Note that multiple operating systems booting on a single machine is still something of a black art. This document does not even attempt to document the various boot managers, which vary by architecture and even by subarchitecture. You should see your boot manager's documentation for more information. &bootloader-i386.xml; &bootloader-m68k.xml; &bootloader-alpha.xml; &bootloader-sparc.xml; &bootloader-powerpc.xml; &bootloader-hppa.xml; &bootloader-s390.xml; &bootloader-arm.xml; &bootloader-mipsel.xml; If you are installing a diskless workstation, obviously, booting off the local disk isn't a meaningful option, and this step will be skipped. You may wish to set the OpenBoot to boot from the network by default; see . You may wish to make a boot floppy even if you intend to boot the system from the hard disk. The reason for this is that it's possible for the hard disk bootstrap to be mis-installed, but a boot floppy will almost always work. Feed the system a blank floppy as directed. Make sure the floppy isn't write-protected, as the software will format and write it. Mark this the Custom Boot floppy and write-protect it once it has been written. This floppy will contain a kernel and a simple file system, with a directive to use your new root file system. Unfortunately, a boot floppy can only be made for SRM systems, since MILO won't fit together with a kernel on a single floppy. You system's first boot on its own power is what electrical engineers call the smoke test. Select the ``Reboot the System'' menu item which will halt the system because rebooting is not supported on &arch-title; in this case. You then need to IPL GNU/Linux from the DASD which you selected for the root filesystem during the first steps of the installation. If you are booting directly into Debian, and the system doesn't start up, either use your original installation boot media (for instance, the rescue floppy), or insert the custom boot floppy if you created one, and reset your system. If you are not using the custom boot floppy, you will probably need to add some boot arguments. If booting with the rescue floppy or similar technique, you need to specify rescue root=root, where root is your root partition, such as /dev/sda1. If you have just performed a diskless install on a BVM or Motorola VMEbus machine: once the system has loaded the tftplilo program from the TFTP server, from the LILO Boot: prompt enter one of: b6000 followed by &enterkey; to boot a BVME4000/6000 b162 followed by &enterkey; to boot an MVME162 b167 followed by &enterkey; to boot an MVME166/167 Go to the directory containing the installation files and start up the Penguin booter, holding down the command key. Go to the Settings dialogue ( command T ), and locate the kernel options line which should look like root=/dev/ram video=font:VGA8x16 or similar. You need to change the entry to root=/dev/yyyy. Replace the yyyy with the Linux name of the partition onto which you installed the system (e.g. /dev/sda1); you wrote this down earlier. The video=font:VGA8x8 is recommended especially for users with tiny screens. The kernel would pick a prettier (6x11) font but the console driver for this font can hang the machine, so using 8x16 or 8x8 is safer at this stage. You can change this at any time. If you don't want to start GNU/Linux immediately each time you start, uncheck the Auto Boot option. Save your settings in the Prefs file using the Save Settings As Default option. Now select Boot Now ( command B ) to start your freshly installed GNU/Linux instead of the RAMdisk installer system. Debian should boot, and you should see the same messages as when you first booted the installation system, followed by some new messages. After booting, you will be prompted to complete the configuration of your basic system, and then to select what additional packages you wish to install. The application which guides you through this process is called base-config. Its concept is very similar to the &d-i; from the first stage. Indeed, base-config consists of a number of specialized components, where each component handles one configuration task, contains hidden menu in the background and also uses the same navigation system. If you wish to re-run the base-config at any point after installation is complete, as root run base-config. &module-bc-timezone.xml; &module-bc-shadow.xml; &module-bc-ppp.xml; &module-bc-mta.xml; &module-bc-apt.xml; &module-bc-packages.xml; &module-bc-install.xml; After you've installed packages, you'll be presented with the login prompt. Log in using the personal login and password you selected. Your system is now ready to use. If you are a new user, you may want to explore the documentation which is already installed on your system as you start to use it. There are currently several documentation systems, work is proceeding on integrating the different types of documentation. Here are a few starting points. Documentation accompanying programs you have installed is in /usr/share/doc/, under a subdirectory named after the program. For example, the APT User's Guide for using apt to install other programs on your system, is located in /usr/share/doc/apt/guide.html/index.html. In addition, there are some special folders within the /usr/share/doc/ hierarchy. Linux HOWTOs are installed in .gz format, in /usr/share/doc/HOWTO/en-txt/ and /usr/share/doc/HOWTO/en-txt/mini/. The /usr/share/doc/HTML/index.html contains browse-able indexes of documentation installed by dhelp. One easy way to view these documents is to cd /usr/share/doc/, and type lynx followed by a space and a dot (the dot stands for the current directory). You can also type info command or man command to see documentation on most commands available at the command prompt. Typing help will display help on shell commands. And typing a command followed by --help will usually display a short summary of the command's usage. If a command's results scroll past the top of the screen, type | more after the command to cause the results to pause before scrolling past the top of the screen. To see a list of all commands available which begin with a certain letter, type the letter and then two tabs. For a more complete introduction to Debian and GNU/Linux, see /usr/share/doc/debian-guide/html/noframes/index.html.