[[meta copyright="Copyright © 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc."]]
[[meta license="Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant
Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license
is included in the section entitled
[[GNU_Free_Documentation_License|/fdl]]."]]

## Installation  

Use <http://www.easyvmx.com/> web based tool to create vmx configuration files
which can be used with VMware player (which is a freeware).  If you have a
VMware workstation or server you don't have to do this step.

Note: I have tried it with K10 version of Debian GNU/Hurd on VMware running on
a Debian GNU/Linux machine.

You can get more information about obtaining Debain GNU/Hurd CDROMS from
<http://www.us.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-cd>.

Insert the first cdrom and proceed with the installation as per the
installation guide <http://www.us.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install>.

## VMware specific notes:

You will need a grub floppy image to boot GNU/Hurd.  I have attached a copy of
it with this document. You can also download it from here
<http://www.update.uu.se/~ams/home/slask/GNU/grub.img>.

When you reboot the machine after the base tar ball is extracted (first reboot)
press 'Esc' key while VMware start up and set removable devices as the fisrt
boot device.

Select "GNU (Also known as GNU/Hurd)" ie, the first option and press 'e' to
edit the grub menu and go to second line and press 'e' again to change
/boot/gnumach to /boot/gnumach.gz.

Add a link to /boot/gnumach from /boot/gnumach.gz so that you don't have to
edit grub every time you boot.

    # ln -s /boot/gnumach.gz /boot/gnumach

Or mount the floppy image and change it.

    # mkdir /media/floppy
    # mount -o loop <path-to-grub.img> /media/floppy

Edit /media/floppy/boot/grub/menu.lst with your favorite text editor and change
/boot/gnumach to /boot/gnumach.gz.

## After install tweaks

Start using GNU, here is
<http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/users-guide/using_gnuhurd.html>.

You can add a shell script umount so that apt can automatically unmount cdroms

    #!/bin/sh
    # Filename: /usr/bin/umount
    
    settrans -fg "$@"

Give executable permission to the script

    # chmod +x /usr/bin/umount

In /etc/fstab add a trailing '/' after cdrom like /cdrom/ since apt uses a traing '/'