(1). You need to start off by getting a Debian netinst CD. This can be downloaded from here… debian – 5.0 – netinst-  this image is 150MB and will work on all Intel or AMD machines. For other versions you will have to visit www.debian.org

Once you have burnt a copy of the CD, pop it into the installation machine and reboot that machine. Once the machine has booted up from the CD it will display this screen – I suggest that you choose the default option of Install – the non-graphical installer really isn’t that frightening and getting used to a non-windowed environment be good practise anyway.

(2). Then choose your language. For obvious reasons, I choose English.

(3). When it comes to localisation details, I choose United Kingdom (I should really chose France as that’s where I now live but, France is not on the initial menu and thus, it doesn’t get my vote – how lazy is that?)

(4). Choose the keyboard layout that matches your keyboard.

(5). The PC will whirl away for a few moments whilst the hardware is being scanned.

The network card will be found and if you have a DHCP server (an ADSL modem generally works as a DHCP server), will assign an IP address to it.

(6). And then you will be asked for the hostname (the name that you are going to give the machine.)

At this point we need to go back a stage as we really don’t want a DHCP assigned IP address for this machine. Tab twice and press Enter.

(7). Choose to Configure Network Manually (it should be the default) and press Enter.

(8). Now we are going to enter the IP address manually. All the ADSL modems that I have seen (LiveBox, DLink, NetGear & Linksys) use a default internal IP address of 192.168.1.1 – thus we are going to take the next available address – 192.168.1.2

If your ADSL modem/router uses a different IP address or 192.168.1.2 is already taken, you will need to specify a different IP address here. The important thing is that we need a fixed IP address in the same range as the one that your ADSL modem uses (i.e. for a modem using 192.168.1.1 we should use a fixed IP address between 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.254)

Type this into the space provided and press Enter.

(9). The installation program will work out the best network mask for you so just press Enter here.

(10). The installation program will guess that the Network Gatway has an IP address of 192.168.1.1 (the address of your ADSL modem – effectively your Gateway to the internet) so, if this is right, just press Enter here.

(11). Like above, the installation program guesses that your Gateway is either your Name server or has the address of it so, if this is right, just press Enter.

(12). Now we can name the machine. I am naming my machine server01.

You can name your machine whatever you like.

(13). Now you should enter the domain name.

Unless you are building a machine to insert in an existing domain you may use any name.

It probably makes sense to name the domain something like mydomain as I do.

(14). The machine will chug away for a little bit.

(15). As this machine is going to be a dedicated server, I am going to use the whole hard disk.

(16). There’s only one disk in the machine so I select it.

(17). I’m going to allow the disk to be partitioned with all files in one partition.

For this machine there really isn’t much point in doing otherwise.

(18). The installation program decides to create an 8.2Gb root partition and a 419 Mb swap partition.

This is fine so I just press Enter to allow the system to Finish Partitioning and Write Changes to Disk.

(19). Backspace to choose Yes if you’re are really sure.

(20). The installation process now creates the partitions on your hard drive.

(21). And starts installing packages from the CD Rom.

(22). When it has done this you will be asked for a password for the system administrative account.

(23). And you will be asked to repeat it.

(24). You will now be asked for the name of a user.

As this machine is going to be a server without any regular user, I am going to create a user called administrator.

(25). Whatever name you have typed in, it may get altered – in this case it didn’t.

Press Enter to accept the new user account name.

(26). You will be asked for a password for the new account.

(27). And asked to repeat it.

(28). Once again, you will be asked where you are.

(29). And you’ll be asked to choose a Debian Archive Mirror.

(30). And finally, you’ll be asked if you are behind a HTTP proxy and if so, what the addresss of it is.

Leave this blank unless you are sure you are behind a HTTP proxy and press Enter.

(31). This part of the installation takes about 20 minutes for me.

It may be quicker for you (or longer, even), depending on the speed of your internet connection and the specification of your machine.

(32). There are some points where it looks as if it has got stuck.

But, if you leave it alone, eventually it will carry on.

(33). You will be asked if you wish to Participate in a popularity contest? I generally answer no.

(34). You will be asked to Choose software to install

Deselect all, highlight Continue and press Enter

(35). Next, the installation process asks if we want toInstall Grub to Master Boot Record – Yes, we most certainly do.

(36). The installation chugs away a little bit longer.

(37). And then the CD gets ejected and the machine will reboot.

Type su and press Enter.

Supply the root password when prompted and then type apt-get install openssh-server – and answer yes when prompted.

Don’t forget to log yourself out of the machine by typing exit (twice)