Debian Installers:

Table of Contents:
("There's more than one way to do it.")

• Introduction & Explanation
• Desktop / New-User Friendly Installers
• Run-from-CD Distributions / Installers
• Unofficial (or Beta) Installers
• Official Installer
• Specialised Installers
• Chroot Installation
• UML Installation
• PXE Installation
• Installation from Windows
• USB Memory Stick Installation
• Non-Interactive Installers
• Roll Your Own

Introduction and Explanation

"The Debian installer sucks!" People saying this are astonished to hear me reply "Which one?" Such commentators usually want a naive-user-friendly, preferably graphical installer that aggressively probe hardware (which they know little about), and don't give a damn about non-i386 architectures. They don't value network installs, broad choice of journaling filesystems (XFS, JFS), flexibility, small installer images, or sparse initial installs.

All of that means they might hate the Official Debian installer, but would be fine using Ubuntu Linux, Xandros Desktop OS, or maybe even Knoppix. But they use the wrong installer, complain, are advised of their error, and then complain that they had no way to know better. Please let them know of this page.

The standard Debian installer fits a very broad set of needs: flexible installs on multiple architectures from a range of media with minimal assumptions as to graphical support, modular, usable over any and all network transports and other console access mechanisms, and resistant to hardware problems.

Other installers serve different needs: E.g., if you love the XFS filesystem and don't want to install onto it the hard way, you need an unofficial installer image. Or you're building a severely locked-down firewall — or seeking a feature-packed run-from-CD system with optional hard drive install. Guess what? Every one of the installers builds a Debian system.

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Note: The categories below are a bit fluid. E.g., many of the "desktop variants" are fine ways to start a standard Debian system; most of the run-from-CD variants include hard drive installers.

Pointers ("") indicate installation options known to be excellent of their kind.

Desktop / New-User Friendly Installers (see also Knoppix and similar)

• http://www.impi.org.za/
  Impi Linux — a desktop Debian variant for i386 with emphasis on business applications; formerly drawn from Debian, Knoppix, and Gnoppix, now based on Ubuntu. Developed in South Africa. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://www.linspire.com/:
  LinspireOS (formerly LindowsOS) — a KDE-oriented desktop-oriented Debian offshoot aimed squarely at the novice computer user, to the point of renaming standard Linux applications to more-generic names. It includes a number of non-redistributable proprietary packages, with many others available a la carte for a fee, post-installation. Graphical installer routine. Compatibility to Debian: unknown. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://www.skolelinux.no/index.php.en
  Skolelinux ("School Linux" in the Norwegian language) — an i386 Debian variant designed to be simple to install and maintain for schools. The international variant will be called DebianEdu, but Skolelinux already has a fully international installer, including English-language support. Compatibility to Debian: unknown, but probably good-to-excellent. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://www.ubuntulinux.com/:
  Ubuntu Linux — a cutting-edge GNOME-based desktop distribution for i386, AMD64, and PPC based on periodic temporary forks of Debian-sid, with a planned six-month release cycle and guaranteed minimum 18 months of optional paid technical support for each release through Canonical, Ltd. Simplified, fast ncurses-based installer on the "alternate" image; graphical installer on the "desktop" image. Compatibility to Debian-unstable`: fair-to-good. (Ubuntu maintains "universe" apt-gettable package collection, a snapshot of Debian-sid optional packages, which should be favoured over Debian's own package sources, absent compelling reasons.) Last checked: 2007-01-30

• http://www.xandros.com/:
  Xandros Desktop OS from Xandros, Inc. — a very easy and very new-user-friendly, desktop-oriented i386 Debian-sarge offshoot, the successor to Corel Linux OS, and including many non-redistributable proprietary packages (Xandros installer, Xandros File Manager, Xandros Control Centre, Xandros Disc Burner, Xandros Networks, Crossover Office in Xandros Deluxe edition only, PQDisk, etc.). Graphical installer routine. Compatibility to Debian: unconfirmed, but reportedly excellent. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

Run-from-CD Variants

• http://bofh.be/clusterknoppix/:
  ClusterKnoppix — a remastered version of Knoppix (which please see) by Wim Vandersmissen using an OpenMosix kernel and cluster-management tools, and supporting PXE-based netbooting. Compatibility to Debian: unknown, but probably similar to Knoppix. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/:
  Damn Small Linux — a nearly complete Linux desktop system for i386 in a 50MB image for business-card-sized CD media, based on Debian 3.0 "woody". Compatibility to Debian: fair, since particular packages such as the X11 server are not from Debian. See details. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://people.debian.org/~jgoerzen/dfs/:
  Debian from Scratch — a run-from-CD full rescue disk capable of working with all major filesystems, LVM, software RAID, and even compiling a new kernel. i386 installer installs sarge, sid, or sid w/AMD64. Alpha installer installs woody, sarge, or sid. PPC installer exists; documentation doesn't say which branch it installs. Includes DFSbuild utility to construct custom DFS CD images. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-nonprofit/:
  Debian Non-Profit — a run-from-CD distribution for i386, based on Morphix, and designed to fulfill the requirements of small non-profit organisations. Compatibility to Debian: unknown, but probably similar to Knoppix. Only release so far was that of 2003-11-29. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• featherlinux.berlios.de (defunct):
  Feather Linux — a 64 MB run-from-CD distribution for i386 constructed by stripping down Knoppix and making some minor changes to some packages. Compatibility to Debian: unknown, but probably similar to Knoppix. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html:
  Knoppix — a KDE-oriented run-from-CD distribution for i386 and PPC with excellent hardware detection, based on Debian 3.0 "woody" (mostly). It can optionally install (everything) to hard disk, extremely easily. Compatibility to Debian: fair — includes packages from diverse sources, and departs from some aspects of Debian system architecture. Note: Recent images have introduced 2.6.x kernels to Knoppix — very helpful for Linux installlation with some Serial ATA host adapters. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://www.mepis.org/:
  MEPIS Linux — a KDE-based desktop Debian variant (dubbed SimplyMEPIS, as opposed to ProMEPIS, a variant for developers that, starting Feb. 2005, will become a multi-CD retail offering) from MEPIS LLC / Warren Woodford for i586 that runs from CD and includes a graphical installer that can install it to a hard drive. Installer include NTFS resizing (QtParted/ntfsresize) and extensive hardware autorecognition. Includes non-redistributable proprietary "extras" such as Macromedia Flash, Sun JRE, various other plug-ins and media players, restrictively-licensed fonts, etc. Compatibility to Debian-unstable: excellent. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://kanotix.com/:
  Kanotix — a KDE-based desktop Debian variant based on Knoppix by Jörg Schirottke aka Kano, adding a cutting-edge 2.6.x kernel with improvements. Includes optional HD installer with NTFS resizing using QtParted/ntfsresize. Provides Captive NTFS, non-redistributable proprietary drivers/firmware for many wireless chipsets, winmodems, and other problem hardware, ndiswrapper, Macromedia Flash, Sun JRE, etc. Compatibility to Debian-unstable: excellent. Last checked: 2705-01031.

• http://morphix.sourceforge.net/:
  Morphix — a modular, easily editable and rebuildable toolkit for making run-from-CD distributions based on Debian. The project provides a number of already assembled special-purpose builds (light, KDE, heavy, and game). It can optionally install (everything) to hard disk, extremely easily. Includes GTK2-based HD installer, kernel 2.6.x, XFree86 v. 4.3.0, and hardware detection from Knoppix. Compatibility to Debian: similar to Knoppix, but significantly closer to the core contents of Debian-unstable. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html:
  Quantian — a clusterKnoppix variant tailored to numerical and quantitative analysis. Adds OpenMosix support, and numerous scientific, informathics, and visualisation packages. Maintained by Dirk Eddelbuettel. Compatibility to Debian: unknown, but probably similar to Knoppix. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://www.santafelinux.com/:
  Santa Fe Linux — a GNOME-oriented run-from-CD distribution for i386 with hardware autodetection and an optional hard disk installer. Includes kernel 2.4.27. Compatibility to Debian: unknown but probably similar to Knoppix. Last checked: 2004-12-23.

• http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Debian/installers.add:
  Others — Knoppix variants have emerged in such abundance that I've had difficulty keeping up, so here's a link to my to-do list for new Debian variants (which are mostly Knoppix kindred).

Unofficial (or Beta) Installer Images for Debian

• http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/:
  Debian-Installer / Etch — Release candidate images in various media sizes for Debian 4.0 "Etch" on alpha, amd64, arm, hppa, i386, IA64, 68k, mips, mipsel, PowerPC, and SPARC. Floppy images are available for all architectures at http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/. Compatibility to Debian: perfect. This installer now includes a 2.6 kernel, useful in particular for installation onto SATA drives. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/sarge-amd64/
  Debian-Installer / Sarge — images for Debian 3.1 "Sarge" for the AMD64 / x86_64 unofficial port. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. This installer now includes a 2.6 kernel option, useful in particular for installation onto SATA drives. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/unstable/main/:
  Debian-Installer / Sid — beta-testing floppy and mini-CD images for Debian-sid (unstable) on alpha, amd64, arm, hppa, i386, ia64, m68k, mips, mipsel, PowerPC, s390, and SPARC. Mirrored at http://ftp.egr.msu.edu/debian/dists/unstable/main/. Compatibility to Debian: perfect. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/rescuecd/:
  Timo Benk's netinst image — 55MB netinst installer for Debian 3.1 "sarge" on i386; primarily intended as a rescue CD. Compatibility to Debian: unknown, but probably good. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://xtronics.com/reference/SATA-RAID-debian-for-2.6.html:
  Debian-Installer / Sarge Instructions using 2.6 Kernel / SATA / Software RAID — Step-by-step instructions for creating a software RAID array on SATA drives inside the Debian 3.1 "Sarge" installer, configuring bootloaders, and other details. Written by Transtronics, Inc. Obsoleted by Debian 4.0 "Etch" release-candidate installer, unless you need to transition an existing system to RAID. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://people.debian.org/~vorlon/d-i/xfs/:
  Debian-Installer / Sarge w/XFS — beta-testing 122MB netinst installer images with XFS support for Debian 3.1 "Sarge" on i386, hosted by Steve Langasek. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://kmuto.jp/debian/d-i/: Kenshi Muto's netinst image — 125MB mini-CD installer for Debian 3.1 "sarge" on i386 and amd64, using the sarge d-i installer and kernel version 2.6.19rc3 with driver enhancements: LVM, software RAID0/1/5, qla4xxx, stex, aic94xx, qla3xxx, newer e1000, newer SATA chips. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2007-01-30

• http://xfdeb.sourceforge.net/:
  Angelo Ovidi's XFS / JFS floppy images — XFS / JFS-supporting Debian 3.0 "woody": Outdated, but currently being reworked into a modern 2.6.x-kernel-based netinst image with XFS, plus GFS and other modern cluster filesystems. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• ftp://ftp.fsn.hu/pub/CDROM-Images/debian-unofficial/:
  Gyorgy Pasztor's Debian testing & unstable full images — unofficial images (15 full-sized CDs or 3 DVDs) for i386 and amd64. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://tinyplanet.ca/~lsorense/amd64/:
  Lennart Lundager Sorensen's netinst image — 90MB netinst installer for Debian 3.1 "sarge" on AMD64/EM64T with a v. 2.6.12 installation kernel. Includes updated drivers for ahci, sata-uli, i20, Promise 20378, Useful for Dell SE2850 and Asus A8V, among other machines. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://boisson.homeip.net/sarge/:
  François Boisson's netinst image — 115MB netinst installer for Debian 3.1 "sarge" in i386 with a 2.6.12 kernel. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2700103025.

• http://huge.cajones.org/~dick/debian/:
  "Dick's" netinst image — 109MB netinst installer for Debian 3.1 "sarge" on i386 supporting the Areca high-end SATA host adapters, with a 2.6.8 kernel. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://huge.cajones.org/~dick/debian/:
  "Dick's" netinst image — 84MB netinst installer for Debian 3.1 "sarge" on AMD64 supporting the Areca high-end SATA host adapters, with a 2.6.8 kernel. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~kowalski/debian/sarge/netinst/:
  Nicolas Kowalski's netinst image — 90MB netinst installer for Debian 3.1 "sarge" on i686 supporting Intel ICH7 SATA and othe recent hardware, with a 2.6.12.6 kernel. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

The Official Debian Installer

• http://www.debian.org/distrib/
  Official Debian 3.1 "Sarge" Installer — This is the sometimes-maligned, but flexible, modular, and portable ncurses-based "d-i" (Debian-Installer) installer in Official Debian snapshots, which replaced the more deservedly maligned "boot-floppies" installer of earlier releases. Compatibility to Debian: perfect. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

  Important note: Unless the installer image you boot up says "Official Debian" and bears a proper release number like "3.1r4", then technically it's not Debian, and not the Debian Project's responsibility. If you publish an ignorant review decrying the "Debian installer" but solely discussing a third-party image, you'll be gently mocked, especially if you flub that distinction a second time after being set straight.

  Additional note: On the installer's second screen, you can press F3 to select "alternate boot flavours", including one called "bf2.6". The latter is a boot-flavour that uses a Linux 2.6.x kernel for initial installation. (It is not yet the default flavour because the 2.4.x kernel remains more universally usable.) This improves driver selection, among other things. Installer critiques that fault it for lacking a 2.6.x kernel (etc.) thus likewise miss the boat.

  As with all Debian installers, it is expected that you will not persist in using the precompiled installation kernel long-term, but rather pick one truly suited to your hardware from the available kernel-image-* packages (or make your own), as one of your first post-installation steps. This is true even if you used the bf2.6 boot flavour for installation.

Specialised Variants

• http://www.trusteddebian.org/:
  Adamantix (formerly "Trusted Debian") — a security-hardened variant of Debian 3.0 "woody" for i386, including the RSBAC kernel patch, the same GCC patch used by OpenBSD, the PaX stack-protecting patch, and other protective features. Installation is by first installing the core of Debian 3.0 "woody" and then applying Adamantix packages. Compatibility to Debian: not an issue. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://blackrhino.xrhino.com/:
  BlackRhino GNU/Linux — a Debian port to the MIPS-based Sony PlayStation 2, by xRhino, Inc. Compatibility to Debian: unknown, but possibly not a concern, since I doubt regular Debian installs to the PS/2. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://www.emdebian.org/:
  EmDebian — a project to make an embedded Debian variant. Compatibility to Debian: not an issue. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://www.esware.com/:
  ESware Linux — a Spanish-language offshoot of (apparently) Debian 3.0 "woody" for i386 available in redistributable and non-redistributable editions. Compatibility to Debian: unknown, but likely good. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://floppix.ccai.com/:
  Floppix — a two-floppy micro-distribution based on Debian 2.1 for i386, usable as a teaching tool. (It has no hard drive support.) Compatibility to Debian: not an issue (not installable to hard disk). Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://www.gibraltar.at/
  Gibraltar — a run-from-CD router and firewall distribution by eSYS Informationssysteme GmbH, based on (apparently) Debian 3.0 "woody" for i386. There's a redistributable CD image and a non-redistributable one with an improved administrative utility. Compatibility to Debian: not an issue (not installable to hard disk). Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://www.linex.org/:
  LinEx — a Spanish-language desktop variant of Debian 3.0 "woody" for i386 being developed by Spain's Extremadura provincial government. Compatibility to Debian: unknown, but likely good. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://linuxin.paislinux.net/:
  Linuxin — a Spanish-language desktop variant of Debian 3.0 "woody" for i386 that includes hardware autodetection and a small package selection directed towards users with little experience. Compatibility to Debian: unknown, but likely good. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://www.linuxrouter.org/:
  Linux Router Project — was a single-floppy filtering router system, now defunct, based on Debian for i386. Compatibility to Debian: not an issue (obsolete).

• http://www.pingoo.org/:
  PingOO — a French-language Debian 3.0 "woody" variant by Centre de Ressources Informatiques de Haute-Savoie. Compatibility to Debian: unknown. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://telemetrybox.org/:
  TelemetryBox — a variant of Debian 3.0 "woody" for i386 specifically for network and server diagnosis, intrusion detection, and security forensics. Development has ceased, for now. Compatibility to Debian: unknown, but probably good. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

Chroot Installation

• http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Debian/debian-chroot-install.html:
  Chroot Installation — technique to install Debian by running debootstrap semi-manually inside a chroot "jail" to convert a existing system to Debian (even when operating on the machine remotely) with zero downtime, other than the necessary reboot. The technique can be adapted to any chroot-providing media, such as the Tom's Root-Boot floppy, the LNX-BBC mini-CD, or Knoppix. Write-up by Karsten M. Self. Compatibility to Debian: perfect (since you're using the Official Debian installers and packages). Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://www.hadrons.org/~guillem/debian/debtakeover/:
  Guillem Jover's Chroot Instructions — details conversion of an in-service Red Hat machine in a co-location centre to Debian. Compatibility to Debian: perfect (since you're using the Official Debian installers and packages). Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://trilldev.sourceforge.net/files/remotedeb.html:
  Install Debian onto a Remote Linux System HOWTO — an alternate explanation of how to convert an existing live Linux (or, probably, other Unix) system to Debian via running debootstrap inside a chroot environment, with zero downtime. Write-up by Erik Jacobson. Compatibility to Debian: perfect (since you're using the Official Debian installers and packages). Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://www.lathi.net/twiki-bin/view/Main/DebianSataLvm:
  Installing Debian onto SATA and LVM — instructions for installing Debian-woody onto LVM volumes on hard drives attached to an Intel ICH5 Serial-ATA host adapter, via the intermediate step of installing onto regular parallel ATA, then doing chroot installation. Write-up by Doug Alcorn. Compatibility to Debian: perfect (since you're using the Official Debian installers and packages). Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://www.e-aiyama.com/~toshi/Computer/Linux/SATA.html:
  Install Debian to ICH5R's SATA disk — instructions for installing Debian-woody onto hard drives attached to an Intel ICH5R Serial-ATA host adapter, via the intermediate step of installing onto regular parallel ATA, then doing chroot installation. Write-up by Toshikazu Aiyama. Compatibility to Debian: perfect (since you're using the Official Debian installers and packages). Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://www.starshine.org/SysadMoin/DebootstrapInstallation:
  LNX-BBC 2.1 — the LNX-BBC bootable business card can be used to install Debian 3.0 "woody" on i386, optionally using LVM, by following these guidelines from Jim Dennis to invoke "debootstrap" (fetched from a package mirror). The same basic technique can be used to do LVM installations using any other Debian-compatible installer, and a sub-page illustrates this concept using Eduard "blade" Bloch's XFS-and-software-RAID-enabled netinst image. Compatibility to Debian: perfect (since you're using the Official Debian installers and packages). Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual:
  Official Debian Installation Manual — includes instructions on the chroot/debootstrap technique in section 3.7. Compatibility to Debian: perfect (since you're using the Official Debian installers and packages). Last checked: 2004-12-22.

User-Mode Linux Installation

• http://www.megahosted.com/~en/papers/uml-debian-mini.html:
  Installing Debian into a User-Mode Linux environment — allows you to run Debian in artbitrary numbers of multiple virtual-machine instances underneath any Linux distribution serving as a host installation. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

PXE Installation

• http://www.debianplanet.org/node.php?id=818:
  PXE Installation — using an existing Linux box and a few simple steps detailed here, you can do network (http or ftp) installations from media-less PXE booting, where the target machine supports that type of network booting. (Instructions assume the existing Linux system runs Debian, but should be easily adaptable to any Unix.) Last checked: 2004-12-22.

Installation from MS-Windows or MS-DOS

• http://marc.herbert.free.fr/linux/win2linstall.html:
  MS-Windows Installation — general technique for installing Debian (or most other Linux distributions) from a running MS-Windows or MS-DOS system, without any CD, DVD, floppy, USB flash drive, or any other removable media, by bootstrapping the installation using loadlin or GRUB for NT directly from the Microsoft OS, and then performing a network installation. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://goodbye-microsoft.com/:
  Debian-Installer Loader — Win32 program that can run via a single click of "debian.exe" from the Web site, and subsequent network installation. Last checked: 2007-01-30.

• http://lubi.sourceforge.net/unetbootin.html:
  UNetbootin — is a small installer for either Linux or MS-Windows (95 and later), launched from one's hard disk, to install Debian or a list of other Linux distributions using nothing else but broadband Internet access. Last checked: 2008-01-17.

Installation from a USB memory stick

• http://d-i.pascal.at/:
  USB Memory Stick Installation — a USB memory stick or flash drive can serve to install or recover Debian systems, as detailed by Pascal Le Bail for Debian-sarge i386. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

Non-Interactive Installers (for building clusters, etc.)

• http://fai-project.org/:
  FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) — a set of Perl scripts to perform automated Debian installations to clusters or networks of workstations. Supports PXE for netbooting. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://interthingy.com/digby/:
  Digby — a pre-seed Debian installation netinst ISO for Debian-sarge, by Simon Kirkby, using the Debian-Installer software's ability to run non-interactively from a file with all debconf answers provided in advance. Performs local or http-based installations. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://m23.sourceforge.net/:
  m23 — a software-distribution system and software-management system for Linux, with automation of hardware detection, partitioning, package deployments, and post-installation updates. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://nais.sourceforge.net/:
  NAIS (Network Automated Information System — a variation on the FAI suite that performs automated installations of Debian or any other Linux distribution onto clusters or networks of workstations. Supports PXE for netbooting. Project's most-recent release was on 2000-06-12. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://web.archive.org/web/20030829084427/http://wendy.djo.tudelft.nl/~dushaw/stable/admin/autoinstall.html:
  Progeny Autoinstall — a Python-based tool to clone and existing system to construct multiple complete Debian systems in accordance with customisation directives. Further development was ceased indefinitely as of October 2003. Compatibility to Debian: excellent.

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/replicator:
  Replicator — a set of scripts for replicate a golden-master Debian system, taking into account differences in hardware and software configuration. Compatibility to Debian: unknown. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://www.systemimager.org/:
  SystemImager — software to perform automated installs (clones), software distribution, content or data distribution, configuration changes, and operating system updates to your network of Linux machines. Supports PXE booting, extensive hardware autodetection, all possible journaling filesystems, etc. Developed initially by Brian Elliott Finley to work with Debian, and now also works with other distributions. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

Roll Your Own

• http://people.debian.org/~sjogren/d-i/:
  Debian-Installer / Sarge — beta-testing image-creation scripts and files for Debian-sarge on i386, hosted by Martin Sjogren. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/:
  Jigdo (jigsaw download) — jigdo is a tool for constructing ISO images from retrieved package files, using a small *.jigdo file as a recipe. The tool can be used both for constructing official images and a variety of others, given *.jigdo files for them. Compatibility to Debian: determined by which installer you construct. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://wiki.osuosl.org/display/LNX/Debian+on+Dell+Servers (redirect from the former location at http://oregonstate.edu/~kveton/debian/):
  Scott Kveton's instructions page — explains how to craft your own CD image to support installation onto unusual hardware. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2004-12-22.

• http://huge.cajones.org/~dick/debian/custom_installer.pdf:
  "Dick's" recipe for remastering the Debian 3.1 "sarge" and later d-i installer, e.g., to include new drivers. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2006-07-25.

• http://ioctl.org/unix/debian/x4100:
  Jan Grant's recipe for remastering the Debian 4.0 "etch" prerelease AMD64 netinst ISO to included an updated kernel and driver. Compatibility to Debian: excellent. Last checked: 2006-07-25.

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Acknowledgement: This page owes much to http://www.debian.org/misc/children-distros.