In this section we will describe each installer component in detail. The components have been grouped into stages that should be recognisable for users. They are presented in the order they appear during the install. Note that not all modules will be used for every installation; which modules are actually used depends on the installation method you use and on your hardware. Let's assume the Debian Installer has booted and you are facing its first screen. At this time, the capabilities of &d-i; are still quite limited. It doesn't know much about your hardware, preferred language, or even the task it should perform. Don't worry. Because &d-i; is quite clever, it can automatically probe your hardware, locate the rest of its components and upgrade itself to a capable installation system. However, you still need to help &d-i; with some information it can't determine automatically (like selecting your preferred language, keyboard layout or desired network mirror). You will notice that &d-i; performs hardware detection several times during this stage. The first time is targeted specifically at the hardware needed to load installer components (e.g. your CD-ROM or network card). As not all drivers may be available during this first run, hardware detection needs to be repeated later in the process. &module-lowmem.xml; &module-languagechooser.xml; &module-countrychooser.xml; &module-kbd-chooser.xml; &module-s390-netdevice.xml; &module-s390-dasd.xml; &module-ddetect.xml; &module-cdrom-detect.xml; &module-iso-scan.xml; &module-anna.xml; &module-netcfg.xml; &module-choose-mirror.xml; At this time, after hardware detection has been executed a final time, &d-i; should be at its full strength, customized for the user's needs and ready to do some real work. As the title of this section indicates, the main task of the next few components lies in partitioning your disks, creating filesystems, assigning mountpoints and optionally configuring closely related issues like LVM or RAID devices. &module-partman.xml; &module-autopartkit.xml; &module-partitioner.xml; &module-partconf.xml; &module-lvmcfg.xml; &module-mdcfg.xml; Although this stage is the least problematic, it consumes most time of the install because it downloads, verifies and unpacks the whole base system. If you have a slow computer or network connection, this could take some time. &module-base-installer.xml; If you are installing a diskless workstation, obviously, booting off the local disk isn't a meaningful option, and this step will be skipped. You may wish to set the OpenBoot to boot from the network by default; see . Note that multiple operating systems booting on a single machine is still something of a black art. This document does not even attempt to document the various boot managers, which vary by architecture and even by subarchitecture. You should see your boot manager's documentation for more information. &module-os-prober.xml; &module-alpha-aboot-installer.xml; &module-hppa-palo-installer.xml; &module-i386-grub-installer.xml; &module-i386-lilo-installer.xml; &module-ia64-elilo-installer.xml; &module-mips-arcboot-installer.xml; &module-mipsel-colo-installer.xml; &module-mipsel-delo-installer.xml; &module-powerpc-yaboot-installer.xml; &module-powerpc-quik-installer.xml; &module-s390-zipl-installer.xml; &module-sparc-silo-installer.xml; &module-nobootloader.xml; These are the last bits to do before rebooting to your new Debian. It mostly consists of tidying up after the &d-i;. &module-finish-install.xml; The components listed in this section are usually not involved in the installation process, but are waiting in the background to help the user in case something goes wrong. &module-save-logs.xml; &module-cdrom-checker.xml; &module-shell.xml; &module-baseconfig.xml;