Cannot make heads or tales of the installation instructions
 

Hi,

I am trying to install Debian on my machine. I already have Windoze and I wanna leave the little puke on, for my own masochistic reasons (and for games).

Since my DVD-Burner is mostly dead, I've decided to install from a USB Stick. Been reading the instructions, but they are confusing. For instance, I know I am supposed to extract boot.img.gz directly to the stick (which, BTW, must be done on a Linux system, and I have very limited access to a working Linux system). It is supposed to be 256 MB compressed, but the file I have downloaded is 16 MB. Looks a bit strange.... Then I should add a CD Image.... the instructions don't have a link to the image, neither do they list the name of the file, so I am stuck.

My stick is one GB, by the way.

I know this is only the beginning of my troubles - next is finding drivers for my hardware (some of which it seems I will need to compile.... how?!), and I expect to have particularly serious problems with my wireless card, but I want to get started. I can look for some of the drivers later if I have to, right?

Thanks,
Daniel.

Which architecture? For i386 and debian stable, get syslinux and do "syslinux.exe your-usbdrive-letter:" (you can do all of this from windows). http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/util...linux-3.71.zip

Get initrd.gz and vmlinuz and copy to the usb drive from here: http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dist...ages/hd-media/
Make a file syslinux.cfg on the drive with the following two lines:
default vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.gz

Copy a cd iso image to the drive. You can choose which one, perhaps the netinstall? http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/...86-netinst.iso

Your usb drive should now have the following files:
ldlinux.sys
vmlinuz
initrd.gz
syslinux.cfg
debian-40r4a-i386-netinst.iso

Reboot and blame me if it doesn't work.

Heh, forgot to mention the most important thing....
It's AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core.

I want the test version of the latest build, is that what you linked to?

OK, I'll try it.

Thanks.
D.

Don't try the above, they are for 32-bit stable, not 64-bit testing. Unless you prefer to run a 32-bit linux of course.

I'd rather install as much as I can from the USB - it's 1GB - since I expect to have problems with my wireless card - Ralink rt73.

Nope, I'd rather install the 64 bit version.

For debian testing and amd64 you might want to try these:
http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dist...ages/hd-media/
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/le...amd64-CD-1.iso

Is that a beta version?
It's not the same as the test, is it?

Testing's installer is always beta AFAIK. If you want the stable installer, get debian stable. You said earlier you wanted the "I want the test version of the latest build".
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
There's also a weekly snapshot there if you feel adventurous.
CD1 is what fits your 1GB usb stick, so don't choose any strange packages, just get the basic desktop or whatever you prefer. Easy to add packages later when you have internet going.

You must realize that I am a bit confused by all those unfamiliar terms.
One guy recommended me to get the "test" version, which is supposed to be stable....

Anyway, I need to copy all 4 files to the stick and boot from it?

First you use syslinux that makes the ldlinux.sys file.
Then copy over vmlinuz, initrd.gz and debian-LennyBeta2-amd64-CD-1.iso.
Then make the file syslinux.cfg with content posted above.

I don't know what one guy said, but debian has three main branches, stable, testing and unstable. I suggest testing if you want newish software.

Some reading:
http://www.debian.org/releases/index.en.html
http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/
http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl.../index.html.en
- especially this part: http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl...-copy-flexible

OK,

Will do, will read,
will come back to blame you if it fails : )

Thanks,
D.

Hi,

Well, whatever changes I made to the boot sequence in the BIOS, I could not force the computer to boot from USB. So I burned the ISO image you linked to and booted from CD. Did the graphic install. Got stuck in the partitioning phase. All the automatic options involved, so it seemed, with repartitioning the entire drive, which I didn't want. The manual options were to delete the partition I wanted to install on, copy data to or from it or delete the data, which was irrelevant.... I deleted the partition and tried manually creating 3 partitions in the freed space, but then I noticed that my keyboard was gone. So I aborted the installation. Needless to say I have no idea what to do.

D.

11:th screenshot here: http://tinyurl.com/5so5wx
Been a while since I installed debian, but like the screenshot says, you select a partition and choose the filesystem (choose ext3 or swap), and mount point ( / , /home and swap I guess if you go with 3 partitions).
Start the installer again and see if you can make the partitions.
If not, try using cfdisk from knoppix or some other livecd. You could also start the knoppix installer to just make the partitions with it. I sometimes used a mandrake (now mandriva) cd just for that.

If it seems impossible, perhaps search for a local LUG for on hand help http://www.linux.org/groups/

Hi,

Tried again and now Debian is installed.
The disk partitioning section of the graphical installation was a bit lame, in my opinion.... now I'll try to figure out how to get anything to work. Will go and read some manuals, I guess.

Thanks for the help,
D.