The Debian Installation System ============================== Quick Orientation The Debian Installation system can be found at the following location on any Debian archive: /dists/potato/main/disks-m68k/current/ The word `' may indicate an FTP area, Web distribution area, or Official Debian CD-ROM. All the files required for installation can be found under this directory. Full information on how to install Debian can be found in the documentation located under the `doc' subdirectory. Documentation is available in several formats and languages. Bookmark and read for errata, security alerts, and other updated information. Even though the Debian Installation System is also called the `boot-floppies', it is possible to use the system to install without the use of floppies at all. For instance, you may be able to install Debian from bootable CD-ROM, from the network, or from another operating system. The name `boot-floppies' is something of a historical artifact. See the documentation for complete information. ** Layout Of The Installation Files The general organization of files in this directory is the following. doc/ The Debian GNU/Linux Installation Manual, the Beginner's Guide for `dselect', and the Release Notes may be found here in several computer readable and printable formats. Please, Read The Fine Manual (RTFM) before you begin! / Installation files for a subdivision of the m68k architecture; you will need to look under here to find your boot, root, and drivers disks. This architecture has the following 's: amiga, atari, mac, mvme16x, bvme6000 /images-/ Disk images of size . Choose the size that will fit on the media you intend to bootstrap the installation software from, and follow the instructions below under "Writing Image Files to Floppies". ** Specific Files of Interest Using the descriptions above, you need to select the directory containing the set of files which is appropriate to the installation you are doing. You will need all of the following `.bin' images, unless marked otherwise. .../rescue.bin Rescue disk image, containing the kernel and a boot loader. .../root.bin Root disk image, containing the root file system. .../driver-#.bin Device driver disk images, containing kernel modules you can load for hardware for which there is not a driver built into the kernel. For instance, you can use this to install a driver for your network adapter; once you have installed that driver, you can install the rest of the system over the network. Other modules include PPP, parallel support, etc. .../base-#.bin The base Debian distribution (base2_2.tgz), split into disk images. If you intend to install from the network, NFS, a mounted partition, or a CD-ROM, you will not need the `base-#.bin' images. (This is good news for the majority of us.) These are for floppy-only installs, or people installing the base system so that they can get PPP started and the rest of their system installed via modem. base2_2.tgz The Debian base system in a compressed tar archive, used for the network, NFS, mounted file system, and CD-ROM installation methods. This contains a complete minimalist Debian GNU/Linux installation, as well as everything required to begin installing everything else you want. base-contents.txt List of packages in the base distribution, and their version numbers. ** Writing Image Files to Floppies You can write the *.bin disk images to floppies with dd. Replace `' with the name of the image file in the following command: dd of=/dev/fd0 if= bs=1024 If you are naturally suspicious, you can make sure the image was successfully written: cmp /dev/fd0