Deploying Debian 5 GNU/Linux with Insight Control for Linux 6.2

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Introduction
On Insight Control for Linux, a Debian 5 installation is performed using the Custom OS installation
feature. Insight Control for Linux only provides the tools that enable a custom OS to be installed; it
provides no support for Debian 5 itself.
Should you experience any Debian-related problems, you need to seek support from the Debian
Open Source Community. You can access the HP Debian community from the following web address:
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/software/debian/index.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
Insight Control for Linux only enables you to install a Debian OS. It does not provide the ability to
capture an image from a server running a Debian OS or the ability to deploy a captured Debian OS
image to another server. Monitoring a server running a Debian OS with Insight Control for Linux is
not supported at this time.
The Debian GNU/LINUX distribution
Debian® GNU/Linux is a collection of GNU applications compiled and distributed with the Linux®
kernel. Together they are called a dist, or distribution, of the Linux operating system.
Debian GNU/Linux is unique. It is among the most complex of the Linux distributions because of its
flexibility in providing distributions for other hardware architectures and operating system kernels. It
also standardizes software packaging on all these hardware platforms and kernels while deliberately
presenting the least amount of upstream source code management and code customization. Both the
upstream source code maintainers and the users of code from a particular source are often most
familiar with the defaults provided for their code.
Therefore, there are few surprises when installing a Debian Linux software package. It generally just
works the way the programmer intended and works identically on different hardware platforms and
under different kernels.
So, while Debian provides maximum flexibility and a minimal approach to software management, it
does provide a means for collecting useful information from a user when a software package is
installed.
Optionally, when a software package is created for a Debian distribution, it can include a list of
questions or a template for the debconf system and a script for asking those questions. Despite its
name, debconf is not a management or configuration system. It provides a means for a software
package maintainer or writer to supply a series of questions for a user in a common user interface
when a software package is installed. The debconf system does not use the answers to configure a
software package, instead the answers are saved into the debconf database and can be
referenced by a software packages installation script, if the maintainer or software package writer so
chooses.
Debian mirrors
Using an analogy, Debian is a huge spinning accretion disk like that surrounding a large black hole.
It tends to absorb the code from other projects and pack them into packages for distribution. The
Debian logo is a spinning spiral, which even suggests as much.
To make the collection and distribution of Debian possible, it is founded on the concept of a
distribution mirror, which is a common place to collect and share software packages. Local mirrors
are copies of all the shared files from one machine to another on the Internet.
Debian organizes its mirror in a particular way to make sharing the files easier.
First, Debian recognizes that a mirroring program needs a list of files to copy, so it provides index
files of all the files for a particular purpose and where they are located on the server. These index files