Debian installation

Cheap Computer

One of the nice things about LINUX (whatever flavor you desire) is that it does not need the latest and greatest top of the line overclocked hardware to operate.   In fact, for my next project, the server I plan on setting up in VLAN 2 will not have a GUI installed, since it will not have a monitor (nor a need for one, as I will do everything I need to it by logging in via another computer on my network or from the internet).  Without having to display graphics and such, this is alot of overhead the Operating System does not have to deal with, leaving it’s processing power to what it needs to do, in this case, pretty much serve up web pages, and monkey with a database perhaps.

Craigslist

Ahhhhh, Craigslist.  The thing I like about Craigslist is that if what I see is not quite adequate, I can look again a few hours later and possibly find what I need.  I found something nice and simple for my needs.   It’s a 100Mhz P3 processor with 512MB of RAM, a 20GB hard drive and a CD-ROM reader.  It has USB ports and a working ethernet port.  Perfect!

To install Debian, the minimum requirements are

Now these are the minimums to run Debian without the GUI.  If I wanted to install the GUI and use it as a server, this still surpasses the minimum requirements.  So we’ll be just fine.

Of course to do the install, we do need a monitor, so I  will use what I have.  After the install, the monitor will be removed and re-connected to its original PC.

Debian

Now of ALL the different distros of Linux out there, why did I chose Debian?  First, it came highly recommended by someone who is quite knowledgeable in the area of Linux and is one of my greatest sources of all Linux knowledge these days.  But also because of it’s ease of use.

The more popular Ubuntu is based on Debian.  One of its great features is its ease of installation of programs.  We’ll get into that later.

The most recent release of Debian is 5.0.1, codename Lenny.  Lenny is named after “Lenny the binoculars” from Toy Story.  In fact all of Debians releases are named after Toy Story characters.  Being a fan of Pixar, I can only say they chose a good theme.

Installation

Now for the installation.  It went very well.  A nice guide with some screen shots of what to expect can be found here.  Keep in mind, that’s just a guide.  For the full manual, you might want to consult this page.

During installation, you are asked a slew of questions, don’t get intimidated, just plod along.  Probably the biggest hurdle is partitioning the hard drive.  Debian has recommended partition sizes, but this is for the Potato release which is quite a few releases back.  The average memory is larger in todays PCs and larger hard drives.   Everyone has  different suggestions, some of which are due to differing systems, but following the guideline at debian.com can help guide you.

It took me about 4 tries before I had all my partitions setup the way I wanted.  The nice thing is that the installer gives you a chance to review your partition setup before proceeding.

An important thing to consider is from where you want to get your updates and other apps you intend to install.  If you don’t plan on connecting your PC to the internet, CD-ROM is fine, but you will be limited.  Otherwise make sure you chose HTTP.

Tweaking

In order to make changes and tweaks, you’ll need to make sure you can edit/copy/move/delete files as superuser.  Hopefully you remember your ROOT password, you’ll need it.  Log in as root and edit /etc/sudoers with the visudo command (very important) .    Look for this section:

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL) ALL

Underneath the root user, add your username and copy the line above above it.   Now when you are logged in, you’ll have superuser privileges when you preface each command with SUDO.  You’ll need to enter your password alot.  That’s okay, it’s worth the security.

Make sure you get an update as well.  The copy you have, may be a tad bit old and newer updates are likely available.  So issue the command sudo aptitude update.  Of course, make sure you’ve got a good connection to the internet.

If you’re having trouble getting your updates, or if you’re trying to install an app that you know should exist, you may need to edit your /etc/apt/sources.list to the following.

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian lenny main
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian lenny main

deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib

deb http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile lenny/volatile main
deb-src http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile lenny/volatile main

Now if you have a different release other than lenny, make sure you replace lenny in the file with your particular release name.

Networking

During installation, I opted out of the DHCP setup for my network interface and setup static IP address because I plan on using static IP addresses for my whole network.  If after installation, you find that your network interface is misconfigured edit it with:

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

If all goes well, your Linux Box should be up and running.  If you can’t connect to your box remotely, using SSH (I recommend Putty if you’re using a windows machine) to log in, make sure you install OpenSSH server.  You can sudo aptitude install ssh to get both the server and client installed.

Prior to doing any installation, I recommend reading up on the software as much as you can.  You will definitely have some foreknowledge of what to expect and what information you may need to provide.  Be sure to read the installation guide before installing Debian.

Extras

During installation, you will also be asked what packages you want.  I opted out of the GNOME ones since they are for installing the GUI that I did not want.   I did however choose the Web Server.  I can’t remember if it was listed as HTTP, Apache or Web Server.  Nevertheless, that was included and works just fine.  I’ll make another post some day on installing Apache.  Fun.  I might have to uninstall what I’ve got first.  Not fun.