Introduction

Using the Ångström distribution enables you to create a small foot-print system by choosing a fine-grained selection of software components, but sometimes space requirements are not that important or you need packages not provided by Ångström. If this is the case, you can also install Debian GNU/Linux.

Requirements

You have to have the debootstrap tool installed on your development system. For Debian based system this is easily done with the this command run as root:
apt-get install debootstrap

Procedure

The following commands all have to be entered on your development system while being root.

First format a SD-Card with ext3 file system:
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1

Be careful to use the right device. The device file used here (/dev/sdb1) might also be your hard disk. Even if it really is your SD-Card, all data on the first partition will be lost. So think twice before entering this command.

Now the SD-Card should be mounted somewhere. We use /mnt here:
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt

To copy the needed files, use the attached script. Download it and make it executable after that:
chmod +x install_debian.sh
There are also some parameters that can be tweaked inside the script, but we just use the defaults here.

It is time to run it:
./install_debian.sh /mnt

This will take a while. Now unmount the SD-Card:
umount /mnt

If the command is finished you can plug the SD-Card into the target device and boot from it. The first boot can take a while (several minutes) as the install is finalized. After it is finished, the device will reboot. You now have a basic Debian GNU/Linux system installed and can proceed with installing further packages and configuring the system. For further information consult the Debian documentation: http://www.debian.org/doc/