Select the “Next” menu item to initialize and mount the / disk partition. The first partition that you mount or initialize will be the one mounted as / (pronounced “root”). You will be offered the choice to scan the disk partition for bad blocks, as you were when you initialized the swap partition. It never hurts to scan for bad blocks, but it could take 10 minutes or more to do so if you have a large disk.
Once you’ve mounted the / partition, the “Next” menu item will be “Install Operating System Kernel and Modules” unless you’ve already performed some of the installation steps. You can use the arrow keys to select the menu items to initialize or to mount disk partitions if you have any more partitions to set up. If you have created separate partitions for /var, /usr, or other filesystems, you should initialize or mount them now.
3.7.1 Mount a Previously-Initialized Partition
An alternative to the “Initialize a Partition” step is the “Mount a Previously-Initialized Partition” step. Use this if you are resuming an installation that was interrupted or if you want to mount partitions that have already been initialized.
3.8 Install Operating System Kernel and Modules
This should be the next menu step after you’ve mounted your root partition, unless you’ve already performed this step in a previous run of dbootstrap. First, you will be asked to confirm that the device you have mounted on root is the proper one. Next, you will be offered a menu of devices from which you can install the kernel. Choose the appropriate device from which to install the kernel and modules; this will either be a CD-ROM device or the first floppy device.
If you’re installing from floppies, you’ll need to feed in the Rescue Floppy (which is probably already in the drive), followed by the Drivers Floppy.
There is an alternate step, _before_ the “Configure Device Driver Modules” menu selection, called “Configure PCMCIA Support.” This menu is used to enable PCMCIA support.
If you do have PCMCIA but are not installing your Debian system using it (i.e., installation with a PCMCIA Ethernet card), you need not configure PCMCIA at this point. You can easily configure and enable PCMCIA at a later point, after installation is complete. However, if you are installing by way of a PCMCIA network device, this alternate must be selected, and PCMCIA support must be configured prior to configuring the network.