How to Build a Linux Box: Install the Basic System

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Since this motherboard is new to me, but not new out of the box, on my initial boot I'm going to go into BIOS Setup and Load Setup Defaults which affects everything but standard CMOS. Then I'll inspect the entire setup and see if there's anything that doesn't make sense to me. And do any minor tweaks I feel comfortable with.

As a general rule, the proper time to try and optimize your BIOS settings to a gnat's eyebrow is not when you're installing a new operating system.

OK, after loading the Setup Defaults, this is what I did:

Let the BIOS detect my IDE hard drive and set Primary IDE Master to that drive and Primary IDE Slave to none. Set Secondary IDE Master and Slave to none. This way we don't spend time on bootup auto-detecting drives that aren't there.
Disabled the Secondary IDE controller (I'm not currently using it).
Disabled all shadow RAM. No benefit under Linux and it just makes some memory disappear.
Disabled Power Management. APM isn't supported in the kernel on the Rescue Floppy, so this is something we can turn on and tune later after we get to the point where we're building our own kernels.
Disabled the Quick Boot feature. Since I'm using un-approved memory I want to see the whole bloody BIOS memory test each time I reboot.

3.2 Create the Rescue and Drivers Floppies

It's possible with this system for me to do a zero-floppy install (yes, I can boot from the CD, even though I made it myself from an image on the net, and even though my CD-ROM drive is an ancient, external SCSI device). Ain't technology grand?

However, I've chosen the two-floppy approach because it's the most widely usable (in my opinion). In addition it forces you to create a Rescue Floppy and you need a Rescue Floppy!

You can find instructions for creating the floppies (under a variety of operating systems) in the file /cdrom/install/install.txt.

Search that file for Creating Floppies from Disk Images.

By the way, the document install.txt and its HTML counterpart, install.html, also on the CD, give a much more general set of instructions than this one for installing Debian Linux.

My suggestion is that you check out that document if you have trouble installing using this one, or if something about this document makes you uncomfortable.

What I've tried to do is distill the instructions to make installation relatively straightforward for the majority of folks new to Linux. Obviously, Your Mileage May Vary.

So follow the instructions and create a Rescue Floppy and a Drivers Floppy.

Special Versions of the Rescue Floppy

While the standard Rescue Floppy will boot on the vast majority of machines, it fails on some. The two instances I'm aware of are certain laptops, and machines with an Adaptec AIC-7xxx SCSI controller installed.

Most of the laptops will boot the Tecra disk images, which are on the CD. If your machine fails to boot either the standard Rescue Floppy or the Tecra Rescue Floppy, then you need to search the mailing list archives for the Debian-User mailing list to find a discussion of your particular problem (and likely an unofficial boot disk image that will boot your machine). This is how I solved the AIC-7xxx problem I was recently faced with.

3.3 Boot the Rescue Floppy

When you boot the rescue floppy you'll first see some information and a boot: prompt. Just press <Enter> to get started. If this doesn't work for you, then you should read some of the help files on the rescue floppy that are accessible via the F-Keys.

Most of us can just keep pressing the <Enter> key until we get to the part about partitioning a hard disk. If you've got a monochrome monitor or use a keyboard other than querty/us the action you'll have to take is pretty obvious.

Partition a Hard Disk

I first select /dev/hda and create my 8MB boot partition (using cfdisk).

Next I select /dev/sda and create the 128MB swap partition and two 1GB linux ext2 partitions.

Initialize and Activate a Swap Partition

I select /dev/sda1 and let the installer do the deed.

Initialize a Linux Partition

Do this for /dev/hda1, /dev/sda2, and /dev/sda3 and refuse to mount any of them as / until you have initialized them all.

Once they are all initialized, go ahead and mount /dev/sda3 on /, and then mount /dev/hda1 on /boot.

For ease in editing this document during the installation I create the mount point /potato and mount /dev/sda2 there. I copy the document source from a floppy to /potato and edit the file from a separate virtual console while I'm completing the installation.

3.4 Install Operating System Kernel and Modules

You'll be asked to verify your mount points.

You want to install the system from the first floppy drive.

When asked to do so, insert the Rescue and Drivers diskettes in the floppy drive.

Configure Device Driver Modules

After the two floppies have loaded, you'll need to configure some modules. During this process always press <Enter> when given the chance unless you know you need to type something in.

Under fs install the following modules:

nfs
nls_cp437
nls_iso8859_1
vfat

Under misc install the following modules (only install psaux if you have a PS/2 mouse):

lp
psaux
serial

Under net install the following modules (install the appropriate NIC driver in place of tulip):

bsd_comp
dummy
ppp
slhc
slip
tulip

The installation of the tulip module failed. This is because I'm using a network interface card from LinkSys that uses a clone of the DEC tulip chip. Obviously, the tulip driver in the kernel on the rescue floppy doesn't support this clone chip.

I chose LinkSys because they explicitly support Linux, and sure enough, on one of the diskettes supplied with the NIC is a linux directory and in that directory is tulip.c.

Therefore, one of the first things we'll do after we finish the basic installation is to build a kernel that supports this NIC.

Configure the Network

The network is configured by asking several questions. Here are my answers (with private IPs). If you have no idea what you're doing, these will be fine. If you know what you're doing then you'll know what to type in.

Hostname is testbox. And yes, we're on a network. Our domain is ourmanpann.com.

Our IP address is 192.168.1.2. And we can accept the defaults from here on out.

When you're done you'll get a chance to verify your settings, and to select eth0 as the primary network interface.

3.5 Install the Base System

We're going to install the base system from the CD, so we tell the installer to use the CD-ROM drive. We select /dev/scd0 : SCSI from the choices were offered, put the CD in the drive and select <Continue>.

We accept debian as the path and let the installer search for archive paths. It will only find one, so we accept that one.

In just a few minutes the base system is installed.

Configure the Base System

Configuring the base system means selecting the time zone and telling the installer whether or not the hardware clock is set to GMT. I select PST8PDT (I live in Seattle) and just say No to the GMT question.

If you know that Linux will be the only operating system installed on the machine, then it's a good idea to set the clock to GMT. It's the unix way of doing things. If you're going to have another system installed (say Win9x) that expects the clock set to local time and goes nuts if that's not the case, then go ahead and set the clock to local time.

I've used many Linux boxes configured both ways and have never noticed anything problematic at the user level about setting the hardware clock to local time.

Make a Boot Floppy

Do This! Do This! Do This!

Not only do you want a rescue floppy for getting at your system when you have really serious problems, but you want a boot floppy that will boot your system normally, should you do something like make a typo in lilo.conf and then run lilo and reboot.

Make Linux Bootable Directly From Hard Disk

Of course you'd like your normal bootup to use the hard drive, so you need to go through this process as well.

It turns out that the installer doesn't do a perfect job of creating /etc/lilo.conf, so we'll just take all the defaults and then fix things up manually in another console.

Use Alt-F2 to open another console and fix up lilo.conf.


# vi /target/etc/lilo.conf

first line: boot=/dev/sda3
becomes: boot=/dev/hda

Now run lilo with the correct lilo.conf file.


# lilo

Alt-F1 will take you back to the console where the installer is running.

Reboot the System

Go right ahead. If the hard disk boot fails, your boot floppy will work just fine.

3.6 Complete the Basic Installation

Root Password

When the system reboots, you'll be asked to enter a password for the root account.

Note: at this point in time you can still select a second console with Alt-F2 and log in as root with no password. (That's what I did to edit the original draft of this file.)

If the system tells you you've chosen a weak password, give that some consideration. If you decide you like your weak password, just go ahead and enter it again.

User Account

Next you'll be told it's a good idea to create an account for a non-root user.

Go ahead and create a user account for yourself. You want to be logged in as root absolutely as little as possible.

Follow the prompts. At the very least enter the username, password, and Full Name.

Shadow Passwords

Unless you have good reason not to, install shadow passwords.

PCMCIA Support

And again, unless you know you shouldn't, let it remove PCMCIA support.

Basic Stand-alone System

The next step allows you to install a selected group of packages on your system, based on what you intend to use it for.

Back in the days of hamm I used to skip this step because I wasn't offered what I considered an appropriate selection of packages, and I was much more intimidated by the dselect program and didn't yet know how to use it properly with apt, which was new at the time, and with which I was totally infatuated.

So my hamm instructions involved a great deal of manual installation of packages using apt.

With slink I suggest you go ahead and take this step. I'm still in love with apt and we'll be using it both with dselect and on its own.

Please note that this is the only chance you'll ever get to do this. All this stuff is generated dynamically one time only, so if you bail now, you're out of luck and will have to do everything manually.

When you're thrown into the selections screen, select

Basic -- Stand-alone system without development tools

If you choose anything else, it may work out fine for you, but I've never done it, so you'll be a test pilot.

When the next screen comes up, before you hit <Enter> to continue, we have a little work to do.

We're going to set ourselves up to use apt because it's the way we're going to want to update our system and it's the fastest way to install from CD.

In another console


# vi /etc/apt/sources.list

comment out the two deb http:// . . . lines and insert the following


deb file:/cdrom/debian stable main

Save the file and then


# mount /dev/scd0 /cdrom

Recall that I've only got the first CD of the four-CD set that comprises Official Debian GNU/Linux. If I had at least the first two CDs we'd do things a little differently.

Now go back to the first console and press <Enter> to continue.

Once you're in dselect

[A]ccess -- choose apt (and do not change the sources.list file)
[U]pdate -- let it do its thing
[S]elect -- Skip this step!!!
[I]nstall -- let 'er rip

The only configuration you'll have to do is for exim.

Select (4) Local delivery only.
Enter your user account name for system administrator mail.
Accept the configuration.

[C]onfig -- hit <Enter>, nothing interesting will happen
[R]emove -- hit <Enter>, nothing interesting will happen
[Q]uit -- hit <Enter>, and you'll be booted off your freshly installed Basic system

Now you can log in as yourself and you'll find you have a pretty usable system, complete with important man pages.

This would be a great time to test your boot floppy (your hard disk boot succeeded, right?).

So log in as yourself, insert the boot floppy, and then


# su
# shutdown -r now