Done_Fishin

My daughter is getting involved in website designs, upgrades etc using joomla and her knowledge of databases within windows. To finish her studies, she has found herself a job which involves working with a Debian Etch server about which she knows very little but wants to dig in a bit more.

To that end I have dug out a PII 500MHz PC with 3 128MB DIMM's, downloaded the Debian ETCH CD and started to install according to instructions I have found on howtoforge.com with the aim of creating a practice server for her to play with (whilst also learning a bit more about servers, using CLI, vi and generally enjoying myself!! )

I should mention here that I have been "practising" the install for a couple of months now and until recently all was going fine, although I have frequently started over again due to minor misunderstandings on my part or just to change names, passwords and stuff to something more convenient. Also helps to "practice" installation procedures and get to grips with command line editors like vi as mentioned earlier

Initially, I remember being prompted after a restart, to place the CD back in the drive when starting to add to the "basic kernel only " installation.
Now, however, it seems that I have tagged into a new version called Lenny rather than Etch, I am not prompted for the CD anymore and I find myself trying to follow instructions related to an earlier version on the latest version. However I am now at a point where I probably need to know how to force the install to continue from the CD rather than downloading from the debian server.
I have arrived at a point where I do not find the expected file at the given location

at page

http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_debian_etch_p4

doing this tends to create a new file rather than edit an existing one

I have tried investigating by typing

however I get the response
so I either need to know how to proceed as is or what should I do to ensure that I am installing ETCH rather than Lenny ???

should I disconnect from my network when I start to make the install ? Do I need to force the install from the CD in some fashion yet allow updates from the network ??

any help gratefully received

wmorri

Hi Done_Fishin,

So let me see if I understand what is going on. You are installing a Etch on a computer. You have installed etch before and didn't have any issues, was it on the same hardware as now or different?

The install media that you are using have you used it before to install the server on the computer or is this a new install of Debian?

Cheers!

Done_Fishin

this a a new install on an old PC.

I have NEVER installed a server before and I had never managed to finish the full installation since I was hampered with a lack of knowledge on various aspects which have now been overcome.

Prior to this latest install however the parts that I had installed seemed to be installing OK .. I remember trying workarounds to get over the stumbling block of never having used "vi". I was rebooting into knoppix or Ubuntu to edit the files that required changing.
I have now found a cheat sheet that allows me to work with "vi"

I think I must have done my earlier attempts without the LAN connected. I remember this because I saw the 127.0.0.1 connection when trying to edit /etc/hosts and the server address was still labelled as 127.0.0.x & required a change to my 192.168.0.0 network.
I think that at some point I must have left the LAN connected after a reboot then re-installing from the start. During this time I was trying to do the workaround editing by using a bootable Linux CD (knoppix or ubuntu).

Apart from the fact that it now installs Lenny instead of Etch, it's a great learning experience forcing me to use the CLI rather than GUI. I just want to understand what I am doing wrong right now and It seems that I may have understood already by putting thoughts on Paper as it were. I should not have left the LAN connected when doing my latest installs.

Leaving for home shortly so I will find out then!!

Thanks for jumping in and offering help.

Done_Fishin

UPDATE

tried installing again without the LAN connection . All went fine until it seemed that a LAN connection was required in order to proceed even though it was just the basic operating system being installed

http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_debian_etch_p2

http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_debian_etch_p3

however at this point Inow get this ..

I have checked out the debian site and it seems that a new version has been released .. on 5th September. It's just possible that my initial (learning) attempts at installation were interrupted around this time and after that I did not get back to do anything because of my Brothers visit around 15th September and his departure last Sunday Night.

All I need to know now is how to proceed with the install .. can I start over and force "Etch" to install or should I try to install Lenny but find another Tutorial?
Trying to do something like this without some form of guidance will be difficult unless I just use my original CD and tell it to install everything from CD but then again it's supposed to be a net-install CD so obviously it insists on downloading files from the web

wmorri

Hi,

Ok I think that I may have found something here for you. It would seem that there is an install Debian Lenny. The Perfect Server - Debian Lenny. I haven't gone through the whole thing but it should have some of the information that you need.

Cheers!

Done_Fishin

That's great .. I hadn't found that when I was doing my searches .. Thanks