Debian Base Install

The following instructions are for etch, which is now oldstable. It is highly recommended you use lenny (or newer, if you desire). The Debian EeePC Project provides an installer that makes it easy to install lenny. You can, if desired, use a standard Debian installer as well.

Pros

• Very well-established
• Known for stability
• Large software repositories
• Many people familiar with Debian or a derivative such as Ubuntu, Knoppix, MEPIS

Cons

• Not always the latest technology (really only applies to the stable branch)

You can follow instructions here and here.

NOTE: The above links are great guides, but
the process described below adds a few tweaks and provides
you with a more-compact base


Simple Instructions:

• Download, install and set up VirtualBox or VMWare (or use a real PC if you prefer)
• Download the Debian business card CD installer (32 MB) http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/debian-installer/
• Start the normal install process and proceed all the way to where it asks if you want to use a network mirror
• Select NO for network mirror and complete the install. Your base install should take up 269 MB.
• edit the sources.list
  

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

add your own local mirror for speedy downloads + updates

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian etch main contrib
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian etch main contrib

Then make sure to comment out the line with the CD in it with a #. Close and save the file.

• Start installing items you want:

apt-get update

The base that we have is missing a few small tools that I prefer in my distros. apt-get install the
following packages, leave out any that you don't want:

• localepurge
  INSTALL THIS FIRST! It will then purge locales from any packages installed after it. SPACE SAVER
  
• deborphan
  Good for finding orphaned packages when cleaning up the distro for packaging.
  
• psmisc
  Provides killall and process handling tools
  
• less
  Who could possibly live without less?
  
• sudo
  Always a good idea to use sudo instead of root
  
  

To get a small X-Server base system to work, install the following packages using apt-get install:
xserver-xorg-video-vesa
xserver-xorg-video-vga
xserver-xorg-video-vmware
xserver-xorg-input-mouse
xserver-xorg-input-kbd
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
xserver-xorg-core
xfonts-base
xfonts-scalable

The main reason behind not doing a full apt-get install xserver-xorg is that xserver-xorg is modular
and pulls down xserver drivers that we do not need. By specifying exactly what we want we can save a lot of
space (you can always add something later if you need to).

NOTE: I have also intentionally left out non-free from the sources list. I personally believe there is no
need for it. If others need non-free they can add it later.