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This section is not intended to document the Debian installation procedure. It's meant to point out some common difficulties that arise when somebody more familiar with Fedora or Red Hat attempts to install Debian.
The full installation manual is available at http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual. Be warned that it's very complete, and a pretty dry read. If you're using an Intel PC-compatible computer, you want the Intel x86 installation manual.
Simply put, there is no hardware autodetection during the installation for the current release of Debian . The next stable release of Debian, slated for release in the second quarter of 2004, will have full hardware detection support during the installation process.
In the meantime, the installation will ask you to load drivers for your hardware manually. Since the installation is text-based, the only drivers that must be installed are drivers for any hard drive controllers you may have which don't have support built into the installation kernel (most do), as well as any network drivers if you want to install packages over the network during the installation.
It's common for users to first load only those modules that are crucial for the installation, and then to load any remaining modules after the installation is complete, using the modconf command. However, while this is the common method, it isn't the only one. Rudimentary support for hardware detection can be added after the installation is complete by installing the discover, read-edid, mdetect, and hotplug packages. Some Debian packages will use these facilities when they're installed, so if you wish to use them, install them right after the initial (minimum) installation.
The Debian installer will, by default, install only the most basic system. No compiler, no big editors, no graphical desktop. I recommend that you follow these defaults, and when the installer asks you if you'd like to run package installation programs (tasksel and dselect), answer No. Unlike some other operating systems or Linux distributions, it's trivial to install packages in Debian after the installation.
If you wish to upgrade your Debian/stable installation to Sid, you want to have as few packages installed as is feasible. The fewer packages you have installed during an upgrade from Debian/stable to Debian/Sid, the fewer chances there are for something to go wrong.
Likewise, if you're trying to troubleshoot why a package won't install, it's far easier to do so when it's the only package being installed at that time, rather than hundreds at once.
After the base installation is in place, you can use apt - get (a very popular tool) to install packages as you go, and the tasksel program allows you to install large numbers of related applications at once (these "tasks" are akin to Red Hat's Workstation and Server pre-selected package installation lists).
One of Debian's strengths-or weaknesses, depending on your administration style-is that it doesn't try to second-guess the administrator. If you followed my directions above, you'll have quite the anemic installation in some respects. As such, I would recommend you perform a few tasks you might not need to do when using another distribution:
Install a full-featured kernel. Debian installation kernels are geared towards installation, not routine workloads. To see a list of available kernels, run apt-cache search kernel-image. (With the next release of Debian (Sarge), this step won't be required.)
After installing your new kernel, double-check that all your hardware is functioning properly. If it is not, run the modconf program again to load any drivers that need to be loaded. They'll be loaded during any future reboots as well.
Install basic package sets that meet your needs. tasksel is a great way to do this.
If your computer is connected to the Internet full-time, install the ntpdate and ntp-simple packages. These two packages, working together, will ensure that your computer's clock is always accurate.
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