The Moment of Truth

You system's first boot on its own power is what electrical engineers call
the ``smoke test.'' If you have any floppies in your floppy drive, remove
them. Select the ``Reboot the System'' menu item.

If are booting directly into Debian and the system doesn't start up,
either use your original installation boot media (for instance, the Rescue
Floppy) or insert the Custom Boot floppy if you created one, and then
reset your system. If you are not using the Custom Boot floppy, you will
probably need to add some boot arguments. If booting with the Rescue
Floppy or similar technique, you need to specify rescue root=rootfs, where
rootfs is your root partition, such as /dev/sda1.

Debian should boot, and you should see the same messages as when you first
booted the installation system, followed by some new messages.

Set the Root Password

The root account is also called the superuser; it is a login that bypasses
all security protection on your system. The root account should be used
only to perform system administration and for as short a time as possible.

Any password you create should contain from six to eight characters, and
it should contain both uppercase and lowercase characters, as well as
punctuation characters. Take extra care when setting your root password,
since it is such a powerful account. Avoid dictionary words or use of any
personal information that could be guessed.

If anyone ever tells you he needs your root password, be extremely wary.