Network Install HOWTO

9. Debian Client Install

This version of the Network Install HOWTO does not include information about automatic installation of a Debian system, if this is what you need then please refer to the link in the Further Information section located in Appendix A. A later version of this HOWTO is likely to include details for this system.

9.1 Boot the Machine

There are many ways to boot your machine in order to install Debian, you can if you wish use a Debian CD 1 which contains all the floppy boot disks on one easy to use media to boot your system. However, it is more common to boot an install of Debian using floppy disks, these are provided by Debian on their mirror system.

Obtain the floppy boot images from your chosen mirror server from the directory /debian/dists/stable/main/disks-hardware/current/images-1.44 where disks-hardware is the hardware type that you are going to install Debian onto. Note that there are several different sets of floppy disk boot images in this directory and you should be careful to choose one that is suitable for your use. If you are not sure which to use then just use the ones in the directory specified rather than any of it's subdirectories.

Copy each floppy disk image that you have downloaded from the server to a different floppy disk following the example below:

• Insert a floppy disk
• dd if=/path/to/image of=/dev/fd0
• Remove floppy disk.

Do not mount the floppy disks when using this procedure to create floppy boot disks. Also, don't forget to check that the floppy disks you are going to use are (a) good floppy disks i.e. not broken, and (b) do not contain any data that you need as the entire disk will be overwritten with all data lost.

Once you have a set of boot disks you can boot your client system from them by inserting the first disk and turning on your system. You will be presented with a welcome screen with some instructions on which you should be able to press [ENTER] to continue the installation. A normal Debian installation can now take place, see the Further Information section for references to instructions on how to install Debian.