Debian GNU/Linux Installation Guide Copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 the Debian Installer team This manual is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Please refer to the license in Appendix F, GNU General Public License. Abstract This document contains installation instructions for the Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 system (codename "etch"), for the PowerPC ("powerpc") architecture. It also contains pointers to more information and information on how to make the most of your new Debian system. Warning This installation guide is based on an earlier manual written for the old Debian installation system (the "boot-floppies"), and has been updated to document the new Debian installer. However, for powerpc, the manual has not been fully updated and fact checked for the new installer. There may remain parts of the manual that are incomplete or outdated or that still document the boot-floppies installer. A newer version of this manual, possibly better documenting this architecture, may be found on the Internet at the debian-installer home page. You may also be able to find additional translations there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents Installing Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 For powerpc 1. Welcome to Debian 1.1. What is Debian? 1.2. What is GNU/Linux? 1.3. What is Debian GNU/Linux? 1.4. Getting Debian 1.5. Getting the Newest Version of This Document 1.6. Organization of This Document 1.7. About Copyrights and Software Licenses 2. System Requirements 2.1. Supported Hardware 2.1.1. Supported Architectures 2.1.2. CPU, Main Boards, and Video Support 2.1.3. Graphics Card Support 2.1.4. Multiple Processors 2.2. Installation Media 2.2.1. Floppies 2.2.2. CD-ROM/DVD-ROM 2.2.3. Hard Disk 2.2.4. USB Memory Stick 2.2.5. Network 2.2.6. Un*x or GNU system 2.2.7. Supported Storage Systems 2.3. Peripherals and Other Hardware 2.4. Purchasing Hardware Specifically for GNU/Linux 2.4.1. Avoid Proprietary or Closed Hardware 2.5. Memory and Disk Space Requirements 2.6. Network Connectivity Hardware 2.6.1. Drivers Requiring Firmware 2.6.2. Wireless Network Cards 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux 3.1. Overview of the Installation Process 3.2. Back Up Your Existing Data! 3.3. Information You Will Need 3.3.1. Documentation 3.3.2. Finding Sources of Hardware Information 3.3.3. Hardware Compatibility 3.3.4. Network Settings 3.4. Meeting Minimum Hardware Requirements 3.5. Pre-Partitioning for Multi-Boot Systems 3.5.1. MacOS/OSX Partitioning 3.6. Pre-Installation Hardware and Operating System Setup 3.6.1. Invoking OpenFirmware 3.6.2. Hardware Issues to Watch Out For 4. Obtaining System Installation Media 4.1. Official Debian GNU/Linux CD-ROM Sets 4.2. Downloading Files from Debian Mirrors 4.2.1. Where to Find Installation Images 4.3. Creating Floppies from Disk Images 4.3.1. Writing Disk Images From a Linux or Unix System 4.3.2. Writing Disk Images From DOS, Windows, or OS/2 4.3.3. Writing Disk Images From MacOS 4.4. Preparing Files for USB Memory Stick Booting 4.4.1. Copying the files -- the easy way 4.4.2. Copying the files -- the flexible way 4.4.3. Adding an ISO image 4.5. Preparing Files for Hard Disk Booting 4.5.1. Hard Disk Installer Booting for OldWorld Macs 4.5.2. Hard Disk Installer Booting for NewWorld Macs 4.6. Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting 4.6.1. Setting up a BOOTP server 4.6.2. Setting up a DHCP server 4.6.3. Enabling the TFTP Server 4.6.4. Move TFTP Images Into Place 4.7. Automatic Installation 4.7.1. Automatic Installation Using the Debian Installer 5. Booting the Installation System 5.1. Booting the Installer on PowerPC 5.1.1. Booting from a CD-ROM 5.1.2. Booting from Hard Disk 5.1.3. Booting from USB memory stick 5.1.4. Booting with TFTP 5.1.5. Booting from Floppies 5.1.6. PowerPC Boot Parameters 5.2. Boot Parameters 5.2.1. Debian Installer Parameters 5.3. Troubleshooting the Installation Process 5.3.1. CD-ROM Reliability 5.3.2. Floppy Disk Reliability 5.3.3. Boot Configuration 5.3.4. Interpreting the Kernel Startup Messages 5.3.5. Reporting Installation Problems 5.3.6. Submitting Installation Reports 6. Using the Debian Installer 6.1. How the Installer Works 6.2. Components Introduction 6.3. Using Individual Components 6.3.1. Setting up Debian Installer and Hardware Configuration 6.3.2. Partitioning and Mount Point Selection 6.3.3. Setting up the System 6.3.4. Installing the Base System 6.3.5. Installing Additional Software 6.3.6. Making Your System Bootable 6.3.7. Finishing the Installation 6.3.8. Miscellaneous 7. Booting Into Your New Debian System 7.1. The Moment of Truth 7.1.1. OldWorld PowerMacs 7.1.2. NewWorld PowerMacs 7.2. Mounting encrypted volumes 7.2.1. dm-crypt 7.2.2. loop-AES 7.2.3. Troubleshooting 7.3. Log In 8. Next Steps and Where to Go From Here 8.1. Shutting down the system 8.2. If You Are New to Unix 8.3. Orienting Yourself to Debian 8.3.1. Debian Packaging System 8.3.2. Application Version Management 8.3.3. Cron Job Management 8.4. Further Reading and Information 8.5. Setting Up Your System To Use E-Mail 8.5.1. Default E-Mail Configuration 8.5.2. Sending E-Mails Outside The System 8.5.3. Configuring the Exim4 Mail Transport Agent 8.6. Compiling a New Kernel 8.6.1. Kernel Image Management 8.7. Recovering a Broken System A. Installation Howto A.1. Preliminaries A.2. Booting the installer A.2.1. CDROM A.2.2. Floppy A.2.3. USB memory stick A.2.4. Booting from network A.2.5. Booting from hard disk A.3. Installation A.4. Send us an installation report A.5. And finally... B. Automating the installation using preseeding B.1. Introduction B.1.1. Preseeding methods B.1.2. Limitations B.2. Using preseeding B.2.1. Loading the preconfiguration file B.2.2. Using boot parameters to preseed questions B.2.3. Auto mode B.2.4. Aliases useful with preseeding B.2.5. Using a DHCP server to specify preconfiguration files B.3. Creating a preconfiguration file B.4. Contents of the preconfiguration file B.4.1. Localization B.4.2. Network configuration B.4.3. Mirror settings B.4.4. Partitioning B.4.5. Partitioning using RAID B.4.6. Clock and time zone setup B.4.7. Apt setup B.4.8. Account setup B.4.9. Base system installation B.4.10. Boot loader installation B.4.11. Package selection B.4.12. Finishing up the first stage install B.4.13. X configuration B.4.14. Preseeding other packages B.5. Advanced options B.5.1. Running custom commands during the installation B.5.2. Using preseeding to change default values B.5.3. Chainloading preconfiguration files C. Partitioning for Debian C.1. Deciding on Debian Partitions and Sizes C.2. The Directory Tree C.3. Recommended Partitioning Scheme C.4. Device Names in Linux C.5. Debian Partitioning Programs C.5.1. Partitioning Newer PowerMacs D. Random Bits D.1. Linux Devices D.1.1. Setting Up Your Mouse D.2. Disk Space Needed for Tasks D.3. Installing Debian GNU/Linux from a Unix/Linux System D.3.1. Getting Started D.3.2. Install debootstrap D.3.3. Run debootstrap D.3.4. Configure The Base System D.3.5. Install a Kernel D.3.6. Set up the Boot Loader D.3.7. Finishing touches D.4. Installing Debian GNU/Linux using PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE) D.5. The Graphical Installer D.5.1. Using the graphical installer D.5.2. Known issues E. Administrivia E.1. About This Document E.2. Contributing to This Document E.3. Major Contributions E.4. Trademark Acknowledgement F. GNU General Public License List of Tables 3.1. Hardware Information Needed for an Install 3.2. Recommended Minimum System Requirements Installing Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 For powerpc 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. We understand that many of you want to install Debian without reading this manual, and the Debian installer is designed to make this possible. If you don't have time to read the whole Installation Guide right now, we recommend that you read the Installation Howto, which will walk you through the basic installation process, and links to the manual for more advanced topics or for when things go wrong. The Installation Howto can be found in Appendix A, Installation Howto. With that said, we hope that you have the time to read most of this manual, and doing so will lead to a more informed and likely more successful installation experience. Chapter 1. Welcome to Debian Table of Contents 1.1. What is Debian? 1.2. What is GNU/Linux? 1.3. What is Debian GNU/Linux? 1.4. Getting Debian 1.5. Getting the Newest Version of This Document 1.6. Organization of This Document 1.7. About Copyrights and Software Licenses 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 promoting the ideals of the Free Software community. 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 relatively small band of dedicated enthusiasts, originally funded by the Free Software Foundation and influenced by the GNU philosophy, has grown over the years into an organization of around 1010 Debian Developers. Debian Developers are involved in a variety of activities, including Web and FTP site administration, graphic design, legal 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 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. 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 are a clear and concise statement of Debian's criteria for free software. The DFSG is a very influential document in the Free Software Movement, and was the foundation of the The Open Source Definition. * The Debian Policy Manual 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 (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 (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. 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. 1.2. What is GNU/Linux? Linux is an operating system: a series of programs that let you interact with your computer and run other programs. 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 kernel 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". Linux is modelled on the Unix operating system. From the start, Linux was designed to be a multi-tasking, multi-user system. These facts are enough to make Linux different from other well-known operating systems. However, Linux is even more different than you might imagine. In contrast to other operating systems, nobody owns Linux. Much of its development is done by unpaid volunteers. Development of what later became GNU/Linux began in 1984, when the Free Software Foundation began development of a free Unix-like operating system called GNU. The GNU Project has developed a comprehensive set of free software tools for use with Unix (tm) and Unix-like operating systems such as Linux. These tools enable users to perform tasks ranging 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). While many groups and individuals have contributed to Linux, the largest single contributor is still the Free Software Foundation, which created not only most of the tools used in Linux, but also the philosophy and the community that made Linux possible. The Linux kernel first appeared in 1991, when a Finnish computing science student named Linus Torvalds announced an early version of a replacement kernel for Minix to the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.minix. See Linux International's Linux History Page. 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. More information about the linux-kernel mailing list can be found on the linux-kernel mailing list FAQ. Linux users have immense freedom of choice in their software. For example, Linux users can choose from a dozen different command line shells and several graphical desktops. This selection is often bewildering to users of other operating systems, who are not used to thinking of the command line or desktop as something that they can change. Linux is also less likely to crash, better able to run more than one program at the same time, and more secure than many operating systems. With these advantages, Linux is the fastest growing operating system in the server market. More recently, Linux has begun to be popular among home and business users as well. 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 package in the distribution contains executables, scripts, documentation, and configuration information, 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 software. 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 distribution. Installations can be easily configured to serve many roles, from stripped-down firewalls to desktop scientific workstations to high-end network servers. Debian is especially popular among advanced users because of its technical excellence and its deep commitment to the needs and expectations of the Linux community. Debian also introduced many features to Linux that are now commonplace. For example, Debian was the first Linux distribution to include a package management system for easy installation and removal of software. It was also the first Linux distribution that could be upgraded without requiring reinstallation. Debian continues to be a leader in Linux development. Its development process is an example of just how well the Open Source development model can work -- even for very complex tasks such as building and maintaining a complete operating system. The feature that most distinguishes Debian from other 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 packagers also take great care to configure their packages in a secure manner. When security problems 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 215 at this writing). The easiest way to subscribe to one or more of these lists is visit Debian's mailing list subscription page and fill out the form you'll find there. 1.4. 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. The list of Debian mirrors contains a full set of official Debian mirrors, so you can easily find the nearest one. Debian can be upgraded after installation very easily. The installation procedure will help set up the system so that you can make those upgrades once installation is complete, if need be. 1.5. Getting the Newest Version of This Document This document is constantly being revised. Be sure to check the Debian 4.0 pages for any last-minute information about the 4.0 release of the Debian GNU/ Linux system. Updated versions of this installation manual are also available from the official Install Manual pages. 1.6. 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 minimum installation sizes, details about the hardware supported by the Debian installation system, 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 sections of this document which correlate with each step: 1. Determine whether your hardware meets the requirements for using the installation system, in Chapter 2, System Requirements. 2. Backup your system, perform any necessary planning and hardware configuration prior to installing Debian, in Chapter 3, Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux. 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 Chapter 4, Obtaining System Installation Media, you will obtain the necessary installation files for your method of installation. 4. Chapter 5, Booting the Installation System describes booting into the installation system. This chapter also discusses troubleshooting procedures in case you have problems with this step. 5. Perform the actual installation according to Chapter 6, Using the Debian Installer. This involves choosing your language, configuring peripheral driver modules, configuring your network connection, so that remaining installation files can be obtained directly from a Debian server (if you are not installing from a CD), partitioning your hard drives and installation of a base system, then selection and installation of tasks. (Some background about setting up the partitions for your Debian system is explained in Appendix C, Partitioning for Debian.) 6. Boot into your newly installed base system, from Chapter 7, Booting Into Your New Debian System. Once you've got your system installed, you can read Chapter 8, Next Steps and Where to Go From Here. That chapter explains where to look to find more information about Unix and Debian, and how to replace your kernel. Finally, information about this document and how to contribute to it may be found in Appendix E, Administrivia. 1.7. 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. This system's license isn't like that at all. We encourage you to put a copy of 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. Note 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, under "The Debian FTP archives", for more information about the layout and contents of the archives. 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^[1] for all such programs is available in the Debian system. There are several other forms of copyright statements and software licenses used on the programs 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. The most important legal notice is that this software comes with no warranties. The programmers who have created this software have done so for the benefit of the community. No guarantee 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. -------------- ^[1] For information on how to locate, unpack, and build binaries from Debian source packages, see the Debian FAQ, under "Basics of the Debian Package Management System". Chapter 2. System Requirements Table of Contents 2.1. Supported Hardware 2.1.1. Supported Architectures 2.1.2. CPU, Main Boards, and Video Support 2.1.3. Graphics Card Support 2.1.4. Multiple Processors 2.2. Installation Media 2.2.1. Floppies 2.2.2. CD-ROM/DVD-ROM 2.2.3. Hard Disk 2.2.4. USB Memory Stick 2.2.5. Network 2.2.6. Un*x or GNU system 2.2.7. Supported Storage Systems 2.3. Peripherals and Other Hardware 2.4. Purchasing Hardware Specifically for GNU/Linux 2.4.1. Avoid Proprietary or Closed Hardware 2.5. Memory and Disk Space Requirements 2.6. Network Connectivity Hardware 2.6.1. Drivers Requiring Firmware 2.6.2. Wireless Network Cards 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 supported for PowerPC, this section contains general information and pointers to where additional information can be found. 2.1.1. Supported Architectures Debian 4.0 supports twelve major architectures and several variations of each architecture known as "flavors". +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Architecture | Debian | Subarchitecture | Flavor | | | Designation | | | |------------------+-----------------+-------------------------+--------------| |Intel x86-based |i386 |  |  | |------------------+-----------------+-------------------------+--------------| |AMD64 & Intel |amd64 |  |  | |EM64T | | | | |------------------+-----------------+-------------------------+--------------| |DEC Alpha |alpha |  |  | |------------------+-----------------+-------------------------+--------------| | | |Netwinder and CATS |netwinder | | | |-------------------------+--------------| | | |Intel IOP32x |iop32x | |ARM and StrongARM |arm |-------------------------+--------------| | | |Intel IXP4xx |ixp4xx | | | |-------------------------+--------------| | | |RiscPC |rpc | |------------------+-----------------+-------------------------+--------------| | | |PA-RISC 1.1 |32 | |HP PA-RISC |hppa |-------------------------+--------------| | | |PA-RISC 2.0 |64 | |------------------+-----------------+-------------------------+--------------| |Intel IA-64 |ia64 |  |  | |------------------+-----------------+-------------------------+--------------| | | |SGI IP22 (Indy/Indigo 2) |r4k-ip22 | | | |-------------------------+--------------| | | |SGI IP32 (O2) |r5k-ip32 | | | |-------------------------+--------------| |MIPS (big endian) |mips |Broadcom BCM91250A |sb1-bcm91250a | | | |(SWARM) | | | | |-------------------------+--------------| | | |Broadcom BCM91480B |sb1a-bcm91480b| | | |(BigSur) | | |------------------+-----------------+-------------------------+--------------| | | |Cobalt |cobalt | | | |-------------------------+--------------| | | | |r4k-kn04 | | | |DECstation |--------------| |MIPS (little | | |r3k-kn02 | |endian) |mipsel |-------------------------+--------------| | | |Broadcom BCM91250A |sb1-bcm91250a | | | |(SWARM) | | | | |-------------------------+--------------| | | |Broadcom BCM91480B |sb1a-bcm91480b| | | |(BigSur) | | |------------------+-----------------+-------------------------+--------------| | | |Atari |atari | | | |-------------------------+--------------| | | |Amiga |amiga | | | |-------------------------+--------------| | | |68k Macintosh |mac | |Motorola 680x0 |m68k |-------------------------+--------------| | | | |bvme6000 | | | | |--------------| | | |VME |mvme147 | | | | |--------------| | | | |mvme16x | |------------------+-----------------+-------------------------+--------------| | | |CHRP |chrp | |IBM/Motorola | |-------------------------+--------------| |PowerPC |powerpc |PowerMac |pmac | | | |-------------------------+--------------| | | |PReP |prep | |------------------+-----------------+-------------------------+--------------| | | |sun4m |sparc32 | | | |-------------------------+--------------| |Sun SPARC |sparc |sun4u | | | | |-------------------------|sparc64 | | | |sun4v | | |------------------+-----------------+-------------------------+--------------| | | |IPL from VM-reader and |generic | |IBM S/390 |s390 |DASD | | | | |-------------------------+--------------| | | |IPL from tape |tape | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ This document covers installation for the PowerPC architecture. If you are looking for information on any of the other Debian-supported architectures take a look at the Debian-Ports pages. 2.1.2. CPU, Main Boards, and Video Support There are four major supported powerpc subarchitectures: PMac (Power-Macintosh or PowerMac), PReP, APUS (Amiga Power-UP System), and CHRP machines. Each subarchitecture has its own boot methods. In addition, there are four different kernel flavours, supporting different CPU variants. Ports to other powerpc architectures, such as the Be-Box and MBX architecture, are underway but not yet supported by Debian. We may have a 64-bit port in the future. 2.1.2.1. Kernel Flavours There are four flavours of the powerpc kernel in Debian, based on the CPU type: powerpc Most systems use this kernel flavour, which supports the PowerPC 601, 603, 604, 740, 750, and 7400 processors. All Apple PowerMac machines up to and including the one marketed as G4 use one of these processors. power64 The power64 kernel flavour supports the following CPUs: The POWER3 processor is used in older IBM 64-bit server systems: known models include the IntelliStation POWER Model 265, the pSeries 610 and 640, and the RS/6000 7044-170, 7043-260, and 7044-270. The POWER4 processor is used in more recent IBM 64-bit server systems: known models include the pSeries 615, 630, 650, 655, 670, and 690. Systems using the Apple G5 (PPC970FX processor) are also based on the POWER4 architecture, and use this kernel flavour. prep This kernel flavour supports the PReP subarchitecture. apus This kernel flavour supports the Amiga Power-UP System, though it is currently disabled. 2.1.2.2. Power Macintosh (pmac) subarchitecture Apple (and briefly a few other manufacturers -- Power Computing, for example) made a series of Macintosh computers based on the PowerPC processor. For purposes of architecture support, they are categorized as NuBus (not supported by Debian), OldWorld, and NewWorld. 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. Those pre-iMac PowerPC models from Apple use a four digit naming scheme, except for the beige colored G3 systems, which are also OldWorld. The so called NewWorld PowerMacs are any PowerMacs in translucent colored plastic cases and later models. 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. Specifications for Apple hardware are available at AppleSpec, and, for older hardware, AppleSpec Legacy. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Model Name/Number |Generation| |-------------------------------------------------------------+----------| | |iMac Bondi Blue, 5 Flavors, Slot Loading |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |iMac Summer 2000, Early 2001 |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |iMac G5 |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |iBook, iBook SE, iBook Dual USB |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |iBook2 |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |iBook G4 |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Power Macintosh Blue and White (B&W) G3 |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Power Macintosh G4 PCI, AGP, Cube |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Power Macintosh G4 Gigabit Ethernet |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Power Macintosh G4 Digital Audio, Quicksilver|NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Power Macintosh G5 |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |PowerBook G3 FireWire Pismo (2000) |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |PowerBook G3 Lombard (1999) |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |PowerBook G4 Titanium |NewWorld | |Apple |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |PowerBook G4 Aluminum |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Xserve G5 |NewWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Performa 4400, 54xx, 5500 |OldWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Performa 6360, 6400, 6500 |OldWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Power Macintosh 4400, 5400 |OldWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Power Macintosh 7200, 7300, 7500, 7600 |OldWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Power Macintosh 8200, 8500, 8600 |OldWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Power Macintosh 9500, 9600 |OldWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Power Macintosh (Beige) G3 Minitower |OldWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Power Macintosh (Beige) Desktop, All-in-One |OldWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |PowerBook 2400, 3400, 3500 |OldWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |PowerBook G3 Wallstreet (1998) |OldWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh |OldWorld | | |---------------------------------------------+----------| | |Workgroup Server 7250, 7350, 8550, 9650, G3 |OldWorld | |---------------+---------------------------------------------+----------| | |PowerBase, PowerTower / Pro, PowerWave |OldWorld | |Power Computing|---------------------------------------------+----------| | |PowerCenter / Pro, PowerCurve |OldWorld | |---------------+---------------------------------------------+----------| |UMAX |C500, C600, J700, S900 |OldWorld | |---------------+---------------------------------------------+----------| |APS |APS Tech M*Power 604e/2000 |OldWorld | |---------------+---------------------------------------------+----------| |Motorola |Starmax 3000, 4000, 5000, 5500 |OldWorld | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 2.1.2.3. PReP subarchitecture +---------------------------------------------------------+ | Model Name/Number | |---------------------------------------------------------| | |Firepower, PowerStack Series E, PowerStack II| | |---------------------------------------------| | |MPC 7xx, 8xx | | |---------------------------------------------| |Motorola |MTX, MTX+ | | |---------------------------------------------| | |MVME2300(SC)/24xx/26xx/27xx/36xx/46xx | | |---------------------------------------------| | |MCP(N)750 | |-----------+---------------------------------------------| | |40P, 43P | | |---------------------------------------------| | |Power 830/850/860 (6070, 6050) | |IBM RS/6000|---------------------------------------------| | |6030, 7025, 7043 | | |---------------------------------------------| | |p640 | +---------------------------------------------------------+ 2.1.2.4. CHRP subarchitecture +---------------------------------+ | Model Name/Number | |---------------------------------| |IBM RS/6000|B50, 43P-150, 44P | |-----------+---------------------| |Genesi |Pegasos I, Pegasos II| +---------------------------------+ 2.1.2.5. APUS subarchitecture +-------------------------------------------------+ | Model Name/Number | |-------------------------------------------------| |Amiga Power-UP Systems (APUS)|A1200, A3000, A4000| +-------------------------------------------------+ 2.1.2.6. Nubus PowerMac subarchitecture (unsupported) 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 MkLinux 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/. 2.1.2.7. Non-PowerPC Macs 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" series, go on to the "LC" family, then the Centris series, and culminate in the Quadras and Performas. These models usually have a Roman numeral or 3-digit model number such as Mac IIcx, LCIII or Quadra 950. This model range started with the Mac II (Mac II, IIx, IIcx, IIci, IIsi, IIvi, IIvx, IIfx), then the LC (LC, LCII, III, III+, 475, 520, 550, 575, 580, 630), then the Mac TV, then the Centris (610, 650, 660AV), the Quadra (605, 610, 630, 650, 660AV, 700, 800, 840AV, 900, 950), and finally the Performa 200-640CD. In laptops, it started with the Mac Portable, then the PowerBook 100-190cs and the PowerBook Duo 210-550c (excluding PowerBook 500 which is Nubus, please see the section above). 2.1.3. Graphics Card Support Debian's support for graphical interfaces is determined by the underlying support found in X.Org's X11 system. Most AGP, PCI and PCIe video cards work under X.Org. Details on supported graphics buses, cards, monitors, and pointing devices can be found at http://xorg.freedesktop.org/. Debian 4.0 ships with X.Org version 7.1. 2.1.4. Multiple Processors Multiprocessor support -- also called "symmetric multiprocessing" or SMP -- is available for this architecture. However, the standard Debian 4.0 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 Section 8.6, "Compiling a New Kernel". At this time (kernel version 2.6.18) the way you enable SMP is to select "Symmetric multi-processing support" in the "Platform support" section of the kernel config. 2.2. Installation Media This section will help you determine which different media types you can use to install Debian. For example, if you have a floppy disk drive on your machine, it can be used to install Debian. There is a whole chapter devoted to media, Chapter 4, Obtaining System Installation Media, which lists the advantages and disadvantages of each media type. You may want to refer back to this page once you reach that section. 2.2.1. Floppies In some cases, you'll have to do your first boot from floppy disks. Generally, all you will need is a high-density (1440 kilobytes) 3.5 inch floppy drive. For CHRP, floppy support is currently broken. 2.2.2. CD-ROM/DVD-ROM Note Whenever you see "CD-ROM" in this manual, it applies to both CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs, because both technologies are really the same from the operating system's point of view, except for some very old nonstandard CD-ROM drives which are neither SCSI nor IDE/ATAPI. 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 your system doesn't support booting from a CD-ROM, you can use the CD-ROM in conjunction with the other techniques to install your system, once you've booted up by other means; see Chapter 5, Booting the Installation System. 2.2.3. Hard Disk Booting the installation system directly from a hard disk is another option for many architectures. This will require some other operating system to load the installer onto the hard disk. 2.2.4. USB Memory Stick Many Debian boxes need their floppy and/or CD-ROM drives only for setting up the system and for rescue purposes. If you operate some servers, you will probably already have thought about omitting those drives and using an USB memory stick for installing and (when necessary) for recovering the system. This is also useful for small systems which have no room for unnecessary drives. 2.2.5. Network The network can be used during the installation to retrieve files needed for the installation. Whether the network is used or not depends on the installation method you choose and your answers to certain questions that will be asked during the installation. The installation system supports most types of network connections (including PPPoE, but not ISDN or PPP), via either HTTP or FTP. After the installation is completed, you can also configure your system to use ISDN and PPP. You can also boot the installation system over the network. Diskless installation, using network booting from a local area network and NFS-mounting of all local filesystems, is another option. 2.2.6. Un*x or GNU system If you are running another Unix-like system, you could use it to install Debian GNU/Linux without using the debian-installer described in the rest of this manual. This kind of install may be useful for users with otherwise unsupported hardware or on hosts which can't afford downtime. If you are interested in this technique, skip to the Section D.3, "Installing Debian GNU/Linux from a Unix/ Linux System". 2.2.7. 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 Section 8.6, "Compiling a New Kernel" 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. Peripherals and Other Hardware Linux supports a large variety of hardware devices such as mice, printers, scanners, PCMCIA and USB devices. However, most of these devices are not required while installing the system. 2.4. 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. 2.4.1. 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. 2.5. Memory and Disk Space Requirements You must have at least 32MB of memory and 500MB of hard disk space. Note that these are really bare-minimum numbers. For more realistic figures, see Section 3.4, "Meeting Minimum Hardware Requirements". 2.6. Network Connectivity Hardware Almost any network interface card (NIC) supported by the Linux kernel should also be supported by the installation system; modular drivers should normally be loaded automatically. 2.6.1. Drivers Requiring Firmware The installation system currently does not support retrieving firmware. This means that any network cards that use a driver that requires firmware to be loaded, is not supported by default. If there is no other NIC you can use during the installation, it is still possible to install Debian GNU/Linux using a full CD-ROM or DVD image. Select the option to not configure a network and install using only the packages available from the CD/DVD. You can then install the driver and firmware you need after the installation is completed (after the reboot) and configure your network manually. Note that the firmware may be packaged separately from the driver and may not be available in the "main" section of the Debian GNU/Linux archive. If the driver itself is supported, you may also be able to use the NIC during installation by copying the firmware from some medium to /usr/lib/hotplug/ firmware. Don't forget to also copy the firmware to that location for the installed system before the reboot at the end of the installation. 2.6.2. Wireless Network Cards Wireless NICs are in general supported as well, with one big proviso. A lot of wireless adapters require drivers that are either non-free or have not been accepted into the official Linux kernel. These NICs can generally be made to work under Debian GNU/Linux, but are not supported during the installation. If there is no other NIC you can use during the installation, it is still possible to install Debian GNU/Linux using a full CD-ROM or DVD image. Use the same procedure as described above for NICs that require firmware. In some cases the driver you need may not be available as a Debian package. You will then have to look if there is source code available in the internet and compile the driver yourself. How to do this is outside the scope of this manual. Chapter 3. Before Installing Debian GNU/Linux Table of Contents 3.1. Overview of the Installation Process 3.2. Back Up Your Existing Data! 3.3. Information You Will Need 3.3.1. Documentation 3.3.2. Finding Sources of Hardware Information 3.3.3. Hardware Compatibility 3.3.4. Network Settings 3.4. Meeting Minimum Hardware Requirements 3.5. Pre-Partitioning for Multi-Boot Systems 3.5.1. MacOS/OSX Partitioning 3.6. Pre-Installation Hardware and Operating System Setup 3.6.1. Invoking OpenFirmware 3.6.2. Hardware Issues to Watch Out For This chapter deals with the preparation for installing Debian before you even boot the installer. This includes backing up your data, gathering information about your hardware, and locating any necessary information. 3.1. Overview of the Installation Process First, just a note about re-installations. With Debian, a circumstance that will require a complete re-installation of your system is very rare; perhaps mechanical failure of the hard disk would be the most common case. Many common operating systems may require a complete installation to be performed when critical failures take place or for upgrades to new OS versions. Even if a completely new installation isn't required, often the programs you use must be re-installed to operate properly in the new OS. Under Debian GNU/Linux, it is much more likely that your OS can be repaired rather than replaced if things go wrong. Upgrades never require a wholesale installation; you can always upgrade in-place. And the programs are almost always compatible with successive OS releases. If a new program version requires newer supporting software, the Debian packaging system ensures that all the necessary software is automatically identified and installed. The point is, much effort has been put into avoiding the need for re-installation, so think of it as your very last option. The installer is not designed to re-install over an existing system. Here's a road map for the steps you will take during the installation process. 1. Back up any existing data or documents on the hard disk where you plan to install. 2. Gather information about your computer and any needed documentation, before starting the installation. 3. Create partition-able space for Debian on your hard disk. 4. Locate and/or download the installer software and any specialized driver files your machine requires (except Debian CD users). 5. Set up boot tapes/floppies/USB sticks, or place boot files (most Debian CD users can boot from one of the CDs). 6. Boot the installation system. 7. Select the installation language. 8. Activate the ethernet network connection, if available. 9. Create and mount the partitions on which Debian will be installed. 10. Watch the automatic download/install/setup of the base system. 11. Install a boot loader which can start up Debian GNU/Linux and/or your existing system. 12. Load the newly installed system for the first time. For PowerPC you have the option of using an experimental graphical version of the installation system. For more information about this graphical installer, see Section D.5, "The Graphical Installer". If you have problems during the installation, it helps to know which packages are involved in which steps. Introducing the leading software actors in this installation drama: The installer software, debian-installer, is the primary concern of this manual. It detects hardware and loads appropriate drivers, uses dhcp-client to set up the network connection, runs debootstrap to install the base system packages, and runs tasksel to allow you to install certain additional software. Many more actors play smaller parts in this process, but debian-installer has completed its task when you load the new system for the first time. To tune the system to your needs, tasksel allows you to choose to install various predefined bundles of software like a Web server or a Desktop environment. One important option during the installation is whether or not to install a graphical desktop environment, consisting of the X Window System and one of the available graphical desktop environments. If you choose not to select the "Desktop environment" task, you will only have a relatively basic, command line driven system. Installing the Desktop environment task is optional because it requires a fairly large amount of disk space, and because many Debian GNU/Linux systems are servers which don't really have any need for a graphical user interface to do their job. Just be aware that the X Window System is completely separate from debian-installer, and in fact is much more complicated. Installation and troubleshooting of the X Window System is not within the scope of this manual. 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 partition your disk, you run a risk of 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 3.3.1.1. Installation Manual The document you are now reading, which is the official version of the Installation Guide for the etch release of Debian; available in various formats and translations. 3.3.1.2. Hardware documentation Often contains useful information on configuring or using your hardware. 3.3.2. Finding Sources of Hardware Information In many cases, the installer will be able to automatically detect your hardware. But to be prepared, we do recommend familiarizing yourself with your hardware before the install. 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 combination. 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. Table 3.1. 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. | | |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | |Horizontal refresh rate. | |Monitor |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | |Vertical refresh rate. | | |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | |Color depth (number of colors) supported. | | |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | |Screen size. | |--------+--------------------------------------------------------------------| | |Type: serial, PS/2, or USB. | | |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | |Port. | |Mouse |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | |Manufacturer. | | |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | |Number of buttons. | |--------+--------------------------------------------------------------------| | |Model and manufacturer. | |Network |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | |Type of adapter. | |--------+--------------------------------------------------------------------| | |Model and manufacturer. | |Printer |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | |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 support in 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 architecture. * 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. * Your host name (you may be able to decide this on your own). * Your domain name. * Your computer's IP address. * The netmask to use with 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. 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. If you use a wireless network, you should also find out: * ESSID of your wireless network. * WEP security key (if applicable). 3.4. Meeting Minimum Hardware Requirements Once you have gathered information about your computer's hardware, check that your hardware 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 hardware 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. Table 3.2. Recommended Minimum System Requirements +-------------------------------------------------------+ |Install Type|RAM (minimal)|RAM (recommended)|Hard Drive| |------------+-------------+-----------------+----------| |No desktop |64 megabytes |256 megabytes |1 gigabyte| |------------+-------------+-----------------+----------| |With Desktop|64 megabytes |512 megabytes |5 gigabyte| +-------------------------------------------------------+ The actual minimum memory requirements are a lot less then the numbers listed in this table. Depending on the architecture, it is possible to install Debian with as little as 20MB (for s390) to 48MB (for i386 and amd64). The same goes for the disk space requirements, especially if you pick and choose which applications to install; see Section D.2, "Disk Space Needed for Tasks" for additional information on disk space requirements. It is possible to run a graphical desktop environment on older or low-end systems, but in that case it is recommended to install a window manager that is less resource-hungry than those of the GNOME or KDE desktop environments; alternatives include xfce4, icewm and wmaker, but there are others to choose from. It is practically impossible to give general memory or disk space requirements for server installations as those very much depend on what the server is to be used for. 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. Disk space required for the smooth operation of the Debian GNU/Linux system itself is taken into account in these recommended system requirements. Notably, the /var partition contains a lot of state information specific to Debian in addition to its regular contents, like logfiles. The dpkg files (with information on all installed packages) can easily consume 40MB. Also, apt-get puts downloaded packages here before they are installed. You should usually allocate at least 200MB for /var, and a lot more if you install a graphical desktop environment. 3.5. 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 inside 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 cannot 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. 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 current operating system with Debian GNU/Linux, you also can wait to partition as part of the installation process (Section 6.3.2.1, "Partitioning Your Disks"), after you have booted the installation system. However this only works if you plan to boot the installer system from tapes, 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 tapes or CDs. If your machine already has multiple partitions, and enough space can be provided by deleting 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. If none of the above apply, 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 operating systems, you should create those partitions using native operating system partitioning programs. We recommend that you do not attempt to create partitions for Debian GNU/Linux 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 computers), and you want to multi-boot the native operating system and Debian, you will need to: 1. Back up everything on the computer. 2. Boot from the native operating system installer media such as CD-ROM or tapes. When booting from a MacOS CD, hold the c key while booting to force the CD to become 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. 3.5.1. 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 UFS partitions, but does support HFS+ (aka MacOS Extended) partitions. 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, HFS+ and MS-DOS FAT partitions are supported by both MacOS and Linux. 3.6. 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. 3.6.1. 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 booting. 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. The OpenFirmware prompt looks like this: ok 0 > Note that on older model PowerPC Macs, the default and sometimes hardwired I/O for OpenFirmware 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. 3.6.2. Hardware Issues to Watch Out For Display-visibility on OldWorld Powermacs.  Some OldWorld Powermacs, most notably those with the "control" display driver, may not reliably produce a colormap under Linux when the display is configured for more than 256 colors. If you are experiencing such issues with your display after rebooting (you can sometimes see data on the monitor, but on other occasions cannot see anything) or, if the screen turns black after booting the installer instead of showing you the user interface, try changing your display settings under MacOS to use 256 colors instead of "thousands" or "millions". Chapter 4. Obtaining System Installation Media Table of Contents 4.1. Official Debian GNU/Linux CD-ROM Sets 4.2. Downloading Files from Debian Mirrors 4.2.1. Where to Find Installation Images 4.3. Creating Floppies from Disk Images 4.3.1. Writing Disk Images From a Linux or Unix System 4.3.2. Writing Disk Images From DOS, Windows, or OS/2 4.3.3. Writing Disk Images From MacOS 4.4. Preparing Files for USB Memory Stick Booting 4.4.1. Copying the files -- the easy way 4.4.2. Copying the files -- the flexible way 4.4.3. Adding an ISO image 4.5. Preparing Files for Hard Disk Booting 4.5.1. Hard Disk Installer Booting for OldWorld Macs 4.5.2. Hard Disk Installer Booting for NewWorld Macs 4.6. Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting 4.6.1. Setting up a BOOTP server 4.6.2. Setting up a DHCP server 4.6.3. Enabling the TFTP Server 4.6.4. Move TFTP Images Into Place 4.7. Automatic Installation 4.7.1. Automatic Installation Using the Debian Installer 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. You can buy a set from a vendor (see the CD vendors page). 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 for detailed instructions). If you have a Debian CD set and CDs are bootable on your machine, you can skip right to Chapter 5, Booting the Installation System; much effort has been expended to ensure the files most people need are there on the CD. Although a full set of binary packages requires several CDs, it is unlikely you will need packages on the third CD and above. You may also consider using the DVD version, which saves a lot of space on your shelf and you avoid the CD shuffling marathon. If your machine doesn't support CD booting, but you do have a CD set, you can use an alternative strategy such as floppy disk, hard disk, usb stick, net boot, or manually loading the kernel from the CD 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 on the floppy disk or hard disk or usb stick or a connected computer so they can be used to boot the installer. 4.2. Downloading Files from Debian Mirrors To find the nearest (and thus probably the fastest) mirror, see the list of Debian mirrors. When downloading files from a Debian mirror, be sure to download the files in binary mode, not text or automatic mode. 4.2.1. Where to Find Installation Images The installation images are located on each Debian mirror in the directory debian/dists/etch/main/installer-powerpc/current/images/ -- the MANIFEST lists each image and its purpose. 4.3. Creating Floppies from Disk Images Bootable floppy disks are generally used as a last resort to boot the installer on hardware that cannot boot from CD or by other means. Booting the installer from floppy disk 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 boot.img, 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. This section describes how to create floppies from disk images on different platforms. Before you can create the floppies, you will first need to download them from one of the Debian mirrors, as explained in Section 4.2, "Downloading Files from Debian Mirrors". No matter which method you use to create your floppies, you should remember to flip the write-protect 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=filename of=/dev/fd0 bs=1024 conv=sync ; sync where filename is one of the floppy disk image files. /dev/fd0 is a commonly used name of the floppy disk device, it may be different on your workstation. 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 . 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. If writing a floppy on powerpc Linux, you will need to eject it. The eject program handles this nicely; you might need to install it. 4.3.2. Writing Disk Images From DOS, Windows, or OS/2 If you have access to an i386 or amd64 machine, you can use one of the following programs to copy images to floppies. The rawrite1 and rawrite2 programs can be used under MS-DOS. To use these programs, first make sure that you are booted into DOS. Trying to use these programs from within a DOS box in Windows, or double-clicking on these programs from the Windows Explorer is not expected to work. The rwwrtwin program runs on Windows 95, NT, 98, 2000, ME, XP and probably later versions. To use it you will need to unpack diskio.dll in the same directory. These tools can be found on the Official Debian CD-ROMs under the /tools directory. 4.3.3. Writing Disk Images From MacOS An AppleScript, Make Debian Floppy, is available for burning floppies from the provided disk image files. It can be downloaded from ftp://ftp2.sourceforge.net /pub/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. 4.3.3.1. Writing Disk Images with Disk Copy 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. The following Creator-Changer steps are only necessary if you downloaded the image files from a Debian mirror. 1. Obtain Creator-Changer and use it to open the root.bin file. 2. Change the Creator to ddsk (Disk Copy), and the Type to DDim (binary floppy image). 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. 4. 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. 5. Run Disk Copy, and select Utilities->Make a Floppy, 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. 4.3.3.2. Writing Disk Images with suntar 1. Obtain suntar from . Start the suntar program and select "Overwrite Sectors..." from the Special menu. 2. Insert the floppy disk as requested, then hit Enter (start at sector 0). 3. Select the root.bin file in the file-opening dialog. 4. After the floppy has been created successfully, select File->Eject. If there are any errors writing the floppy, simply toss that floppy and try another. 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 USB Memory Stick Booting To prepare the USB stick, you will need a system where GNU/Linux is already running and where USB is supported. You should ensure that the usb-storage kernel module is loaded (modprobe usb-storage) and try to find out which SCSI device the USB stick has been mapped to (in this example /dev/sda is used). To write to your stick, you may have to turn off its write protection switch. Note that the USB stick should be at least 256 MB in size (smaller setups are possible if you follow Section 4.4.2, "Copying the files -- the flexible way"). 4.4.1. Copying the files -- the easy way There is an all-in-one file hd-media/boot.img.gz which contains all the installer files (including the kernel) as well as yaboot and its configuration file. Create a partition of type "Apple_Bootstrap" on your USB stick using mac-fdisk's C command and extract the image directly to that: # zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/sda2 Warning Using this method will destroy anything already on the device. Make sure that you use the correct device name for your USB stick. After that, mount the USB memory stick (mount /dev/sda2 /mnt), which will now have an HFS filesystem on it, and copy a Debian netinst or businesscard ISO image to it (see Section 4.4.3, "Adding an ISO image"). Unmount the stick ( umount /mnt) and you are done. 4.4.2. Copying the files -- the flexible way If you like more flexibility or just want to know what's going on, you should use the following method to put the files on your stick. 4.4.2.1. USB stick partitioning on PowerPC Most USB sticks do not come pre-configured in such a way that Open Firmware can boot from them, so you will need to repartition the stick. On Mac systems, run mac-fdisk /dev/sda, initialise a new partition map using the i command, and create a new partition of type Apple_Bootstrap using the C command. (Note that the first "partition" will always be the partition map itself.) Then type $ hformat /dev/sda2 Take care that you use the correct device name for your USB stick. The hformat command is contained in the hfsutils Debian package. In order to start the kernel after booting from the USB stick, we will put a boot loader on the stick. The yaboot boot loader can be installed on an HFS filesystem and can be reconfigured by just editing a text file. Any operating system which supports the HFS file system can be used to make changes to the configuration of the boot loader. The normal ybin tool that comes with yaboot does not yet understand USB storage devices, so you will have to install yaboot by hand using the hfsutils tools. Type $ hmount /dev/sda2 $ hcopy -r /usr/lib/yaboot/yaboot : $ hattrib -c UNIX -t tbxi :yaboot $ hattrib -b : $ humount Again, take care that you use the correct device name. The partition must not be otherwise mounted during this procedure. This procedure writes the boot loader to the partition, and uses the HFS utilities to mark it in such a way that Open Firmware will boot it. Having done this, the rest of the USB stick may be prepared using the normal Unix utilities. Mount the partition (mount /dev/sda2 /mnt) and copy the following files from the Debian archives to the stick: * vmlinux (kernel binary) * initrd.gz (initial ramdisk image) * yaboot.conf (yaboot configuration file) * boot.msg (optional boot message) * Optional kernel modules The yaboot.conf configuration file should contain the following lines: default=install root=/dev/ram message=/boot.msg image=/vmlinux label=install initrd=/initrd.gz initrd-size=10000 read-only Please note that the initrd-size parameter may need to be increased, depending on the image you are booting. 4.4.3. Adding an ISO image The installer will look for a Debian ISO image on the stick as its source for additional data needed for the installation. So your next step is to copy a Debian ISO image (businesscard, netinst or even a full CD image) onto your stick (be sure to select one that fits). The file name of the image must end in .iso. If you want to install over the network, without using an ISO image, you will of course skip the previous step. Moreover you will have to use the initial ramdisk from the netboot directory instead of the one from hd-media, because hd-media/initrd.gz does not have network support. When you are done, unmount the USB memory stick (umount /mnt) and activate its write protection switch. 4.5. 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. 4.5.1. 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 Linux Kernels folder. Then place the Linux Kernels folder in the active System Folder. 4.5.2. 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 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). * vmlinux * initrd.gz * 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 Section 5.1.2.3, "Booting NewWorld Macs from OpenFirmware". 4.6. 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 many machines a DHCP server, or BOOTP 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. Theoretically, 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. 4.6.1. Setting up a BOOTP server There are two BOOTP servers available for GNU/Linux. The first is CMU bootpd. The other is actually a DHCP server: ISC dhcpd. In Debian GNU/Linux these are contained in the bootp and dhcp3-server packages respectively. 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. Just in case your BOOTP server does not run Debian, the line in question should look like: bootps dgram udp wait root /usr/sbin/bootpd bootpd -i -t 120 Now, you must create an /etc/bootptab file. This has the same sort of familiar and cryptic format as the good old BSD printcap, termcap, and disktab files. See the bootptab 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 Section 4.6.4, "Move TFTP Images Into Place" 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 Section 4.6.2, "Setting up a DHCP server". In that case, 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/dhcpd3-server restart. 4.6.2. Setting up a DHCP server One free software DHCP server is ISC dhcpd. For Debian GNU/Linux, the dhcp3-server package is recommended. Here is a sample configuration file for it (see /etc/dhcp3/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"; 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 /dhcpd3-server restart. 4.6.3. 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 something like the following line in /etc/inetd.conf: tftp dgram udp wait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd in.tftpd /tftpboot Debian packages will in general set this up correctly by default when they are installed. Note Historically, TFTP servers used /tftpboot as directory to serve images from. However, Debian GNU/Linux packages may use other directories to comply with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. For example, tftpd-hpa by default uses /var/lib/ tftpboot. You may have to adjust the configuration examples in this section accordingly. Look in /etc/inetd.conf and remember the directory which is used as the argument of in.tftpd^[2]; you'll need that below. 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/inetd reload; on other machines, find out the process ID for inetd, and run kill -HUP inetd-pid. 4.6.4. Move TFTP Images Into Place Next, place the TFTP boot image you need, as found in Section 4.2.1, "Where to Find Installation Images", in the tftpd boot image directory. You may 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. 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. 4.7. Automatic Installation For installing on multiple computers it's possible to do fully automatic installations. Debian packages intended for this include fai (which uses an install server), replicator, systemimager, autoinstall, and the Debian Installer itself. 4.7.1. Automatic Installation Using the Debian Installer The Debian Installer supports automating installs via preconfiguration files. A preconfiguration file can be loaded from the network or from removable media, and used to fill in answers to questions asked during the installation process. Full documentation on preseeding including a working example that you can edit is in Appendix B, Automating the installation using preseeding. -------------- ^[2] The -l argument enables some versions of in.tftpd to log all requests to the system logs; this is useful for diagnosing boot errors. Chapter 5. Booting the Installation System Table of Contents 5.1. Booting the Installer on PowerPC 5.1.1. Booting from a CD-ROM 5.1.2. Booting from Hard Disk 5.1.3. Booting from USB memory stick 5.1.4. Booting with TFTP 5.1.5. Booting from Floppies 5.1.6. PowerPC Boot Parameters 5.2. Boot Parameters 5.2.1. Debian Installer Parameters 5.3. Troubleshooting the Installation Process 5.3.1. CD-ROM Reliability 5.3.2. Floppy Disk Reliability 5.3.3. Boot Configuration 5.3.4. Interpreting the Kernel Startup Messages 5.3.5. Reporting Installation Problems 5.3.6. Submitting Installation Reports 5.1. Booting the Installer on PowerPC Note For information on how to boot the graphical installer, see Section D.5, "The Graphical Installer". 5.1.1. Booting from a CD-ROM The easiest route for most people will be to use a set of Debian CDs. 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. 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. Even if you cannot boot from CD-ROM, you can probably install the Debian system components 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 Section 5.3, "Troubleshooting the Installation Process". Currently, the only PowerPC subarchitectures that support CD-ROM booting are PReP (though not all systems) 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. OldWorld PowerMacs will not boot a Debian CD, because OldWorld computers relied on a Mac OS ROM 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 Section 5.1.2.3, "Booting NewWorld Macs from OpenFirmware" 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\yaboot 5.1.2. Booting from 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 placing the needed files in Section 4.5, "Preparing Files for Hard Disk Booting". 5.1.2.1. Booting CHRP from OpenFirmware Not yet written. 5.1.2.2. Booting OldWorld PowerMacs from MacOS If you set up BootX in Section 4.5.1, "Hard Disk Installer Booting for OldWorld Macs", 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. 5.1.2.3. Booting NewWorld Macs from OpenFirmware You will have already placed the vmlinux, initrd.gz, yaboot, and yaboot.conf files at the root level of your HFS partition in Section 4.5.2, "Hard Disk Installer Booting for NewWorld Macs". 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. At the prompt, type 0 > boot hd:x,yaboot replacing x with the partition number of the HFS partition where the kernel and yaboot files were placed, followed by a Enter. 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 video=ofonly followed by a Enter. The video=ofonly argument is for maximum compatibility; you can try it if install doesn't work. The Debian installation program should start. 5.1.3. Booting from USB memory stick Currently, NewWorld PowerMac systems are known to support USB booting. Make sure you have prepared everything from Section 4.4, "Preparing Files for USB Memory Stick Booting". To boot a Macintosh system from a USB stick, you will need to use the Open Firmware prompt, since Open Firmware does not search USB storage devices by default. To get to the prompt, hold down Command-Option- o-f all together while booting (see Section 3.6.1, "Invoking OpenFirmware"). You will need to work out where the USB storage device appears in the device tree, since at the moment ofpath cannot work that out automatically. Type dev / ls and devalias at the Open Firmware prompt to get a list of all known devices and device aliases. On the author's system with various types of USB stick, paths such as usb0/disk, usb0/hub/disk, /pci@f2000000/usb@1b,1/disk@1, and / pci@f2000000/usb@1b,1/hub@1/disk@1 work. Having worked out the device path, use a command like this to boot the installer: boot usb0/disk:2,\\:tbxi The 2 matches the Apple_HFS or Apple_Bootstrap partition onto which you copied the boot image earlier, and the ,\\:tbxi part instructs Open Firmware to boot from the file with an HFS file type of "tbxi" (i.e. yaboot) in the directory previously blessed with hattrib -b. The system should now boot up, and you should be presented with the boot: prompt. Here you can enter optional boot arguments, or just hit Enter. Warning This boot method is new, and may be difficult to get to work on some NewWorld systems. If you have problems, please file an installation report, as explained in Section 5.3.6, "Submitting Installation Reports". 5.1.4. Booting with TFTP Booting from the network requires that you have a network connection and a TFTP network boot server (DHCP, RARP, or BOOTP). The installation method to support network booting is described in Section 4.6, "Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting". Currently, PReP and New World PowerMac systems support netbooting. On machines with Open Firmware, such as NewWorld Power Macs, enter the boot monitor (see Section 3.6.1, "Invoking OpenFirmware") and use the command boot enet:0. PReP and CHRP boxes may have different ways of addressing the network. On a PReP machine, you should try boot net:server_ipaddr,file,client_ipaddr. On some PReP systems (e.g. Motorola PowerStack machines) the command help boot may give a description of syntax and available options. 5.1.5. Booting from Floppies Booting from floppies is supported for PowerPC, although it is generally only applicable for OldWorld systems. NewWorld systems are not equipped with floppy drives, and attached USB floppy drives are not supported for booting. You will have already downloaded the floppy images you needed and created floppies from the images in Section 4.3, "Creating Floppies from Disk Images". 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. Note 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. After booting, the root.bin floppy is requested. Insert the root floppy and press Enter. The installer program is automatically launched after the root system has been loaded into memory. 5.1.6. PowerPC Boot Parameters 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 . 5.2. Boot Parameters Boot parameters are Linux kernel parameters which are generally used to make sure that peripherals 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. If this is the first time you're booting the system, try the default boot parameters (i.e., don't try setting parameters) 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. Information on many boot parameters can be found in the Linux BootPrompt HOWTO, including tips for obscure hardware. This section contains only a sketch of the most salient parameters. Some common gotchas are included below in Section 5.3, "Troubleshooting the Installation Process". 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 kilobytes. If this doesn't match the actual amount 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 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. 5.2.1. Debian Installer Parameters The installation system recognizes a few additional boot parameters^[3] which may be useful. A number of parameters have a "short form" that helps avoid the limitations of the kernel command line options and makes entering the parameters easier. If a parameter has a short form, it will be listed in brackets behind the (normal) long form. Examples in this manual will normally use the short form too. debconf/priority (priority) This parameter sets the lowest priority of messages to be displayed. The default installation uses priority=high. This means that both high and critical priority messages are shown, but medium and low priority messages are skipped. If problems are encountered, the installer adjusts the priority as needed. If you add priority=medium as boot parameter, you will be shown the installation menu and gain more control over the installation. When priority=low is used, all messages are shown (this is equivalent to the expert boot method). With priority=critical, the installation system will display only critical messages and try to do the right thing without fuss. DEBIAN_FRONTEND This boot parameter controls the type of user interface used for the installer. The current possible parameter settings are: * DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive * DEBIAN_FRONTEND=text * DEBIAN_FRONTEND=newt * DEBIAN_FRONTEND=gtk The default frontend is DEBIAN_FRONTEND=newt. DEBIAN_FRONTEND=text may be preferable for serial console installs. Generally, only the newt frontend is available on default install media. On architectures that support it, the graphical installer uses the gtk frontend. BOOT_DEBUG Setting this boot parameter to 2 will cause the installer's boot process to be verbosely logged. Setting it to 3 makes debug shells available at strategic points in the boot process. (Exit the shells to continue the boot process.) BOOT_DEBUG=0 This is the default. BOOT_DEBUG=1 More verbose than usual. BOOT_DEBUG=2 Lots of debugging information. BOOT_DEBUG=3 Shells are run at various points in the boot process to allow detailed debugging. Exit the shell to continue the boot. INSTALL_MEDIA_DEV The value of the parameter is the path to the device to load the Debian installer from. For example, INSTALL_MEDIA_DEV=/dev/floppy/0 The boot floppy, which normally scans all floppies it can to find the root floppy, can be overridden by this parameter to only look at the one device. debian-installer/framebuffer (fb) Some architectures use the kernel framebuffer to offer installation in a number of languages. If framebuffer causes a problem on your system you can disable the feature by the parameter fb=false. Problem symptoms are error messages about bterm or bogl, a blank screen, or a freeze within a few minutes after starting the install. debian-installer/theme (theme) A theme determines how the user interface of the installer looks (colors, icons, etc.). What themes are available differs per frontend. Currently both the newt and gtk frontends only have a "dark" theme that was designed for visually impaired users. Set the theme by booting with theme=dark. debian-installer/probe/usb Set to false to prevent probing for USB on boot, if that causes problems. netcfg/disable_dhcp By default, the debian-installer automatically probes for network configuration via DHCP. If the probe succeeds, you won't have a chance to review and change the obtained settings. You can get to the manual network setup only in case the DHCP probe fails. If you have a DHCP server on your local network, but want to avoid it because e.g. it gives wrong answers, you can use the parameter netcfg/ disable_dhcp=true to prevent configuring the network with DHCP and to enter the information manually. hw-detect/start_pcmcia Set to false to prevent starting PCMCIA services, if that causes problems. Some laptops are well known for this misbehavior. preseed/url (url) Specify the url to a preconfiguration file to download and use for automating the install. See Section 4.7, "Automatic Installation". preseed/file (file) Specify the path to a preconfiguration file to load for automating the install. See Section 4.7, "Automatic Installation". preseed/interactive Set to true to display questions even if they have been preseeded. Can be useful for testing or debugging a preconfiguration file. Note that this will have no effect on parameters that are passed as boot parameters, but for those a special syntax can be used. See Section B.5.2, "Using preseeding to change default values" for details. auto-install/enable (auto) Delay questions that are normally asked before preseeding is possible until after the network is configured. See Section B.2.3, "Auto mode" for details about using this to automate installs. cdrom-detect/eject By default, before rebooting, debian-installer automatically ejects the optical media used during the installation. This can be unnecessary if the system does not automatically boot off the CD. In some cases it may even be undesirable, for example if the optical drive cannot reinsert the media itself and the user is not there to do it manually. Many slot loading, slim-line, and caddy style drives cannot reload media automatically. Set to false to disable automatic ejection, and be aware that you may need to ensure that the system does not automatically boot from the optical drive after the initial installation. debian-installer/allow_unauthenticated By default the installer requires that repositories be authenticated using a known gpg key. Set to true to disable that authentication. Warning: insecure, not recommended. mouse/left For the gtk frontend (graphical installer), users can switch the mouse to left-handed operation by setting this parameter to true. directfb/hw-accel For the gtk frontend (graphical installer), hardware acceleration in directfb is disabled by default. To enable it, set this parameter to true when booting the installer. rescue/enable Set to true to enter rescue mode rather than performing a normal installation. See Section 8.7, "Recovering a Broken System". 5.2.1.1. Using boot parameters to answer questions With some exceptions, a value can be set at the boot prompt for any question asked during the installation, though this is only really useful in specific cases. General instructions how to do this can be found in Section B.2.2, "Using boot parameters to preseed questions". Some specific examples are listed below. debian-installer/locale (locale) Can be used to set both the language and country for the installation. This will only work if the locale is supported in Debian. For example, use locale=de_CH to select German as language and Switzerland as country. anna/choose_modules (modules) Can be used to automatically load installer components that are not loaded by default. Examples of optional components that may be useful are openssh-client-udeb (so you can use scp during the installation) and ppp-udeb (see Section D.4, "Installing Debian GNU/Linux using PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE)"). netcfg/disable_dhcp Set to true if you want to disable DHCP and instead force static network configuration. mirror/protocol (protocol) By default the installer will use the http protocol to download files from Debian mirrors and changing that to ftp is not possible during installations at normal priority. By setting this parameter to ftp, you can force the installer to use that protocol instead. Note that you cannot select an ftp mirror from a list, you have to enter the hostname manually. tasksel:tasksel/first (tasks) Can be used to select tasks that are not available from the interactive task list, such as the kde-desktop task. See Section 6.3.5.2, "Selecting and Installing Software" for additional information. 5.2.1.2. Passing parameters to kernel modules If drivers are compiled into the kernel, you can pass parameters to them as described in the kernel documentation. However, if drivers are compiled as modules and because kernel modules are loaded a bit differently during an installation than when booting an installed system, it is not possible to pass parameters to modules as you would normally do. Instead, you need to use a special syntax recognized by the installer which will then make sure that the parameters are saved in the proper configuration files and will thus be used when the modules are actually loaded. The parameters will also be propagated automatically to the configuration for the installed system. Note that it is now quite rare that parameters need to be passed to modules. In most cases the kernel will be able to probe the hardware present in a system and set good defaults that way. However, in some situations it may still be needed to set parameters manually. The syntax to use to set parameters for modules is: module_name.parameter_name=value If you need to pass multiple parameters to the same or different modules, just repeat this. For example, to set an old 3Com network interface card to use the BNC (coax) connector and IRQ 10, you would pass: 3c509.xcvr=3 3c509.irq=10 5.2.1.3. Blacklisting kernel modules Sometimes it may be necessary to blacklist a module to prevent it from being loaded automatically by the kernel and udev. One reason could be that a particular module causes problems with your hardware. The kernel also sometimes lists two different drivers for the same device. This can cause the device to not work correctly if the drivers conflict or if the wrong driver is loaded first. You can blacklist a module using the following syntax: module_name.blacklist= yes. This will cause the module to be blacklisted in /etc/modprobe.d/ blacklist.local both during the installation and for the installed system. Note that a module may still be loaded by the installation system itself. You can prevent that from happening by running the installation in expert mode and unselecting the module from the list of modules displayed during the hardware detection phases. 5.3. Troubleshooting the Installation Process 5.3.1. CD-ROM Reliability Sometimes, especially with older CD-ROM drives, the installer may fail to boot from a CD-ROM. The installer may also -- even after booting successfully from CD-ROM -- fail to recognize the CD-ROM or return errors while reading from it during the installation. There are a many different possible causes for these problems. We can only list some common issues and provide general suggestions on how to deal with them. The rest is up to you. There are two very simple things that you should try first. * If the CD-ROM does not boot, check that it was inserted correctly and that it is not dirty. * If the installer fails to recognize a CD-ROM, try just running the option Detect and mount CD-ROM a second time. Some DMA related issues with older CD-ROM drives are known to be resolved in this way. If this does not work, then try the suggestions in the subsections below. Most, but not all, suggestions discussed there are valid for both CD-ROM and DVD, but we'll use the term CD-ROM for simplicity. If you cannot get the installation working from CD-ROM, try one of the other installation methods that are available. 5.3.1.1. Common issues * Some older CD-ROM drives do not support reading from discs that were burned at high speeds using a modern CD writer. * If your system boots correctly from the CD-ROM, it does not necessarily mean that Linux also supports the CD-ROM (or, more correctly, the controller that your CD-ROM drive is connected to). * Some older CD-ROM drives do not work correctly if "direct memory access" (DMA) is enabled. 5.3.1.2. How to investigate and maybe solve issues If the CD-ROM fails to boot, try the suggestions listed below. * Check that your BIOS actually supports booting from CD-ROM (older systems possibly don't) and that your CD-ROM drive supports the media you are using. * If you downloaded an iso image, check that the md5sum of that image matches the one listed for the image in the MD5SUMS file that should be present in the same location as where you downloaded the image from. $ md5sum debian-testing-i386-netinst.iso a20391b12f7ff22ef705cee4059c6b92 debian-testing-i386-netinst.iso Next, check that the md5sum of the burned CD-ROM matches as well. The following command should work. It uses the size of the image to read the correct number of bytes from the CD-ROM. $ dd if=/dev/cdrom | \ > head -c `stat --format=%s debian-testing-i386-netinst.iso` | \ > md5sum a20391b12f7ff22ef705cee4059c6b92 - 262668+0 records in 262668+0 records out 134486016 bytes (134 MB) copied, 97.474 seconds, 1.4 MB/s If, after the installer has been booted successfully, the CD-ROM is not detected, sometimes simply trying again may solve the problem. If you have more than one CD-ROM drive, try changing the CD-ROM to the other drive. If that does not work or if the CD-ROM is recognized but there are errors when reading from it, try the suggestions listed below. Some basic knowledge of Linux is required for this. To execute any of the commands, you should first switch to the second virtual console (VT2) and activate the shell there. * Switch to VT4 or view the contents of /var/log/syslog (use nano as editor) to check for any specific error messages. After that, also check the output of dmesg. * Check in the output of dmesg if your CD-ROM drive was recognized. You should see something like (the lines do not necessarily have to be consecutive): Probing IDE interface ide1... hdc: TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-R6112, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15 hdc: ATAPI 24X DVD-ROM DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33) Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20 If you don't see something like that, chances are the controller your CD-ROM is connected to was not recognized or may be not supported at all. If you know what driver is needed for the controller, you can try loading it manually using modprobe. * Check that there is a device node for your CD-ROM drive under /dev/. In the example above, this would be /dev/hdc. There should also be a /dev/cdroms/ cdrom0. * Use the mount command to check if the CD-ROM is already mounted; if not, try mounting it manually: $ mount /dev/hdc /cdrom Check if there are any error messages after that command. * Check if DMA is currently enabled: $ cd /proc/ide/hdc $ grep using_dma settings using_dma 1 0 1 rw A "1" in the first column after using_dma means it is enabled. If it is, try disabling it: $ echo -n "using_dma:0" >settings Make sure that you are in the directory for the device that corresponds to your CD-ROM drive. * If there are any problems during the installation, try checking the integrity of the CD-ROM using the option near the bottom of the installer's main menu. This option can also be used as a general test if the CD-ROM can be read reliably. 5.3.2. Floppy Disk Reliability The biggest problem for people using floppy disks to install Debian seems to be floppy disk reliability. The boot 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 write the image to a different floppy and see if that solves the problem. 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. 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. Normally you should not have to download a floppy image again, but if you are experiencing problems it is always useful to verify that the images were downloaded correctly by verifying their md5sums. 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. 5.3.3. Boot Configuration If you have problems and the kernel hangs during the boot process, doesn't recognize peripherals you actually have, or drives are not recognized properly, the first thing to check is the boot parameters, as discussed in Section 5.2, "Boot Parameters". Often, problems can be solved by removing add-ons and peripherals, and then trying booting again. 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. 5.3.4. 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 peripheral device, so the operating system may emit a few complaints while it looks for peripherals 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 Section 8.6, "Compiling a New Kernel"). 5.3.5. Reporting Installation Problems If you get through the initial boot phase but cannot complete the install, the menu option Save debug logs