Booting the Debian installation system, the first step, is generally done with the Rescue Floppy or from the CD-ROM.
Once you’ve booted into Linux, the dbootstrap program will launch and guide you through the second step, the initial system configuration. This step is described in detail in section 3 on page [*].
The “Debian base system” is a core set of packages that are required to run Debian in a minimal, stand-alone fashion. dbootstrap will install it from your CD-ROM, as described in section 3.12 on page [*]. Once you have configured and installed the base system, your machine can “stand on its own.”
The final step is the installation of the remainder of the Debian system. This would include the applications and documents that you actually use on your computer, such as the X Window system, editors, shells, and development environments. The rest of the Debian system can be installed from CD-ROM. At this point, you’ll be using the standard Debian package management tools, such as dselect. This step is described in section 3.20 on page [*].
First, choose the boot media for the installation system. Next, choose the method you will use to install the base system.
To boot the installation system, you have the following choices: bootable CD-ROM, floppies, or a non-Linux boot loader.
CD-ROM booting is one of the easiest ways to install. Not all machines can boot directly from the CD-ROM so you may still need to use floppies. Booting from floppies is supported for most platforms. Floppy booting is described in section 2.4.2 on page [*].
If your system supports booting from a CD-ROM, you don’t need any floppies. Put the CD-ROM into the drive, turn your computer off, and then turn it back on. You should see a Welcome screen with a boot prompt at the bottom. Now you can skip down to section 2.5.
If your computer didn’t “see” the Debian CD-ROM, the easiest option is to make two floppies for booting (described in section 2.4.2) and then use them to start Debian. Don’t worry; after Debian is finished with those two floppies, it will find your CD-ROM with no trouble.
It’s not hard at all to boot from floppies. In fact, your CD-ROM contains all the information necessary to create boot disks for you. For these instructions, you will need to get two disks. Label the first one “Debian 2.1 Install/Rescue Disk” and the second “Debian 2.1 Modules/Drivers Disk.”