thinking of trying debian

acithium · Post by **acithium** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 11:44 am

I'm thinking about giving debian linux a try. I know it's going to require a bit of time to get all setup, but i figure i might be a good hobbie for the time being. Anybody using it have any pointers?

miket · Post by **miket** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 11:48 am

Hi !

acithium wrote:I'm thinking about giving debian linux a try. I know it's going to require a bit of time to get all setup, but i figure i might be a good hobbie for the time being. Anybody using it have any pointers?

I've been using Debian for years ... on Intel/AMD and PowerPC chips ....
It's a good solid, stable platform .... but it's a real hands on Distro ...

I would suggest you read and read and then read some more !
Going from mint to Debian will be a steep learning curve, depending on your Linux experience, but it will certainly
provide you with a great Linux education ....

If you have any questions then please just ask ... I'm happy to help!

Good luck and enjoy !

Mike.

MALsPa · Post by **MALsPa** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:14 pm

It's not so bad. I installed Debian Etch in December. Installing it is fairly easy, then you'll probably have some work to do getting things set up, but I didn't think it was as hard as people make it out to be. I ended up wishing that I hadn't waited so long to try it. Things are put together very well, and it's quickly become one of my favorite distros.

MagnusB · Post by **MagnusB** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:47 pm

I seemed to be cursed when it comes to debian, not a single setup I've tried installing it on will run it properly. 50% of the times I got a boot failure, I barely got past the grub screen to see a blank page.

However, it seems like it is a pretty decent distribution, but it might need a bit of pushing to get it running like you want it to run

exploder · Post by **exploder** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:03 am

acithium, I would be interested in how your experience with Debian goes. Everyone says that Debian is fast and uses very little RAM. I would be most interested in how easy or difficult it is to get multimedia working.

Andy Mack · Post by **Andy Mack** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 12:51 pm

I try Debian testing now and again to see how it's shaping up, I think it's gonna be great once final.

Good tip is to read as much as possible on the whole thing, search the forum and google.

Concerning exploder's question on multimedia, I found it was really easy to setup. Add the repositry to sources install flash, w32, gstreamers good, bad and ugly, dvd codec, this will play just about everything.

900i · Post by **900i** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:38 pm

Debian Etch running XFCE in my experience is the fastest to desktop that I have ever seen. And thats before you tweak it.

Xgamer · Post by **Xgamer** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 4:42 am

When I tried debian everything work very well but when I install update a some packages which I needed and I reboot I login and nothing gnome freezed I check logs throught recovery mode of debian and I start gnome normal but only under root,under normal user gnome freezed. Have someone similary problems? I used latest snapshot of lenny and unstable debian packages.thx

//I hope that you'll understand me:D

acithium · Post by **acithium** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 5:39 am

Well, instead of installing it straight away, i'm going to running it though wmware first. That way i can give it the look around and see how the setup and stuff goes. I'm sure once i get it all installed i can configure it the way i want (or at least find how to do it on google). It's just the initial install that i'm worried about. I don't want it to mess with my other distro's i've got running.

MALsPa · Post by **MALsPa** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:29 am

acithium wrote:Well, instead of installing it straight away, i'm going to running it though wmware first. That way i can give it the look around and see how the setup and stuff goes. I'm sure once i get it all installed i can configure it the way i want (or at least find how to do it on google). It's just the initial install that i'm worried about. I don't want it to mess with my other distro's i've got running.

Good idea, although I can't see it messing up your other distros. Also, I thought the initial installation was the easier part. Have fun!

acithium · Post by **acithium** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:58 am

i just found this site that is awesome for setting up numerous distros for " the perfect desktop". Although i don't need all the apps that this site suggests, i just get the ones i need. It's pretty straight to the point, and once i get everything installed i can start figuring our how to get my wireless working. Oh yea, using VMware is WAY easier than i thought, and its a good way to see if you want to try a distro that isn't a live cd before you install, or actually run the install to see what it's like.

exploder · Post by **exploder** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:03 pm

RichS, thanks for the link! This looks like a good way to check out pure Debian!

Edit: It is too bad these are not installable...

acithium · Post by **acithium** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:51 am

Wow, RichS i like it, but trying do set some of this stuff up makes me want to eat nails (sometimes). I do like how you pretty much set it up how you want it. Where can i get all the good stuff like codecs and browser plugins. Does mplayer pretty much cover everything?

exploder · Post by **exploder** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:45 pm

You might try downloading a daily build of Lenny. I am not sure about wireless though.

Elan Vital, aren't you a member of Hardware Central Discussion Forums?

exploder · Post by **exploder** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:50 pm

Here is a link to get a daily build.

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/daily-builds/

Fred · Post by **Fred** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:18 pm

If you are considering playing with Debian sid, I have a couple of suggestions for you.

First you need to realize that Debian is a rolling distro. It is constantly being updated. A new version is just a snapshot of it at a given point in time, so it you keep it updated there isn't much point in reinstalling the latest version.

You may have heard that there are no security updates in sid. This is kinda true. Packages are upgraded at such a rapid pace that there really isn't much point in it. By the time a venerability is discovered and patched, a new version has already replaced it. There are some programs that get security patches however, if they stay in the system long enough.

You should forget all about synaptic, adept, and aptitude. Updates/upgrades should all be done from init 3 in the console. You can install one or two simple programs with apt from the terminal with x running but the more complicated the install the more likely you are to get into trouble.

You will break your install from time to time. Learn how to back out of an upgrade and go back to an earlier version of a program or library. Below is a link that I strongly recommend you read, learn, and follow. It is in the sidux manual but since sidux is pure Debian sid it applies to plain sid too.

http://manual.sidux.com/en/sys-admin-apt-en.htm

EDIT: If you decide to try sidux, (sid), there is a script called smxi that takes a lot of the work out of upgrading.

As AdvanceIT pointed out there is help if you get into trouble, but the object is to learn to work your way through problems. If you go to the trouble to learn to setup and maintain a sid or Lenny system you will have learned a lot about the plumbing of your system. You will also have one of the fastest, up-to-date systems available.

Fred

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