One of the first things debian-installer does, is to check available memory. If the available memory is limited, this component will make some changes in the installation process which hopefully will allow you to install Ubuntu on your system.

The first measure taken to reduce memory consumption by the installer is to disable translations, which means that the installation can only be done in English. Of course, you can still localize the installed system after the installation has completed.

If that is not sufficient, the installer will further reduce memory consumption by loading only those components essential to complete a basic installation. This reduces the functionality of the installation system. You will be given the opportunity to load additional components manually, but you should be aware that each component you select will use additional memory and thus may cause the installation to fail.

If the installer runs in low memory mode, it is recommended to create a relatively large swap partition (64–128MB). The swap partition will be used as virtual memory and thus increases the amount of memory available to the system. The installer will activate the swap partition as early as possible in the installation process. Note that heavy use of swap will reduce performance of your system and may lead to high disk activity.

Despite these measures, it is still possible that your system freezes, that unexpected errors occur or that processes are killed by the kernel because the system runs out of memory (which will result in “Out of memory” messages on VT4 and in the syslog).

For example, it has been reported that creating a big ext3 file system fails in low memory mode when there is insufficient swap space. If a larger swap doesn't help, try creating the file system as ext2 (which is an essential component of the installer) instead. It is possible to change an ext2 partition to ext3 after the installation.

It is possible to force the installer to use a higher lowmem level than the one based on available memory by using the boot parameter “lowmem” as described in the section called “Ubuntu Installer Parameters”.

In most cases the first questions you will be asked concern the selection of localization options to be used both for the installation and for the installed system. The localization options consist of language, country and locales.

The language you choose will be used for the rest of the installation process, provided a translation of the different dialogs is available. If no valid translation is available for the selected language, the installer will default to English.

The selected country will be used later in the installation process to pick the default timezone and an Ubuntu mirror appropriate for your geographic location. Language and country together will be used to set the default locale for your system and to help select your keyboard.

You will first be asked to select your preferred language. The language names are listed in both English (left side) and in the language itself (right side); the names on the right side are also shown in the proper script for the language. The list is sorted on the English names. At the top of the list is an extra option that allows you to select the “C” locale instead of a language. Choosing the “C” locale will result in the installation proceding in English; the installed system will have no localization support as the locales package will not be installed.

If you selected a language that is recognized as an official language for more than one country^[4], you will next be asked to select a country. If you choose Other at the bottom of the list, you will be presented with a list of all countries, grouped by continent. If the language has only one country associated with it, that country will be selected automatically.

A default locale will be selected based on the selected language and country. If you are installing at medium or low priority, you will have the option of selecting a different default locale and of selecting additional locales to be generated for the installed system.

Keyboards are often tailored to the characters used in a language. Select a layout that conforms to the keyboard you are using, or select something close if the keyboard layout you want isn't represented. Once the system installation is complete, you'll be able to select a keyboard layout from a wider range of choices (run kbdconfig as root after you have completed the installation).

Move the highlight to the keyboard selection you desire and press Enter. Use the arrow keys to move the highlight — they are in the same place in all national language keyboard layouts, so they are independent of the keyboard configuration. An 'extended' keyboard is one with F1 through F10 keys along the top row.

When installing via the hd-media method, there will be a moment where you need to find and mount the Ubuntu Installer iso image in order to get the rest of the installation files. The component iso-scan does exactly this.

At first, iso-scan automatically mounts all block devices (e.g. partitions) which have some known filesystem on them and sequentially searches for filenames ending with .iso (or .ISO for that matter). Beware that the first attempt scans only files in the root directory and in the first level of subdirectories (i.e. it finds /whatever.iso, /data/whatever.iso, but not /data/tmp/whatever.iso). After an iso image has been found, iso-scan checks its content to determine if the image is a valid Ubuntu iso image or not. In the former case we are done, in the latter iso-scan seeks for another image.

In case the previous attempt to find an installer iso image fails, iso-scan will ask you whether you would like to perform a more thorough search. This pass doesn't just look into the topmost directories, but really traverses whole filesystem.

If iso-scan does not discover your installer iso image, reboot back to your original operating system and check if the image is named correctly (ending in .iso), if it is placed on a filesystem recognizable by debian-installer, and if it is not corrupted (verify the checksum). Experienced Unix users could do this without rebooting on the second console.

As you enter this step, if the system detects that you have more than one network device, you'll be asked to choose which device will be your primary network interface, i.e. the one which you want to use for installation. The other interfaces won't be configured at this time. You may configure additional interfaces after installation is complete; see the interfaces(5) man page.

By default, debian-installer tries to configure your computer's network automatically via DHCP. If the DHCP probe succeeds, you are done. If the probe fails, it may be caused by many factors ranging from unplugged network cable, to a misconfigured DHCP setup. Or maybe you don't have a DHCP server in your local network at all. For further explanation, check the error messages on the fourth console. In any case, you will be asked if you want to retry, or if you want to perform a manual setup. DHCP servers are sometimes really slow in their responses, so if you are sure everything is in place, try again.

The manual network setup in turn asks you a number of questions about your network, notably IP address, Netmask, Gateway, Name server addresses, and a Hostname. Moreover, if you have a wireless network interface, you will be asked to provide your Wireless ESSID and a WEP key. Fill in the answers from the section called “Information You Will Need”.

The installer will first attempt to connect to a time server on the Internet (using the NTP protocol) in order to correctly set the system time. If this does not succeed, the installer will assume the time and date obtained from the system clock when the installation system was booted are correct. It is not possible to manually set the system time during the installation process.

Depending on the location selected earlier in the installation process, you may be shown a list of timezones relevant for that location. If your location has only one time zone, you will not be asked anything and the system will assume that time zone.

If for some reason you wish to set a time zone for the installed system that does not match the selected location, there are two options.

For automated installations the time zone can also be set using preseeding.

If you choose guided partitioning, you may have three options: to create partitions directly on the hard disk (classic method), or to create them using Logical Volume Management (LVM), or to create them using encrypted LVM^[5].

When using LVM or encrypted LVM, the installer will create most partitions inside one big partition; the advantage of this method is that partitions inside this big partition can be resized relatively easily later. In the case of encrypted LVM the big partition will not be readable without knowing a special key phrase, thus providing extra security of your (personal) data.

When using encrypted LVM, the installer will also automatically erase the disk by writing random data to it. This further improves security (as it makes it impossible to tell which parts of the disk are in use and also makes sure that any traces of previous installations are erased), but may take some time depending on the size of your disk.

If you choose guided partitioning (either classic or using (encrypted) LVM) for a whole disk, you will first be asked to select the disk you want to use. Check that all your disks are listed and, if you have several disks, make sure you select the correct one. The order they are listed in may differ from what you are used to. The size of the disks may help to identify them.

Any data on the disk you select will eventually be lost, but you will always be asked to confirm any changes before they are written to the disk. If you have selected the classic method of partitioning, you will be able to undo any changes right until the end; when using (encrypted) LVM this is not possible.

Next, you will be able to choose from the schemes listed in the table below. All schemes have their pros and cons, some of which are discussed in Appendix C, Partitioning for Ubuntu. If you are unsure, choose the first one. Bear in mind that guided partitioning needs a certain minimal amount of free space to operate with. If you don't give it at least about 1GB of space (depends on chosen scheme), guided partitioning will fail.

If you choose guided partitioning using (encrypted) LVM, the installer will also create a separate /boot partition. The other partitions, including the swap partition, will be created inside the LVM partition.

After selecting a scheme, the next screen will show your new partition table, including information on whether and how partitions will be formatted and where they will be mounted.

The list of partitions might look like this:

This example shows two IDE harddrives divided into several partitions; the first disk has some free space. Each partition line consists of the partition number, its type, size, optional flags, file system, and mountpoint (if any). Note: this particular setup cannot be created using guided partitioning but it does show possible variation that can be achieved using manual partitioning.

This concludes the guided partitioning. If you are satisfied with the generated partition table, you can choose Finish partitioning and write changes to disk from the menu to implement the new partition table (as described at the end of this section). If you are not happy, you can choose to Undo changes to partitions and run guided partitioning again, or modify the proposed changes as described below for manual partitioning.

A similar screen to the one shown just above will be displayed if you choose manual partitioning except that your existing partition table will be shown and without the mount points. How to manually setup your partition table and the usage of partitions by your new Ubuntu system will be covered in the remainder of this section.

If you select a pristine disk which has neither partitions nor free space on it, you will be asked if a new partition table should be created (this is needed so you can create new partitions). After this, a new line entitled “FREE SPACE” should appear in the table under the selected disk.

If you select some free space, you will have the opportunity to create a new partition. You will have to answer a quick series of questions about its size, type (primary or logical), and location (beginning or end of the free space). After this, you will be presented with a detailed overview of your new partition. The main setting is Use as:, which determines if the partition will have a file system on it, or be used for swap, software RAID, LVM, an encrypted file system, or not be used at all. Other settings include mountpoint, mount options, and bootable flag; which settings are shown depends on how the partition is to be used. If you don't like the preselected defaults, feel free to change them to your liking. E.g. by selecting the option Use as:, you can choose a different filesystem for this partition, including options to use the partition for swap, software RAID, LVM, or not use it at all. Another nice feature is the ability to copy data from an existing partition onto this one. When you are satisfied with your new partition, select Done setting up the partition and you will return to partman's main screen.

If you decide you want to change something about your partition, simply select the partition, which will bring you to the partition configuration menu. This is the same screen as is used when creating a new partition, so you can change the same settings. One thing that may not be very obvious at a first glance is that you can resize the partition by selecting the item displaying the size of the partition. Filesystems known to work are at least fat16, fat32, ext2, ext3 and swap. This menu also allows you to delete a partition.

Be sure to create at least two partitions: one for the root filesystem (which must be mounted as /) and one for swap. If you forget to mount the root filesystem, partman won't let you continue until you correct this issue.

Capabilities of partman can be extended with installer modules, but are dependent on your system's architecture. So if you can't see all promised goodies, check if you have loaded all required modules (e.g. partman-ext3, partman-xfs, or partman-lvm).

After you are satisfied with partitioning, select Finish partitioning and write changes to disk from the partitioning menu. You will be presented with a summary of changes made to the disks and asked to confirm that the filesystems should be created as requested.

If you have more than one harddrive^[6] in your computer, you can use mdcfg to setup your drives for increased performance and/or better reliability of your data. The result is called Multidisk Device (or after its most famous variant software RAID).

MD is basically a bunch of partitions located on different disks and combined together to form a logical device. This device can then be used like an ordinary partition (i.e. in partman you can format it, assign a mountpoint, etc.).

What benefits this brings depends on the type of MD device you are creating. Currently supported are:

To sum it up:

If you want to know more about Software RAID, have a look at Software RAID HOWTO.

To create a MD device, you need to have the desired partitions it should consist of marked for use in a RAID. (This is done in partman in the Partition settings menu where you should select Use as: → physical volume for RAID.)

Next, you should choose Configure software RAID from the main partman menu. (The menu will only appear after you mark at least one partition for use as physical volume for RAID.) On the first screen of mdcfg simply select Create MD device. You will be presented with a list of supported types of MD devices, from which you should choose one (e.g. RAID1). What follows depends on the type of MD you selected.

It is perfectly possible to have several types of MD at once. For example, if you have three 200 GB hard drives dedicated to MD, each containing two 100 GB partitions, you can combine the first partitions on all three disks into the RAID0 (fast 300 GB video editing partition) and use the other three partitions (2 active and 1 spare) for RAID1 (quite reliable 100 GB partition for /home).

After you setup MD devices to your liking, you can Finish mdcfg to return back to the partman to create filesystems on your new MD devices and assign them the usual attributes like mountpoints.

If you are working with computers at the level of system administrator or “advanced” user, you have surely seen the situation where some disk partition (usually the most important one) was short on space, while some other partition was grossly underused and you had to manage this situation with moving stuff around, symlinking, etc.

To avoid the described situation you can use Logical Volume Manager (LVM). Simply said, with LVM you can combine your partitions (physical volumes in LVM lingo) to form a virtual disk (so called volume group), which can then be divided into virtual partitions (logical volumes). The point is that logical volumes (and of course underlying volume groups) can span across several physical disks.

Now when you realize you need more space for your old 160GB /home partition, you can simply add a new 300GB disk to the computer, join it with your existing volume group and then resize the logical volume which holds your /home filesystem and voila — your users have some room again on their renewed 460GB partition. This example is of course a bit oversimplified. If you haven't read it yet, you should consult the LVM HOWTO.

LVM setup in debian-installer is quite simple and completely supported inside partman. First, you have to mark the partition(s) to be used as physical volumes for LVM. This is done in the Partition settings menu where you should select Use as: → physical volume for LVM.

When you return to the main partman screen, you will see a new option Configure the Logical Volume Manager. When you select that, you will first be asked to confirm pending changes to the partition table (if any) and after that the LVM configuration menu will be shown. Above the menu a summary of the LVM configuration is shown. The menu itself is context sensitive and only shows valid actions. The possible actions are:

Use the options in that menu to first create a volume group and then create your logical volumes inside it.

After you return to the main partman screen, any created logical volumes will be displayed in the same way as ordinary partitions (and you should treat them as such).

debian-installer allows you to set up encrypted partitions. Every file you write to such a partition is immediately saved to the device in encrypted form. Access to the encrypted data is granted only after entering the passphrase used when the encrypted partition was originally created. This feature is useful to protect sensitive data in case your laptop or hard drive gets stolen. The thief might get physical access to the hard drive, but without knowing the right passphrase, the data on the hard drive will look like random characters.

The two most important partitions to encrypt are: the home partition, where your private data resides, and the swap partition, where sensitive data might be stored temporarily during operation. Of course, nothing prevents you from encrypting any other partitions that might be of interest. For example /var where database servers, mail servers or print servers store their data, or /tmp which is used by various programs to store potentially interesting temporary files. Some people may even want to encrypt their whole system. The only exception is the /boot partition which must remain unencrypted, because currently there is no way to load the kernel from an encrypted partition.

To use encryption, you have to create a new partition by selecting some free space in the main partitioning menu. Another option is to choose an existing partition (e.g. a regular partition, an LVM logical volume or a RAID volume). In the Partition settings menu, you need to select physical volume for encryption at the Use as: option. The menu will then change to include several cryptographic options for the partition.

debian-installer supports several encryption methods. The default method is dm-crypt (included in newer Linux kernels, able to host LVM physical volumes), the other is loop-AES (older, maintained separately from the Linux kernel tree). Unless you have compelling reasons to do otherwise, it is recommended to use the default.

First, let's have a look at the options available when you select Device-mapper (dm-crypt) as the encryption method. As always: when in doubt, use the defaults, because they have been carefully chosen with security in mind.

If you select Encryption method: → Loopback (loop-AES), the menu changes to provide the following options:

After you have selected the desired parameters for your encrypted partitions, return back to the main partitioning menu. There should now be a new menu item called Configure encrypted volumes. After you select it, you will be asked to confirm the deletion of data on partitions marked to be erased and possibly other actions such as writing a new partition table. For large partitions this might take some time.

Next you will be asked to enter a passphrase for partitions configured to use one. Good passphrases should be longer than 8 characters, should be a mixture of letters, numbers and other characters and should not contain common dictionary words or information easily associable with you (such as birthdates, hobbies, pet names, names of family members or relatives, etc.).

If you selected to use methods other than a passphrase to create encryption keys, they will be generated now. Because the kernel may not have gathered a sufficient amount of entropy at this early stage of the installation, the process may take a long time. You can help speed up the process by generating entropy: e.g. by pressing random keys, or by switching to the shell on the second virtual console and generating some network and disk traffic (downloading some files, feeding big files into /dev/null, etc.). This will be repeated for each partition to be encrypted.

After returning to the main partitioning menu, you will see all encrypted volumes as additional partitions which can be configured in the same way as ordinary partitions. The following example shows two different volumes. The first one is encrypted via dm-crypt, the second one via loop-AES.

Now is the time to assign mount points to the volumes and optionally change the file system types if the defaults do not suit you.

One thing to note here are the identifiers in parentheses (sda2_crypt and loop0 in this case) and the mount points you assigned to each encrypted volume. You will need this information later when booting the new system. The differences between ordinary boot process and boot process with encryption involved will be covered later in the section called “Mounting encrypted volumes”.

Once you are satisfied with the partitioning scheme, continue with the installation.

The system will ask you whether you wish to create an ordinary user account at this point. This account should be your main personal log-in.

The account you create at this point will be given root privileges by means of the sudo command, and the root account itself will have login disabled. If you wish, you can enable the root account later by setting a password for it with the command sudo passwd root.

You should not use the root account for daily use or as your personal login, nor should you use sudo except when root privileges are really required.

Why not? Well, one reason to avoid using root's privileges is that it is very easy to do irreparable damage as root. Another reason is that you might be tricked into running a Trojan-horse program — that is a program that takes advantage of your super-user powers to compromise the security of your system behind your back. Any good book on Unix system administration will cover this topic in more detail — consider reading one if it is new to you.

You will first be prompted for the user's full name. Then you'll be asked for a name for the user account; generally your first name or something similar will suffice and indeed will be the default. Finally, you will be prompted for a password for this account.

If at any point after installation you would like to create another account, use the adduser command.

One of the tools used to install packages on a Debian GNU/Linux system is a program called apt-get, from the apt package^[9]. Other front-ends for package management, like aptitude and synaptic, are also in use. These front-ends are recommended for new users, since they integrate some additional features (package searching and status checks) in a nice user interface. In fact, aptitude is now the recommended utility for package management.

apt must be configured so that it knows from where to retrieve packages. The results of this configuration are written to the file /etc/apt/sources.list. You can examine and edit this file to your liking after the installation is complete.

If you are installing at default priority, the installer will largely take care of the configuration automatically, based on the installation method you are using and possibly using choices made earlier in the installation. In most cases the installer will automatically add a security mirror and, if you are installing the stable distribution, a mirror for the “volatile” update service.

If you are installing at a lower priority (e.g. in expert mode), you will be able to make more decisions yourself. You can choose whether or not to use the security and/or volatile update services, and you can choose to add packages from the “contrib” and “non-free” sections of the archive.

During the installation process, you may be given the opportunity to select additional software to install. Rather than picking individual software packages from the 20850 available packages, this stage of the installation process focuses on selecting and installing predefined collections of software to quickly set up your computer to perform various tasks.

(If you are installing from a full Ubuntu CD, rather than from the server CD or by booting the installer over the network, then this stage of the installation process will simply automatically install the set of packages that make up the Ubuntu desktop, and you can ignore the rest of this section.)

So, you have the ability to choose tasks first, and then add on more individual packages later. These tasks loosely represent a number of different jobs or things you want to do with your computer, such as “Desktop environment”, “Web server”, or “Print server”^[10]. the section called “Disk Space Needed for Tasks” lists the space requirements for the available tasks.

Some tasks may be pre-selected based on the characteristics of the computer you are installing. If you disagree with these selections you can deselect them. You can even opt to install no tasks at all at this point.

Once you've selected your tasks, select Continue. At this point, aptitude will install the packages that are part of the tasks you've selected.

You should be aware that especially the Desktop task is very large. Especially when installing from a normal CD-ROM in combination with a mirror for packages not on the CD-ROM, the installer may want to retrieve a lot of packages over the network. If you have a relatively slow Internet connection, this can take a long time. There is no option to cancel the installation of packages once it has started.

Even when packages are included on the CD-ROM, the installer may still retrieve them from the mirror if the version available on the mirror is more recent than the one included on the CD-ROM. If you are installing the stable distribution, this can happen after a point release (an update of the original stable release); if you are installing the testing distribution this will happen if you are using an older image.

Each package you selected with tasksel is downloaded, unpacked and then installed in turn by the apt-get and dpkg programs. If a particular program needs more information from the user, it will prompt you during this process.

Before a boot loader is installed, the installer will attempt to probe for other operating systems which are installed on the machine. If it finds a supported operating system, you will be informed of this during the boot loader installation step, and the computer will be configured to boot this other operating system in addition to Ubuntu.

Note that multiple operating systems booting on a single machine is still something of a black art. The automatic support for detecting and setting up boot loaders to boot other operating systems varies by architecture and even by subarchitecture. If it does not work you should consult your boot manager's documentation for more information.

The bootloader on PA-RISC is “palo”. PALO is similar in configuration and usage to LILO, with a few exceptions. First of all, PALO allows you to boot any kernel image on your boot partition. This is because PALO can actually read Linux partitions.

This option can be used to complete the installation even when no boot loader is to be installed, either because the arch/subarch doesn't provide one, or because none is desired (e.g. you will use existing boot loader).

If you plan to manually configure your bootloader, you should check the name of the installed kernel in /target/boot. You should also check that directory for the presence of an initrd; if one is present, you will probably have to instruct your bootloader to use it. Other information you will need are the disk and partition you selected for your / filesystem and, if you chose to install /boot on a separate partition, also your /boot filesystem.

The installer may ask you if the computer's clock is set to UTC. Normally this question is avoided if possible and the installer tries to work out whether the clock is set to UTC based on things like what other operating systems are installed.

In expert mode you will always be able to choose whether or not the clock is set to UTC.

At this point debian-installer will also attempt to save the current time to the system's hardware clock. This will be done either in UTC or local time, depending on the selection that was just made.

You will be prompted to remove the boot media (CD, floppy, etc) that you used to boot the installer. After that the system will be rebooted into your new Ubuntu system.

If the installation is successful, the logfiles created during the installation process will be automatically saved to /var/log/installer/ on your new Ubuntu system.

Choosing Save debug logs from the main menu allows you to save the log files to a floppy disk, network, hard disk, or other media. This can be useful if you encounter fatal problems during the installation and wish to study the logs on another system or attach them to an installation report.

There are several methods you can use to get a shell while running an installation. On most systems, and if you are not installing over serial console, the easiest method is to switch to the second virtual console by pressing Left Alt+F2^[11] (on a Mac keyboard, Option+F2). Use Left Alt+F1 to switch back to installer itself.

If you cannot switch consoles, there is also an Execute a Shell item on the main menu that can be used to start a shell. You can get to the main menu from most dialogs by using the Go Back button one or more times. Type exit to close the shell and return to the installer.

At this point you are booted from the RAM disk, and there is a limited set of Unix utilities available for your use. You can see what programs are available with the command ls /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin and by typing help. The shell is a Bourne shell clone called ash and has some nice features like autocompletion and history.

To edit and view files, use the text editor nano. Log files for the installation system can be found in the /var/log directory.

One of the more interesting components is network-console. It allows you to do a large part of the installation over the network via SSH. The use of the network implies you will have to perform the first steps of the installation from the console, at least to the point of setting up the networking. (Although you can automate that part with the section called “Automatic Installation”.)

This component is not loaded into the main installation menu by default, so you have to explicitly ask for it. If you are installing from CD, you need to boot with medium priority or otherwise invoke the main installation menu and choose Load installer components from CD and from the list of additional components select network-console: Continue installation remotely using SSH. Successful load is indicated by a new menu entry called Continue installation remotely using SSH.

After selecting this new entry, you will be asked for a new password to be used for connecting to the installation system and for its confirmation. That's all. Now you should see a screen which instructs you to login remotely as the user installer with the password you just provided. Another important detail to notice on this screen is the fingerprint of this system. You need to transfer the fingerprint securely to the “person who will continue the installation remotely”.

Should you decide to continue with the installation locally, you can always press Enter, which will bring you back to the main menu, where you can select another component.

Now let's switch to the other side of the wire. As a prerequisite, you need to configure your terminal for UTF-8 encoding, because that is what the installation system uses. If you do not, remote installation will be still possible, but you may encounter strange display artefacts like destroyed dialog borders or unreadable non-ascii characters. Establishing a connection with the installation system is as simple as typing:

Where install_host is either the name or IP address of the computer being installed. Before the actual login the fingerprint of the remote system will be displayed and you will have to confirm that it is correct.

After the login you will be presented with an initial screen where you have two possibilities called Start menu and Start shell. The former brings you to the main installer menu, where you can continue with the installation as usual. The latter starts a shell from which you can examine and possibly fix the remote system. You should only start one SSH session for the installation menu, but may start multiple sessions for shells.