I'm trying to install Debian to a partition on my hard drive. I have my computer booted into Knoppix from a CD and I'm using it to download the necessary files to create an install disk that I can boot from (on a USB memory stick).
Here is what someone on another forum told me to do:
Quote:
Download boot.img.gz from here:
ftp.osuosl.org :: Oregon State University Open Source Lab
Run this command on your empty FAT32 USB:
zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/sdX <---- X not sdaX
Mount it:
mount /dev/sdX /mnt/
Download Netinst from here, note a good KDE torrent client is Ktorrent, or Azeurus, or look on another site for a non-torrent download:
Debian -- Network install from a minimal CD
Copy files (non-binary copy, so it can't mess up!):
cp netinstimagename.iso /mnt
And BAM! Restart and see if that works. This bypasses the MBR crap and uses a bootloader to start the kernel (installation hook)
Are you really supposed to do a non-binary copy? The manual simply said
Quote:
After that, mount the USB memory stick (mount /dev/sdx /mnt), which will now have a FAT filesystem on it, and copy a Debian netinst or businesscard image ISO to it.
It said nothing about whether to use a binary copy or cp.
So far, I have tried doing this to one USB stick and it got corrupted somehow so that when I went to the boot menu, the BIOS didn't detect it. I have a different drive, and I have deleted all partitions on it, then used mkfs to create a filesystem.
So here are my questions:
1. Should I use dd or cp?
2. If I use dd, wouldn't that overwrite what was in boot.img?
3. If I use cp, won't the ISO still be compressed and unusable?
