Installing Debian GNU/Interix
=============================
last updated: 2008-06-23  mkoeppe@gmx.de


This description has been successfully tested with
- SFU 3.5 on Windows 2000 SP4
- SFU 3.5 on Windows XP SP2
- SUA 5.2 on Windows Server 2003 R2
- SUA 6.0 on Windows Vista SP0


To bootstrap Debian GNU/Interix do the following steps:
-------------------------------------------------------

* Always log in as local Administrator for the following steps, just a
  member of Administrators group isn't enough for Interix! On Vista,
  don't use "Run As Administrator", either, instead log in with the
  real Administrator!
  
* To verify being the real Administrator you can issue "id -u"
  on an Interix shell, and it should print 197108, the Administrator's UID.

* Activating the Administrator account:  
  On Vista you must first enable the by default disabled Administrator
  account. If Vista is joined to a domain, it's easy, you go to the
  Computer Management MMC and therein System Tools | Local Users and Groups.
  Enable the Administrator account and set a password.
  Alternatively, you may look at
  http://www.interopsystems.com/community/tm.aspx?m=10345
  
* On Windows XP make sure, you
  DON'T "Use simple file sharing"

* Download and install SFU 3.5
  Choose at least
  - Utilities -> Base Utilities
  - Interix GNU Components -> Interix GNU Utilities (for /lib/ld.so.1)
  - Interix GNU SDK (for ar)
  Enable setuid and case sensitive file system.
  You should not install UNIX Perl, as it is version 5.6.1,
  and 5.8.8 is included in Debian GNU/Interix.
  You should not install ActiveState Perl, either. If you need it,
  you should get a current version from http://www.activestate.com

* Install at least the following hotfixes:
  - 913030 (rollup package)
  - 929141 (psxdll)
  These may be downloaded or ordered for download from Microsoft via e-mail.
  For more details or other current hotfixes see
  http://www.debian-interix.net/hotfixes/  

* Install other current Windows Updates, but you might omit
  the 920958 update from 26-Sep-2006. It seems to slow down interix on W2K.

* Download all files from
  ftp://debian-interix.net/debian-interix/install/*
  into an arbitrary folder, e.g. C:\SFU\tmp\install.
  
* If you have done a previous bootstrap installation and want to
  restart from beginning, make sure to remove or rename the following
  files and dirs, so they don't exist when you proceed with the next step:
  - /debootstrap/debootstrap.log
  - /usr/local/man/man
  - /var/cache/apt/
  - /var/lib/apt/
  - /var/lib/dpkg/
  
* Open a ksh shell, and verify you are the real Administrator (uid 197108):
  $ id -u
  197108
  Now goto your folder and start installation:
  $ cd /tmp/install
  $ ksh setup
  Packages are retrieved, validated, extracted. Then packages are installed,
  which can take a considerably amount of time, I currently don't know, why.
  (Only seen on W2K so far.)
  It will finish, however, and the last message should be:
  "Base system installed successfully."
  You may be interested in /debootstrap/debootstrap.log
  in case there are any warnings or errors.

* Make sure you have /sbin and /usr/sbin in your PATH
  
* Now run
  $ apt-get update
  $ apt-get upgrade -f -V
  and check that all dependencies are fulfilled.
  (Don't REMOVE any packages, however. And there shouldn't be
  any packages to UPDATE. If you are asked about either,
  then it is a bug on debian-interix.net, so please report it.)
  
* Install packages you like with apt-get:
  $ apt-get install <package> ...
  e.g.
  $ apt-get install perl mc less dialog
  To remove a package, issue
  $ apt-get remove <package> ...
  Or you may use the curses-based dselect as well.
  (The newer and more comfortable aptitude doesn't exist yet for interix.)

* Currently, there is no coreutils package. If you need some of the coreutils,
  say cp (for -a), install, readlink, or tac, you can get what I managed to build from
  http://debian-interix.net/debian-interix/bootstrap-tools/
  
* If you wish to build your own packages, make sure you install the patched
  arch-all packages of
  - dpkg-dev
  - debhelper
  - cdbs
  - debootstrap (not yet packaged, you may however see the bootstrap
  install script, which is based on debootstrap)
  
  To install e.g. dpkg-dev use:
  $ apt-get install dpkg-dev/unreleased35
  to make sure to install the package from Debian/Interix or manually
  download the dpkg-dev_*_all.deb from
  http://www.debian-interix.net/debian-interix/pool/unreleased35/main/d/dpkg/
  and then manually install with
  $ dpkg -i dpkg-dev_*_all.deb
  
  You may want to set these packages on hold, so they don't get accidentally
  updated, when a new official Debian version of them occur, but see below also.
  To set them on hold, do the following
  $ dpkg --set-selections <<EOF
  dpkg-dev hold
  debhelper hold
  EOF

  There are other arch:all packages which needed to be modified for 
  Debian-Interix, but are more current on standard Debian. The newer
  standard packages mostly won't work correctly, so make sure to install
  the debian-interix version of them. (Keeping all these current isn't
  always possible timely.)

  A nicer way for handling these issues is to create a file
  /etc/apt/preferences with the following contents:
  
    Package: *
    Pin: release a=unreleased35
    Pin-Priority: 800

  This will automatically select the latest interix version if there is one
  and the latest standard Debian version otherwise.


Troubleshooting
---------------
To check if the installation has been successful, after "ksh setup" you can:

- run "dpkg -l". There should be all packages in state "ii".

- run "apt-get check". There should only be these 2 lines of output:
     Reading package lists... Done
     Building dependency tree... Done

- take a look at /etc/apt/sources.list, there should be at least these
   3 lines in it:
     deb http://debian-interix.net/debian-interix unstable35 main
     deb http://debian-interix.net/debian-interix unreleased35 main
     deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian dists/unstable/main/binary-i386/
   Use a proper Debian mirror for the last line.


Known issues and limitations
----------------------------

- When running "apt-get update" to update the available packages lists,
  there will be GPG errors about invalid signatures, this should be
  ignored, as long as debian-interix.net doesn't have signed packages.

- While installing packages sometimes debconf will complain about
  missing dialog like frontends. You may install dialog with
  "apt-get install dialog" to resolve this.
   
- If package setup fails for some reason, you should check if you
  need some of the not-yet-packaged GNU coreutils from
  http://debian-interix.net/debian-interix/bootstrap-tools/coreutils/bin.tgz