A Debian kernel package installs the kernel image (vmlinuz-version), its configuration (config-version) and its symbols table (System.map-version) in /boot/. The modules are installed in the /lib/modules/version/ directory.

The package's configuration scripts automatically generate an initramfs image (the successor of the old initial ramdisk initrd image), which is a compressed mini-system designed to be loaded in memory (hence the name, which stands for “initial ram filesystem”) by the bootloader, and used by the Linux kernel solely for loading the modules needed to access the devices containing the complete Debian system (for example, the driver for SATA disks). Finally, the post-installation scripts update the symbolic links /vmlinuz, /vmlinuz.old, /initrd.img, and /initrd.img.old so that they point to the latest two kernels installed, respectively, as well as the corresponding initramfs boot images.

大部份的這些工作卸載至 /etc/kernel/*.d/ 資料夾內的腳本。例如，當已安裝或移除核心時，整合 grub 於 /etc/kernel/postinst.d/zz-update-grub 和 /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 呼叫 update-grub。

Using apt is so convenient that it makes it easy to forget about the lower-level tools, but the easiest way of installing a compiled kernel is to use a command such as dpkg -i package.deb, where package.deb is the name of a linux-image package such as linux-image-5.10.46-falcot_5.10.46-1_amd64.deb.

本章描述供伺服器系統或工作站的基本組態，可以用半自動的方式大量複製。然而，本身還不足以提供完整的組態系統。還有若干部份需要進一步的組態，從 “Unix 服務” 之類的低階程式開始。