GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
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Caravan Install Log

The beta release of the Debian Installer, identified as Sarge i386 Netinst and dated 9 Nov 2003, was downloaded as an ISO image from http://gluck.debian.org/cdimage/testing/sarge_d-i/i386/.

Booting from CD-ROM was arranged from the BIOS by going into the boot device menu (F12) and choosing CD-ROM. For the Debian install choose English (USA)--choosing Australia results in a bad keyboard amp. There is no DHCP on the local network so a static network was configured. Create partitions: 9GB ext3 for /, 70GB ext3 for /home, and 1GB for swap. Sarge was chosen as the mirror. The driver for the SCSI RAID was loaded by going to another virtual terminal (C-A-F2) and loading it with modprobe aacraid. Then C-A-F1 and Choose Detect Hardware. Now partition the (420GB) into 10GB ext3 for /, 390GB ext3 for /home and 10GB for swap. This is too much for swap - seems to only recognise 2GB. Choose to install GRUB (on hd0), then reboot.

Configure the clock as GMT (although it might not be GMT at present, it is the usual set up) and the time zone is Australia/ACT. Choose to use Shadow Passwords. Add Root and User accounts. For apt choose http with the US mirrors.kernel.org. Don't do any task selection for now. No specific exim4 options need be selected - set up as a satellite system.

Note that the hostname remained as localhost. I had to change this as below.

Now the setup begins. Install wajig ssh emacs21 less most. Use visudo to set up wajig usage for a user. Install kernel-image-2.4.22-1-686.

Correct the host name with the command hostname caravan then emacs /etc/hostname and emacs /etc/hosts.

Install ntpdate to set the system clock accurately from a reliable server (e.g., ntp.togaware.com). Install ntp-simple to regularly update the clock.

Set up ssh from remote accounts if you like:

  $ scp athens:.ssh/id_dsa .ssh/
  $ scp athens:.ssh/authorized_keys2 .ssh/authorized_keys

Similarly copy any setup files from remote hosts:

  $ scp athens:{.bashrc,.bash_profile} . 
  $ scp athens:{.emacs,.emacs-custom,.emacs-kayon} . 
  $ scp athens:{.xsession,.Xresources} .

Set up apt appropriately:

  # mv /etc/apt-get/sources.list /etc/apt-get/sources.list.orig
  # scp athens:/etc/apt-get/sources.list /etc/apt-get/sources.list
  $ wajig update
  $ wajig dist-upgrade

Get X Windows working with the nVidia card by installing x-window-system gnome gdm gdm-themes cinepaint xine-ui.

See Section 98.1.1 for details on installing the nvidia driver for accelerated graphics.