Once the installer starts, you will be greeted with an initial screen. Press Enter to boot, or read the instructions for other boot methods and parameters (see Section 5.2, “Boot Parameters”). If you want a 2.6 kernel, type linux26 at the boot: prompt. ^[10]

After a while you will be asked to select your language. Use the arrow keys to pick a language and press Enter to continue. Next you'll be asked to select your country, with the choices including countries where your language is spoken. If it's not on the short list, a list of all the countries in the world is available.

You may be asked to confirm your keyboard layout. Choose the default unless you know better.

Now sit back while debian-installer detects some of your hardware, and loads the rest of itself from CD, floppy, USB, etc.

Next the installer will try to detect your network hardware and set up networking by DHCP. If you are not on a network or do not have DHCP, you will be given the opportunity to configure the network manually.

Now it is time to partition your disks. First you will be given the opportunity to automatically partition either an entire drive, or free space on a drive. This is recommended for new users or anyone in a hurry, but if you do not want to autopartition, choose manual from the menu.

If you have an existing DOS or Windows partition that you want to preserve, be very careful with automatic partitioning. If you choose manual partitioning, you can use the installer to resize existing FAT or NTFS partitions to create room for the Debian install: simply select the partition and specify its new size.

On the next screen you will see your partition table, how the partitions will be formatted, and where they will be mounted. Select a partition to modify or delete it. If you did automatic partitioning, you should just be able to choose Finished partitioning from the menu to use what it set up. Remember to assign at least one partition for swap space and to mount a partition on /. Appendix B, Partitioning for Debian has more information about partitioning.

Now debian-installer formats your partitions and starts to install the base system, which can take a while. That is followed by installing a kernel.

The last step is to install a boot loader. If the installer detects other operating systems on your computer, it will add them to the boot menu and let you know. By default GRUB will be installed to the master boot record of the first harddrive, which is generally a good choice. You'll be given the opportunity to override that choice and install it elsewhere.

debian-installer will now tell you that the installation has finished. Remove the cdrom or other boot media and hit Enter to reboot your machine. It should boot up into the next stage of the install process, which is explained in Chapter 7, Booting Into Your New Debian System.

If you need more information on the install process, see Chapter 6, Using the Debian Installer.