Wi-Fi router on Debian from scratch Part 2 - Installation

Now, when our hardware survived after fist power-on, we are ready to install OS. As I said before, it will be Debian 7.8.

Why Debian?

I spent an hour or two choosing between Debian and Ubuntu, although my favorite non-Windows OS is FreeBSD, cause it is the most stable OS on my IT experience. The only, but fatal reason to look at Linux was the fact FreeBSD doesn't have support (drivers) for Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6205 Wi-Fi adapter that I've already bought.

Ok, why not Ubuntu? Although Ubuntu is Debian-based, it's overloaded with features unneeded in this setup, so Debian seems to be faster and more stable. Also, Debian is very popular OS and have a great community, so the choice is made. If in doubt, read here.

Installation

I prefer to install directly from CD on dedicated hardware, because it is the easiest way. I tried to install from network, from USB thumb drive, also there is a way to install from existing system, but all of this need several additional steps to be performed (like set up PXE, format USB drive, etc). The only disadvantage of CD is that you need to burn CD that will be used only once. (Unless you have CD-RW, of course) So I downloaded latest amd64 netinstall ISO from Debian site and burned it to CD. Why amd64? Cause i386 supports only i386 software, while amd64 supports both i386 and amd64. And i386 (32-bit) is somewhat old and future is at least 64-bit wide.

After booting up from your still hot CD you'll see some menus:

Select 'Install', cause all other options here are for geeks, blind, and just to fill up the boot screen.

After selecting language (If you reading this without translator, I recommend English, just to be able to search for errors in most common language), country (select country the system will be located, to have time synchronized with your area, and to download updates from closest location),  locale and keyboard (unless you have non-QWERTY keyboard, choose en_US.UTF-8 and American English if you don't want possible keyboard problems), we see "Configure the network" menu. 

On first screen select your primary network interface, in our case the one will be connected to outside network. Important thing - it must already be connected to the Internet, as we will need to download some packages during installation. I connected both NICs to my old router at the moment, so it got IP address via DHCP. If you have another topology (i.e. direct ISP connection with dedicated IP address) - you will need to set it up manually - enter IP address, Netmask, Gateway, and Name Server address provided by your ISP. On next screen type in hostname of the system, make sure it is unique on your network. I entered 'router':

If you have domain name registered to your dedicated IP, enter it here, otherwise enter 'workgroup' or like 'domain.local' - don't use something that ends with .com, .org, etc if you do not really own that name, or you can have DNS problems. Next 2 screens requests root password - make sure it is complicated enough. Next several screens about new user are also self-explaining. Then select your correct time zone.

Now the most important part begins - Partitioning disks. It is important because if you make an error on this step it can hardly be recovered in future. So I decided to write about it on separate Part of this tutorial.