Once Debian has finished installing log in to the plug over the console either as root or as the user you created and then become root using the su command:

su

(If you prefer to set up sudo or use su -c, do so.)

• Disable the swap partition — swap will degrade the SD card quickly.
  • Edit /etc/fstab and comment out the swap line then type ‘mount’ to apply changes.
• Ensure all the GNU social requirements are installed:

apt-get install apache2 mysql-server mysql-client \
git php5-mysql php5-gd php5-curl

Don’t forget to set a root password for MySQL when asked to during the install (write this down somewhere safe).

• Next, let’s configure the web server:

  • Enable mod_rewrite:

a2enmod rewrite
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

• Edit /etc/apache2/sites-available/default and install minimal configuration.

ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All

• Restart Apache

apache2ctl graceful

• After you type “reset”, don’t forget to press a key to interupt booting again.

• The disk partition layout confirmation screen defaults to “No”, so use the arrow keys to choose “Yes” before pressing return to go to the next screen.

Now that GNU social is ready to be installed, let’s point it at our database, and make the first user account.