Installing Debian Sarge on Dell Inspiron 2600 --------------------------------------------- Written by Taro Sato (taro (at) physics.ucsb.edu) Since installing Linux on my laptop always ends up in a mess, I decided to leave a personal note, i.e., not necessarily intended to help others. I don't know much about Linux myself to offer anyone any substantial help. It is really cursory, so unless you know what you are doing, please don't just imitate this procedure here (and don't blame me if things stop working for you). I'm an extremely forgetful person as I have aged, so I will record whatever that is not trivially obvious. Not all the steps are included, of course, but things not included here are mostly self-explanatory stuff. What's New ---------- June 8, 2005 Finally Sarge is out. This is a major revision, and what I did is actually to dist-upgrade from Woody to Sarge. So if you are looking for the info on clean install of Sarge, you need to look elsewhere. July 11, 2004 Gosh, I screwed up again trying to update to KDE 3.2.2... So there are a few changes. May 1, 2004 A new fresh install in a long time. June 19, 2003 Hope I don't ever need to go thru this crap again. Nothing new is a GOOD thing... Configuration ------------- This is a Celeron 1GHz machine (yes, I'm a cheapo). The notorious i830 chipset with integrated video gave me all kinds of troubles, but using version 4.3 of XFree86 and the kernel version >= 2.4.20 seems to solve the issues quite easily. I didn't want to go thru all the patching of both XFree86 and the kernel. I may not be using the video to its full capacity now, but I don't care for now...X is working now and most important thing is to get some real work done, rather than becoming a tweaking freak... Note that BIOS must be A08 (or may be even A07, but not earlier versions) at least at the time this notes are *first* made. I had trouble with the latest version A09; I could never get XFree86 to work with A09. The boot up message even complained that the BIOS is broken. Partitioning Hard Drive ----------------------- Use Partition Magic 8 to create the following partitions (I'm no longer using M$ Windows XP!): hda1: hidden FAT hda2: Linux Swap (512MB) hda3: extended logical hda4: ext3 (1GB) / hda5: ext3 (512MB) /tmp hda6: ext3 (2GB) /var hda7: ext3 (4GB) /usr hda8: ext3 (1GB) /home Note that the ext3 formatted partition needs to be mounted as previously-initialized partions during the Woody installation. Also, the last partition is intentionally left small at this point in order not to exceed the LBA limit (forgot exactly what the disk size corresponds to). The partition can be expanded over the limit after the kernel gets updated to the latest 2.4 version. Installing Debian Woody ----------------------- (This is only relevant if you are installing from the Woody boot CD.) Boot from Disc 1 of Debian installation disc. To avoid monitor flickering, do: boot: linux video=vga16:off to start the installation. The outline follows: Configure the Keyboard - qwerty/us. Initialize and Activate a Swap Partition - No to bad-block scan on /dev/hda2/ and then Yes. Mount a Previously-Initialized Partition - Easy to follow. Repeat for all Linux partitions already initialized above. Install Kernel and Driver Modules - No to CD-Rom installation; select network, give the computer name, and use DHCP/BOOTP. Use the default server for download. Configure Device Driver Modules - Don't have to select anything. Will update kernel later anyways. Install the Base System - Use network. Use the default server for download. Make System Bootable - Choose /dev/hda to use LILO. Include all the bootable partitions. Reboot the System - Remove the installation disc and reboot. Upon reboot, to avoid monitor flickering at the LILO prompt do: boot: Linux video=vga16:off Time Zone Configuration - No to GMT, choose US Pacific. Password Setup - Yes to both MD5 and shadow. Set the root password. Create a normal user account at this point. Shall I remove the pcmcia package? - Yes. Do you want to use a PPP connection to install the system? - No. Apt Configuration - Add the Berkeley http server at least. Use security update at Debian. Run tasksel? - Yes. And install absolutely NOTHING. I'll add stuff later. Run dselect? - No. Continue with the installation. Configuring Debconf - Choose Dialog and medium. Configuring Less - Add a mime handler for "application/*" --- No. Configuring Locales - Only need en_US ISO-8859-1 and en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8. Leave alone the default system locale. Configuring Ssh - Yes to allow SSH protocol 2 only. Yes to install ssh-keysign SUID root. No to running sshd server. The default ispell dictionary - Choose [1] american. Erase previously downloaded .deb files - Yes. Mail system configuration - 5 to leave broken. The base install should be over by now! Configuration for XFree86 4.3 ----------------------------- For debconf, choose Dialog and medium. Enable subpixel - yes Select the desired X server driver - i810 Please select the XKB rule set to use - xfree86 Please select your keyboard model - pc104 Please select your keyboard layout - us Please choose your mouse port - /dev/psaux Please choose the entry that best describes your mouse - ImPS/2 Is your monitor an LCD device? - Yes Please choose a method for selecting your monitor characteristics - Medium Please select your monitor's best video mode - 1024x768 @ 60Hz Select the video modes you would like the X server to use - 1024x768, 800x600, and 640x480 Please select your desired default color depth in bits - 24 Now, reboot, and see if everything is working. Eventually, you may want to use the supplied XF86Config-4.txt. Setting Up Laptop Environment ----------------------------- You don't want to configure the network interfaces when the laptop is not connected to it. To disable auto checking at boot, the file /etc/network/interfaces should have iface eth0 inet dhcp noauto for eth0 interface. Also need: # apt-get install laptop-net to install ifup/ifdown to start up or strop the network: # ifup eth0 # ifdown eth0 A normal user needs to sudo the above commands. The following command: # /etc/init.d/laptop-net scheme offline will disable configuring the network at boot (this avoids boot-up down time). To use the power management feature, # apt-get install laptop-net klaptopdaemon The necessary kernel configurations: enable ACPI. See supplied config.2.4.27.txt file.