Release information about Debian CD images

This page contains historic last-minute information regarding official Debian CD images.

Information on installation issues for releases after those listed below is available from the installation information page for each release. For the current stable release, this information can be found here.

The list below is no longer being maintained.

Official Debian 4.0 rev2

No known problems.

Official Debian 4.0 rev1

No known problems.

Official Debian 4.0 rev0

If you install from CD-ROM or DVD and also choose to use a network mirror during the installation, there is a possibility that after the installation there will be lines referring to sarge instead of etch in the file /etc/apt/sources.list.
This can only happen if the mirror you selected is not up-to-date and still has sarge as the stable release. Users installing etch from CD/DVD shortly after the release are recommended to check their sources.list file after the installation and replace sarge with etch if needed.

Official Debian 3.1 rev6a

No known problems.

Official Debian 3.1 rev6

A bug was discovered in the 3.1r6 installation CD/DVD images: installations would fail immediately due to a missing oldstable symbolic link. However, the update CD/DVD images work correctly.

This issue was resolved in the 3.1r6a images.

Official Debian 3.1 rev5

During installations for the architectures i386, hppa, ia64 and s390, the installer may select an incorrect kernel for your system.
You can work around this issue by booting the installer with the parameter debconf/priority=medium. This will result in a full list of available kernels being shown, from which you can manually select the flavor that is appropriate for your system.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause; we expect to fix this issue for r6.

Official Debian 3.1 rev4

No known problems.

Official Debian 3.1 rev3

CD#1 contains extra files that should have been deleted, but were missed when releasing 3.1r3. This causes two problems:

The kernel installed using these images will, in some cases, not be the latest kernel on the CD, but rather the previous version. Update the kernel specifically after installation and all should be fine.
As the extra files on CD#1 take up extra space, some of the normal installation tasks will no longer fit there. If you want to install all the tasks from CD only, you will need to use CD#2 as well.

Apologies for any hassle this may cause; we expect to fix this issue for r4. DVD images and network installs should not be affected.

Official Debian 3.1 rev2

No known problems.

Official Debian 3.1 rev1

No known problems.

Official Debian 3.1 rev0a

The CD's README states that the CD is an unofficial beta. The README is wrong, it is the official CD release. Sorry for the confusion.

Official Debian 3.1 rev0

Installations from these images will install an incorrect line for security updates in /etc/apt/sources.list.

Official Debian 3.0 rev6

No known problems.

Official Debian 3.0 rev5

No known problems.

Official Debian 3.0 rev4

No known problems.

Official Debian 3.0 rev3

No known problems.

Official Debian 3.0 rev2

No known problems.

Official Debian 3.0 rev1

No known problems.

Official Debian 3.0 rev0

The CD's README states that the CD is an unofficial beta. The README is wrong, it is the official CD release. Sorry for the confusion.

Official Debian 2.2 rev7

No known problems.

Official Debian 2.2 rev6

No known problems.

Official Debian 2.2 rev5

No known problems.

Official Debian 2.2 rev4 and rev4.1

The original 2.2rev4 CDs for the powerpc architecture were not bootable. They were regenerated - the resulting 2.2rev4.1 release does not differ from 2.2rev4 except on powerpc.

Official Debian 2.2 rev3

Toshiba laptops are reported to have problems booting off the CDs because their BIOS cannot handle 2.88MB boot images. The easiest way to start installing Debian on these machines is by running boot.bat from the install/ directory of the Binary-1 CD.

Not all packages from section contrib are included on the CDs, since they depend on non-free packages that are also not on the CDs.

The problems with the gpm text-mode mouse driver have still not been resolved. See in the 2.2 rev0 section below for more info.

Official Debian 2.2 rev2

Not all packages from section contrib are included on the CDs, since they depend on non-free packages that are also not on the CDs.

The problems with the gpm text-mode mouse driver have still not been resolved. See in the 2.2 rev0 section below for more info.

Official Debian 2.2 rev1

No CD images were created for the 2.2 rev1 release.

Official Debian 2.2 rev0

Not all packages from section contrib are included on the CDs, since they depend on non-free packages that are also not on the CDs.

i386: There are some issues with the gpm text-mode mouse driver while running the X Window System. The easiest solution is to remove the line repeat_type=<something> from /etc/gpm.conf, running /etc/init.d/gpm restart and then restart X. Other solutions are possible, ask the gpm maintainer to supply more documentation.

i386: The previously available Binary-2 CD image had a one-bit problem that prevented the package pdksh from being installed. Repairing your own image is very easy with the correct-i386-2.c program.

Thanks to Ken Teague we also have a precompiled Windows version; usage: extract the .zip in the dir where the binary-i386-2.iso file is sitting, then in a DOS box change to that directory and give the command correct-i386-2 binary-i386-2.iso.

If you have a CD-ROM, which you obviously cannot repair, the easiest option to get pdksh is to download it (212 kB) and install with dpkg -i pdksh_5.2.14-1.deb. But you can also copy the file from the CD to a temporary directory and use the same correct-i386-2.c program, but then you should modify it so that POS is 0x64de.

PowerPC: The powerpc Binary-1_NONUS and Binary-3 CD images are also plagued by a one-bit problem, preventing smbfs and gimp-manual respectively from being installed. Repaired versions are (slowly) propagating to the mirrors, but you can repair your own images very easily with the correct-powerpc-1_NONUS.c and correct-powerpc-3.c programs. These also contain information on repairing the affected packages individually when copied from CD (which is especially useful for the 15MB-sized gimp-manual).

Sparc: The 2.2 rev0 CDs have a problem when booting from the Binary-1 CD. This has been solved in the 2.2 rev0a (or 2.2_rev0_CDa) version of the sparc CDs.

Sparc: If X does not start correctly, and the error message mentions the mouse, and you are not running the gpm text-mode mouse driver, rm -f /dev/gpmdata might help.

Alpha: The 2.2 rev0 CDs may prove problematic when booting from the Binary-1 CD. To solve that, boot with -flags i, then enter at the aboot prompt:
aboot> b /linux initrd=/boot/root.bin root=/dev/ram
This problem has been corrected in the 2.2 rev0a (or 2.2_rev0_CDa) version of the alpha CDs.

Potato test-cycle-3

The gpm text-mode mouse driver has some problems. You should not run the mouse-test program, and you will have to do /etc/init.d/gpm stop before you can use the mouse in X.

Potato test-cycle-2

The gpm text-mode mouse driver has some problems. You should not run the mouse-test program, and you will have to do /etc/init.d/gpm stop before you can use the mouse in X.

Potato test-cycle-1

No relevant information