path: root/en/boot-installer/x86.xml

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  <sect2 arch="any-x86" condition="bootable-usb" id="usb-boot-x86">
  <title>Booting from USB Memory Stick</title>

&boot-installer-intro-usb.xml;

  </sect2>

  <sect2 arch="any-x86"><title>Booting from optical disc (CD/DVD)</title>

&boot-installer-intro-cd.xml;

  </sect2>

  <sect2 arch="any-x86" id="boot-win32">
  <title>Booting from Windows</title>
<para>

To start the installer from Windows, you can either

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>

obtain installation media as described in
<xref linkend="official-cdrom"/><phrase condition="bootable-usb"> or
<xref linkend="boot-usb-files"/></phrase> or

</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>

download a standalone Windows executable, which is available as
<ulink url="&win32-loader-exe;">tools/win32-loader/stable/win32-loader.exe</ulink>
on the &debian; mirrors.

</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para><para>

If you use optical installation media, a pre-installation program should be
launched automatically when you insert the disc.
In case Windows does not start it automatically, or if you are using a USB
memory stick, you can run it manually by accessing the device and executing
<command>setup.exe</command>.

</para><para>

After the program has been started, a few preliminary questions will be
asked and the system will be prepared to reboot into the &debian-gnu;
installer.

</para>
  </sect2>

  <sect2 arch="x86" id="install-from-dos">
  <title>Booting from DOS using loadlin</title>
<para>

Boot into DOS (not Windows).  To do this, you can for instance boot from a
recovery or diagnostic disk.

</para><para>

If you can access the installation CD, change the current drive to the CD-ROM
drive, e.g.

<informalexample><screen>
d:
</screen></informalexample>

else make sure you have first prepared your hard disk as explained in
<xref linkend="files-loadlin"/>, and change the current drive to it if needed.

</para><para>

Enter the subdirectory for the flavor you chose, e.g.,

<informalexample><screen>
cd \&x86-install-dir;
</screen></informalexample>

If you prefer using the graphical installer, enter the <filename>gtk</filename>
sub-directory.

<informalexample><screen>
cd gtk
</screen></informalexample>

Next, execute <command>install.bat</command>.
The kernel will load and launch the installer system.

</para>
  </sect2>

  <sect2 arch="x86" id="boot-initrd">
  <title>Booting from Linux using
  <command>GRUB</command></title>

<para>
To boot the installer from hard disk, you must first download
and place the needed files as described in <xref linkend="boot-drive-files"/>.
</para>

<para>
For <command>GRUB2</command>, you will need to configure two
essential things in <filename>/boot/grub/grub.cfg</filename>:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>

to load the <filename>initrd.gz</filename> installer at boot time;

</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>

have the <filename>vmlinuz</filename> kernel use a RAM disk as
its root partition.

</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para><para>

An entry for the installer would be for example:

<informalexample><screen>
menuentry 'New Install' {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
linux /boot/newinstall/vmlinuz
initrd /boot/newinstall/initrd.gz
}
</screen></informalexample>

</para>
  </sect2>

  <sect2 arch="x86" id="boot-tftp-x86"><title>Booting with TFTP</title>

&boot-installer-intro-net.xml;

<para>

There are various ways to do a TFTP boot on i386.

</para>

   <sect3><title>NIC or Motherboard that support PXE</title>
<para>

It could be that your Network Interface Card or Motherboard provides
PXE boot functionality.
This is a <trademark class="trade">Intel</trademark> re-implementation
of TFTP boot. If so, you may be able to configure your BIOS/UEFI to boot from the
network.

</para>
   </sect3>

   <sect3><title>NIC with Network BootROM</title>
<para>

It could be that your Network Interface Card provides
TFTP boot functionality.

</para><para condition="FIXME">

Let us (<email>&email-debian-boot-list;</email>) know how did you manage it.
Please refer to this document.

</para>
   </sect3>

   <sect3><title>Etherboot</title>
<para>

The <ulink url="http://www.etherboot.org">etherboot project</ulink>
provides bootdiskettes and even bootroms that do a TFTPboot.

</para>
   </sect3>
  </sect2>

  <sect2 arch="x86" id="boot-screen">
  <title>The Boot Screen</title>
<para>

When the installer boots, you should be presented with a friendly graphical
screen showing the &debian; logo and a menu:

<informalexample><screen>
&debian-gnu; installer boot menu

Graphical install
Install
Advanced options                            >
Accessible dark contrast installer menu     >
Help
Install with speech synthesis
</screen></informalexample>

</para>

<note><para>

This graphical screen will look very slightly different depending on
how your computer has booted (BIOS or UEFI), but the same options will
be shown.

</para></note>

<para>

Depending on the installation method you are using, the <quote>Graphical
install</quote> option may not be available. Bi-arch images additionally have a
64 bit variant for each install option, right below it, thus almost doubling the
number of options.

</para><para>

For a normal installation, select either the <quote>Graphical install</quote> or
the <quote>Install</quote> entry &mdash; using either the
arrow keys on your keyboard or by typing the first (highlighted) letter &mdash;
and press &enterkey; to boot the installer. The 
<quote>Graphical install</quote> entry is already selected by default.

</para><para>

The <quote>Advanced options</quote> entry gives access to a second menu
that allows to boot the installer in expert mode, in rescue mode and for
automated installs.

</para><para>

If you wish or need to add any boot parameters for either the
installer or the kernel, press &tabkey; (BIOS boot), or &ekey; then
&downkey; three times then &endkey; (UEFI boot).
This will bring the boot command for the selected menu entry
and allow you to edit it to suit your needs.  Note that the keyboard layout at
this point is still QWERTY. The help screens (see
below) list some common possible options. Press &enterkey; (BIOS boot)
or &f10key; (UEFI boot) to boot the installer with your options;
pressing &escapekey; will return you to the boot menu and undo any
changes you made.

</para><para>

Choosing the <quote>Help</quote> entry will result in the first help screen
being displayed which gives an overview of all available help screens.
To return to the boot menu after the help screens have been
displayed, type <quote>menu</quote> at the boot prompt and press &enterkey;. All
help screens have a boot prompt at which the boot command can be typed:

<informalexample><screen>
Press F1 for the help index, or ENTER to boot:
</screen></informalexample>

At this boot prompt you can either just press &enterkey; to boot the
installer with default options or enter a specific boot command and,
optionally, boot parameters. A number of boot parameters which might be
useful can be found on the various help screens. If you do add any
parameters to the boot command line, be sure to first type the boot method
(the default is <userinput>install</userinput>) and a space before the
first parameter (e.g., <userinput>install fb=false</userinput>).

<note><para>

The keyboard is assumed to have a default American English layout at this
point. This means that if your keyboard has a different (language-specific)
layout, the characters that appear on the screen may be different from what
you'd expect when you type parameters. Wikipedia has a
<ulink url="&url-us-keymap;">schema of the US keyboard layout</ulink> which
can be used as a reference to find the correct keys to use.

</para></note>
<note><para>

If you are using a system that has the BIOS configured to use serial console,
you may not be able to see the initial graphical splash screen upon booting
the installer; you may even not see the boot menu. The same can happen if
you are installing the system via a remote management device that provides a
text interface to the VGA console. Examples of these devices include the text
console of Compaq's <quote>integrated Lights Out</quote> (iLO) and HP's
<quote>Integrated Remote Assistant</quote> (IRA).

</para><para>

To bypass the graphical boot screen you can either blindly press &escapekey;
to get a text boot prompt, or (equally blindly) press <quote>H</quote>
followed by &enterkey; to select the <quote>Help</quote> option described
above. After that your keystrokes should be echoed at the prompt.
To prevent the installer from using the framebuffer for the rest of the
installation, you will also want to add <userinput>vga=normal fb=false</userinput>
to the boot prompt, as described in the help text.

</para></note>
</para>

  </sect2>

  <sect2 condition="gtk" id="graphical">
  <title>The Graphical Installer</title>
<para>

The graphical version of the installer is only available for a limited
number of architectures, including &arch-title;. The functionality of
the graphical installer is essentially the same as that of the text-based
installer as it basically uses the same programs, but with a different
frontend.

</para><para>

Although the functionality is identical, the graphical installer still has
a few significant advantages. The main advantage is that it supports more
languages, namely those that use a character set that cannot be displayed
with the text-based <quote>newt</quote> frontend. It also has a few usability
advantages such as the option to use a mouse, and in some cases several
questions can be displayed on a single screen.

</para><para arch="any-x86">

The graphical installer is available with all CD/DVD images and with the
hd-media installation method. To boot the graphical installer simply select
the relevant option from the boot menu. Expert and rescue mode for the
graphical installer can be selected from the <quote>Advanced options</quote>
menu. The previously used boot methods <userinput>installgui</userinput>,
<userinput>expertgui</userinput> and <userinput>rescuegui</userinput> can
still be used from the boot prompt which is shown after selecting the
<quote>Help</quote> option in the boot menu.

</para><para arch="any-x86">

There is also a graphical installer image that can be netbooted. And there
is a special <quote>mini</quote> ISO image<footnote id="gtk-miniiso-x86">

<para>
The mini ISO image can be downloaded from a &debian; mirror as described
in <xref linkend="downloading-files"/>.
Look for <filename>netboot/gtk/mini.iso</filename>.
</para>

</footnote>, which is mainly useful for testing.

</para><para arch="powerpc">

For &arch-title;, currently only an experimental <quote>mini</quote> ISO
image is available<footnote id="gtk-miniiso-powerpc">

<para>
The mini ISO image can be downloaded from a &debian; mirror as described
in <xref linkend="downloading-files"/>.
Look for <filename>netboot/gtk/mini.iso</filename>.
</para>

</footnote>. It should work on almost all PowerPC systems that have
an ATI graphical card, but is unlikely to work on other systems.

</para><para>

Just as with the text-based installer it is possible to add boot parameters
when starting the graphical installer.

</para>
<note><para>

The graphical installer requires significantly more memory to run than
the text-based installer: &minimum-memory-gtk;. If insufficient memory is
available, it will automatically fall back to the text-based
<quote>newt</quote> frontend.

</para><para>

If the amount of memory in your system is below &minimum-memory;,
the graphical installer may fail to boot at all while booting the
text-based installer would still work. Using the text-based installer is
recommended for systems with little available memory.

</para></note>
 </sect2>