Installing Debian on Hardware

Pre-requisites

• USB stick
• Computer to write to
• Internet/Ethernet connection

Download the desired version of Debian

Download the desired version of Debian from here. N.B. Compare the SHA256 checksum to ensure that it is untampered with using the following command

sha256sum <path to downloaded iso file>

Make the ISO bootable

Install the ISO file on a USB stick, then use the following command to make it bootable There are a couple of things to be aware of, first you will have to clear the USB stick and then copy the ISO image to it using dd N.B. make sure to use the correct path otherwise you could end up overwriting your own system

first make sure you can see the device on your computer using

lsblk -p | grep disk

resize the partitions so that there is only one partition correctly formatted

sudo cfdisk /dev/sdX

Unmount the USB stick

sudo umount /dev/sdX

copy the ISO image to the USB stick

sudo dd if=$HOME/<path-to-iso-file> of=/dev/sdX bs=4M conv=fdatasync status=progress

Booting from the USB stick

If a bootable disk is already present, you may have to open your bios settings and enable the boot from USB option, or change the order of booting from which devices

Bios settings can normally be opened by pressing F12, F2 or ESC key repeatedly on start up

Go through the graphical setup to get your computer ready to boot from USB

Add user to sudo group

run the following command to allow the user to use sudo N.B. you have to run this command as the root user

usermod -aG sudo <username>

exit as root and login as your user again

Setup and configure your system as you'd like

My recommendation for a decent base installation:

sudo apt install git curl ssh neovim build-essential ufw
sudo systemctl start ssh
sudo systemctl start ufw
sudo ufw allow 22/tcp # sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.100 to any port 22
sudo systemctl enable ssh
sudo systemctl enable ufw

Format the USB stick

After you are finished with the USB stick, format it using the following command

sudo umount /dev/sdX
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX