[lug] debian

Hugh Brown hugh at math.byu.edu
Thu Sep 18 19:39:40 MDT 2003


On Thu, 2003-09-18 at 18:57, Paul E Condon wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 18, 2003 at 03:40:18PM -0400, Hugh Brown wrote:
> > I'm beginning to play with debian and haven't had a whole lot of luck.
> > 
> > I did a net install with the floppies and got woody installed. 
> > Unfortunately, it doesn't know what to do with my video card (Nvidia Ge
> > Force 2 Go) nor my wireless card.  
> > 
> > I tried dselect'ing a 2.4 kernel but every time I boot into it, the
> > system won't respond to keyboard input.
> > 
> 
> When you transition to 2.4 kernel in woody, you need to hand edit your
> lilo.conf. Did you?

I have Redhat 9, Windows XP (for when I'm forced to use windows),
Debian, and a spare partition for another Linux or a BSD when I get
around to it.

Right now I am using grub under Redhat 9 to do the boot loading.  I
added an entry for the 2.4 kernel, similar to what I had for the 2.2
kernel.



> 
> > I added testing to my sources.list and did a dist-upgrade.  Booting into
> > the 2.4 kernel still got my to a system that wouldn't respond to
> > keyboard input.
> > 
> 
> Don't use testing for beginning your debian experience. Don't use Sid.
> Stick with Woody (stable). You can't directly install testing because of
> known issues. It is being tested with a view to fixing its known problems.
> Maybe by the end of the year it will be ready for learners, maybe not.
> There is active support for Woody on the debian-user list. Look at
> www.debian.org for how to sign up and to look at the archives.
> 

My reasons for getting Sid was to have more recent versions of most of
the software since Woody is getting a bit old (based on nothing but
hearsay).

I'm reluctant to subscribe to another mailing list that is higher volume
than this one (I surmise).  I've seen how much Debian love there is
flowing on this list and figured I could get away with just this one :)


> > So, my question is this:  what's the best way to get Debian installed
> > with a 2.4 kernel and a recent version of Xfree86 (the laptop is working
> > fine with Redhat 9 w/o the NVIDIA drivers).
> 
> Laptops usually need pcmcia support. Is your wireless card pcmcia? If yes,
> you need to install the pcmcia package that matches the kernel that you
> installed. If you did a net install, maybe you didn't get pcmcia with 2.2.
> Maybe you don't need 2.4 kernel.
> 

I can only assume that pcmcia support was installed since /etc/pcmcia/
was full of config files.



> > 
> > I've gone lightly over some of the debian documentation but haven't had
> > much luck with it.  What should I be reading to get myself more familiar
> > with Debian?
> > 
> 
> For reasons to get to know Debian, look at the Debian Policy Manual. It
> tells where every file should be located on the system and why. It discusses
> all sorts of issues about how a computer should be set up and why. The 
> reasoning is very 'professional'. It is a good system, because the people
> are good at what they do.
> 


I was hoping to avoid going over that (laziness being a virtue, right?
:)  I was hoping (perhaps in vain) that there was a "Debian for long
time RedHat users' guide"  But that may not be.  I'm guessing that the
policy manual may be on the computer already and if it isn't there's
probably a .deb package that is just an apt-get away.


> For details about howto, look near where you find the policy manual on their
> web site.
> 
> HTH


So, I should probably go back to stable and then selectively upgrade
from testing?

Hugh




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