FIXME This is a rip of another bloke's HOWTO. Will rewrite to fit my setup, while keeping the generic-ness.. http://www.timntina.com/debian-sarge-cobalt-install FIXME apt-get install debootstrap nfs-user-server 2) Install the beginnings of an nfsroot area on the server debootstrap --arch i386 sarge /nfsroot-x86 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ The "sarge" part is the release of debian that's desired. The installation must go into /nfsroot-x86... and then pick your favorite Debian mirror. 3) Edit /nfsroot-x86/etc/inittab There are six lines for tty1 through tty6 starting with 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1 Comment these out, and uncomment the line for ttyS0 and change to 115200 bps (from 9600) to look like: T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS0 115200 vt100 4) Edit /nfsroot-x86/etc/securetty Add "ttyS0" to the list so that root can log in on it. I didn't have to do this, but you may. 5) Copy /etc/apt/sources.list to /nfsroot-x86/etc/apt/sources.list It should have something like: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sarge main contrib non-free deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sarge main contrib non-free deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US sarge/non-US main contrib non-free deb-src http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US sarge/non-US main contrib non-free deb http://security.debian.org/ sarge/updates main 6) Chroot into /nfsroot-x86 Simple "chroot /nfsroot-x86"... this will be to set up additional packages in the installation setup. chroot /nfsroot-x86 7) Install whatever you need in the nfsroot apt-get update apt-get install debootstrap alien vim Install whatever tools will be helpful for the next portion of the installation. This can be done during the next portion as well, so no big deal. 8) Exit the chroot 9) Create a /nfsroot-x86/etc/fstab It'll look something like: 192.168.0.2:/nfsroot-x86 / nfs defaults 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 Where you substitute out the "192.168.0.2" for the server's address. 10) NFS export /nfsroot-x86 echo '/nfsroot-x86 192.168.0.2/255.255.255.0(rw,no_root_squash)' >> /etc/exports /etc/init.d/nfs-user-server restart <code> mknod hda b 3 0 mknod hda1 b 3 1 mknod hda2 b 3 2 mknod hda3 b 3 3 mknod hda4 b 3 4 mknod hda5 b 3 5 mknod hda6 b 3 6 mknod hda7 b 3 7 mknod hda8 b 3 8 mknod hdb b 3 64 mknod hdb1 b 3 65 mknod hdb2 b 3 66 mknod hdb3 b 3 67 mknod hdb4 b 3 68 mknod hdb5 b 3 69 mknod hdb6 b 3 70 mknod hdb7 b 3 71 mknod hdb8 b 3 72 </code> 11) Install a DHCP server on the network apt-get install dhcp3-server 12) Configure your DHCP server (/etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf) Declare a subnet in /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf. Should look similar to the following: subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { range 192.168.0.100 192.168.0.200; option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1; option domain-name "my.domain.com"; option routers 192.168.0.1; default-lease-time 600; max-lease-time 7200; } Make an entry that looks like the following to your /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf. host cobalt { hardware ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00; fixed-address 192.168.0.3; option routers 192.168.0.1; next-server 192.168.0.2; option root-path "/nfsroot-x86"; option host-name "cobalt"; } Where 00:47:e6:05:74:60 is the MAC/Hardware address of eth0 on the cobalt,192.168.0.1 is the address of your router or other gateway device, 192.168.0.2 is the IP address of the server, & 192.168.0.3 is the IP address of the cobalt. If you don't already have a working OS on the cobalt, you'll have to tail syslog on the server when the cobalt tries to boot from the network to find the MAC address of your cobalt. If not you can use ifconfig to get it. 13) Restart your DHCP server /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server restart