Chapter 3

At this point, rawrite2 will create the first of the two disks. Now, you need to repeat the process for the second disk:

D:\DISTS\SLINK\MAIN\DISKS-I386\ 2.1.8-1999-02-22>rawrite2 RaWrite 2.0 - Write disk file to raw floppy diskette Enter disk image source file name: drv1440.bin Enter target diskette drive: a: Please insert a formatted diskette into drive A: and press -ENTER- :

By now, your disks are created. You can now use the first one to boot.

Booting Debian

You are now ready to boot into Debian! Shut down your existing operating system, turn off your computer, and place the Install/Rescue Disk into the floppy drive. Now turn your computer back on. You should get a Welcome screen with a boot prompt at the bottom.

2.5 Booting the Installation System

You should now have the boot prompt. Simply press Enter at this point.

Once you press Enter, you should see the message Loading..., and then Uncompressing Linux..., and then a screenful or so of information about the hardware in your system. In general, you can ignore these messages. Linux will look for various hardware devices and will tell you what it finds and doesn’t find. Don’t worry about messages at this point. Just wait until you see the Color Selection screen. If you have trouble, see section B.2 on page [*].

3. Step-by-Step Installation

dbootstrap is the name of the program that is run after you have booted into the installation 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 certain core elements of your system. For instance, this includes your IP address, host name, and other aspects of your networking setup, if any. This also includes the configuration of “kernel modules,” which are drivers that are loaded into the kernel. These modules include storage hardware drivers, network drivers, special language support, and support for other peripherals. Configuring these fundamental things is done first, because it is often necessary for the system to function properly for the next steps of installation.

dbootstrap is a simple, character-based application. It is very easy to use; generally, 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 made a mistake. Navigation within dbootstrap is accomplished with the arrow keys, Enter, and Tab.

3.1 Select Color or Monochrome Display

Once the system has finished booting, dbootstrap is invoked. The first thing that dbootstrap asks about is your display. You should see the “Select Color or Monochrome display” dialog box. If your monitor is capable of displaying color, press Enter. The display should change from black-and-white to color. Then press Enter again, on the “Next” item, to continue with the installation.

If your monitor can display only black and white, use the arrow keys to move the cursor to the “Next” menu item, and then press Enter to continue with the installation.

3.2 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.” This is a phase in which the installation program automatically figures out what you probably need to do next. In some cases, you may not even see this box.

During the entire installation process, you will be presented with the main menu, titled “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_[1] 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.

[1] http://www.linuxjournal.com

3.3 Configure the Keyboard

Make sure the highlight is on the “Next” item and press Enter to go to the keyboard configuration menu.

Move the highlight to the keyboard selection you desire and press Enter. Use the arrow keys to move the highlight. In most cases, you can just use the default U.S. layout.

3.4 Last Chance to Back Up!

Did we tell you to back up your disks? Here’s your first chance to wipe out all of the data on your disks and 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.

3.5 Partition a Hard Disk

Whatever the “Next” menu selection is, you can use the down-arrow key to select “Partition a Hard Disk.” Go ahead and do this now, then press Enter.

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

You will now create the partitions that you need to install Debian. For this example, the assumption is that you are partitioning an empty hard disk.

The boot partition must reside within the first 1,024 of cylinders of your hard disk (see section 2.3.3 on page [*]). Keeping that in mind, use the right-arrow key to highlight the “New” menu selection, and then press Enter. You will be presented with the choice of creating a _primary_ partition or a _logical_ partition. To help ensure that the partition containing the boot information is within the first 1,024 cylinders, create a primary partition first. This primary partition will be your “Linux native” partition.

Highlight the “Primary” menu selection and press Enter. Next you will need to enter how large you want that partition to be. Review section 2.3.2 on page [*] if you’re not sure how large it should be. Remember to leave enough space for your swap partition (see section 2.3.5 on page [*]). Enter the parition size you want and then press Enter. Next you will be asked if you want to place the partition at the beginning of free space or at the end. Place it at the beginning to help ensure that it lies within the first 1,024 cylinders. Highlight “Beginning” and press Enter. At this point you will be brought back to the main screen. Notice that the partition you created is listed. By default, a Linux native partition was created. This partition must now be made bootable. Make sure that the “Bootable” menu selection is highlighted and press Enter. The partition should now have the word “Boot” listed under the “Flags” column.

With the remaining space, create another primary partition. Using the down-arrow key, highlight the _free space_ entry in the partition list. Now highlight the “New” menu selection and proceed just as you did when you created the first primary partition. Notice that the partition is listed as a Linux native partition. Because this partition will be your swap partition, it must be denoted as such. Make sure the partition you just created (your swap partition) is highlighted and then press the left-arrow key until the “Type” menu selection is highlighted, then press Enter. You will be presented with a list of supported partition types. The Linux swap partition type should already be selected. If it is not, enter the number from the list that corresponds to the Linux swap partition (82), and then press Enter. Your swap partition should now be listed as a Linux swap partition under the “FS Type” column in the main screen.

Your cfdisk screen should look something like the screenshot in Figure 3.1 on page [*]. The numbers may not be the same, but the Flags and FS Type column shoulds be similar.

Until now, nothing on your disk has been altered. If you are satisfied that the partition scheme you created is what you want, press the left-arrow key until “Write” is highlighted, and press Enter. Your hard disk has now been partitioned. Quit the cfdisk application by selecting the “Quit” menu selection. Once you have left cfdisk, you should be back in Debian’s dbootstrap installation application.

3.6 Initialize and Activate a Swap Partition

This will be the “Next” menu item once you have created one disk partition. You have the choice of initializing and activating a new swap partition, activating a previously-initialized one, or doing without a swap partition.

A swap partition is strongly recommended, but you can do without one if you insist and if your system has more than 4MB RAM. If you wish to do this, select the “Do Without a Swap Partition” item from the menu and move on to the next section.

It’s always permissible to reinitialize 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 you have the option to scan the entire partition for unreadable disk blocks caused by defects on the surface of the hard disk platters. This is useful if you have MFM, RLL, or older SCSI disks, and it never hurts (although it can be time-consuming). Properly working disks in most modern systems don’t require this step, because they have their own internal mechanisms for mapping out bad disk blocks.

Finally, there is a confirmation message because initialization will destroy any data previously on the partition. If all is well, select “Yes.” The screen will flash as the initialization program runs.

3.7 Initialize a Linux Partition

At this point, the next menu item presented should be “Initialize a Linux Partition.” If it isn’t, either 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 upgrading, Debian can usually upgrade itself, and you won’t need to use dbootstrap. The Debian 2.1 release notes contain upgrade instructions[2].

[2] http://www.debian.org/releases/slink/i386/release-notes/ch-upgrading- req.en.html

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 the “Next” menu item to initialize and mount the / disk partition. The first partition that you mount or initialize will be the one mounted as / (pronounced “root”). You will be offered the choice to scan the disk partition for bad blocks, as you were when you initialized the swap partition. It never hurts to scan for bad blocks, but it could take 10 minutes or more to do so if you have a large disk.

Once you’ve mounted the / partition, the “Next” menu item will be “Install Operating System Kernel and Modules” unless you’ve already performed some of the installation steps. You can use the arrow keys to select the menu items to initialize or to mount disk partitions if you have any more partitions to set up. If you have created separate partitions for /var, /usr, or other filesystems, you should initialize or mount them now.

3.7.1 Mount a Previously-Initialized Partition

An alternative to the “Initialize a Partition” step is the “Mount a Previously-Initialized Partition” step. Use this if you are resuming an installation that was interrupted or if you want to mount partitions that have already been initialized.

3.8 Install Operating System Kernel and Modules

This should be the next menu step after you’ve mounted your root partition, unless you’ve already performed this step in a previous run of dbootstrap. First, you will be asked to confirm that the device you have mounted on root is the proper one. Next, you will be offered a menu of devices from which you can install the kernel. Choose the appropriate device from which to install the kernel and modules; this will either be a CD-ROM device or the first floppy device.

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 Drivers Floppy.

3.9 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.

If you do have PCMCIA but are not installing your Debian system using it (i.e., installation with a PCMCIA Ethernet card), 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.

If you need to install PCMCIA, select the alternate below “Configure Device Driver Modules.” 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 specifications should provide the information. You can generally leave the next few sets of options blank. Again, certain hardware has special needs; the Linux PCMCIA HOWTO[3] contains plenty of information in case the default doesn’t work.

[3] http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/PCMCIA-HOWTO.html

In some unusual cases, you may also need to modify the file /etc/pcmcia/config.opts. You can open your second virtual terminal (Left Alt-F2) and edit the file there and then reconfigure your PCMCIA, or you can manually force a reload of the modules using insmod and rmmod.

Once PCMCIA is properly configured and installed, you should configure your device drivers as described in the next section.

3.10 Configure Device Driver Modules

Select the “Configure Device Driver Modules” menu item and look for devices that are on your system. Configure those device drivers, and they will be loaded whenever your system boots.

You don’t have to configure all your devices at this point; what is crucial is that any device configuration required for the installation of the base system is done here.

At any point after the system is installed, you can reconfigure your modules with the modconf program.

3.11 Configure the Network

You’ll have to configure the network even if you don’t have a network, but you’ll only have to answer the first two questions—“Choose the Host name,” and “Is your system connected to a network?”

If you are connected to a network, you’ll need the information you collected from 2.2.1. However, if your primary connection to the network will be PPP, you should choose _NOT_ to configure the network.

dbootstrap will ask you a number of questions about your network; fill in the answers from 2.2.1. 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). On a laptop, it’s more likely that your primary network device is pcmcia.

Here are some technical details you may 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/init.d/network. (On a Debian system, daemons are started by /scripts in the directory /etc/init.d/.)

3.12 Install the Base System

During the “Install the Base System” step, you’ll be offered a menu of devices from which you may install the base system. Here, you need to select your CD-ROM device.

You will be prompted to specify the path to the base2_1.tgz file. If you have official Debian media, the default value should be correct. Otherwise, enter the path where the base system can be found, relative to the media’s mount point. As with the “Install Operating System Kernel and Modules” step, you can either let dbootstrap find the file itself or type in the path at the prompt.

3.12.1 Configure the Base System

At this point you’ve read in all of the files that make up a minimal Debian system, but you must perform some configuration before the system will run.

You’ll be asked to select your time zone. There are many ways to specify your time zone; we suggest you go to the “Directories:” pane and select your country (or continent). That will change the available time zones, so go ahead and select your geographic locality (i.e., country, province, state, or city) in the “Timezones:” pane.

Next, you’ll be asked if your system clock is to be set to GMT or local time. Select GMT (i.e., “Yes”) if you will only be running Linux on your computer; select local time (i.e., “No”) if you will be running another operating system as well as Debian. Unix (and Linux is no exception) generally keeps GMT time on the system clock and converts visible time to the local time zone. This allows the system to keep track of daylight savings time and leap years, and even allows a user who is logged in from another time zone to individually set the time zone used on his or her terminal.

3.12.2 Make Linux Bootable Directly from the Hard Disk

If you elect to make the hard disk boot directly to Linux, you will be asked to install a master boot record. If you aren’t using a boot manager (and this is probably the case if you don’t know what a boot manager is) and you don’t have another different operating system on the same machine, answer “Yes” to this question. Note that if you answer “Yes,” you won’t be able to boot into DOS normally on your machine, for instance. Be careful. If you answer “Yes,” the next question will be whether you want to boot Linux automatically from the hard disk when you turn on your system. This sets Linux to be the _bootable partition_—the one that will be loaded from the hard disk.

Note that multiple operating system booting on a single machine is still something of a black art. This book does not even attempt to document the various boot managers, which vary by architecture and even by sub-architecture. You should see your boot manager’s documentation for more information. Remember: When working with the boot manager, you can never be too careful.

The standard i386 boot loader is called “LILO.” It is a complex program that offers lots of functionality, including DOS, NT, and OS/2 boot management. To find out more about this functionality, you can read the documentation in /usr/doc/lilo after your system is set up.

3.13 Make a Boot Floppy

You should make a boot floppy even if you intend to boot the system from the hard disk. The reason is that it’s possible for the hard disk bootstrap to be mis-installed, but a boot floppy will almost always work. Select “Make a Boot Floppy” from the menu and feed the system a blank floppy as directed. Make sure the floppy isn’t write-protected, because the software will format and write it. Mark this the “Custom Boot” floppy and write-protect it once it has been written.

3.14 The Moment of Truth

You 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 then 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=rootfs, where rootfs 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.

3.15 Set the Root Password

The _root_ account is also called the _superuser;_ it is a login that bypasses all security protection on your system. The root account should be used only to perform system administration and for as short a time as possible.

Any password you create should contain from six to eight characters, and it should contain both uppercase and lowercase 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 that could be guessed.

If anyone ever tells you he needs your root password, be extremely wary. You should normally never give out your root account, unless you are administering a machine with more than one system administrator.

3.16 Create an Ordinary User

The system will ask you to create an ordinary user account. This account should be your main personal login. You should _not_ use the root account for daily use or as your personal login.

Why not? It’s a lot harder to do damage to the system as an ordinary user than as root; system files are protected. Another reason is that you might be tricked into running a _Trojan horse_ program—that is, a program that takes advantage of your superuser 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 this topic is new to you.

Name the user account anything you like. If your name is John Smith, you might use “smith,” “john,” “jsmith,” or “js.”

3.17 Shadow Password Support

Next, the system will ask whether you want to enable shadow passwords. This is an authentication system that makes your Linux system a bit more secure. Therefore, we recommend that you enable shadow passwords. Reconfiguration of the shadow password system can also be done later with the shadowconfig program.

3.18 Remove PCMCIA