain Name Service)
server.

• Whether you connect to the network using Ethernet.

• Whether your Ethernet interface is a PCMCIA card; if so, the type of PCMCIA controller
you have.

If your computer’s only network connection is via a serial line, using PPP or an equivalent
dialup connection, you will not be able to install the base system over the network. To install
the system in this case, you must use a CD, pre-load the base packages on an existing hard
disk partition, or prepare floppy disks containing the base packages. See ‘Setting Up PPP’ on
page 77 below for information on setting up PPP under Debian once the system is installed.

3.4 Planning Use of the System

It is important to decide what type of machine you are creating. This will determine the disk
space requirements for your Debian system.

3.5 Meeting Minimum Hardware Requirements

Once you have gathered information about your computer’s hardware, check that your hard-
ware will let you do the type of installation that you want to do.
Depending on your needs, you might manage with less than some of the recommended hard-
ware listed in the table below. However, most users risk being frustrated if they ignore these
suggestions. Any OldWorld or NewWorld PowerPC can serve well as a Desktop System. For
servers, a minimum 132-Mhz machine is recommended.

Recommended Minimum System Requirements

+------------------------------------------+
|Install Type| RAM | Hard Drive |
|------------+--------------+--------------|
|No desktop | 16 megabytes | 450 megabytes|
Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 22

|------------+--------------+--------------|
|With Desktop| 64 megabytes | 1 gigabyte |
|------------+--------------+--------------|
|Server | 128 megabytes| 4 gigabytes |
+------------------------------------------+

Here is a sampling of some common Debian system configurations. You can also get an idea
of the disk space used by related groups of programs by referring to ‘Disk Space Needed for
Tasks’ on page 97.

Standard Server This is a small server profile, useful for a stripped down server which does
not have a lot of niceties for shell users. It includes an FTP server, a web server, DNS,
NIS, and POP. For these 50MB of disk space would suffice, and then you would need to
add space for any data you serve up.

Dialup A standard desktop box, including the X window system, graphics applications,
sound, editors, etc. Size of the packages will be around 500MB.

Work Console A more stripped-down user machine, without the X window system or X ap-
plications. Possibly suitable for a laptop or mobile computer. The size is around 140MB.

Developer A desktop setup with all the development packages, such as Perl, C, C++, etc. Size
is around 475MB. Assuming you are adding X11 and some additional packages for other
uses, you should plan around 800MB for this type of machine.

Remember that these sizes don’t include all the other materials which are usually to be found,
such as user files, mail, and data. It is always best to be generous when considering the space
for your own files and data. Notably, the Debian /var partition contains a lot of state infor-
mation. The dpkg files (with information on all installed packages) can easily consume 20MB;
with logs and the rest, you should usually allocate at least 50MB for /var.

3.6 Pre-Partitioning for Multi-Boot Systems

Partitioning your disk simply refers to the act of breaking up your disk into sections. Each
section is then independent of the others. It’s roughly equivalent to putting up walls in a
house; if you add furniture to one room it doesn’t affect any other room.
If you already have an operating system on your system and want to stick Linux on the same
disk, you will need to repartition the disk. Debian requires its own hard disk partitions. It can-
not be installed on Windows or MacOS partitions. It may be able to share some partitions with
other Linux systems, but that’s not covered here. At the very least you will need a dedicated
partition for the Debian root.
You can find information about your current partition setup by using a partitioning tool for
your current operating system , such as Drive Setup, HD Toolkit, or MacTools . Partitioning
tools always provide a way to show existing partitions without making changes.
Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 23

In general, changing a partition with a file system already on it will destroy any information
there. Thus you should always make backups before doing any repartitioning. Using the
analogy of the house, you would probably want to move all the furniture out of the way before
moving a wall or you risk destroying it.
If your computer has more than one hard disk, you may want to dedicate one of the hard disks
completely to Debian. If so, you don’t need to partition that disk before booting the installation
system; the installer’s included partitioning program can handle the job nicely.
If your machine has only one hard disk, and you would like to completely replace the cur-
rent operating system with Debian GNU/Linux, you also can wait to partition as part of the
installation process (‘Partitioning for Debian’ on page 57), after you have booted the installa-
tion system. However this only works if you plan to boot the installer system from floppies,
CD-ROM or files on a connected machine. Consider: if you boot from files placed on the hard
disk, and then partition that same hard disk within the installation system, thus erasing the
boot files, you’d better hope the installation is successful the first time around. At the least
in this case, you should have some alternate means of reviving your machine like the original
system’s installation floppies or CDs.
If your machine already has multiple partitions, and enough space can be provided by delet-
ing and replacing one or more of them, then you too can wait and use the Debian installer’s
partitioning program. You should still read through the material below, because there may
be special circumstances like the order of the existing partitions within the partition map, that
force you to partition before installing anyway.
In all other cases, you’ll need to partition your hard disk before starting the installation to
create partition-able space for Debian. If some of the partitions will be owned by other oper-
ating systems, you should create those partitions using native operating system partitioning
programs. We recommend that you do not attempt to create Debian Linux partitions using
another operating system’s tools. Instead, you should just create the native operating system’s
partitions you will want to retain.
If you are going to install more than one operating system on the same machine, you should
install all other system(s) before proceeding with Linux installation. Windows and other OS
installations may destroy your ability to start Linux, or encourage you to reformat non-native
partitions.
You can recover from these actions or avoid them, but installing the native system first saves
you trouble.
In order for OpenFirmware to automatically boot Debian GNU/Linux the Linux partitions
should appear before all other partitions on the disk, especially MacOS boot partitions. This
should be kept in mind when pre-partitioning; you should create a Linux placeholder partition
to come before the other bootable partitions on the disk. (The small partitions dedicated to
Apple disk drivers are not bootable.) You can delete the placeholder with the Linux partition
tools later during the actual install, and replace it with Linux partitions.
If you currently have one hard disk with one partition (a common setup for desktop comput-
ers), and you want to multi-boot the native operating system and Debian, you will need to:

1 Back up everything on the computer.

Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 24

2 Boot from the native operating system installer media such as CD-ROM or floppies.
When booting from a MacOS CD, hold the c key while booting to force the CD to be-
come the active MacOS system.

3 Use the native partitioning tools to create native system partition(s). Leave either a place
holder partition or free space for Debian GNU/Linux.

4 Install the native operating system on its new partition.

5 Boot back into the native system to verify everything’s OK, and to download the Debian
installer boot files.

6 Boot the Debian installer to continue installing Debian.

3.6.1 MacOS/OSX Partitioning

The Apple Drive Setup application can be found in the Utilities folder on the MacOS
CD. It will not adjust existing partitions; it is limited to partitioning the entire disk at once. The
disk driver partitions don’t show up in Drive Setup.
Remember to create a placeholder partition for GNU/Linux, preferably positioned first in the
disk layout. it doesn’t matter what type it is, it will be deleted and replaced later inside the
Debian GNU/Linux installer.
If you are planning to install both MacOS 9 and OS X, it is best to create separate partitions
for OS 9 and OS X. If they are installed on the same partition, Startup Disk (and reboot)
must be used to select between the two; the choice between the two systems can’t be made
at boot time. With separate partitions, separate options for OS 9 and OS X will appear when
holding the option key at boot time, and separate options can be installed in the yaboot boot
menu as well. Also, Startup Disk will de-bless all other mountable partitions, which can affect
GNU/Linux booting. Both OS 9 and OS X partitions will be accessible from either OS 9 or OS
X.
GNU/Linux is unable to access information on HFS+ (aka MacOS Extended) or UFS parti-
tions. OS X requires one of these two types for its boot partition. MacOS 9 can be installed
on either HFS (aka MacOS Standard) or HFS+. To share information between the MacOS and
GNU/Linux systems, an exchange partition is handy. HFS and MS-DOS FAT partitions are
supported by both MacOS and Linux.

3.7 Installing Debian GNU/Linux from a Unix/Linux System

This section explains how to install Debian GNU/Linux from an existing Unix or Linux system,
without using the ncurses-based, menu-driven installer as explained in the rest of the manual.
This “cross-install” HOWTO has been requested by users switching to Debian GNU/Linux
from Redhat, Mandrake, and SUSE. In this section some familiarity with entering *nix com-
mands and navigating the file system is assumed. In this section, $ symbolizes a command
Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 25

to be entered in the user’s current system, while # refers to a command entered in the Debian
chroot.
Once you’ve got the new Debian system configured to your preference, you can migrate your
existing user data (if any) to it, and keep on rolling. This is therefore a “zero downtime”
Debian GNU/Linux install. It’s also a clever way for dealing with hardware that otherwise
doesn’t play friendly with various boot or installation media.

3.7.1 Getting Started

With your current *nix partitioning tools, repartition the hard drive as needed, creating at least
one filesystem plus swap. You need at least 150MB of space available for a console only install,
or at least 300MB if you plan to install X.
To create file systems on your partitions. For example, to create an ext3 file system on partition
/dev/hda6 (that’s our example root partition):

$ mke2fs -j /dev/hda6

To create an ext2 file system instead, omit -j.

Initialize and activate swap (substitute the partition number for your intended Debian swap
partition):

$ mkswap /dev/hda5
$ sync; sync; sync
$ swapon /dev/hda5

Mount one partition as /mnt/debinst (the installation point, to be the root (/) filesystem on
your new system). The mount point name is strictly arbitrary, it is referenced later below.

$ mkdir /mnt/debinst
$ mount /dev/hda6 /mnt/debinst

3.7.2 Install debootstrap

The tool that the Debian installer uses, which is recognized as the official way to install a De-
bian base system, is debootstrap. It uses wget, but otherwise depends only on glibc. In-
stall wget if it isn’t already on your current system, then download and install debootstrap.
If you have an rpm-based system, you can use alien to convert the .deb into .rpm, or download
an rpm-ized version at http://people.debian.org/~blade/install/debootstrap
Or, you can use the following procedure to install it manually. Make a work folder for extract-
ing the .deb into:
Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 26

$ mkdir work
$ cd work

The debootstrap binary is located in the Debian archive (be sure to select the proper file for
your architecture). Download the debootstrap .deb from the pool (http://ftp.debian.
org/debian/pool/main/d/debootstrap/), copy the package to the work folder, and ex-
tract the binary files from it. You will need to have root privileges to install the binaries.

$ ar -xf debootstrap_0.X.X_arch.deb
$ cd /
$ zcat < /full-path-to-work/work/data.tar.gz | tar xv

The current version of debootstrap, at least for i386, has been compiled with glibc 2.3. There-
fore if you are upgrading from Redhat 6.0, you will need to obtain the source files and re-
compile.

3.7.3 Run debootstrap (Network-connected)

debootstrap can download the needed files directly from the archive when you run it. You
can substitute any Debian archive mirror for http.us.debian.org/debian in the com-
mand example below, preferably a mirror close to you network-wise. Mirrors are listed at
http://www.debian.org/misc/README.mirrors.
When running debootstrap, the PATH needs to include /usr/sbin and /sbin for sub-
sidiary program calls.
If you have a woody version Debian GNU/Linux CD mounted at /cdrom, you could substitute
a file URL instead of the http URL: file:/cdrom/debian/
Substitute one of the following for ARCH in the debootstrap command: alpha, arm, hppa,
i386, ia64, m68k, mips, mipsel, powerpc, s390, or sparc.

$ /usr/sbin/debootstrap --arch ARCH woody \

/mnt/debinst http://http.us.debian.org/debian

3.7.4 Run debootstrap (Using basedebs.tar)

debootstrap can use the basedebs.tar file, if you have already downloaded it ahead of
time. The basedebs.tar file is generated only every once in a while, so you’ll get the latest
version of the base system by pointing debootstrap directly to a Debian archive as shown in
the previous section.
The basedebs.tar file is found in the base-images-current directory of the De-
bian archive for your architecture, for example: http://http.us.debian.org/debian/
dists/woody/main/disks-i386/base-images-current/basedebs.tar
Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 27

Substitute one of the following for ARCH in the debootstrap command: alpha, arm, hppa,
i386, ia64, m68k, mips, mipsel, powerpc, s390, or sparc.

$ /usr/sbin/debootstrap --arch ARCH --unpack-tarball \

/path-to-downloaded/basedebs.tar woody /mnt/debinst

3.7.5 Configure The Base System

Now you’ve got a real Debian system, though rather lean, on disk. Chroot into it:

$ chroot /mnt/debinst /bin/bash

Mount Partitions

You need to create /etc/fstab.

# editor /etc/fstab

Here is a sample you can modify to suit:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.

#
# file system mount point type options dump pass
/dev/XXX / ext2 defaults 0 0
/dev/XXX /boot ext2 ro,nosuid,nodev 0 2

/dev/XXX none swap sw 0 0

proc /proc proc defaults 0 0

/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,rw,sync,user,exec 0 0

/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,ro,user,exec 0 0

/dev/XXX /tmp ext2 rw,nosuid,nodev 0 2

/dev/XXX /var ext2 rw,nosuid,nodev 0 2
/dev/XXX /usr ext2 rw,nodev 0 2
/dev/XXX /home ext2 rw,nosuid,nodev 0 2

Use mount -a to mount all the file systems you have specified in your /etc/fstab, or to
mount file systems individually use:

# mount /path # e.g.: mount /usr

Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 28

You can mount the proc file system multiple times and to arbitrary locations, though /proc is
customary. If you didn’t use mount -a, be sure to mount proc before continuing:

# mount -t proc proc /proc

A RedHat user reports that for his system, this should instead be

# mount -t proc none /proc

Configure Keyboard

To configure your keyboard:

# dpkg-reconfigure console-data

Configure Networking

To configure networking, edit /etc/network/interfaces, /etc/resolv.conf, and etc

/hostname.

# editor /etc/network/interfaces

Here are some simple examples from /usr/share/doc/ifupdown/examples:

######################################################################
# /etc/network/interfaces -- configuration file for ifup(8), ifdown(8)
# See the interfaces(5) manpage for information on what options are
# available.
######################################################################

# We always want the loopback interface.

#
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# To use dhcp:
#
# auto eth0
# iface eth0 inet dhcp

# An example static IP setup: (broadcast and gateway are optional)

#
Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 29

# auto eth0
# iface eth0 inet static
# address 192.168.0.42
# network 192.168.0.0
# netmask 255.255.255.0
# broadcast 192.168.0.255
# gateway 192.168.0.1

Enter your nameserver(s) and search directives in /etc/resolv.conf:

# editor /etc/resolv.conf

A simple /etc/resolv.conf:

# search hqdom.local\000
# nameserver 10.1.1.36
# nameserver 192.168.9.100

Enter your system’s host name (2 to 63 characters):

# echo DebianHostName > /etc/hostname

If you have multiple network cards, you should arrange the names of driver modules in the
/etc/modules file into the desired order. Then during boot, each card will be associated with
the interface name (eth0, eth1, etc.) that you expect.

Configure Timezone, Users, and APT

Set your timezone, add a normal user, and choose your apt sources by running

# /usr/sbin/base-config

Configure Locales

To configure your locale settings to use a language other than English, install the locales sup-
port package and configure it:

# apt-get install locales

# dpkg-reconfigure locales

NOTE: Apt must be configured before, ie. during the base-config phase. Before using lo-
cales with character sets other than ASCII or latin1, please consult the appropriate localisation
HOWTO.
Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 30

3.7.6 Install a Kernel

If you intend to boot this system, you probably want a Linux kernel and a boot loader. Identify
available pre-packaged kernels with

# apt-cache search kernel-image

Then install your choice using its package name.

# apt-get install kernel-image-2.X.X-arch-etc

3.7.7 Set up the Boot Loader

To make your Debian GNU/Linux system bootable, set up your boot loader to load the in-
stalled kernel with your new root partition.
Check man yaboot.conf for instructions on setting up the bootloader. If you are keeping
the system you used to install Debian, just add an entry for the Debian install to your existing
yaboot.conf. You could also copy it to the new system and edit it there. After you are done
editing, call ybin (remember it will use yaboot.conf relative to the system you call it from).
Here is a basic /etc/yaboot.conf as an example:

boot=/dev/hda2
device=hd:
partition=6
root=/dev/hda6
magicboot=/usr/lib/yaboot/ofboot
timeout=50
image=/vmlinux
label=Debian

On some machines, you may need to use ide0: instead of hd:.

3.8 Pre-Installation Hardware and Operating System Setup

This section will walk you through pre-installation hardware setup, if any, that you will need
to do prior to installing Debian. Generally, this involves checking and possibly changing
firmware settings for your system. The “firmware” is the core software used by the hardware;
it is most critically invoked during the bootstrap process (after power-up). Known hardware
issues affecting the reliability of Debian GNU/Linux on your system are also highlighted.
Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 31

3.8.1 Invoking OpenFirmware

There is normally no need to set up the BIOS (called OpenFirmware) on PowerPC systems.
PReP and CHRP are equipped with OpenFirmware, but unfortunately, the means you use
to invoke it vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. You’ll have to consult the hardware
documentation which came with your machine.
On PowerPC Macintoshes, you invoke OpenFirmware with Command-option-O-F while boot-
ing. Generally it will check for these keystrokes after the chime, but the exact timing varies
from model to model. See http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/macppc/faq.html for more
hints. You can also change OpenFirmware settings using the Linux nvsetenv program, which
is available within the installer command shell. Without parameters, it lists the current settings.
To change a setting, add a setting name and setting value on the command line.
The OpenFirmware prompt looks like this:

ok
0 >

Note that on older model PowerPC Macs, the default and sometimes hardwired I/O for Open-
Firmware user interaction is through the serial (modem) port. If you invoke OpenFirmware on
one of these machines, you will just see a black screen. In that case, a terminal program running
on another computer, connected to the modem port, is needed to interact with OpenFirmware.
The OpenFirmware on OldWorld Beige G3 machines, OF versions 2.0f1 and 2.4, is broken.
These machines will most likely not be able to boot from the hard drive unless the firmware is
patched. A firmware patch is included in the System Disk 2.3.1 utility, available from Apple
at ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/macosxserver/utilities/SystemDisk2.3.
1.smi.bin. After unpacking the utility in MacOS, and launching it, select the Save button to
have the firmware patches installed to nvram.

3.8.2 Hardware Issues to Watch Out For

Many people have tried operating their 90 MHz CPU at 100 MHz, etc. It sometimes works, but
is sensitive to temperature and other factors and can actually damage your system. One of the
authors of this document over-clocked his own system for a year, and then the system started
aborting the gcc program with an unexpected signal while it was compiling the operating
system kernel. Turning the CPU speed back down to its rated value solved the problem.
The gcc compiler is often the first thing to die from bad memory modules (or other hard-
ware problems that change data unpredictably) because it builds huge data structures that it
traverses repeatedly. An error in these data structures will cause it to execute an illegal in-
struction or access a non-existent address. The symptom of this will be gcc dying from an
unexpected signal.
Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 32
 33

Chapter 4

Obtaining System Installation Media

4.1 Official Debian GNU/Linux CD-ROM Sets

By far the easiest way to install Debian GNU/Linux is from an Official Debian CD-ROM
Set (see the CD vendors page (http://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/)). You may also
download the CD-ROM images from a Debian mirror and make your own set, if you have a
fast network connection and a CD burner (see the Debian CD page (http://www.debian.
org/CD/) for detailed instructions). If you have a Debian CD set and CDs are bootable on
your machine, you can skip right to ‘Booting from a CD-ROM’ on page 48; much effort has
been expended to ensure the files most people need are there on the CD. Although a full set of
binary packages comprises of seven or more CDs, it is unlikely you will need packages on the
third CD and above.
If your machine doesn’t support CD booting, but you do have a CD set, you can use an alterna-
tive strategy ( floppy disk, hard disk, or net boot) to initially boot the system installer. The files
you need for booting by another means are also on the CD; the Debian network archive and
CD folder organization are identical. So when archive file paths are given below for particular
files you need for booting, look for those files in the same directories and subdirectories on
your CD.
Once the installer is booted, it will be able to obtain all the other files it needs from the CD.
If you don’t have a CD set, then you will need to download the installer system files and place
them either on your hard disk, floppy disk or a connected computer so they can be used to
boot the installer.

4.2 Downloading Files from Debian Mirrors

When downloading files from a Debian mirror, be sure to download the files in binary mode,
not text or automatic mode. It’s important to replicate the directory structure you find on
the mirror to create a local ‘sub-mirror’. It isn’t really necessary to do this if you place all
the installation files on floppies; but it still makes it easier to find the files when you need
Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 34

them. You should start your local directory structure at the level under disks-powerpc, for
example:

current/subarchitecture/images-1.44/flavor/rescue.bin

You don’t need to download every file under that level, just those that apply to you (you’ll find
out which ones apply as you read on). Just name the directories the same as the mirror’s, and
keep the files in their proper directories.
If your machine is set up to automatically decompress/decode files you download, you must
turn that feature off when downloading the installation system files. They will be decom-
pressed just-in-time by the installer. Decompressing in your current system will waste space
and time, and if the original compressed archives are deleted by the decompression program,
they won’t be there later when the installer needs them. Also, many of the binary files such as
yaboot will be automatically interpreted as text since they have no file extensions unless you
specifically select binary transfer mode. These files will be unusable if they are transferred in
text mode.

4.2.1 Installation Options

Files you may need fall into three categories:

1 Files needed to boot into the installation system (for example, rescue.bin, linux.bin,
and root.bin)

2 Files the installation system will need access to after it has been booted in order to in-
stall the operating system kernel and peripheral drivers (for example, rescue.bin and
drivers.tgz)

3 Base system installation files (for example, basedebs.tar)

If you have a working Ethernet connection on the computer, and your Ethernet card is of one
of the types compiled into the installation kernel, you may only need the install system boot
files. The installer is capable of installing the kernel and drivers over the network for many
common Ethernet cards.
If you have an Ethernet connection for which the installer doesn’t have built-in support, you
may need both the install system boot files and the kernel and peripheral driver installation
files.
If you are installing on a system without a working network connection, or if your network
connection is via PPP (using a modem) rather than Ethernet, you will need to obtain all three
types of files before starting the installation.
If you’re not sure which files you need, just start with the install system boot files. If your first
attempt to configure the network within the installer fails, you can just quit, get the extra files
you need, and re-start the installation.
Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 35

The base system installation file basedebs.tar is currently about 27M. If you are able to use
a CD, or configure your network before installing the base system, it is better to do so; in that
case you won’t need this file. The network location is listed in the appendix (‘Debian Base
System Installation Files’ on page 95).

4.2.2 Choosing the Right Installation Set

Installation files include kernel images, which are available for various “subarchitectures”.
Each subarchitecture supports a different set of hardware. The subarchitectures available for
PowerPC are:

‘powermac’ This is the kernel to use for most Power Macintosh computers; it uses version 2.2
of the Linux kernel.

‘new-powermac’ Use this kernel for very new Power Macintosh computers; it is based on
version 2.4 of the Linux kernel. If you want to install the new-powermac version on
an OldWorld machine, you are limited to using BootX to boot the installer; the kernel
doesn’t fit on a floppy and Debian CDs are not bootable on OldWorlds. You could also
switch to the 2.4.18 kernel after you finish the powermac flavor install.

‘apus’ Use this kernel for Amiga Power-UP Systems (APUS); it is based on version 2.2 of the
Linux kernel.

‘chrp’ Use this kernel for embedded CHRP computers; it is based on version 2.2 of the Linux
kernel.

‘prep’ Use this kernel for Motorola and IBM RS/6000 PReP computers; it is based on version
2.2 of the Linux kernel.

The kernel config files for these flavors can be found in their respective directories in a file
named config.gz.

4.2.3 Where to Find Installation Files

The network locations of installation files for each powerpc flavor are listed in the Appendix.
These include:

• rescue image

– . . . /current/apus/images-1.44/rescue.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/apus/images-1.
44/rescue.bin)
– . . . /current/chrp/images-1.44/rescue.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/chrp/images-1.
44/rescue.bin)
Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 36

– . . . /current/new-powermac/images-2.88/rescue.bin (http://http.us.
debian.org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/
new-powermac/images-2.88/rescue.bin)
– . . . /current/powermac/images-1.44/rescue.bin (http://http.us.debian.
org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/powermac/
images-1.44/rescue.bin)
– . . . /current/prep/images-1.44/rescue.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/prep/images-1.
44/rescue.bin)

• root image(s) or tarball

– . . . /current/apus/images-1.44/root.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/apus/images-1.
44/root.bin)
– . . . /current/chrp/images-1.44/root.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/chrp/images-1.
44/root.bin)
– . . . /current/new-powermac/images-1.44/root.bin (http://http.us.
debian.org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/
new-powermac/images-1.44/root.bin)
– . . . /current/powermac/images-1.44/root.bin (http://http.us.debian.
org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/powermac/
images-1.44/root.bin)
– . . . /current/prep/images-1.44/root.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/prep/images-1.
44/root.bin)

• kernel binary

– ‘Linux Kernel Files’ on page 93

• driver images or tarball

– ‘Driver Files’ on page 94

• base system images or tarball

– ‘Debian Base System Installation Files’ on page 95

Both the boot-floppy-hfs floppy image and the rescue.bin image contain a compressed
Linux boot kernel. The boot-floppy-hfs floppy is used to boot the installation system,
while rescue.bin serves as the source for the Linux kernel when the kernel is being installed
on your machine. A rescue.bin floppy cannot be booted on PowerPC. A third uncom-
pressed kernel image, simply named linux.bin, is used when booting the installer from the
hard disk or CD-ROM. It is not needed for floppy installer booting.
Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 37

There are two versions of the hfs boot floppy image. The standard one,
boot-floppy-hfs.img, may work best on older machines such as the 7200 and 8500
with no added video cards. If the standard image gives a black screen when booting, try the
image with video=ofonly added to the boot arguments: boot-video-ofonly.img.

Refer to ‘Creating Floppies from Disk Images’ on the following page for important information
on properly creating floppy disks from floppy images.

The root floppy image contains a compressed RAMdisk filesystem which gets loaded into
memory after you boot the installer.

The peripheral drivers may be downloaded as a series of floppy images or as a tarball

(drivers.tgz). The installer system will need access to the drivers file during installation. If
you have a hard drive partition or connected computer which will be accessible to the installer
(see below), the tarball will be more convenient to handle. The floppy image files are needed
only if you must install the drivers from floppies.

When downloading files, you should also pay attention to the type of file system you are
downloading them to, unless you will use floppies for the kernel and drivers. The installer
can read files from many kinds of file systems, including FAT, HFS, ext2fs, and Minix. When
downloading files to a *nix file system, choose the largest possible files from the archive.

The installer cannot access files on an HFS+ filesystem. MacOS System 8.1 and above may
use HFS+ filesystems; NewWorld PowerMacs all use HFS+ by default. To determine whether
your existing filesystem is HFS+, select Get Info for the volume in question. HFS file systems
appear as Mac OS Standard, while HFS+ file systems say Mac OS Extended.

During the installation, you will erase the partition(s) on which you are installing Debian be-
fore beginning the installation. All downloaded files must be placed on partitions other than
those on which you are planning to install the system.

NewWorld MacOS Installation Files

For floppy-less installation on NewWorld Macs, it may be most convenient to obtain

all the necessary files packaged into one Stuffit archive from http://debian-imac.
sourceforge.net/ (separate instructions are included in the archive). Other-
wise, obtain the normal installation files listed above. Retrieve the files to an
HFS (not HFS+) partition on your system. You will also need the yaboot
and yaboot.conf files from the new-powermac (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/) or power-
mac (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/
current/powermac/) archive folder. However, the newest G4 PowerMacs, and those that
work without MacOS 9, need the newest version of yaboot; the one in the archive will not
work. Obtain the newest version from http://penguinppc.org/projects/yaboot/.
Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 38

4.3 Creating Floppies from Disk Images

Bootable floppy disks are commonly used to boot the installer system for machines with a
floppy drive. Floppies can also be used for installation of the kernel and modules on most
systems. Floppy disk booting reportedly fails on Mac USB floppy drives.
Disk images are files containing the complete contents of a floppy disk in raw form. Disk
images, such as rescue.bin, cannot simply be copied to floppy drives. A special program is
used to write the image files to floppy disk in raw mode. This is required because these images
are raw representations of the disk; it is required to do a sector copy of the data from the file
onto the floppy.
There are different techniques for creating floppies from disk images, which depend on your
platform. This section describes how to create floppies from disk images on different platforms.
No matter which method you use to create your floppies, you should remember to flip the tab
on the floppies once you have written them, to ensure they are not damaged unintentionally.

4.3.1 Writing Disk Images From a Linux or Unix System

To write the floppy disk image files to the floppy disks, you will probably need root access to
the system. Place a good, blank floppy in the floppy drive. Next, use the command

dd if=file of=/dev/fd0 bs=1024 conv=sync ; sync

where file is one of the floppy disk image files (see ‘Downloading Files from Debian Mirrors’ on
page 33 for what file should be). /dev/fd0 is a commonly used name of the floppy disk de-
vice, it may be different on your workstation (on Solaris, it is /dev/fd/0). The command may
return to the prompt before Unix has finished writing the floppy disk, so look for the disk-in-
use light on the floppy drive and be sure that the light is out and the disk has stopped revolving
before you remove it from the drive. On some systems, you’ll have to run a command to eject
the floppy from the drive (on Solaris, use eject, see the manual page).
Some systems attempt to automatically mount a floppy disk when you place it in the drive.
You might have to disable this feature before the workstation will allow you to write a floppy
in raw mode. Unfortunately, how to accomplish this will vary based on your operating system.
On Solaris, you can work around volume management to get raw access to the floppy. First,
make sure that the floppy is auto-mounted (using volcheck or the equivalent command in
the file manager). Then use a dd command of the form given above, just replace /dev/fd0
with /vol/rdsk/floppy_name, where floppy_name is the name the floppy disk was given
when it was formatted (unnamed floppies default to the name unnamed_floppy). On other
systems, ask your system administrator.
If writing a floppy on a powerpc, you will need to eject it. The eject program handles this
nicely; you might need to install it.
Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 39

4.3.2 Writing Disk Images From DOS, Windows, or OS/2

If you have access to an i386 machine, you can use one of the following programs to copy
images to floppies. A fairly complete list of similar programs is at http://www.fdos.org/
ripcord/rawrite/readme.txt.
The FDVOL, WrtDsk or RaWrite3 programs can be used under MS-DOS.
http://www.minix-vmd.org/pub/Minix-vmd/dosutil/
To use these programs, first make sure that you are booted into DOS. Trying to use these pro-
grams from within a DOS box in Windows, or double-clicking on these programs from the
Windows Explorer is not expected to work. If you don’t know how to boot into DOS, just hit
F8 while booting.
NTRawrite is an attempt to create a contemporary version of Rawrite/Rawrite3 that is
compatible with WinNT and Win2K. It is a self-explanatory GUI application; you select the
disk drive to write to, browse to the disk image you want to place there and hit the Write
button.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ntrawrite/

4.3.3 Modifying the Rescue Floppy to Support National Language

The messages shown by the rescue floppy (before loading the Linux kernel) can be shown in
your mother tongue. To achieve this if you are not an English speaker, after writing the image
file, you must copy the provided message files and a font to the floppy. For MS-DOS and
Windows users there is a batch file setlang.bat in the dosutils directory, which copies
the correct files. Simply enter this directory (e.g.

cd
c:\debian\dosutils

) within a command prompt window, and run setlang lang, where lang is a two-letter
code of your language in lower case, for example setlang pl to set the language to Polish.
Currently these language codes are available:

ca cs da de eo es fi fr gl hr hu it ko ja pl pt ru sk sv tr zh_CN

Note that the descriptions in this manual assume that you use non localized (English) instal-
lation; otherwise the names of menus and buttons will differ from what you will see on your
screen.

4.3.4 Writing Disk Images From MacOS

An AppleScript, Make Debian Floppy, is available for burning floppies from the pro-
vided disk image files. It can be downloaded from ftp://ftp2.sourceforge.net/pub/
Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 40

sourceforge/d/de/debian-imac/MakeDebianFloppy.sit. To use it, just unstuff it on

your desktop, and then drag any floppy image file to it. You must have Applescript installed
and enabled in your extensions manager. Disk Copy will ask you to confirm that you wish to
erase the floppy and proceed to write the file image to it.
You can also use the MacOS utility Disk Copy directly, or the freeware utility suntar. The
root.bin file is an example of a floppy image. Use one of the following methods to create a
floppy from the floppy image with these utilities.

Writing Disk Images with Disk Copy

1 If you are creating the floppy image from files which were originally on the official
Debian GNU/Linux CD, then the Type and Creator are already set correctly. These
Creator-Changer steps are only necessary if you downloaded the image files from
a Debian mirror.

1 Obtain Creator-Changer (http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/

HyperArchive/Archive/disk/creator-changer-284.hqx) and use it
to open the root.bin file.
2 Change the Creator to ddsk (Disk Copy), and the Type to DDim (binary floppy im-
age). The case is sensitive for these fields.
3 Important: In the Finder, use Get Info to display the Finder information about the
floppy image, and ‘X’ the File Locked check box so that MacOS will be unable to
remove the boot blocks if the image is accidentally mounted.

2 Obtain Disk Copy; if you have a MacOS system or CD it will very likely be there
already, otherwise try http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_
Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/
Utilities/Disk_Copy/Disk_Copy_6.3.3.smi.bin.

3 Run Disk Copy, and select ‘Make a Floppy’ from the Utilities menu, then select the
locked image file from the resulting dialog. It will ask you to insert a floppy, then ask if
you really want to erase it. When done it should eject the floppy.

Writing Disk Images with suntar

1 Obtain suntar from http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive/

Archive/cmp/suntar-223.hqx. Start the suntar program and select ‘Overwrite
Sectors. . . ’ from the Special menu.

2 Insert the floppy disk as requested, then hit return (start at sector 0).

3 Select the root.bin file in the file-opening dialog.

4 After the floppy has been created successfully, select ‘Eject’ from the File menu. If there
are any errors writing the floppy, simply toss that floppy and try another.
Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 41

Before using the floppy you created, set the write protect tab! Otherwise if you accidentally
mount it in MacOS, MacOS will helpfully ruin it.

4.4 Preparing Files for Hard Disk Booting

The installer may be booted using boot files placed on an existing hard drive partition, either
launched from another operating system or by invoking a boot loader directly from the BIOS.
A full, “pure network” installation can be achieved using this technique. This avoids all hassles
of removable media, like finding and burning CD images or struggling with too numerous and
unreliable floppy disks.
The installer cannot boot from files on an HFS+ file system. MacOS System 8.1 and above
may use HFS+ file systems; NewWorld PowerMacs all use HFS+. To determine whether your
existing file system is HFS+, select Get Info for the volume in question. HFS file systems
appear as Mac OS Standard, while HFS+ file systems say Mac OS Extended. You must
have an HFS partition in order to exchange files between MacOS and Linux, in particular the
installation files you download.
Different programs are used for hard disk installation system booting, depending on whether
the system is a “NewWorld” or an “OldWorld” model.

4.4.1 Hard Disk Installer Booting for OldWorld Macs

The boot-floppy-hfs floppy uses miBoot to launch Linux installation, but miBoot cannot
easily be used for hard disk booting. BootX, launched from MacOS, supports booting from
files placed on the hard disk. BootX can also be used to dual-boot MacOS and Linux after
your Debian installation is complete. For the Performa 6360, it appears that quik cannot make
the hard disk bootable. So BootX is required on that model.
Download and unstuff the BootX distribution, available from http://penguinppc.org/
projects/bootx/, or in the dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/powermac
directory on Debian http/ftp mirrors and official Debian CDs. Use Stuffit Expander
to extract it from its archive. Within the package, there is an empty folder called Linux
Kernels. Download linux.bin and ramdisk.image.gz from the disks-powerpc
/current/powermac folder, and place them in the LinuxKernels folder. Then place the
LinuxKernels folder in the active System Folder.

4.4.2 Hard Disk Installer Booting for NewWorld Macs

NewWorld PowerMacs support booting from a network or an ISO9660 CD-ROM, as well as

loading ELF binaries directly from the hard disk. These machines will boot Linux directly
via yaboot, which supports loading a kernel and RAMdisk directly from an ext2 partition, as
well as dual-booting with MacOS. Hard disk booting of the installer is particularly appropriate
Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 42

for newer machines without floppy drives. BootX is not supported and must not be used on
NewWorld PowerMacs.
Copy (not move) the following four files which you downloaded earlier from the Debian
archives, onto the root level of your hard drive (this can be accomplished by option-dragging
each file to the hard drive icon).

• linux.bin
• root.bin (from inside the images-1.44 folder)
• yaboot
• yaboot.conf

Make a note of the partition number of the MacOS partition where you place these files. If
you have the MacOS pdisk program, you can use the L command to check for the partition
number. You will need this partition number for the command you type at the Open Firmware
prompt when you boot the installer.
To boot the installer, proceed to ‘Booting NewWorld Macs from OpenFirmware’ on page 50.

4.5 Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting

If your machine is connected to a local area network, you may be able to boot it over the
network from another machine, using TFTP. If you intend to boot the installation system from
another machine, the boot files will need to be placed in specific locations on that machine, and
the machine configured to support booting of your specific machine.
You need to setup a TFTP server, and for CATS machines, a BOOTP server , or DHCP server.
BOOTP is an IP protocol that informs a computer of its IP address and where on the network
to obtain a boot image. The DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) is a more flexible,
backwards-compatible extension of BOOTP. Some systems can only be configured via DHCP.
For PowerPC, if you have a NewWorld Power Macintosh machine, it is a good idea to use
DHCP instead of BOOTP. Some of the latest machines are unable to boot using BOOTP.
The Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is used to serve the boot image to the client. Theo-
retically, any server, on any platform, which implements these protocols, may be used. In the
examples in this section, we shall provide commands for SunOS 4.x, SunOS 5.x (a.k.a. Solaris),
and GNU/Linux.

4.5.1 Setting up BOOTP server

There are two BOOTP servers available for GNU/Linux, the CMU bootpd and the other is
actually a DHCP server, ISC dhcpd, which are contained in the bootp and dhcp packages in
Debian GNU/Linux.
Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 43

To use CMU bootpd, you must first uncomment (or add) the relevant line in /etc
/inetd.conf. On Debian GNU/Linux, you can run update-inetd --enable bootps,
then /etc/init.d/inetd reload to do so. Elsewhere, the line in question should look
like:

bootps dgram udp wait root /usr/sbin/bootpd bootpd

Now, you must create an /etc/bootptab file. This has the same sort of familiar and cryptic
format as the good old BSD printcap(5), termcap(5), and disktab(5) files. See the
bootptab(5) manual page for more information. For CMU bootpd, you will need to know
the hardware (MAC) address of the client. Here is an example /etc/bootptab:

client:\
hd=/tftpboot:\
bf=tftpboot.img:\
ip=192.168.1.90:\
sm=255.255.255.0:\
sa=192.168.1.1:\
ha=0123456789AB:

You will need to change at least the “ha” option, which specifies the hardware address of the
client. The “bf” option specifies the file a client should retrieve via TFTP; see ‘Move TFTP
Images Into Place’ on the next page for more details.
By contrast, setting up BOOTP with ISC dhcpd is really easy, because it treats BOOTP clients as
a moderately special case of DHCP clients. Some architectures require a complex configuration
for booting clients via BOOTP. If yours is one of those, read the section ‘Setting up a DHCP
server’ on this page. Otherwise, you will probably be able to get away with simply adding
the allow bootp directive to the configuration block for the subnet containing the client, and
restart dhcpd with /etc/init.d/dhcpd restart.

4.5.2 Setting up a DHCP server

At the time of this writing, there is only one DHCP server which is free software, namely
ISC dhcpd. In Debian GNU/Linux, this is available in the dhcp package. Here is a sample
configuration file for it (usually /etc/dhcpd.conf):

option domain-name "example.com";

option domain-name-servers ns1.example.com;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;
server-name "servername";
Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 44

subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {

range 192.168.1.200 192.168.1.253;
option routers 192.168.1.1;
}

host clientname {
filename "/tftpboot/tftpboot.img";
server-name "servername";
next-server servername;
hardware ethernet 01:23:45:67:89:AB;
fixed-address 192.168.1.90;
}

In this example, there is one server “servername” which performs all of the work of DHCP,
server, TFTP server, and network gateway. You will almost certainly need to change the
domain-name options, as well as the server name and client hardware address. The “filename”
option should be the name of the file which will be retrieved via TFTP.
After you have edited the dhcpd configuration file, restart it with /etc/init.d/dhcpd
restart.

4.5.3 Enabling the TFTP Server

To get the TFTP server ready to go, you should first make sure that tftpd is enabled. This is
usually enabled by having the following line in /etc/inetd.conf:

tftp dgram udp wait root /usr/sbin/tcpd in.tftpd /tftpboot

Look in that file and remember the directory which is used as the argument of in.tftpd;
you’ll need that below. The -l argument enables some versions of in.tftpd to log all re-
quests to the system logs; this is useful for diagnosing boot errors. If you’ve had to change
/etc/inetd.conf, you’ll have to notify the running inetd process that the file has changed.
On a Debian machine, run /etc/init.d/netbase reload (for potato/2.2 and newer sys-
tems use /etc/init.d/inetd reload); on other machines, find out the process ID for
inetd, and run kill -HUP inetd-pid.

4.5.4 Move TFTP Images Into Place

Next, place the TFTP boot image you need, as found in ‘Description of Installation Sys-
tem Files’ on page 91, in the tftpd boot image directory. Generally, this directory will be
/tftpboot. You’ll have to make a link from that file to the file which tftpd will use for
booting a particular client. Unfortunately, the file name is determined by the TFTP client, and
there are no strong standards.
Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 45

On NewWorld Power Macintosh machines, you will need to set up the yaboot boot loader
as the TFTP boot image. Yaboot will then retrieve the kernel and RAMdisk images via TFTP
itself. For net booting, use the yaboot-netboot.conf. Just rename this to yaboot.conf in
the TFTP directory.
NOT YET WRITTEN

4.5.5 Installing with TFTP and NFS Root

It is closer to “TFTP install for lowmem. . . ” because you don’t want to load the RAMdisk
anymore but boot from the newly created NFS-root file system. You then need to replace the
symlink to the tftpboot image by a symlink to the kernel image (for example, linux-a.out).
My experience on booting over the network was based exclusively on RARP/TFTP which
requires all daemons running on the same server (the sparc workstation is sending a TFTP
request back to the server that replied to its previous RARP request). However, Linux supports
BOOTP protocol, too, but I don’t know how to set it up :-(( Does it have to be documented as
well in this manual?
To boot the client machine, go to ‘Booting from TFTP’ on page 51.

4.6 Automatic Installation

For installing on multiple computers it’s possible to use the fully automatic installation called
FAI. The Debian package fai has to be installed on a computer called the install server. Then
all install clients boot from their network card or floppy disk and automatically install Debian
on their local disks.
Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 46
 47

Chapter 5

Booting the Installation System

Subject to limitations in some cases, you may boot the installation system from a Debian
GNU/Linux CD-ROM, floppy disks, a partition on a hard disk, or from another machine via a
local area network.

5.1 Boot Parameter Arguments

Boot parameters are Linux kernel parameters which are generally used to make sure that pe-
ripherals are dealt with properly. For the most part, the kernel can auto-detect information
about your peripherals. However, in some cases you’ll have to help the kernel a bit.
Full information on boot parameters can be found in the Linux BootPrompt HOWTO (http:
//www.tldp.org/HOWTO/BootPrompt-HOWTO.html); this section contains only a sketch
of the most salient parameters.
If this is the first time you’re booting the system, try the default boot parameters (i.e., don’t try
setting arguments) and see if it works correctly. It probably will. If not, you can reboot later
and look for any special parameters that inform the system about your hardware.
When the kernel boots, a message

Memory:
availk/totalk available

should be emitted early in the process. total should match the total amount of RAM, in kilo-
bytes. If this doesn’t match the actual of RAM you have installed, you need to use the mem=ram
parameter, where ram is set to the amount of memory, suffixed with “k” for kilobytes, or “m”
for megabytes. For example, both mem=65536k and mem=64m mean 64MB of RAM.
If you have a PowerMac with an IDE drive, and you receive weird kernel error messages when
accessing your hard drive, you might be ticking a bug in the kernel when using IDE drives
on your hardware. Try using the following boot argument, assuming your IDE drive is /dev
/hda: hda=noautotune.
Chapter 5. Booting the Installation System 48

Many older Apple monitors used a 640x480 67Hz mode. If your video appears skewed on
an older Apple monitor, try appending the boot argument video=atyfb:vmode:6, which
will select that mode for most Mach64 and Rage video hardware. For Rage 128 hardware, this
changes to video=aty128fb:vmode:6
If your monitor is only capable of black-and-white, use the mono boot argument. Otherwise,
your installation will use color, which is the default.
If you are booting with a serial console, generally the kernel will autodetect this . If you have a
videocard (framebuffer) and a keyboard also attached to the computer which you wish to boot
via serial console, you may have to pass the console=device argument to the kernel, where
device is your serial device, which is usually something like “ttyS0”.
Again, full details on boot parameters can be found in the Linux BootPrompt HOWTO
(http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/BootPrompt-HOWTO.html), including tips for obscure
hardware. Some common gotchas are included below in ‘Troubleshooting the Install Process’
on page 51.

5.1.1 dbootstrap Arguments

The installation system recognizes a few boot arguments which may be useful. The effects of
quiet and verbose are listed in ‘Effects of Verbose and Quiet’ on page 98.

quiet This will cause the installation system to suppress confirmation messages and try to do
the right thing without fuss. If you are familiar and comfortable with what the installa-
tion system is going to expect, this is a nice option to quieten the process.

verbose Ask even more questions than usual.

debug Emit additional debug messages to the installation system log (see ‘Using the Shell and
Viewing the Logs’ on page 54), including every command run.

bootkbd=. . . Pre-select the keyboard you want to use, e.g., bootkbd=qwerty/us

mono Use monochrome rather than color mode.

nolangchooser Some architectures use the kernel framebuffer to offer installation in a number
of languages. If framebuffer causes a problem on your system you can use this option to
disable the feature. Problem symptoms are error messages about bterm or bogl, a blank
screen, or a freeze within a few minutes after starting the install.

5.2 Booting from a CD-ROM

The easiest route for most people will be to use a set of Debian CDs (http://www.debian.
org/CD/vendors/). If you have a CD set, and if your machine supports booting directly
off the CD, great! Simply insert your CD, reboot, and proceed to the next chapter. Currently,
Chapter 5. Booting the Installation System 49

the only PowerPC subarchitectures that support CD-ROM booting are PReP and New World
PowerMacs. On PowerMacs, hold the ’c’ key, or else the combination of Command, Option,
Shift, and Delete keys together while booting to boot from the CD-ROM. However, the newest
G4 PowerMacs, and those that work without MacOS 9, need the newest version of yaboot;
the one on the CD will not work. Obtain the newest version from http://penguinppc.
org/projects/yaboot/.
OldWorld Powermacs will not boot a Debian CD, because OldWorld computers relied on a
MacOSROM CD boot driver to be present on the CD, and a free-software version of this driver
is not available. All OldWorld systems have floppy drives, so use the floppy drive to launch
the installer, and then point the installer to the CD for the needed files.
If your system doesn’t boot directly from CD-ROM, you can still use the CD-ROM to install
the system. On NewWorlds, you can also use an OpenFirmware command to boot from the
CD-ROM manually. Follow the instructions in ‘Booting NewWorld Macs from OpenFirmware’
on the following page for booting from the hard disk, except use the path to yaboot on the
CD at the OF prompt, such as

0 > boot cd:,install\powermac\yaboot

Note that certain CD drives may require special drivers, and thus be inaccessible in the early
installation stages. If it turns out the standard way of booting off a CD doesn’t work for your
hardware, revisit this chapter and read about alternate kernels and installation methods which
may work for you.
USB CD-ROM drives are supported by the ‘bf2.4’ flavor. FireWire devices that are supported
by the ohci1394 and sbp2 drivers may also be useable with the ‘bf2.4’ flavor.
Even if you cannot boot from CD-ROM, you can probably install the Debian system compo-
nents and any packages you want from CD-ROM. Simply boot using a different media, such
as floppies. When it’s time to install the operating system, base system, and any additional
packages, point the installation system at the CD-ROM drive.
If you have problems booting, see ‘Troubleshooting the Install Process’ on page 51.

5.3 Booting from Floppies

Booting from floppies is supported for PowerPC, although it is generally only applicable for
OldWorld systems. NewWorld systems are not usually equipped with floppy drives.
You will have already downloaded the floppy images you needed and created floppies from
the images in ‘Creating Floppies from Disk Images’ on page 38.
To boot from the boot-floppy-hfs.img floppy, place it in floppy drive after shutting the
system down, and before pressing the power-on button. For those not familiar with Macintosh
floppy operations: a floppy placed in the machine prior to boot will be the first priority for the
system to boot from. A floppy without a valid boot system will be ejected, and the machine
will then check for bootable hard disk partitions.
Chapter 5. Booting the Installation System 50

After booting, the root.bin floppy is requested. Insert the root floppy and press Enter.
The installer program dbootstrap is automatically launched after the root system has been
loaded into memory.
If you have problems booting, see ‘Troubleshooting the Install Process’ on the next page.

5.4 Booting From a Hard Disk

Booting from an existing operating system is often a convenient option; for some systems it is
the only supported method of installation.
To boot the installer from hard disk, you will have already completed downloading and plac-
ing the needed files in ‘Preparing Files for Hard Disk Booting’ on page 41.

5.4.1 Booting CHRP from OpenFirmware

Not yet written.

5.4.2 Booting OldWorld PowerMacs from MacOS

If you set up BootX in ‘Hard Disk Installer Booting for OldWorld Macs’ on page 41, you can
use it to boot into the installation system. Double click the BootX application icon. Click on
the ’Options’ button and select ’Use Specified RAM Disk’. This will give you the chance to
select the ramdisk.image.gz file. You may need to select the ’No Video Driver’ checkbox,
depending on your hardware. Then click the ’Linux’ button to shut down MacOS and launch
the installer.

5.4.3 Booting NewWorld Macs from OpenFirmware

You will have already placed the linux.bin,yaboot,yaboot.conf, and root.bin files
at the root level of your HFS partition in ‘Hard Disk Installer Booting for NewWorld Macs’ on
page 41. Restart the computer, and immediately (during the chime) hold down the Option,
Command (cloverleaf/Apple), o, and f keys all together. After a few seconds you will be
presented with the Open Firmware prompt:

0 >

At the prompt, type

0 > boot hd:x,yaboot

Chapter 5. Booting the Installation System 51

replacing x with the partition number of the HFS partition where the kernel and yaboot files
were placed, followed by a return. On some machines, you may need to use ide0: instead of
hd:. In a few more seconds you will see a yaboot prompt

boot:

At yaboot’s boot: prompt, type either install or install-safe followed by a return. The
‘safe’ option uses the video=ofonly argument for maximum compatibility; you can try it if
install doesn’t work. The Debian installation program should start.

5.4.4 Installing PReP from OpenBug

Not yet written.

5.5 Booting from TFTP

Booting from the network requires that you have a network connection supported by the boot
floppies, including either a static network address or a DHCP server, a BOOTP server, and a
TFTP server. Currently, PReP and New World PowerMac systems support netbooting. The
installation method to support TFTP booting is described in ‘Preparing Files for TFTP Net
Booting’ on page 42. On machines with Open Firmware, such as NewWorld Power Macs,
enter the boot monitor (see ‘Invoking OpenFirmware’ on page 31) and use the command boot
enet:0. PReP and CHRP boxes may have different ways of addressing the network. More
information from users with those machines is requested. On a PReP machine, you should try
boot server_ipaddr,file,client_ipaddr.

5.6 Troubleshooting the Install Process

5.6.1 Floppy Disk Reliability

The biggest problem for people installing Debian for the first time seems to be floppy disk
reliability.
The rescue floppy is the floppy with the worst problems, because it is read by the hardware
directly, before Linux boots. Often, the hardware doesn’t read as reliably as the Linux floppy
disk driver, and may just stop without printing an error message if it reads incorrect data.
There can also be failures in the Driver Floppies most of which indicate themselves with a
flood of messages about disk I/O errors.
If you are having the installation stall at a particular floppy, the first thing you should do is
re-download the floppy disk image and write it to a different floppy. Simply reformatting the
old floppy may not be sufficient, even if it appears that the floppy was reformatted and written
with no errors. It is sometimes useful to try writing the floppy on a different system.
Chapter 5. Booting the Installation System 52

One user reports he had to write the images to floppy three times before one worked, and then
everything was fine with the third floppy.
Other users have reported that simply rebooting a few times with the same floppy in the floppy
drive can lead to a successful boot. This is all due to buggy hardware or firmware floppy
drivers.

5.6.2 Boot Configuration

If you have problems and the kernel hangs during the boot process, doesn’t recognize periph-
erals you actually have, or drives are not recognized properly, the first thing to check is the
boot parameters, as discussed in ‘Boot Parameter Arguments’ on page 47.
If you are booting with your own kernel instead of the one supplied with the installer, be
sure that CONFIG_DEVFS is not set in your kernel. The installer is not compatible with
CONFIG_DEVFS.
Often, problems can be solved by removing add-ons and peripherals, and then trying booting
again.
There are, however, some limitations in our boot floppy set with respect to supported hard-
ware. Some Linux-supported platforms might not be directly supported by our boot floppies.
If this is the case, you may have to create a custom rescue disk (see ‘Replacing the Rescue
Floppy Kernel’ on page 89), or investigate network installations.
If you have a large amount of memory installed in your machine, more than 512M, and the
installer hangs when booting the kernel, you may need to include a boot argument to limit the
amount of memory the kernel sees, such as mem=512m.

5.6.3 Interpreting the Kernel Startup Messages

During the boot sequence, you may see many messages in the form can’t find
something, or something not present, can’t initialize something, or even
this driver release depends on something. Most of these messages are harmless.
You see them because the kernel for the installation system is built to run on computers with
many different peripheral devices. Obviously, no one computer will have every possible pe-
ripheral device, so the operating system may emit a few complaints while it looks for periph-
erals you don’t own. You may also see the system pause for a while. This happens when it is
waiting for a device to respond, and that device is not present on your system. If you find the
time it takes to boot the system unacceptably long, you can create a custom kernel later (see
‘Compiling a New Kernel’ on page 85).

5.6.4 dbootstrap Problem Report

If you get through the initial boot phase but cannot complete the install, dbootstrap’s ’Report
a Problem’ menu choice may be helpful. It creates dbg_log.tgz on a floppy, hard disk or nfs-
mounted filesystem. dbg_log.tgz details the system’s state (/var/log/messages, /proc
Chapter 5. Booting the Installation System 53

/cpuinfo etc.). dbg_log.tgz may provide clues as to what went wrong and how to fix it. If
you are submitting a bug report you may want to attach this file to the bug report.

5.6.5 Submitting Bug Reports

If you still have problems, please submit a bug report. Send an email to <submit@bugs.
debian.org>. You must include the following as the first lines of the email:

Package: boot-floppies
Version: version

Make sure you fill in version with the version of the boot-floppies set that you used. If you don’t
know the version, use the date you downloaded the floppies, and include the distribution you
got them from (e.g., “stable”, “frozen”, “woody”).
You should also include the following information in your bug report:

architecture: powerpc
model: your general hardware vendor and model
memory: amount of RAM
scsi: SCSI host adapter, if any
cd-rom: CD-ROM model and interface type, e.g., ATAPI
network card: network interface card, if any
pcmcia: details of any PCMCIA devices

Depending on the nature of the bug, it also might be useful to report whether you are installing
to IDE or SCSI disks, other peripheral devices such as audio, disk capacity, and the model of
video card.
In the bug report, describe what the problem is, including the last visible kernel messages in
the event of a kernel hang. Describe the steps that you did which brought the system into the
problem state.

5.7 Introduction to dbootstrap

dbootstrap is the name of the program which is run after you have booted into the installa-
tion system. It is responsible for initial system configuration and the installation of the “base
system”.
The main job of dbootstrap, and the main purpose of your initial system configuration, is to
configure essential elements of your system. For instance, you may need to use certain “kernel
modules”, drivers which are linked into the kernel. These modules include storage hardware
drivers, network drivers, special language support, and support for other peripherals which
are not automatically built in to the kernel you are using.
Chapter 5. Booting the Installation System 54

Disk partitioning, disk formatting, and networking setup are also facilitated by dbootstrap.
This fundamental setup is done first, since it is often necessary for the proper functioning of
your system.
dbootstrap is a simple, character-based application, designed for maximum compatibility
in all situations (such as installation over a serial line). It is very easy to use. It will guide
you through each step of the installation process in a linear fashion. You can also go back and
repeat steps if you find you have made a mistake.
To navigate within dbootstrap, use:

• The right arrow or Tab key to move ‘forward’, and left arrow or Shift-Tab to move ‘back-
ward’ between buttons and selections in the current screen.

• The up and down arrow to select different items within a scrollable list, and to scroll the
list itself.

• The space bar to select an item such as a checkbox.

• The Enter to activate choices.

5.7.1 Using the Shell and Viewing the Logs

If you are an experienced Unix or Linux user, press Left Alt-F2 to get to the second virtual
console. That’s the Alt key on the left-hand side of the space bar, and the F2 function key, at
the same time. This is a separate window running a Bourne shell clone called ash. At this
point you are booted from the RAM disk, and there is a limited set of Unix utilities available
for your use. You can see what programs are available with the command ls /bin /sbin
/usr/bin /usr/sbin. The text editor is nano-tiny.
Use the menus to perform any task that they are able to do — the shell and commands are
only there in case something goes wrong. In particular, you should always use the menus, not
the shell, to activate your swap partition, because the menu software can’t detect that you’ve
done this from the shell. Press Left Alt-F1 to get back to menus. Linux provides up to 64 virtual
consoles, although the rescue floppy only uses a few of them.
Error messages are redirected to the third virtual terminal (known as tty3). You can access
this terminal by pressing Left Alt-F3 (hold the Alt key while pressing the F3 function key); get
back to dbootstrap with Left Alt-F1.
These messages can also be found in /var/log/messages. After installation, this log is
copied to /var/log/installer.log on your new system.
During the Base installation, package unpacking and setup messages are redirected to tty4.
You can access this terminal by pressing Left Alt-F4; get back to dbootstrap with Left Alt-F1.
The unpack/setup messages generated by debootstrap are saved in /target/tmp
/debootstrap.log when the installation is performed over a serial console.
Chapter 5. Booting the Installation System 55

5.8 “Choose The Language”

Your architecture supports the new internationalization features. Therefore, as the first step of
the installation, select the language in which you want the installation process to take place.

Some languages have variants available, and will therefore prompt you to “Choose Language
Variant” after picking your language. Pick whichever variant applies to your geographic re-
gion.

The answers you provided in the previous two questions will be used to pick the language
which the installer will use, will try to set a suitable keyboard layout, and, later in the process,
will be used to pick the default Debian Mirror Server for your probably geographic location.
However, you can also override these settings if you choose.

5.9 “Release Notes”

The first screen after “Choose the Language” that dbootstrap will present you with is the
“Release Notes”. This screen presents the version information for the boot-floppies soft-
ware you are using, and gives a brief introduction to Debian developers.

5.10 “Debian GNU/Linux Installation Main Menu”

You may see a dialog box that says “The installation program is determining the current state
of your system and the next installation step that should be performed.”. On some systems,
this will go by too quickly to read. You’ll see this dialog box between steps in the main menu.
The installation program, dbootstrap, will check the state of the system in between each
step. This checking allows you to re-start the installation without losing the work you have
already done, in case you happen to halt your system in the middle of the installation process.
If you have to restart an installation, you will have to configure your keyboard, re-activate your
swap partition, and re-mount any disks that have been initialized. Anything else that you have
done with the installation system will be saved.

During the entire installation process, you will be presented with the main menu, entitled
“Debian GNU/Linux Installation Main Menu”. The choices at the top of the menu will change
to indicate your progress in installing the system. Phil Hughes wrote in the Linux Journal
(http://www.linuxjournal.com/) that you could teach a chicken to install Debian! He
meant that the installation process was mostly just pecking at the Enter key. The first choice on
the installation menu is the next action that you should perform according to what the system
detects you have already done. It should say “Next”, and at this point the next step in installing
the system will be taken.
Chapter 5. Booting the Installation System 56

5.11 “Configure the Keyboard”

Make sure the highlight is on the “Next” item, and press Enter to go to the keyboard configu-
ration menu. Select a keyboard that conforms to the layout used for your national language,
or select something close if the keyboard layout you want isn’t represented. Once the system
installation is complete, you’ll be able to select a keyboard layout from a wider range of choices
(run kbdconfig as root when you have completed the installation).
Move the highlight to the keyboard selection you desire and press Enter. Use the arrow keys
to move the highlight — they are in the same place in all national language keyboard layouts,
so they are independent of the keyboard configuration. An ’extended’ keyboard is one with F1
through F10 keys along the top row.
There are two keyboard layouts for US keyboards; the qwerty/mac-usb-us (Apple USB) layout
will place the Alt function on the Command/Apple key (in the keyboard position next to the
space key similar to Alt on PC keyboards), while the qwerty/us (Standard) layout will place
the Alt function on the Option key (engraved with ’alt’ on most Mac keyboards). In other
respects the two layouts are similar.
If you are installing a diskless workstation, the next few steps will be skipped, since there are
no local disks to partition. In that case, your next step will be “‘Configure the Network”’ on
page 70. After that, you will be prompted to mount your NFS root partition in “‘Mount a
Previously-Initialized Partition”’ on page 63.

5.12 Last Chance!

Did we tell you to back up your disks? Here’s your last chance to save your old system. If you
haven’t backed up all of your disks, remove the floppy from the drive, reset the system, and
run backups.
 57

Chapter 6

Partitioning for Debian

The “Partition a Hard Disk” menu item presents you with a list of disk drives you can partition,
and runs a partitioning application. You must create at least one “Linux native” (type 83) disk
partition, and you probably want at least one “Linux swap” (type 82) partition.

6.1 Deciding on Debian Partitions and Sizes

At a bare minimum, GNU/Linux needs one partition for itself. You can have a single partition
containing the entire operating system, applications, and your personal files. Most people feel
that a separate swap partition is also a necessity, although it’s not strictly true. “Swap” is
scratch space for an operating system, which allows the system to use disk storage as “virtual
memory”. By putting swap on a separate partition, Linux can make much more efficient use
of it. It is possible to force Linux to use a regular file as swap, but it is not recommended.
Most people choose to give GNU/Linux more than the minimum number of partitions, how-
ever. There are two reasons you might want to break up the file system into a number of
smaller partitions. The first is for safety. If something happens to corrupt the file system, gen-
erally only one partition is affected. Thus, you only have to replace (from the backups you’ve
been carefully keeping) a portion of your system. At a bare minimum, you should consider
creating what is commonly called a “root partition”. This contains the most essential compo-
nents of the system. If any other partitions get corrupted, you can still boot into GNU/Linux
to fix the system. This can save you the trouble of having to reinstall the system from scratch.
The second reason is generally more important in a business setting, but it really depends
on your use of the machine. Suppose something runs out of control and starts eating disk
space. If the process causing the problem happens to have root privileges (the system keeps a
percentage of the disk away from users), you could suddenly find yourself out of disk space.
This is not good as the OS needs to use real files (besides swap space) for many things. It may
not even be a problem of local origin. For example, getting spammed with e-mail can easily
fill a partition. By using more partitions, you protect the system from many of these problems.
Using mail as an example again, by putting /var/mail on its own partition, the bulk of the
system will work even if you get spammed.
Chapter 6. Partitioning for Debian 58

The only real drawback to using more partitions is that it is often difficult to know in advance
what your needs will be. If you make a partition too small then you will either have to reinstall
the system or you will be constantly moving things around to make room in the undersized
partition. On the other hand, if you make the partition too big, you will be wasting space that
could be used elsewhere. Disk space is cheap nowadays, but why throw your money away?

6.2 The Directory Tree

Debian GNU/Linux adheres to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (http://www.

pathname.com/fhs/) for directory and file naming. This standard allows users and software
programs to predict the location of files and directories. The root level directory is represented
simply by the slash /. At the root level, all Debian systems include these directories:

bin Essential command binaries

boot Static files of the boot loader
dev Device files
etc Host-specific system configuration
home User home directories
lib Essential shared libraries and kernel modules
mnt Mount point for mounting a file system temporarily
proc Virtual directory for system information
root Home directory for the root user
sbin Essential system binaries
tmp Temporary files
usr Secondary hierarchy
var Variable data
opt Add-on application software packages

The following is a list of important considerations regarding directories and partitions.

• The root partition / must always physically contain /etc, /bin, /sbin, /lib and /dev,
otherwise you won’t be able to boot. Typically 100 MB is needed for the root partition,
but this may vary.

• /usr: all user programs (/usr/bin), libraries (/usr/lib), documentation (/usr

/share/doc), etc., are in this directory. This part of the file system needs most of the
space. You should provide at least 500 MB of disk space. If you want to install more
packages you should increase the amount of space you give this directory.

• /home: every user will put his data into a subdirectory of this directory. The size of this
depends on how many users will be using the system and what files are to be stored in
their directories. Depending on your planned usage you should reserve about 100 MB
for each user, but adapt this value to your needs.
Chapter 6. Partitioning for Debian 59

• /var: all variable data like news articles, e-mails, web sites, APT’s cache, etc. will be
placed under this directory. The size of this directory depends greatly on the usage of
your computer, but for most people will be dictated by the package management tool’s
overhead. If you are going to do a full installation of just about everything Debian has
to offer, all in one session, setting aside 2 or 3 gigabytes of space for /var should be
sufficient. If you are going to install in pieces (that is to say, install services and utilities,
followed by text stuff, then X, . . . ), you can get away with 300 - 500 megabytes of in
/var. If hard drive space is at a premium and you don’t plan on using APT, at least not
for major updates, you can get by with as little as 30 or 40 megabytes in /var.

• /tmp: if a program creates temporary data it will most likely go in /tmp. 20-50 MB
should be usually enough.

6.3 Recommended Partitioning Scheme

For new users, personal Debian boxes, home systems, and other single-user setups, a single /
partition (plus swap) is probably the easiest, simplest way to go. However, this might not be
such a good idea when you have lots of disk capacity, e.g., 20GB or so. Ext2 partitions tend to
perform poorly on file system integrity checking when they are larger than 6GB or so.
For multi-user systems or systems with lots of disk, it’s best to put /usr, /var, /tmp, and
/home each on their own partitions separate from the / partition.
You might need a separate /usr/local partition if you plan to install many programs that
are not part of the Debian distribution. If your machine will be a mail server, you might need to
make /var/mail a separate partition. Often, putting /tmp on its own partition, for instance
20 to 50MB, is a good idea. If you are setting up a server with lots of user accounts, it’s generally
good to have a separate, large /home partition. In general, the partitioning situation varies
from computer to computer depending on its uses.
For very complex systems, you should see the Multi Disk HOWTO (http://www.tldp.
org/HOWTO/Multi-Disk-HOWTO.html). This contains in-depth information, mostly of in-
terest to ISPs and people setting up servers.
With respect to the issue of swap partition size, there are many views. One rule of thumb
which works well is to use as much swap as you have system memory. It also shouldn’t be
smaller than 16MB, in most cases. Of course, there are exceptions to these rules. If you are
trying to solve 10000 simultaneous equations on a machine with 256MB of memory, you may
need a gigabyte (or more) of swap.
On 32-bit architectures (i386, m68k, 32-bit SPARC, and PowerPC), the maximum size of a swap
partition is 2GB (on Alpha and SPARC64, it’s so large as to be virtually unlimited). This should
be enough for nearly any installation. However, if your swap requirements are this high, you
should probably try to spread the swap across different disks (also called “spindles”) and, if
possible, different SCSI or IDE channels. The kernel will balance swap usage between multiple
swap partitions, giving better performance.
Chapter 6. Partitioning for Debian 60

As an example, one of the authors’ home machine has 32MB of RAM and a 1.7GB IDE drive on
/dev/hda. There is a 500MB partition for another operating system on /dev/hda1 (should
have made it 200MB as it never gets used). A 32MB swap partition is used on /dev/hda3 and
the rest (about 1.2GB on /dev/hda2) is the Linux partition.
For more examples, see Partitioning Strategies (http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/
Partition/partition-5.html#submitted). For an idea of the space taken by tasks you
might be interested in adding after your system installation is complete, check ‘Disk Space
Needed for Tasks’ on page 97.

6.4 Device Names in Linux

Linux disks and partition names may be different from other operating systems. You need
to know the names that Linux uses when you create and mount partitions. Here’s the basic
naming scheme:

• The first floppy drive is named “/dev/fd0”.

• The second floppy drive is named “/dev/fd1”.

• The first SCSI disk (SCSI ID address-wise) is named “/dev/sda”.

• The second SCSI disk (address-wise) is named “/dev/sdb”, and so on.

• The first SCSI CD-ROM is named “/dev/scd0”, also known as “/dev/sr0”.

• The master disk on IDE primary controller is named “/dev/hda”.

• The slave disk on IDE primary controller is named “/dev/hdb”.

• The master and slave disks of the secondary controller can be called “/dev/hdc” and
“/dev/hdd”, respectively. Newer IDE controllers can actually have two channels, effec-
tively acting like two controllers.

The partitions on each disk are represented by appending a decimal number to the disk name:
“sda1” and “sda2” represent the first and second partitions of the first SCSI disk drive in your
system.
Here is a real-life example. Let’s assume you have a system with 2 SCSI disks, one at SCSI
address 2 and the other at SCSI address 4. The first disk (at address 2) is then named “sda”,
and the second “sdb”. If the “sda” drive has 3 partitions on it, these will be named “sda1”,
“sda2”, and “sda3”. The same applies to the “sdb” disk and its partitions.
Note that if you have two SCSI host bus adapters (i.e., controllers), the order of the drives can
get confusing. The best solution in this case is to watch the boot messages, assuming you know
the drive models and/or capacities.
Chapter 6. Partitioning for Debian 61

6.5 Debian Partitioning Programs

Several varieties of partitioning programs have been adapted by Debian developers to work
on various types of hard disks and computer architectures. Following is a list of the program(s)
applicable for your architecture.

cfdisk A simple-to-use, full-screen disk partitioner for the rest of us; read the cfdisk manual
page (cfdisk.txt).
Note that cfdisk doesn’t understand FreeBSD partitions at all, and, again, device names
may differ as a result.

mac-fdisk Mac-aware version of fdisk; read the mac-fdisk manual page (mac-fdisk.
txt).

One of these programs will be run by default when you select “Partition a Hard Disk”. If the
one which is run by default isn’t the one you want, quit the partitioner, go to the shell (tty2)
by pressing Alt and F2 keys together, and manually type in the name of the program you want
to use (and arguments, if any). Then skip the “Partition a Hard Disk” step in dbootstrap and
continue to the next step.
If you will be working with more than 20 partitions on your ide disk, you will need to create
devices for partitions 21 and beyond. The next step of initializing the partition will fail unless
a proper device is present. As an example, here are commands you can use in tty2 or under
Execute A Shell to add a device so the 21st partition can be initialized:

cd /dev
mknod hda21 b 3 21
chgrp disk hda21
chmod 660 hda21

Booting into the new system will fail unless proper devices are present on the target system.
After installing the kernel and modules, execute:

cd /target/dev
mknod hda21 b 3 21
chgrp disk hda21
chmod 660 hda21

See the mac-fdisk manual page (mac-fdisk.txt) for information on how to create par-
titions. One key point, is that the swap partition is identified on Mac type disks by its
name; it must be named ‘swap’. All Mac linux partitions are the same partition type, Ap-
ple_UNIX_SRV2. Please read the fine manual. We also suggest reading the mac-fdisk Tuto-
rial (http://penguinppc.org/projects/yaboot/doc/mac-fdisk-basics.shtml),
which includes steps you should take if you are sharing your disk with MacOS.
Chapter 6. Partitioning for Debian 62

6.6 Partitioning Newer PowerMacs

If you are installing onto a NewWorld PowerMac you must create a special bootstrap partition
to hold the boot loader. The size of this partition must be 800KB and its partition type must
be Apple_Bootstrap. If the bootstrap partition is not created with the Apple_Bootstrap type your
machine cannot be made bootable from the hard disk. This partition can easily be created in
mac-fdisk using the b command.
The special partition type Apple_Bootstrap is required to prevent MacOS from mounting and
damaging the bootstrap partition, as there are special modifications made to it in order for
OpenFirmware to boot it automatically.
Note that the bootstrap partition is only meant to hold 3 very small files: the yaboot binary,
its configuration yaboot.conf, and a first stage OpenFirmware loader ofboot.b. It need
not and must not be mounted on your file system nor have kernels or anything else copied to
it. The ybin and mkofboot utilities are used to manipulate this partition.
In order for OpenFirmware to automatically boot Debian GNU/Linux the bootstrap partition
should appear before other boot partitions on the disk, especially MacOS boot partitions. The
bootstrap partition should be the first one you create. However, if you add a bootstrap partition
later, you can use mac-fdisk’s r command to reorder the partition map so the bootstrap
partition comes right after the map (which is always partition 1). It’s the logical map order, not
the physical address order, that counts.
Apple disks normally have several small driver partitions. If you intend to dual boot your
machine with MacOSX, you should retain these partitions and a small HFS partition (800k is
the minimum size). That is because MacOSX, on every boot, offers to initialize any disks which
do not have active MacOS partitions and driver partitions.

6.7 “Initialize and Activate a Swap Partition”

This will be the next step once you have created disk partitions. You have the choice of ini-
tializing and activating a new swap partition, activating a previously-initialized one, or doing
without a swap partition. It’s always permissible to re-initialize a swap partition, so select
“Initialize and Activate a Swap Partition” unless you are sure you know what you are doing.
This menu choice will first present you with a dialog box reading “Please select the partition to
activate as a swap device.”. The default device presented should be the swap partition you’ve
already set up; if so, just press Enter.
Next, there is a confirmation message, since initialization destroys any data previously on the
partition. If all is well, select “Yes”. The screen will flash as the initialization program runs.
A swap partition is strongly recommended, but you can do without one if you insist, and if
your system has more than 16MB RAM. If you wish to do this, please select the “Do Without a
Swap Partition” item from the menu.
Chapter 6. Partitioning for Debian 63

6.8 “Initialize a Linux Partition”

At this point, the next menu item presented should be “Initialize a Linux Partition”. If it isn’t,
it is because you haven’t completed the disk partitioning process, or you haven’t made one of
the menu choices dealing with your swap partition.
You can initialize a Linux partition, or alternately you can mount a previously-initialized one.
Note that dbootstrap will not upgrade an old system without destroying it. If you’re up-
grading, Debian can usually upgrade itself, and you won’t need to use dbootstrap. For
help on upgrading to Debian 3.0, see the upgrade instructions (http://www.debian.org/
releases/woody/powerpc/release-notes/).
Thus, if you are using old disk partitions that are not empty, i.e., if you want to just throw
away what is on them, you should initialize them (which erases all files). Moreover, you must
initialize any partitions that you created in the disk partitioning step. About the only reason
to mount a partition without initializing it at this point would be to mount a partition upon
which you have already performed some part of the installation process using this same set of
installation floppies.
Select “Initialize a Linux Partition” to initialize and mount the / disk partition. The first parti-
tion that you mount or initialize will be the one mounted as / (pronounced “root”).
You will be asked whether to preserve “Pre-2.2 Linux Kernel Compatibility?”. Saying “No”
here means that you cannot run 2.0 or earlier Linux kernels on your system, since the file
systems enable some features not supported in the 2.0 kernel. If you know you’ll never need to
run a 2.0 or earlier vintage kernel, then you can achieve some minor benefits by saying “No”
here.
You will also be asked about whether to scan for bad blocks. The default here is to skip the bad
block scan, since the scan can be time consuming, and modern disk drive controllers internally
detect and deal with bad blocks. However, if you are at all unsure about the quality of your
disk drive, or if you have a rather old system, you should probably do the bad block scan.
The next prompts are just confirmation steps. You will be asked to confirm your action, since
initializing is destructive to any data on the partition, and you will be informed that the parti-
tion is being mounted as /, the root partition.1
Once you’ve mounted the / partition, if you have additional file systems that you wish to ini-
tialize and mount, you should use the “Alternate” menu item. This is for those who have cre-
ated separate partitions for , /var, /usr or others, which ought to be initialized and mounted
at this time.

6.9 “Mount a Previously-Initialized Partition”

An alternative to “‘Initialize a Linux Partition”’ on the current page is the “Mount a Previously-
Initialized Partition” step. Use this if you are resuming an installation that was broken off, or
1
Technically, it’s being mounted at /target; when you reboot into the system itself, that will become /.
Chapter 6. Partitioning for Debian 64

if you want to mount partitions that have already been initialized or have data on it which you
wish to preserve.
If you are installing a diskless workstation, at this point, you want to NFS mount your root
partition from the remote NFS server. Specify the path to the NFS server in standard NFS
syntax, namely,

server-name-or-IP:server-share-path

. If you need to mount additional file systems as well, you can do that at this time.
If you have not already set up your network as described in “‘Configure the Network”’ on
page 70, then selecting an NFS install will prompt you to do so.

6.9.1 NFS Root Installation Workaround

Unfortunately, the woody release of boot-floppies does not support dpkg locking on NFS
root installs. To work around this problem, take the following steps after mounting your target
NFS share at /target. This example assumes installation from a CD, but it could just as well
apply for installation from files placed on an NFS share and mounted at /instmnt (which is
where the installer normally mounts installation media).
To enable NFS locking, make pre-arrangements to have this command sequence on the NFS
share, or create it there using nano-tiny.

#!/bin/sh
mount /dev/hdc /instmnt # substitute your cdrom device for /dev/hdc
cd /target
mkdir x
cd x
for i in g/glibc/libc6 t/tcp-wrappers/libwrap0 p/portmap/portmap n/nfs-utils/n
do
ar -x /instmnt/pool/main/$i’’_*.deb
zcat data.tar.gz | tar x
done
umount /instmnt
mkdir -p /var/lib/nfs
for i in portmap rpc.statd
do
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=lib sbin/$i
done

Now install the base system as usual. Then install nfs-common:

$ umount /instmnt
Chapter 6. Partitioning for Debian 65

$ chroot /target /bin/sh

$ apt-cdrom add
$ apt-get install nfs-common

The messages about missing /proc can be ignored, since portmap and statd are already
running.
You’ll need a kernel built with CONFIG_ROOT_NFS. The one on the installation CD isn’t. If you
don’t have one and can’t build one on another machine, you must build one right here in the
chroot environment:

$ apt-get install gcc make libc6-dev kernel-source-2.4.18 less screen links ly

When you’ve made arrangements to boot the new kernel, using the NFS share as root device,
back out cleanly:

$ exit # from chroot shell

$ cd /
$ killall portmap rpc.statd
$ umount /target

Then reboot. If it fails, then boot the installation CD, mount the NFS share on /target, enable
NFS locking, chroot /target, do what you forgot to do, back out cleanly, and reboot. If it fails,
try again. Good luck.

6.10 Mounting Partitions Not Supported by dbootstrap

In some special situations, dbootstrap might not know how to mount your file systems
(whether root or otherwise). It may be possible, if you’re an experienced GNU/Linux user, to
simply go to tty2 by pressing Alt and F2 keys together, and manually run the commands
you need to run in order to mount the partition in question.
If you are mounting a root partition for your new system, just mount it to /target, the go
back to dbootstrap and continue (perhaps running the “View the Partition Table” step to cause
dbootstrap to re-compute where it is in the installation process.
For non-root partitions, you’ll have to remember to manually modify your new fstab file so
that when you reboot the partition will be mounted. Wait for that file (/target/etc/fstab)
to be written by dbootstrap, of course, before editing it.
Chapter 6. Partitioning for Debian 66
 67

Chapter 7

Installing the Kernel and Base

Operating System

7.1 “Install Kernel and Driver Modules”

The next step is to install a kernel and kernel modules onto your new system.
You will be offered a menu of devices from which you can install the kernel, and an option to
install using the network. You can use any available device, you are not restricted to using the
same media you used to mount (see ‘Obtaining System Installation Media’ on page 33).
Note that the options presented to you will vary based on what hardware dbootstrap has
detected. If you are installing from an official CD-ROM, the software should do the right thing
automatically, not even prompting you for a device to install from (unless you boot with the
verbose argument). When prompted for the CD-ROM, be sure to insert the first CD-ROM in
the drive.
If you are installing from a local file system, you have a choice between two options. Select
“hard disk” if the disk partition is not yet mounted; select “mounted” if it is. In both cases,
the system will first look for some files in dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current.
If it doesn’t find those files, you will be prompted to “Select Debian Archive path” — this is
the directory within the disk where you have placed the required installation files. If you have
a Debian archive mirrored locally, you can use that by giving the directory where that exists,
which is often /archive/debian. Such archives are characterized by directory structures
such as debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current. You can type in the path
manually, or use the <...> button to browse through the file system tree.
Continuing the discussion on installation from a local disk or similar medium (such as NFS),
you will next be prompted for the actual directory containing the needed files (which may
be based on your subarchitecture). Note that the system may be quite insistent that the files
appear in the precise location indicated, including the subdirectories, if any. See the logs in
tty3 (see ‘Using the Shell and Viewing the Logs’ on page 54) where dbootstrap will log the
location of the files it’s looking for.
Chapter 7. Installing the Kernel and Base Operating System 68

If the “default” option appears, then you should use that. Otherwise, try the “list” option to
let dbootstrap try to find the actual files on its own (but note that this can be very slow if
you’re mounting over NFS). As a last resort, use the “manual” option to specify the directory
manually.
If you’re installing from floppies, you’ll need to feed in the rescue floppy (which is probably
already in the drive), followed by the driver floppies.
If you wish to install the kernel and modules over the network, you can do this using the
“network” (HTTP) or “NFS” options. Your networking interfaces must be supported by the
standard kernel (see ‘Peripherals and Other Hardware’ on page 14). If these “NFS” options
don’t appear, you need to select “Cancel”, then go back and select the “Configure the Network”
step (see “‘Configure the Network”’ on page 70), and then re-run this step.

7.2 NFS

Select the “NFS” option, and then tell dbootstrap your NFS server name and path. Assum-
ing you’ve put the rescue floppy and driver floppies images on the NFS server in the proper
location, these files should be available to you for installing the kernel and modules. The NFS
file system will be mounted under /instmnt. Select the location of the files as for “hard disk”
or “mounted”.

7.3 Network

Select the “network” option, and then tell dbootstrap the URL and path to the Debian
archive. The default will usually work fine, and in any case, the path part is probably cor-
rect for any official Debian mirror, even if you edit the server part. You may choose to pull the
files in through a proxy server; just enter the server . . . this sentence isn’t finished. . .

7.4 NFS Root

If you are installing a diskless workstation, you should have already configured your network-
ing as described in “‘Configure the Network”’ on page 70. You should be given the option to
install the kernel and modules from NFS. Proceed using the “NFS” option described above.
Other steps may need to be taken for other installation media.

7.5 “Configure PCMCIA Support”

There is an alternate step, before the “Configure Device Driver Modules” menu selection, called
“Configure PCMCIA Support”. This menu is used to enable PCMCIA support.
Chapter 7. Installing the Kernel and Base Operating System 69

If you do have PCMCIA, but are not installing your Debian system using it (e.g., installation
with a PCMCIA Ethernet card), then you need not configure PCMCIA at this point. You can
easily configure and enable PCMCIA at a later point, after installation is complete. However,
if you are installing by way of a PCMCIA network device, this alternate must be selected, and
PCMCIA support must be configured prior to configuring the network. This alternate step is
sufficient to load the device driver for a PCMCIA ethernet card.
If you need to install PCMCIA, select the alternate, below “Configure Device Driver Mod-
ules”. You will be asked which PCMCIA controller your system contains. In most cases,
this will be i82365. In some cases, it will be tcic; your laptop’s vendor-supplied specifi-
cations should provide the information if in doubt. You can generally leave the next few sets
of options blank. Again, certain hardware has special needs; the Linux PCMCIA HOWTO
(http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/PCMCIA-HOWTO.html) contains plenty of information in
case the default doesn’t work.
In some unusual cases, you may also need to read and edit /etc/pcmcia/config.opts.
You can open your second virtual terminal (Left Alt-F2) and edit the file there, and then recon-
figure your PCMCIA, or manually forcing a reload of the modules using insmod and rmmod.
Once PCMCIA is properly configured and installed, you should jump back up and configure
your device drivers as described in the next section.

7.6 “Configure Device Driver Modules”

Select the “Configure Device Driver Modules” menu item to configure device drivers, that is,
kernel modules.
You will first be prompted if you would like to load additional kernel modules from a vendor-
supplied floppy. Most can skip this step, since it is only useful if there are some additional
proprietary or non-standard modules which are needed for your hardware (for instance, for
a specific SCSI controller). It will look for modules in the floppy in locations such as /lib
/modules/misc (where misc can be any standard kernel module section). Any such files will
be copied to the disk you’re installing to, so that they can be configured in the next step.
Next, the modconf program will be run, which is a simple program which displays the kernel
modules sections and allows you to step through the various kernel sections, picking out what
modules you would like to install.
We recommend that you only configure devices which are required for the installation process
and not already detected by the kernel. Many people do not need to configure any kernel
modules at all.
For instance, you may need to explicitly load a network interface card driver from the net
section, a SCSI disk driver in the scsi section, or a driver for a proprietary CD-ROM in the
cdrom section. The devices you configure will be loaded automatically whenever your system
boots.
Some modules may require parameters. To see what parameters are relevant, you’ll have to
consult the documentation for that kernel driver.
Chapter 7. Installing the Kernel and Base Operating System 70

At any point after the system is installed, you can reconfigure your modules by using the
modconf program.
For powerpc, here are some modules which may be useful, drawn from the 2.4 kernel list (some
2.2 modules are similar). Most of these modules require no parameters.

• kernel/net/appletalk (for file sharing with MacOS Macintoshes)

• kernel/fs/smbfs (for LAN communication with PC networks)
• kernel/drivers/usb/hid (for support of USB keyboards)
• kernel/drivers/usb/storage (USB hard drives)
• kernel/drivers/dmasound/dmasound_core (general sound)
• kernel/drivers/dmasound/dmasound_pmac (Powermac sound)
• kernel/drivers/pcmcia/pcmcia_core (general laptop PC Card)
• kernel/drivers/pcmcia/yenta_socket (laptop PC Card)
• kernel/drivers/net/wireless/net/airport (Airport laptop)
• kernel/drivers/macintosh/macserial (Powermac serial ports)
• kernel/drivers/macintosh/rtc (real-time clock)
• kernel/drivers/input/joydev (joystick)

7.7 “Configure the Network”

If the installation system does not detect that you have a network device available, you will be
presented with the “Configure the Hostname” option. Even if you don’t have a network, or
if your network connection dynamically goes up and down (e.g., uses dialup) your machine
must have a name to call itself.
If the installation system does detect a network device, you’ll be presented with the “Configure
the Network” step. If the system does not allow you to run this step, then that means it cannot
see any network devices present. If you have a network device, that means you probably
missed configuring the network device back in “‘Configure Device Driver Modules”’ on the
preceding page. Go back to that step and look for net devices.
As you enter the “Configure the Network” step, if the system detects that you have more
than one network device, you’ll be asked to choose which device you wish to configure. You
may only configure one. After installation, you may configure additional interfaces — see the
interfaces(5) man page.
If dbootstrap detects that you configured PCMCIA (“‘Configure PCMCIA Support”’ on
page 68), you will be asked to confirm that your network card is a PCMCIA card. This af-
fects how and where the network configuration is set.
Chapter 7. Installing the Kernel and Base Operating System 71

dbootstrap will next ask you whether you wish to use a DHCP or BOOTP server to con-
figure your network. If you can, you should say “Yes”, since it allows you to skip all the rest
of the next section. You should hopefully see the reply “The network has been successfully
configured using DHCP/BOOTP.”. Jump forward to “‘Install the Base System”’ on this page.
If configuration fails, check your wires and the log on tty3, or else move on and configure the
network manually.
To manually configure the network, dbootstrap will ask a number of questions about your
network; fill in the answers from ‘Information You Will Need’ on page 18. The system will also
summarize your network information and ask you for confirmation. Next, you need to specify
the network device that your primary network connection uses. Usually, this will be “eth0”
(the first Ethernet device).
Some technical details you might, or might not, find handy: the program assumes the network
IP address is the bitwise-AND of your system’s IP address and your netmask. It will guess the
broadcast address is the bitwise OR of your system’s IP address with the bitwise negation of
the netmask. It will guess that your gateway system is also your DNS server. If you can’t find
any of these answers, use the system’s guesses — you can change them once the system has
been installed, if necessary, by editing /etc/network/interfaces. Alternatively, you can
install etherconf, which will step you through your network setup.

7.8 “Install the Base System”

The next step is to install the base system. The base system is a minimal set of packages which
provides a working, basic, self-contained system. It’s under 70MB in size.
During the “Install the Base System” step, if you’re not installing from a CD-ROM, you’ll be
offered a menu of devices from which you may install the base system. You should select the
appropriate installation media. If you are installing from an official CD-ROM, you will simply
be prompted to insert it.
If you are installing the base system over the network, note that some steps may take a sig-
nificant amount of time, and progress may not be evident. In particular, the initial retrieve of
Packages.gz, and the installs for base and essential packages may seem to be stalled; give
them some extra time. You can use df -h in console 2 to assure yourself that the contents of
your disk are indeed changing.
However, if the install bogs down right away retrieving a file called Release, you may assume
that the network archive has not been found, or there is a problem with it.
If you are installing the base system from your hard disk, just point the installer to the
basedebs.tar disk location, similar to the procedure for installing the kernel and modules.
Chapter 7. Installing the Kernel and Base Operating System 72
 73

Chapter 8

Booting Into Your New Debian System

8.1 “Make System Bootable”

8.1.1 “OldWorld” PowerMacs

The boot loader for OldWorld Power Macintosh machines is quik. You can also use it on
CHRP. The installer will attempt to set up quik automatically at the “Make System Bootable”
step. The setup has been known to work on 7200, 7300, and 7600 Powermacs, and on some
Power Computing clones.
For beige G3s, a patched quik first.b module is available at http://www.cpu.lu/
~mlan/ftp/quik-first.b-g3. To apply the patched module, follow these steps. After
booting back into the installer, switch to console 2. Copy that file to your /target/boot
folder, and rename it first.b to supercede the first.b that’s there. Then run:

chroot /target /bin/bash

mount -t proc proc /proc
quik -v
exit

For all other OldWorld PowerPCs, such as Apus, Be-Box, MBX and PReP we need a generic
boot loader.
If you want to use BootX to boot into the installed system, just select your desired kernel in the
LinuxKernels folder, un-choose the ramdisk option, and add a root device corresponding to
your installation; e.g. /dev/hda8.
A final option for machines where MacOS/BootX is not desired and quik is not functional,
is to patch the floppy disk image in order to make it into a boot disk. Use ResEdit in MacOS
to edit the System’s cmdl resource, or use a binary editor such as beav to edit the image di-
rectly, to remove the ramdisk arguments and substitute an appropriate root=/dev/xxx argu-
ment. A perl script (http://cvs.debian.org/boot-floppies/powerpc-specials/
miBoot/patch-floppy-image.pl) is also available for this purpose.
Chapter 8. Booting Into Your New Debian System 74

If the machine fails to boot after completing the installation, and stops with a ‘boot:’ prompt,
try typing Linux followed by Enter. (The default boot configuration in quik.conf is labeled
Linux). The labels defined in quik.conf will be displayed if you press the Tab key at the
boot: prompt. You can also try booting back into the installer, and editing the /target/etc
/quik.conf placed there by the previous “Make System Bootable” step. Clues for dealing
with quik are available at http://penguinppc.org/projects/quik/.

To boot back into MacOS without resetting the nvram, type bye at the Open Firmware prompt
(assuming MacOS has not been removed from the machine). To obtain an OpenFirmware
prompt, hold down the “command option o f” keys while cold booting the machine. If you
need to reset the OpenFirmware nvram changes to the MacOS default in order to boot back to
MacOS, hold down the “command option p r” keys while cold booting the machine.

8.1.2 “NewWorld” PowerMacs

Newer (mid 1998 and on) PowerMacs use yaboot as their boot loader. The installer will set up
yaboot automatically, so all you should need to do is run the “Make System Bootable” step,
if that completes successfully then your disk should now be bootable and OpenFirmware will
be set to boot Debian GNU/Linux.

On G4 machines and iBooks, you can hold down the option key and get a graphical screen
with a button for each bootable OS, Debian GNU/Linux will be a button with a small penguin
icon.

If you kept MacOS and at some point it changes the OpenFirmware boot-device variable you
should reset OpenFirmware to its default configuration. To do this hold down the “command
option p r” keys while cold booting the machine.

The labels defined in yaboot.conf will be displayed if you press the Tab key at the boot:
prompt.

Resetting OpenFirmware on G3 or G4 hardware will cause it to boot Debian GNU/Linux by

default (if you correctly partitioned and placed the Apple_Bootstrap partition first). If you
have Debian GNU/Linux on a SCSI disk and MacOS on an IDE disk this may not work and
you will have to enter OpenFirmware and set the boot-device variable, ybin normally does
this automatically.

After you boot Debian GNU/Linux for the first time you can add any additional options
you desire (such as dual boot options) to /etc/yaboot.conf and run ybin to update
your boot partition with the changed configuration. Please read the yaboot HOWTO (http:
//penguinppc.org/projects/yaboot/doc/yaboot-howto.shtml/) for more infor-
mation.

If you are installing a diskless workstation, obviously, booting off the local disk isn’t a mean-
ingful option, and this step will be skipped.
Chapter 8. Booting Into Your New Debian System 75

8.2 The Moment of Truth

Your system’s first boot on its own power is what electrical engineers call the “smoke test”.
If you have any floppies in your floppy drive, remove them. Select the “Reboot the System”
menu item.

If are booting directly into Debian, and the system doesn’t start up, either use your original
installation boot media (for instance, the rescue floppy), or insert the Custom Boot floppy if
you created one, and reset your system. If you are not using the Custom Boot floppy, you
will probably need to add some boot arguments. If booting with the rescue floppy or similar
technique, you need to specify rescue root=root, where root is your root partition, such as
“/dev/sda1”.

Debian should boot, and you should see the same messages as when you first booted the
installation system, followed by some new messages.

8.3 Debian Post-Boot (Base) Configuration

After booting, you will be prompted to complete the configuration of your basic system, and
then to select what additional packages you wish to install. The application which guides you
through this process is called base-config. If you wish to re-run the base-config at any
point after installation is complete, as root run base-config.

8.4 Configuring your Time Zone

You will first be prompted to configure your time zone. After selecting local vs. GMT hardware
clock setting, you will select a region and then a city within that region which is in the same
time zone you are. When making selections in these lists, you can type a single letter to take
you to the section of the list beginning with that letter.

8.5 MD5 Passwords

You will next be prompted whether to install MD5 passwords. This is an alternate method
of storing passwords on your system which is more secure than the standard means (called
“crypt”).

The default is “No”, but if you do not require NIS support and are very concerned about
security on this machine, you may say “Yes”.
Chapter 8. Booting Into Your New Debian System 76

8.6 Shadow Passwords

Unless you said “Yes” to MD5 passwords, the system will ask whether you want to enable
shadow passwords. This is a system in which your GNU/Linux system is made to be a bit
more secure. In a system without shadow passwords, passwords are stored (encrypted) in a
world-readable file, /etc/passwd. This file has to be readable to anyone who can log in be-
cause it contains vital user information, for instance, how to map between numeric user iden-
tifiers and login names. Therefore, someone could conceivably grab your /etc/passwd file
and run a brute force attack (i.e. run an automated test of all possible password combinations)
against it to try to determine passwords.
If you have shadow passwords enabled, passwords are instead stored in /etc/shadow, which
is readable and writable only by root, and readable by group shadow. Therefore, we recom-
mend that you enable shadow passwords.
Reconfiguration of the shadow password system can be done at any time with
the shadowconfig program. After installation, see /usr/share/doc/passwd
/README.debian.gz for more information.

8.7 Set the Root Password

The root account is also called the super-user; it is a login that bypasses all security protection
on your system. The root account should only be used to perform system administration, and
only used for as short a time as possible.
Any password you create should contain from 6 to 8 characters, and should contain both
upper- and lower-case characters, as well as punctuation characters. Take extra care when
setting your root password, since it is such a powerful account. Avoid dictionary words or use
of any personal information which could be guessed.
If anyone ever tells you they need your root password, be extremely wary. You should nor-
mally never give your root account out, unless you are administering a machine with more
than one system administrator.

8.8 Create an Ordinary User

The system will ask you whether you wish to create an ordinary user account at this point.
This account should be your main personal log-in. You should not use the root account for
daily use or as your personal login.
Why not? Well, one reason to avoid using root’s privileges is that it is very easy to do irrepara-
ble damage as root. Another reason is that you might be tricked into running a Trojan-horse
program — that is a program that takes advantage of your super-user powers to compromise
the security of your system behind your back. Any good book on Unix system administration
will cover this topic in more detail — consider reading one if it is new to you.
Chapter 8. Booting Into Your New Debian System 77

Name the user account anything you like. If your name is John Smith, you might use “smith”,
“john”, “jsmith” or “js”. You will also be prompted for the full name of the user, and, like
before, a password.
If at any point after installation you would like to create another account, use the adduser
command.

8.9 Setting Up PPP

You will next be asked whether you wish to install the rest of the system using PPP. If you
are installing from CD-ROM and/or are connected directly to the network, you can safely say
“No” and skip this section.
If you do choose to configure PPP at this point, a program named pppconfig will be run.
This program helps you configure your PPP connection. Make sure, when it asks you for the name
of your dialup connection, that you name it “provider”.
Hopefully, the pppconfig program will walk you through a pain-free PPP connection setup.
However, if it does not work for you, see below for detailed instructions.
In order to setup PPP, you’ll need to know the basics of file viewing and editing in GNU/Linux.
To view files, you should use more, and zmore for compressed files with a .gz extension. For
example, to view README.debian.gz, type zmore README.debian.gz. The base system
comes with an editor named nano, which is very simple to use, but does not have a lot of
features. You will probably want to install more full-featured editors and viewers later, such
as jed, nvi, less, and emacs.
Edit /etc/ppp/peers/provider and replace /dev/modem with /dev/ttyS# where #
stands for the number of your serial port. In Linux, serial ports are counted from 0; your
first serial port is /dev/ttyS0 under Linux. The next step is to edit /etc/chatscripts
/provider and insert your provider’s phone number, your user-name and password. Please
do not delete the “\q” that precedes the password. It hides the password from appearing in
your log files.
Many providers use PAP or CHAP for login sequence instead of text mode authentication.
Others use both. If your provider requires PAP or CHAP, you’ll need to follow a different pro-
cedure. Comment out everything below the dialing string (the one that starts with “ATDT”) in
/etc/chatscripts/provider, modify /etc/ppp/peers/provider as described above,
and add user name where name stands for your user-name for the provider you are trying
to connect to. Next, edit /etc/ppp/pap-secrets or /etc/ppp/chap-secrets and enter
your password there.
You will also need to edit /etc/resolv.conf and add your provider’s name server (DNS)
IP addresses. The lines in /etc/resolv.conf are in the following format: nameserver
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx where the xs stand for numbers in your IP address. Optionally, you could
add the usepeerdns option to the /etc/ppp/peers/provider file, which will enable au-
tomatic choosing of appropriate DNS servers, using settings the remote host usually provides.
Chapter 8. Booting Into Your New Debian System 78

Unless your provider has a login sequence different from the majority of ISPs, you are done!
Start the PPP connection by typing pon as root, and monitor the process using plog command.
To disconnect, use poff, again, as root.
Read /usr/share/doc/ppp/README.Debian.gz file for more information on using PPP
on Debian.
For static SLIP connections, you will need to add the slattach command (from the
net-tools package) into /etc/init.d/network. Dynamic SLIP will require the gnudip
package.

8.10 Removing PCMCIA

If you have no use for PCMCIA, you can choose to remove it at this point. This will make
your startup cleaner; also, it will make it easier to replace your kernel (PCMCIA requires a lot
of correlation between the version of the PCMCIA drivers, the kernel modules, and the kernel
itself).

8.11 Configuring APT

The main means that people use to install packages on their system is via a program called
apt-get, from the apt package.1 APT must be configured, however, so that it knows where to
retrieve packages from. The helper application which assists in this task is called apt-setup.
The next step in your configuration process is to tell APT where other Debian packages can be
found. Note that you can re-run this tool at any point after installation by running apt-setup,
or by manually editing /etc/apt/sources.list.
If you are booting from an official CD-ROM, then that CD-ROM should automatically be con-
figured as an apt source without prompting. You will notice this because you will see the
CD-ROM being scanned, and then asked if you want to configure another CD-ROM. If you
have a multiple CD-ROM set — and most people will — then you should go ahead and scan
each of them one by one.
For users without an official CD-ROM, you will be offered an array of choices for how Debian
packages are accessed: FTP, HTTP, CD-ROM, or a local file system. For CD-ROM users, you
can get to this step by specifically asking to add another source.
You should know that it’s perfectly acceptable to have a number of different APT sources, even
for the same Debian archive. apt-get will automatically pick the package with the highest
version number given all the available versions. Or, for instance, if you have both an HTTP and
a CD-ROM APT source, apt-get should automatically use the local CD-ROM when possible,
1
Note that the actual program that installs packages is called dpkg. However, this package is more of a low-
level tool. apt-get will invoke dpkg as appropriate; it is a higher-level too, however, because it knows to install
other packages which are required for the package you’re trying to install, as well as how to retrieve the package
from your CD, the network, or wherever.
Chapter 8. Booting Into Your New Debian System 79

and only resort to HTTP if a newer version is available there. However, it is not a good idea
to add unnecessary APT sources, since this will tend to slow down the process of checking the
network archives for new versions.

8.11.1 Configuring Network Package Sources

If you plan on installing the rest of your system via the network, the most common option is
to select the “http” source. The “ftp” source is also acceptable, but tends to be a little slower
making connections.
Next you will be asked whether you wish to have any non-free software. That refers to com-
mercial software or any other software whose licensing does not comply with the Debian
Free Software Guidelines (http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines).
It’s fine to say “Yes”, but be careful when installing such software, because you will need to
ensure that you are using the software in compliance with its license.
The next step during the configuration of network packages sources is to tell apt-setup
which country you live in. This configures which of the official Debian Internet mirror network
you connect to. Depending on which country you select, you will be given a list of possible
machines. Its generally fine to pick the one on the top of the list, but any of them should work.
If you are installing via HTTP, you will be asked to configure your proxy server. This is some-
times required by people behind firewalls, on corporate networks, etc.
Finally, your new network package source will be tested. If all goes well, you will be prompted
whether you want to do it all over again with another network source.

8.12 Package Installation: Simple or Advanced

You will next be prompted whether you wish to install packages the simple way, or the more
fine-grained, advanced way. We recommend you start with the simple way, since you can
always run the more advanced way at any time.
You should know that for simple installation, base-config is merely invoking the tasksel
program. For advanced package installation, the dselect program is being run. Either of
these can be run at any time after installation to install more packages. If you are looking
for a specific single package, after installation is complete, simply run apt-get install
package, where package is the name of the package you are looking for.

8.13 Simple Package Selection — The Task Installer

If you chose “simple” installation, you will next be thrown into the Task Installer (tasksel).
This technique offers you a number of pre-rolled software configurations offered by Debian.
You could always choose, package by package, what you want to install on your new machine.
Chapter 8. Booting Into Your New Debian System 80

This is the purpose of the dselect program, described below. But this can be a long task with
around 8000 packages available in Debian!
So, you have the ability to choose tasks first, and then add on more individual packages later.
These tasks loosely represent a number of different jobs or things you want to do with your
computer, such as ‘desktop environment’, ‘development in C’, or ‘file server’.
For each task, you can highlight that task and select “Task Info” to see more information on
that task. This will show you an extended description and the list of packages which will be
installed for that task. A table showing approximate sizes of the various tasks for planning
purposes is in ‘Disk Space Needed for Tasks’ on page 97.
Once you’ve selected your tasks, select “Finish”. At this point, apt-get will install the pack-
ages you’ve selected. Note, if you did not select any tasks at all, any standard, important,
or required priority packages that are not yet present on your system will be installed. This
functionality is the same as running tasksel -s at the command line, and currently involves a
download of about 37M of archives. You will be shown the number of packages to be installed,
and how many kilobytes of packages, if any, need to be downloaded.
Of the 8000 packages available in Debian, only a small minority are covered by tasks offered
in the Task Installer. To see information on more packages, either use apt-cache search
search-string for some given search string (see the apt-cache(8) man page), or run
dselect as described below.

8.14 Advanced Package Selection with dselect

If you selected “advanced” package selection, you’ll be dropped into the dselect program.
The dselect Tutorial (dselect-beginner) is required reading before you run dselect.
dselect allows you to select packages to be installed on your system. You must be the super-
user (root) when you run dselect.

8.15 Prompts During Software Installation

Each package you selected with either tasksel and/or dselect is unpacked and then in-
stalled in turn by the apt-get and dpkg programs. If a particular program needs more infor-
mation from the user, it will prompt you during this process. You might also want to keep an
eye on the output during the process, to watch for any installation errors (although you will be
asked to acknowledge errors which prevented a package’s installation).

8.15.1 Settings for the X Server

On iMacs, and some older Macintoshes as well, the X Server software doesn’t calculate ap-
propriate video settings. You will need to choose the ’Advanced’ option during configuration
Chapter 8. Booting Into Your New Debian System 81

of the video settings. For the monitor’s horizontal sync range, enter 59-63. You can leave the
default for vertical refresh range.
The mouse device should be set to /dev/input/mice.

8.16 Log In

After you’ve installed packages, you’ll be presented with the login prompt. Log in using the
personal login and password you selected. Your system is now ready to use.
If you are a new user, you may want to explore the documentation which is already installed on
your system as you start to use it. There are currently several documentation systems, work is
proceeding on integrating the different types of documentation. Here are a few starting points.
Documentation accompanying programs you have installed is in /usr/share/doc/, under
a subdirectory named after the program. For example, the APT User’s Guide for using apt
to install other programs on your system, is located in /usr/share/doc/apt/guide.html
/index.html.
In addition, there are some special folders within the /usr/share/doc/ hierarchy. Linux
HOWTOs are installed in .gz format, in /usr/share/doc/HOWTO/en-txt/ and /usr
/share/doc/HOWTO/en-txt/mini/. The /usr/share/doc/HTML/index.html con-
tains browse-able indexes of documentation installed by dhelp.
One easy way to view these documents is to cd /usr/share/doc/, and type lynx followed
by a space and a dot (the dot stands for the current directory).
You can also type info (command) or man (command) to see documentation on most com-
mands available at the command prompt. Typing help will display help on shell commands.
And typing a command followed by --help will usually display a short summary of the com-
mand’s usage. If a command’s results scroll past the top of the screen, type | more after the
command to cause the results to pause before scrolling past the top of the screen. To see a list
of all commands available which begin with a certain letter, type the letter and then two tabs.
For a more complete introduction to Debian and GNU/Linux, see /usr/share/doc
/debian-guide/html/noframes/index.html.
Chapter 8. Booting Into Your New Debian System 82
 83

Chapter 9

Next Steps and Where to Go From Here

9.1 If You Are New to Unix

If you are new to Unix, you probably should go out and buy some books and do some reading.
The Unix FAQ (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/unix-faq/faq/)
contains a number of references to books and Usenet news groups which should help you
out. You can also take a look at the User-Friendly Unix FAQ (http://www.camelcity.
com/~noel/usenet/cuuf-FAQ.htm).
Linux is an implementation of Unix. The Linux Documentation Project (LDP) (http://www.
tldp.org/) collects a number of HOWTOs and online books relating to Linux. Most of these
documents can be installed locally; just install the doc-linux-html package (HTML ver-
sions) or the doc-linux-text package (ASCII versions), then look in /usr/share/doc
/HOWTO. International versions of the LDP HOWTOs are also available as Debian packages.
Information specific to Debian can be found below.

9.2 Shutting Down the System

To shut down a running Linux system, you must not reboot with the reset switch on the front
or back of your computer, or just turn off the computer. Linux must be shut down in a con-
trolled manner, otherwise files may be lost and disk damage incurred. You can press the key
combination Ctrl-Alt-Del . You may also log in as root and type shutdown -h now, reboot,
or halt if either of the key combinations do not work or you prefer to type commands.

9.3 Orienting Yourself to Debian

Debian is a little different from other distributions. Even if you’re familiar with Linux in other
distributions, there are things you should know about Debian to help you to keep your system
in a good, clean state. This chapter contains material to help you get oriented; it is not intended
Chapter 9. Next Steps and Where to Go From Here 84

to be a tutorial for how to use Debian, but just a very brief glimpse of the system for the very
rushed.

9.3.1 Debian Packaging System

The most important concept to grasp is the Debian packaging system. In essence, large parts of
your system should be considered under the control of the packaging system. These include:

• /usr (excluding /usr/local)

• /var (you could make /var/local and be safe in there)

• /bin

• /sbin

• /lib

For instance, if you replace /usr/bin/perl, that will work, but then if you upgrade your
perl package, the file you put there will be replaced. Experts can get around this by putting
packages on “hold” in dselect.
One of the best installation methods is apt. You can use it as a method from dselect, or you can
use the command line version (info apt-get). Note apt will also let you merge main, contrib,
and non-free so you can have export-restricted packages as well as standard versions.

9.3.2 Application Version Management

Alternative versions of applications are managed by update-alternatives. If you are maintain-

ing multiple versions of your applications, read the update-alternatives man page.

9.3.3 Cron Job Management

Any jobs under the purview of the system administrator should be in /etc, since they are
configuration files. If you have a root cron job for daily, weekly, or nightly runs, put them
in /etc/cron.{daily,weekly,monthly}. These are invoked from /etc/crontab, and
will run in alphabetic order, which serializes them.
On the other hand, if you have a cron job that (a) needs to run as a special user, or (b) needs
to run at a special time or frequency, you can use either /etc/crontab, or, better yet, /etc
/cron.d/whatever. These particular files also have an extra field that allows you to stipulate
the user under which the cron job runs.
In either case, you just edit the files and cron will notice them automatically. There is no need
to run a special command. For more information see cron(8), crontab(5), and /usr/share
/doc/cron/README.Debian.
Chapter 9. Next Steps and Where to Go From Here 85

9.4 Further Reading and Information

If you need information about a particular program, you should first try man program, or
info program.
There is lots of useful documentation in /usr/share/doc as well. In particular, /usr/share
/doc/HOWTO and /usr/share/doc/FAQ contain lots of interesting information. To submit
bugs, look at /usr/share/doc/debian/bug*. To read about Debian-specific issues for par-
ticular programs, look at /usr/share/doc/(packagename)/README.Debian.
The Debian web site (http://www.debian.org/) contains a large quantity of documen-
tation about Debian. In particular, see the Debian FAQ (http://www.debian.org/doc/
FAQ/) and the Debian Mailing List Archives (http://lists.debian.org/). The Debian
community is self-supporting; to subscribe to one or more of the Debian mailing lists, see the
Mail List Subscription (http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/subscribe) page.

9.5 Compiling a New Kernel

Why would someone want to compile a new kernel? It is often not necessary since the default
kernel shipped with Debian handles most configurations. However, it is useful to compile a
new kernel in order to:

• handle special hardware needs, or hardware conflicts with the pre-supplied kernels

• handle hardware or options not included in the stock kernel, such as APM or SMP

• optimize the kernel by removing useless drivers to speed up boot time

• use options of the kernel which are not supported by the default kernel (such as network
firewalling)

• run a updated or development kernel

• impress your friends, try new things

9.5.1 Kernel Image Management

Don’t be afraid to try compiling the kernel. It’s fun and profitable.
To compile a kernel the Debian way, you need some packages: kernel-package,
kernel-source-2.2.20 (the most recent version at the time of this writing), fakeroot and
a few others which are probably already installed (see /usr/share/doc/kernel-package
/README.gz for the complete list).
This method will make a .deb of your kernel source, and, if you have non-standard modules,
make a synchronized dependent .deb of those too. It’s a better way to manage kernel images;
/boot will hold the kernel, the System.map, and a log of the active config file for the build.
Chapter 9. Next Steps and Where to Go From Here 86

Note that you don’t have to compile your kernel the “Debian way”; but we find that using
the packaging system to manage your kernel is actually safer and easier. In fact, you can get
your kernel sources right from Linus instead of kernel-source-2.2.20, yet still use the
kernel-package compilation method. Although the 2.2.20 kernel is still used in Woody for
installs, more-recent 2.4 kernels are available as kernel-images.
Note that you’ll find complete documentation on using kernel-package under /usr
/share/doc/kernel-package. This section just contains a brief tutorial.
Hereafter, we’ll assume your kernel source will be located in /usr/local/src
and that your kernel version is 2.2.20. As root, create a directory under /usr
/local/src and change the owner of that directory to your normal non-root ac-
count. As your normal non-root account, change your directory to where you want
to unpack the kernel sources (cd /usr/local/src), extract the kernel sources (tar
xjf /usr/src/kernel-source-2.2.20.tar.bz2), change your directory to it (cd
kernel-source-2.2.20/). Now, you can configure your kernel. Run make xconfig
if X11 is installed, configured and being run, make menuconfig otherwise (you’ll need
ncurses-dev installed). Take the time to read the online help and choose carefully. When
in doubt, it is typically better to include the device driver (the software which manages hard-
ware peripherals, such as Ethernet cards, SCSI controllers, and so on) you are unsure about.
Be careful: other options, not related to a specific hardware, should be left at the default value
if you do not understand them. Do not forget to select “Kernel module loader” in “Loadable
module support” (it is not selected by default). If not included, your Debian installation will
experience problems.
Clean the source tree and reset the kernel-package parameters. To do that, do make-kpkg
clean.
Now, compile the kernel: fakeroot make-kpkg --revision=custom.1.0
kernel_image. The version number of “1.0” can be changed at will; this is just a ver-
sion number that you will use to track your kernel builds. Likewise, you can put any word
you like in place of “custom” (e.g., a host name). Kernel compilation may take quite a while,
depending on the power of your machine.
If you require PCMCIA support, you’ll also need to install the pcmcia-source package. Un-
pack the gzipped tar file as root in the directory /usr/src (it’s important that modules are
found where they are expected to be found, namely, /usr/src/modules). Then, as root, do
make-kpkg modules_image.
Once the compilation is complete, you can install your cus-
tom kernel like any package. As root, do dpkg -i
../kernel-image-2.2.20-subarchitecture_custom.1.0_powerpc.deb. The
subarchitecture part is an optional sub-architecture, depending on what kernel options you set.
dpkg -i kernel-image... will install the kernel, along with some other nice supporting
files. For instance, the System.map will be properly installed (helpful for debugging kernel
problems), and /boot/config-2.2.20 will be installed, containing your current configura-
tion set. Your new kernel-image-2.2.20 package is also clever enough to automatically
use your platform’s boot-loader to run an update on the booting, allowing you to boot without
re-running the boot loader. If you have created a modules package, e.g., if you have PCMCIA,
Chapter 9. Next Steps and Where to Go From Here 87

you’ll need to install that package as well.

It is time to reboot the system: read carefully any warning that the above step may have pro-
duced, then shutdown -r now.
For more information on kernel-package, read the fine documentation in /usr/share
/doc/kernel-package.
Chapter 9. Next Steps and Where to Go From Here 88
 89

Chapter 10

Technical Information on the Boot

Floppies

10.1 Source Code

The boot-floppies package contains all of the source code and documentation for the in-
stallation floppies.

10.2 Rescue Floppy

The rescue floppy has an Ext2 file system (or a FAT file system, depending on your architec-
ture), and you should be able to access it from anything else that can mount Ext2 or FAT disks.
The Linux kernel is in the file linux.bin. The file root.bin is a gzip-compressed disk im-
age of a 1.4MB Minix or Ext2 file system, and will be loaded into the RAM disk and used as
the root file system.

10.3 Replacing the Rescue Floppy Kernel

If you find it necessary to replace the kernel on the rescue floppy, you must configure your new
kernel with these features linked in, not in loadable modules:

• RAM disk support (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM)

• Initial RAM disk (initrd) support (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD)

• Kernel support for ELF binaries (CONFIG_BINFMT_ELF)

• Loop device support (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_LOOP)

Chapter 10. Technical Information on the Boot Floppies 90

• FAT, Minix, and Ext2 file systems (some architectures don’t need FAT and/or Minix file
systems — see the source) For PowerPC, Minix file support is not required, but HFS and
ext2 are.

• Socket filtering for DHCP (CONFIG_FILTER)

• Packet socket, also for DHCP (CONFIG_PACKET)

• Unix domain sockets for system logging (CONFIG_UNIX)

Be sure that the kernel you plan to use does NOT have CONFIG_DEVFS set. CONFIG_DEVFS
is not compatible with the installer.
Download a set of boot floppies: root, rescue, and driver disks. You will need the hfsutils
package installed.
Your custom kernel should be named something like vmlinux when you’re done building it.
You will need to gzip -9 that file.
Update the boot-floppy-hfs.img disk for initial booting.

hmount boot-floppy-hfs.img
hcopy -r vmlinux.gz :zImage
humount

Update the rescue disk since the installation gets the files from there. Mount the rescue disk
image something like the following.

mount -t auto -o loop rescue.bin /mnt

Assuming you used /mnt as the mount point, copy your custom kernel to /mnt
/linux.bin.gz.
If you want to be complete about it, you’ll also want to gzip the System.map from your custom
kernel as sys_map.gz, and the config as config.gz, and place them in /mnt.
Now you can umount your disk image and burn your floppies. You will probably want to
“Install Kernel and Driver Modules” using the floppies you just built to get your custom kernel
installed on the hard drive.
You’ll also want to replace the modules.tgz file on the driver floppies. This file simply con-
tains a gzip-compressed tar file of /lib/modules/kernel-version; make it from the root
file system so that all leading directories are in the tar file as well.
 91

Chapter 11

Appendix

11.1 Further Information

11.1.1 Further Information

A general source of information on Linux is the Linux Documentation Project (http://www.

tldp.org/). There you will find the HOWTOs and pointers to other very valuable informa-
tion on parts of a GNU/Linux system.

11.2 Obtaining Debian GNU/Linux

11.2.1 Official Debian GNU/Linux CD Sets

If you want to buy a CD set to install Debian GNU/Linux system from CD-ROM you should
look at the CD vendors page (http://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/). There you get a
list of addresses which sell Debian GNU/Linux on CD-ROMs. The list is sorted by country so
you shouldn’t have a problem to find a vendor near you.

11.2.2 Debian Mirrors

If you live outside of the USA and you want to download Debian packages, you can also use
one of many mirrors which reside outside the USA. A list of countries and mirrors can be found
at the Debian FTP server website (http://www.debian.org/distrib/ftplist).

11.2.3 Description of Installation System Files

This section contains an annotated list of files you will find in the disks-powerpc directory.
Which files you need to download will depend on the installation boot option and operating
system installation media you have chosen.
Chapter 11. Appendix 92

Most files are floppy disk images; that is, a single file which can be written to a disk to create
the necessary floppy disk. These images are, obviously, dependent on the size of the target
floppy. For instance, 1.44MB is the normal quantity of data which is what fits on standard
3.5 inch floppies. This is the only floppy size supported on your architecture. The images for
1.44MB floppy disks can be found in the images-1.44 directory.
If you are using a web browser on a networked computer to read this document, you can
probably retrieve the files by selecting their names in your web browser. Depending on your
browser you may need to take special action to download directly to a file, in raw binary
mode. For example, in Netscape you need to hold the shift key when clicking on the URL to
retrieve the file. Files can be downloaded from the URLs in this document, which are within
the www server’s . . . /current/ (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/
main/disks-powerpc/current/) directory, or you can retrieve them via ftp from ftp://
ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/. You can
also use the corresponding directory on any of the Debian mirror sites (http://www.
debian.org/distrib/ftplist).

Files for the Initial System Boot

Rescue floppy images: These are the “Rescue Floppy” disk images. The rescue floppy is used
for initial setup and for emergencies, such as when your system doesn’t boot for some reason.
Therefore it is recommended you write the disk image to the floppy even if you are not using
floppies for installation.

• . . . /current/apus/images-1.44/rescue.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/apus/images-1.
44/rescue.bin)
• . . . /current/chrp/images-1.44/rescue.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/
dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/chrp/images-1.44/rescue.
bin)
• . . . /current/new-powermac/images-2.88/rescue.bin (http://http.us.debian.
org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/
images-2.88/rescue.bin)
• . . . /current/powermac/images-1.44/rescue.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/powermac/images-1.
44/rescue.bin)
• . . . /current/prep/images-1.44/rescue.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/
dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/prep/images-1.44/rescue.
bin)

Root image(s): This file contains an image of a temporary file system that gets loaded into
memory when you boot from the rescue floppy. This is used for installations from CD-ROM,
hard disk and floppies.
Chapter 11. Appendix 93

• . . . /current/apus/images-1.44/root.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/
dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/apus/images-1.44/root.bin)

• . . . /current/chrp/images-1.44/root.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/
dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/chrp/images-1.44/root.bin)

• . . . /current/new-powermac/images-1.44/root.bin (http://http.us.debian.
org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/
images-1.44/root.bin)

• . . . /current/powermac/images-1.44/root.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/powermac/images-1.
44/root.bin)

• . . . /current/prep/images-1.44/root.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/
dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/prep/images-1.44/root.bin)

TFTP boot images Boot images used for network booting, see ‘Preparing Files for TFTP Net
Booting’ on page 42. Generally, they contain the Linux kernel and the root.bin root file
system.

• . . . /current/prep/images-1.44/boot.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/
dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/prep/images-1.44/boot.bin)

Linux Kernel Files

This is the Linux kernel image to be used for hard disk installations. You don’t need it if you
are installing from floppies.

• . . . /current/apus/linux.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/
woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/apus/linux.bin)

• . . . /current/chrp/linux.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/
woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/chrp/linux.bin)

• . . . /current/new-powermac/linux.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/
dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/linux.bin)

• . . . /current/powermac/linux.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/
woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/powermac/linux.bin)

• . . . /current/prep/linux.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/
woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/prep/linux.bin)
Chapter 11. Appendix 94

Driver Files

These files contain kernel modules, or drivers, for all kinds of hardware that are not necessary
for initial booting. Getting the drivers you want is a two step process: first you identify an
archive of drivers you want to use, and then you select which particular drivers you want.
The driver archive floppies are not used until after the hard drive has been partitioned and the
kernel has been installed. If you need a particular driver for initial booting, for your subar-
chitecture, or to access the hard drive, choose a kernel with the necessary driver compiled in
and supply the correct boot parameter arguments. Please see ‘Boot Parameter Arguments’ on
page 47.
Remember that your driver archive must be consistent with your initial kernel choice.

Driver floppies images:

• . . . /current/apus/images-1.44/driver-1.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/apus/images-1.
44/driver-1.bin)

• . . . /current/chrp/images-1.44/driver-1.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/chrp/images-1.
44/driver-1.bin)

• . . . /current/chrp/images-1.44/driver-2.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/chrp/images-1.
44/driver-2.bin)

• . . . /current/new-powermac/images-1.44/driver-1.bin (http://http.us.debian.
org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/
images-1.44/driver-1.bin)

• . . . /current/new-powermac/images-1.44/driver-2.bin (http://http.us.debian.
org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/
images-1.44/driver-2.bin)

• . . . /current/new-powermac/images-1.44/driver-3.bin (http://http.us.debian.
org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/
images-1.44/driver-3.bin)

• . . . /current/new-powermac/images-1.44/driver-4.bin (http://http.us.debian.
org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/
images-1.44/driver-4.bin)

• . . . /current/new-powermac/images-1.44/driver-5.bin (http://http.us.debian.
org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/
images-1.44/driver-5.bin)
Chapter 11. Appendix 95

• . . . /current/powermac/images-1.44/driver-1.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/powermac/images-1.
44/driver-1.bin)

• . . . /current/powermac/images-1.44/driver-2.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/powermac/images-1.
44/driver-2.bin)

• . . . /current/prep/images-1.44/driver-1.bin (http://http.us.debian.org/
debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/prep/images-1.
44/driver-1.bin)

Driver floppies archive If you are not limited to diskettes, choose one of these files.

• . . . /current/apus/drivers.tgz (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/
woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/apus/drivers.tgz)

• . . . /current/chrp/drivers.tgz (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/
woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/chrp/drivers.tgz)

• . . . /current/new-powermac/drivers.tgz (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/
dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/drivers.tgz)

• . . . /current/powermac/drivers.tgz (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/
dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/powermac/drivers.tgz)

• . . . /current/prep/drivers.tgz (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/
woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/prep/drivers.tgz)

Debian Base System Installation Files

These files are needed only for computers without a working network connection, or those
with unsupported network hardware. They contain the programs needed for the most basic
GNU/Linux operating system. Often the contents of these files can be obtained automatically
by the installer over a working network connection.

Base System archive tarball If you are not limited to diskettes, choose this file.

• . . . /base-images-current/basedebs.tar (http://http.us.debian.org/debian/
dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/base-images-current/basedebs.tar)
Chapter 11. Appendix 96

11.3 Linux Devices

In Linux you have various special files in /dev. These files are called devices files. In the
Unix world accessing hardware is different. There you have a special file which actually runs a
driver which in turn accesses the hardware. The device file is an interface to the actual system
component. Files under /dev also behave differently than ordinary files. Below are the most
important device files listed.

fd0 First Floppy Drive

fd1 Second Floppy Drive

hda IDE Hard disk / CD-ROM on the first IDE port (Master)
hdb IDE Hard disk / CD-ROM on the first IDE port (Slave)
hdc IDE Hard disk / CD-ROM on the second IDE port (Master)
hdd IDE Hard disk / CD-ROM on the second IDE port (Slave)
hda1 First partition of the first IDE hard disk
hdd15 Fifteenth partition of the fourth IDE hard disk

sda SCSI Hard disk with lowest SCSI ID (e.g. 0)

sdb SCSI Hard disk with next higher SCSI ID (e.g. 1)
sdc SCSI Hard disk with next higher SCSI ID (e.g. 2)
sda1 First partition of the first SCSI hard disk
sdd10 Tenth partition of the fourth SCSI hard disk

sr0 SCSI CD-ROM with the lowest SCSI ID

sr1 SCSI CD-ROM with the next higher SCSI ID

ttyS0 Serial port 0, COM1 under MS-DOS

ttyS1 Serial port 1, COM2 under MS-DOS
psaux PS/2 mouse device
gpmdata Pseudo device, repeater data from GPM (mouse) daemon

cdrom Symbolic link to the CD-ROM drive

mouse Symbolic link to the mouse device file

null everything pointed to this device will disappear

zero one can endlessly read zeros out of this device

11.3.1 Setting Up Your Mouse

The mouse can be used in both the Linux console (with gpm) and the X window environment.
The two uses can be made compatible if the gpm repeater is used to allow the signal to flow to
the X server as shown:
Chapter 11. Appendix 97

mouse => /dev/psaux => gpm => /dev/gpmdata -> /dev/mouse => X
/dev/ttyS0 (repeater) (symlink)
/dev/ttyS1

Set the repeater protocol to be raw (in /etc/gpm.conf) while setting X to the original mouse
protocol in /etc/X11/XF86Config or /etc/X11/XF86Config-4.
This approach to use gpm even in X has advantages when the mouse is unplugged inadver-
tently. Simply restarting gpm with

user@debian:# /etc/init.d/gpm restart

will re-connect the mouse in software without restarting X.

If gpm is disabled or not installed with some reason, make sure to set X to read directly
from the mouse device such as /dev/psaux. For details, refer to the 3-Button Mouse mini-
Howto at /usr/share/doc/HOWTO/en-txt/mini/3-Button-Mouse.gz, man gpm,
/usr/share/doc/gpm/FAQ.gz, and README.mouse (http://www.xfree86.org/
current/mouse.html).
For PowerPC, in /etc/X11/XF86Config or /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, set the mouse de-
vice to “/dev/input/mice”.
Modern kernels give you the capability to emulate a three-button mouse when your mouse
only has one button. Just add the following lines to /etc/sysctl.conf file.

# 3-button mouse emulation

# turn on emulation
/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button_emulation = 1
# Send middle mouse button signal with the F11 key
/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button2_keycode = 87
# Send right mouse button signal with the F12 key
/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button3_keycode = 88
# For different keys, use showkey to tell you what the code is.

11.4 Disk Space Needed for Tasks

The base woody installation on the author’s computer required 117MB. The installed size for
all standard packages was 123MB, with a download size of 38MB; so 278MB of space was
needed to install the base and all standard packages.
The following table lists sizes reported by aptitude (a very nice program, by the way) for the
tasks listed in tasksel. The system for which the figures were reported already had all standard
packages installed. Note that some tasks have overlapping constituents, so the total installed
size for two tasks together may be less than the total obtained by adding the numbers up.
Chapter 11. Appendix 98

Task Installed Download Space Needed

Size (MB) Size (MB) To Install (MB)

desktop environment 345 118 463

X window system 78 36 114
games 49 14 63
Debian Jr. 340 124 464
dialup system 28 8 36
laptop system 3 1 4
scientific applications 110 30 140

C and C++ 32 15 47
Python 103 30 133
Tcl/Tk 37 11 48
fortran 10 4 14

file server 1 - 1
mail server 4 3 7
usenet news server 6 2 8
print server 48 18 66
conventional unix server 55 19 74
web server 4 1 5

TeX/LaTeX environment 171 64 235

simplified Chinese environment 80 29 109

traditional Chinese environment 166 68 234
Cyrillic environment 29 13 42
French environment 60 18 78
German environment 31 9 40
Japanese environment 110 53 163
Korean environment 178 72 250
Polish environment 58 27 85
Russian environment 12 6 18
Spanish environment 15 4 19

11.5 Effects of Verbose and Quiet

These are the effects of the verbose boot argument for woody:

• For LiveCD, allow choice of alternate install media

• When mounting volumes, always ask which mount point

• Warn that earlier kernels do not support newer file systems

Chapter 11. Appendix 99

• Warn that pre-2.4.1 kernels do not support ReiserFS 3.6

• Confirm install files path even if only one path found

These are the effects of the quiet boot argument for woody:

• Suppress confirm before writing the aboot boot loader

• Suppress confirm before overwriting master boot record

• Suppress ’Important Information about installed MBR’

• No invitation to install additional modules from floppy

• Don’t mention that s390 doesn’t support reboot

• Suppress confirmation that detected interface is PCMCIA

• Suppress message about successful DHCP configuration

• Suppress long message about Lilo and large disk support

• Suppress long message about PALO and large disk support

• Suppress SGI disk label note from Dvhtool

• Don’t chatter about how much disk space ReiserFS uses

• Don’t explain what Apple_Bootstrap is

• Mount the first initialized partition on / without asking

• Don’t offer to scan for bad blocks

• Don’t ask before initializing as XFS, ext2/3, ReiserFS, swap

• Avoid trying to persuade that a swap partition is good

• Don’t lecture before rebooting the system

Chapter 11. Appendix 100
 101

Chapter 12

Administrivia

12.1 About This Document

This document is written in SGML, using the “DebianDoc” DTD. Output formats are generated
by programs from the debiandoc-sgml package.
In order to increase the maintainability of this document, we use a number of SGML features,
such as entities and marked sections. These play a role akin to variables and conditionals in
programming languages. The SGML source to this document contains information for each
different architecture — marked sections are used to isolate certain bits of text as architecture-
specific.

12.2 Contributing to This Document

If you have problems or suggestions regarding this document, you should probably sub-
mit them as a bug report against the package install-doc. See the bug or reportbug
package or read the online documentation of the Debian Bug Tracking System (http://
bugs.debian.org/). It would be nice if you could check the open bugs against install-
doc (http://bugs.debian.org/install-doc) to see whether your problem has already
been reported. If so, you can supply addition corroboration or helpful information to
<[email protected]>, where XXXX is the number for the already-reported bug.
Better yet, get a copy of the SGML source for this document, and produce patches against it.
The SGML source can be found in the boot-floppies; try to find the newest revision in the
unstable (ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/unstable/) distribution. You can
also browse the source via CVSweb (http://cvs.debian.org/boot-floppies/);
for instructions on how to check out the sources via CVS, see README-CVS
(http://cvs.debian.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/~checkout~/boot-floppies/
README-CVS?tag=HEAD%26content-type=text/plain) from the sources.
Please do not contact the authors of this document directly. There is also a discussion
list for boot-floppies, which includes discussions of this manual. The mailing list
Chapter 12. Administrivia 102

is <[email protected]>. Instructions for subscribing to this list can be

found at the Debian Mailing List Subscription (http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/
subscribe) page; an online browse-able copy can be found at the Debian Mailing List
Archives (http://lists.debian.org/).

12.3 Major Contributions

Many, many Debian users and developers contributed to this document. Particular note must
be made for Michael Schmitz (m68k support), Frank Neumann (original author of the De-
bian Installation Instructions for Amiga (http://www.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/
~amigo/debian_inst.html)), Arto Astala, Eric Delaunay/Ben Collins (SPARC informa-
tion), Tapio Lehtonen, and Stéphane Bortzmeyer for numerous edits and text.
Extremely helpful text and information was found in Jim Mintha’s HOWTO for net-
work booting (no URL available), the Debian FAQ (http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/),
the Linux/m68k FAQ (http://www.linux-m68k.org/faq/faq.html), the Linux for
SPARC Processors FAQ (http://www.ultralinux.org/faq.html), the Linux/Alpha
FAQ (http://linux.iol.unh.edu/linux/alpha/faq/), amongst others. The maintain-
ers of these freely available and rich sources of information must be recognized.

12.4 Trademark Acknowledgement

All trademarks are property of their respective trademark owners.

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