Looking for a more convenient way to grab an image of the latest Debian installation CD? Jigdo not only makes downloading the image faster, but allows you to customize the image and even update older images without downloading many of the same packages all over again.

The first thing we are going to do is download Jigdo from here.

Here you will want to unzip the files. I recommend you save it where you have plenty of room in this case I am going to use c:\jigdo because it is just easier to reference that way. Once you have that completed you need to grab the latest .template and the latest .jigdo file for CD1 so we go get them from here. Notice all the files in here. The only two you want are:

woody-i386-1.jigdo 18-Apr-2005 21:53 26k
woody-i386-1.template 16-Apr-2005 12:43 15.8M

The files dates will change as they are updated this is just a reference!

The 1 before .jigdo and .template means this is for CD1 You are going to do a net install because you don't want to stick with the stable version anyway because it is not overly compatible with hardware and the unstable version is about to becomes the stable version in a few months.

So download those two files into your jigdo folder. Now that this is complete you want to run c:\jigdo\jigdo.bat.

Jigsaw Download "lite"

Copyright © 2001-2004  |  jigdo@

Richard Atterer          |  atterer.net

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To resume a half-finished download, enter name of .jigdo file.

To start a new download, enter URL of .jigdo file.

You can also enter several URLs/filenames, separated with spaces,

or enumerate in {}, e.g. `http://server/cd-{1_NONUS,2,3}.jigdo'

jigdo:

This is what you should see. We aren't going to grab it from the web since we downloaded it already so we enter c:\jigdo\woody-i386-1.jigdo at the prompt and hit enter.

This will create a few new files in your jigdo directory:

jigdo-lite-settings.txt
woody-i386-1.jigdo.unpacked

Your batch window will also display this message:

Further information about `debian-30r5-i386-binary-1.iso':

Generated on Sat, 16 Apr 2005 13:43:12 +0200

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If you already have a previous version of the CD you are

downloading, jigdo can re-use files on the old CD that are also

present in the new image, and you do not need to download them

again. Enter the path to the old CD ROM's contents (e.g. `d:\').

Alternatively, just press enter if you want to start downloading

the remaining files.

Files to scan:

Just hit enter here.

Now the batch window will display the following so you can choose a mirror site:

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The jigdo file refers to files stored on Debian mirrors. Please

choose a Debian mirror as follows: Either enter a complete URL

pointing to a mirror (in the form

`ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/'), or enter any regular expression

for searching through the list of mirrors: Try a two-letter

country code such as `de', or a country name like `United

States', or a server name like `sunsite'.

Debian mirror:

You will want to enter the text: us
This will list out a bunch of us servers and prsent you with the mirror: prompt again. Find one close to you and enter it into the prompt. I am going to use http://debian.crosslink.net/debian/ for this.

Now you will see this:

Not downloading .template file - `woody-i386-1.template' already present

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Merging parts from `file:' URIs, if any...

Found 0 of the 926 files required by the template

Will not create image or temporary file - try again with different input files

--15:48:58--  http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/mirrors/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-i

386/current/lang/tr/f6.txt

           => `debian-30r5-i386-binary-1.iso.tmpdir/wuarchive.wustl.edu/mirrors/

debian/dists/woody/main/disks-i386/current/lang/tr/f6.txt'

Resolving wuarchive.wustl.edu... 128.252.19.2

Connecting to wuarchive.wustl.edu[128.252.19.2]:80... connected.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response...

Then it will start downloading a ton of files. You will also notice new files in your directory structure:

debian-30r5-i386-binary-1.iso.list
debian-30r5-i386-binary-1.iso.tmp
directory named debian-30r5-i386-binary-1.iso.tmpdir

Now just sit back and watch the downloads and don't let that initial 0 files found fool you. Unless you see 404 errors flashing by nonstop it will download what you need. It says 0 because it looks on your C drive for the files first then it goes on to your mirror to do the actual downloads.

Once the download is completed you now have a file named debian-30r5-i386-1.iso or something similar. This is the file you want to burn to cd. MAKE SURE YOU USE CREATE AS IMAGE. Otherwise it will not be a bootable CD. This is done in your burning software.