Debain Linux

Debain

There is no company behind Debian. Instead there are thousands of well organised developers that elect a Debian Project Leader every two years. Debian is seen as one of the most stable Linux distributions. It is also the basis of every release of Ubantu. Debian comes in three versions: stable, testing and Unstable.

Debian Linux, aka The Universal Operating System, is a Linux distribution created by Ian Murdoch in 1993 that has since become one of the most widely deployed Linux distro’s in the world, and for good reason. Debian has a massive repository of 50,000+ software packages, supports a range of CPU architectures including x86, x64, ARM, mips, PowerPC, and has become extremely popular in web server environments using the standard LAMP stack. Debian is also the engine behind more well-known Linux distro’s like Ubuntu, Knoppix and 126 others.

Today I will show you how to download and install Debian, just follow the steps below and remember that further below, there is a slide show with all the screenshots for each step.

Download and Burn Debian

Before we download Debian, you need to figure out if your target machine is x86 or x64 architecture, if you’re unsure, download the x86 (i386) version, otherwise download the x64 version if your hardware supports it because it will perform far better. Also, please remember that by installing Debian you will lose all data on the target machine’s hard drive, that includes personal files, music, video, everything unless you have previously backed up to an external device. Once you’re sure you’ve backed up your data (if necessary) follow the steps below:

1. Download via BitTorrent
2. If you don’t already have a BitTorrent client, download qBittorrent and install
3. We’ll only need to download the first CD/DVD as Debian will download any other software as it installs
4. For server installations (no desktop), download either i368 (x86) or amd64 (x64)
   • For x64, choose the CD-1 .torrent file, ie debian-X.X.X-amd64-xfce-CD-1.iso.torrent
   • For x86, choose the CD-1 .torrent file, ie debian-X.X.X-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso.torrent
5. For full desktop installations, download either i386 (x86) or amd64 (x64)
   • For x64, choose the DVD-1 .torrent file, ie debian-X.X.X-amd64-DVD-1.iso.torrent
   • For x86, choose the DVD-1 .torrent file, ie debian-X.X.X-i386-DVD-1.iso.torrent
6. Take note of the download location (most of the time it will default to your Downloads folder)
7. You will need a disc image burner app to burn the ISO to CD/DVD, I recommend Free ISO Burner, IMGBurn or ISO Recorder
8. Open your burner app and burn the ISO image to a blank CD or DVD (see instructions here)

Install Debian

Now it’s time to install Debian on your target machine.

1. Turn the target machine on and insert the CD/DVD, then reboot
2. Hit the F12 key to bring up the boot menu and choose your DVD drive, or enter BIOS to set boot options
3. Debian will boot into the main menu screen, you can now follow the screenshots and captions below: