Debian GNU/Linux: Guide to Installation and Usage

by John Goerzen and Ossama Othman

April 23, 2001

(c) 1998, 1999 Software in the Public Interest, Inc.

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the sections that reprint “The GNU General Public License” and other clearly marked sections held under separate copyright are reproduced under the conditions given within them, and provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language under the conditions for modified versions. “The GNU General Public License” may be included in a translation approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in the original English.

At your option, you may distribute verbatim and modified versions of this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, excepting the clearly marked sections held under separate copyright.

Contents

[List of Figures]
[List of Tables]
[Acknowledgments]
[Preface]
[I. Guide]
[1. Introduction]
[1.1 What Is Debian?]
[1.2 A Multiuser, Multitasking Operating System]
[1.3 What Is Free Software?]
[1.4 About This Book]
[2. Getting Started]
[2.1 Supported Hardware]
[2.2 Before You Start]
[2.3 Partitioning Your Hard Drive]
[2.4 Choosing Your Installation Media]
[2.5 Booting the Installation System]
[3. Step-by-Step Installation]
[3.1 Select Color or Monochrome Display]
[3.2 Debian GNU/Linux Installation Main Menu]
[3.3 Configure the Keyboard]
[3.4 Last Chance to Back Up!]
[3.5 Partition a Hard Disk]
[3.6 Initialize and Activate a Swap Partition]
[3.7 Initialize a Linux Partition]
[3.8 Install Operating System Kernel and Modules]
[3.9 Configure PCMCIA Support]
[3.10 Configure Device Driver Modules]
[3.11 Configure the Network]
[3.12 Install the Base System]
[3.13 Make a Boot Floppy]
[3.14 The Moment of Truth]
[3.15 Set the Root Password]
[3.16 Create an Ordinary User]
[3.17 Shadow Password Support]
[3,18 Remove PCMCIA]
[3.19 Select and Install Profiles]
[3.20 Package Installation with dselect]
[3.21 Glossary]
[4. Logging In]
[4.1 First Steps]
[4.2 Command History and Editing the Command Line]
[4.3 Working as Root]
[4.4 Virtual Consoles]
[4.5 Shutting Down]
[5. The Basics]
[5.1 The Command Line and Man Pages]
[5.2 Files and Directories]
[5.3 Processes]
[5.4 The Shell]
[5.5 Managing Processes with bash]
[5.6 A Few bash Features]
[5.7 Managing Your Identity]
[6. Using the Shell]
[6.1 Environment Variables]
[6.2 Where Commands Reside: The PATH Variable]
[6.3 Configuration Files]
[6.4 Aliases]
[6.5 Controlling Input and Output]
[6.6 Filename Expansion]
[7. More on Files]
[7.1 Permissions]
[7.2 Files Present and Their Locations]
[7.3 File Compression with gzip]
[7.4 Finding Files]
[7.5 Determining a File’s Contents]
[7.6 Using a File Manager]
[8. Working with Text Files]
[8.1 Viewing Text Files]
[8.2 Text Editors]
[8.3 Using ae]
[9. The X Window System]
[9.1 Introduction to X]
[9.2 Starting the X Environment]
[9.3 Basic X Operations]
[9.4 Customizing Your X Startup]
[10. Filesystems]
[10.1 Concepts]
[10.2 mount and /etc/fstab]
[10.3 Backup Tools]
[11 Networking]
[11.1 PPP]
[11.2 Ethernet]
[12 Removing and Installing Software]
[12.1 What a Package Maintenance Utility Does]
[12.2 dpkg]
[12.3 dselect]
[12.4 Compiling Software]
[13 Advanced Topics]
[13.1 Regular Expressions]
[13.2 Advanced Files]
[13.3 Security]
[13.4 Software Development with Debian]
[II. Reference]
[A Reading Documentation and Getting Help]
[A.1 Kinds of Documentation]
[B Troubleshooting]
[B.1 Common Difficulties]
[B.2 Troubleshooting the Boot Process]
[C Booting the System]
[D The GNU General Public License]