Debian

Install

Booting from hard-disk

Reference: Debian Installer - Booting from hard-disk

Copy files initrd.gz and vmlinuz from one of the repository below to /boot, then copy the netinst installation .iso CD/DVD file in the root of one of the hard-drive partitions (e.g. root of /home partition).

initrd.gz and vmlinuz

• Debian testing amd64.

Netinst installation media

• Debian testing amd64

Then restart the PC, and type in the GRUB command-line (press c in GRUB menu). For Grub 2 (recent):

# Note: change /boot/vmlinuz to vmlinuz and /boot/initrd.gz to initrd.gz if selected partition is mounted as /boot.

ls                                   # List available partitions
ls (hd0,msdos6)                      # View partition information
ls (hd0,msdos6)/                     # View partition content
linux (hd0,msdos6)/boot/vmlinuz
initrd (hd0,msdos6)/boot/initrd.gz
boot

See Ubuntu page for older Grub versions.

Apt

sources.list

Example /etc/apt/sources.list file for Debian 8, aka. Jessie:

# Stable
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib
deb http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib

# Testing
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib
deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib

# Unstable / Sid
# deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ sid main contrib
# deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ sid main contrib

# Backport
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main contrib
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main contrib

# jessie-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
# A network mirror was not selected during install.  The following entries
# are provided as examples, but you should amend them as appropriate
# for your mirror of choice.
#
# deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main contrib
# deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main contrib

Using CD-ROM, with multiarch:

# CDROM
deb [arch=i386] cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 8.7.1 _Jessie_ - Official i386 DVD Binary-3 20170116-10:09]/ jessie contrib main''
deb [arch=i386] cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 8.7.1 _Jessie_ - Official i386 DVD Binary-2 20170116-10:09]/ jessie contrib main
deb [arch=i386] cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 8.7.1 _Jessie_ - Official i386 DVD Binary-1 20170116-10:09]/ jessie contrib main
deb [arch=amd64] cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 8.7.1 _Jessie_ - Official amd64 DVD Binary-1 20170116-11:01]/ jessie contrib main
deb [arch=amd64] cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 8.7.1 _Jessie_ - Official amd64 DVD Binary-2 20170116-11:01]/ jessie contrib main
deb [arch=amd64] cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 8.7.1 _Jessie_ - Official amd64 DVD Binary-3 20170116-11:01]/ jessie contrib main

Note that when using apt-cdrom add, apt does not add the arch field [arch=i386] or [arch=amd64].

preferences

Example /etc/apt/preferences:

Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 500

Package: *
Pin: release a=jessie-backports
Pin-Priority: 475

Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 450

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 400

Multi-arch support

• https://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch/HOWTO

To add support for i386 architecture:

dpkg --add-architecture i386

For CD-ROM repository, we must add the arch field manually. For instance:

deb [arch=amd64] cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 8.7.1 _Jessie_ - Official amd64 DVD Binary-1 20170116-11:01]/ jessie contrib main

How-To

Install PHP5.6 CLI on Debian Stretch

• Install package libqdbm14 from Stretch repository.
• Download and install packages libonig2, php5-cli, php5-common, php5-json from https://packages.debian.org/jessie/.

libonig2_5.9.5-3.2_amd64.deb
php5-cli_5.6.30+dfsg-0+deb8u1_amd64.deb
php5-common_5.6.30+dfsg-0+deb8u1_amd64.deb
php5-json_1.3.6-1_amd64.deb

• PHP5 binary is at /usr/bin/php5.

Alternatives

• Use co-installable PHP7 / PHP5.6 from https://deb.sury.org/.

NTFS

The package ntfs-3g is not installed by default, and if so, the link /sbin/mount.ntfs → /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g is missing.

Troubleshoot

Apt-offline - ERROR: Failed to sync file

Occurs with apt-offline=1.7.2. Solution is to install python-lzma on the OFFLINE system. [1].