Dual booting Debian and Windows
I decided it was time to add to my tutorials with something for people wanting to try the new Debian distro:
Installing Debian Linux 3.1
Installing OSs with gore
Debian seems to have another reputation for not beng newbie easy. When 3.1 came out I grabbed all 15 binary CDs, and after going through the install I decided to do a tutorial for it.
Take the binary 1 CD and put it in the CD-ROM drive and reboot. Youll see a nice looking Debian logo, and you hit ENTER.
After that you come to a text screen and the default is English. Hit Enter or select a different langiage with the arrow keys and then hit Enter.
The next screen shows you Countries. I'm just hitting enter here because it already has the US selected.
After hitting enter, choose a keymap, I'm hitting Enter again and then you can watch as it scans the CD-ROM and checks the hardware.
After a bit you are asked for a host name. You can safely hit Enter here unless you're installing on a network where you have to have a host name.
After hitting Enter, it grabs my Domain name, and I just Hit Enter again.
Not is scans for hardware and then it pops up a partition scheme.
This one is fairly easy though so all you need to do is select what you want to do. If you're using the whole HD for Debian, the first option works fine, however I'm using this on my Laptop which has XP installed as well so I'm going to do the partitions myself:
Press the down arrow key once and hit enter.
Now I can see all partitions on my system, and the NTFS file system is where allmy Doom games are so I want to keep that.
Primary #2 is a Swap area from a previous installation which I'm going to erase so I can hold your hand and walk you through this like a little girl in love.
OK, now I'm looking at two partitions:
#1 Primary XP install
#2 Free Space.
Using the up and down arrow keys:
Press the arrow key down, you have FREE SPACE selected, and hit ENTER.
Hit Enter agan to create a new partition.
How many gigs do you want? How many MBs? Well I'm going to use it for swap.
I make a 1 GB partition.
Hit the LEFT arrow key around 7 times so that you have the cursor at the very begining.
Now you can hit del a few times and when you have nothing left on the area there, select how much swap you want.
Here is what I put in my partition screen:
1.0 GB
Now if course you can put whatever you want but I have 512 RAM and well, I do a lot.
After you've typed in how much you want hit Enter.
The next screen says Primary or logical? Just hit the Enter Key Again. And then Hit Enter again to tell it to put the Swap at the very begining of the partition.
Now, using the up and down arrow keys use the up arrow key to select "Use as".
Hit the down arrow key 7 times to select SWAP and hit Enter.
Now hit the down arrow key 4 times to select "Done" and hit enter.
You are now taken back to your partitions.
Use the down arrow key and hit it one time to select the remaining free space and hit enter.
Hit Enter again
Hit Enter again unless you don't want it to use the rest of the free space on this partition.
Hit Enter again which selects primary.
Now if you'd like to select a file system other than EXT3, using the up and down arrow keys hit up 2 times and hit Enter.
This allows you to select what kind of file system is going to be on the disk.
Now is a good time to highlight "Bootable Flag" and hit Enter which sets the bootable flag to "on".
When you're done here, hit the down arrow key 10 times to select the done setting up option and hit Enter.
You're taken back to the partition map again and show all options.
Mine has the following:
IDE2 Master (hdc)
#1 Primary NTFS
#2 Primary swap
3, EXT3
Press the DOWN arrow key a few times and select "Finish" and hit Enter.
This writes it all to disk.
The next screen asks you if you're sure or not. Hit the left arrow key once, and hit Enter.
The next screen shows it formatting the partitions you just made.
After a bit Debian base system get installed.
After this finishes, you see a new window showing the grub boot loader options.
Just hit Enter here unless you have another version of Linux or you're using custom partition and boot software.
It installs grub andthen the CD rom pops out. Afer you have taken out the CD-ROM, hit Enter.
The machine reboots, and you see the boot loader which lets you pick what to boot up, let it boot Debian up and wait as Debian does it's first boot up.
Debian is installed now but you need apps.
You then see a welcome screen where you can hit Enter.
Hit Enter again.
And then select you're time zone.
Hit Enter after you select your time and then you're taken to a root password area.
After you make a passwd you make an account for you or someone else.
Type in a name and hit Enter.
Then type a user name, or leave it their name, and hit Enter.
Select a password for the luser.
Type it again and hit Enter.
Now you select where to get packages. If you have a cable connection to the net, I recommend FTP.
I'm going with FTP:
You hit Enter after selecting FTP, then Hit Enter again unless you're not in the US.
Then select a mirror. I just hit Enter here too.
Now you'll see it going online and grabbing everything for the apt sources.
The next scren you'll see is for package selection.
Use the up and down arrow keys and hit the SPACEBAR when you want a section of packages.
When you have what you want, hit TAB and then hit ENTER.
The packages are taken from FTP.
The next screen shows X configuration. As with all tutorials I'm NOT goign through it because I don't have every hardware every made.
You can pretty much get through all this hitting Enter a bunch of times.
Remember to check the docs for your hardware though so as to not harm anything.
For the Postfix configuration, ONLY allow local unless you're setting up a server. This is the default so just hit Enter.
You can then hit enter again at the next section.
It restarts your MTA and you're done!
