Created by Leslie Men Chall Chong, 5 December 2007
This is an example basic installation for Debian 4.0. You can use it to prepare a similar installation for learning purposes.
Test computer: AMD Athlon XP 2500+, 500MB RAM, 80GB hard drive, with Windows XP Professional and an expired Evaluation Windows Server 2003.
1-Set the computer to boot to the CD-ROM drive and reboot the computer with the Debian 4.0 DVD.
2-Press Enter to boot to DVD.
3-Choose the language. It defaults to English. Press Enter.
4-Choose the location. It defaults to United States. Press Enter.
5-At the next screen, press Enter for the default American English keyboard layout.
6-There will be some activities by the installer, which includes finding a DHCP server to configure for the connected network.
7-Give your server a hostname to (e.g. debian007) and tab to <Continue>.
8-Domain name: Enter your domain name, if you do not have one, make up one that does not exist on the Internet (e.g. computius.net) and <Continue>.
9- Partitioning disks screen: Select Manual and press Enter.
10-Depending on what you intend to do, select an appropriate step:
(a) If you have Windows and want to use up the rest of the hard drive for Debian, then select FREE SPACE (leaving the #1 primary partition for Windows alone) and press Enter. Choose “Automatically partition the free space”, Enter.
(b) If you have Windows and you do not want to use up all the free space, you can manually create a partition for / and another one for swap for Debian.
(c) If you want to install Debian as the first OS on a hard drive, then you delete all the existing partitions and create the / and swap partitions from the free space.
For my installation, I deleted all the high-cholesterol Windows systems on the 80GB drive (deleted the partitions), and then selected FREE SPACE to create a new primary partition of 20GB starting from the beginning of the free space for the / mount. Tab to Done with setting up the partition and press Enter.
Back to the partitioning screen, choose FREE SPACE to create a 2GB primary partition for swap space. Change the Use as: to swap area and Done with setting up the partition.
11-After the creating the partitions, press Enter to “Finish partitioning and write changes to disk”. Click <Yes> to write the changes.
Partition #1 is / ext3
Partition #2 is swap
12-Configure time zone: Choose Pacific and press Enter.
13-At Setting up users and passwords, enter and verify a root password.
14-Type in a new user’s full name (e.g. Charles John) and username (charles). Type and verify the user’s password.
15-The installation of the base system will start.
16-Configure the package manager. Pick <Yes> when asked to use network mirror, choose the default United States and pick a mirror (default: ftp.debian.org).
17-Leave the HTTP proxy information blank and <Continue>.
18-Choose <No> to the invitation to participate in a package usage survey.
19-At software selection, leave the defaults - Desktop environment (GUI) and Standard system – selected and <Continue>.
[You can install any server later.]
20-Click <Yes> to install GRUB to the master boot record.
21-On completion, the CD ejects. Remove it, and click <Continue> to finish the installation.
22-Upon reboot, select Debian 4.0 GNU / Linux (top of the menu). You will be booted to Debian.
25-Login with the userid you created.