tips-computer-oqo-installingDebian

Introduction

I successfully installed Debian on my OQO 01+ without using an external CD, DVD, or hard drive. I did it this way because the OQO doesn't come with an optical drive and I didn't have an external one that uses USB or firewire. However, it was a pain, so it may be easier for you to borrow a suitable external optical drive and boot a standard Debian installation CD off of that. This procedure does require another computer running Debian GNU/Linux nearby (although it doesn't have to if someone would premake some disk images and put them on the web).

I used the preinstalled Windows XP to download and install the Grub bootloader, along with some small images of a Debian installation system (I used the "netboot" version, which is really small).

The kicker is getting the network card working. You have to use a kernel module that is not included with the Debian installation system {{at least, not with the tiny "netboot" one that I used}}. Kernel modules must be compiled with a kernel of the same version and configuration as the kernel that will run them. So, you can either

Compile the Atmel module on another computer with a kernel that matches the version and configuration as the Debian installation system's kernel, and then add the compiled module to the installation disk image

__or__

Modify the installation system to use the 2.6.10 kernel provided on Moshen's page, and then add Moshen's precompiled Atmel module to the installation disk image

I chose to do the latter, although in hindsight, I'd probably do it the former way if I had to do it again. Either way, this is a big pain, especially if you don't know much about the details of kernel compilation and the way that GNU/Linux installation systems typically work.

Read on for the details of what I did. Please note that I'm probably not recalling everything I did, and may even tell you to do the wrong thing -- I only have one OQO and I don't have time to reinstall everything, so I haven't actually gone through this set of instructions to make sure it works. So these instructions are UNTESTED. If you follow them, please drop me a line and let me know what the worked and what didn't. My email is on my home page