[TriLUG] Debian installation.

[Bill Gooding]

Hi,

I recently installed Debian (I used "Woody" the latest stable version of Debian v3r1) on my computer and just wanted to share some of the pitfalls I found. So this post is more of unsolicited advice than any actual question. I have used Redhat for years and in case anyone else was trying to install Debian, I just was going to outline some of the differences and things you should watch out for when installing Debian (as contrasted with Redhat). This isn't intended to be a flame war about distributions, just take it as one person's impressions after going through both install processes (Redhat 8.0 and Debian woody v3r1). It might be useful if you ever install Debian.

The first mistake I made was assuming that Redhat and Debian both work basically the same way. In Redhat, what I do is download all the CDs and install the system. I also install everything, I figure that way any package I need will be there. With Debian that is not the way to do things especially if you have high speed internet access (DSL/cable). I'll explain more about this later. But if you are installing Debian, either use the network install or just download *only* the first CD from the iso images they give.

While Redhat installs everything all at once per your requests, Debian has a multi-pass installation process. When you first put in the CD to do a new install, it sets up a very minimal Debian installation. All you really have to do in the first stage is partition your hard drive. The Debian install process is also not graphical, it is kind of like a more primitive Redhat text mode. It really isn't that hard though. Debian also tends to warn you about every little thing that could go wrong and give you options to install all sorts of drivers that are probably not needed. In general, you can skip most of these steps. For most computers, you will have the drivers you need. So once you complete the first stage, remove the cd and the floppy and reboot. It will take you to the second stage.

In the second stage of Debian, they will carry out the rest of the install. One bad thing about the second stage install is that you cannot go back to a prior step like in Redhat. One nice thing is if you make a mistake in the second stage you can go back through the entire stage by running /usr/sbin/base-config and correct your mistakes. Of course you can't correct any mistakes you made partitioning the drive, since that is done in the first stage (but in the first stage it lets you go back to a step). 

So now I'll mention some of the traps I fell into. The first stage generally went OK, especially after I noticed that I didn't need to install any extra drivers. When I tried to install them I got failures anyway (failures not in the install process but in Debians attempt to install the driver and negotiate with hardware that I didn't have), which I interpreted to mean that I didn't need the drivers (which was true). 

A minor problem with the first stage involves partitioning advice. For the /boot partition the install process says it should be 5-10M. I tried 10M and had problems installing Debian. When I set it to 150M it worked fine. I think they may need to just update the message they give for the /boot partition (or just don't give any advice on sizes there. For the record, I have a 20GB disk and here is the partitioning I used (output of df -k command):

Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on

/dev/hda2 10280664 1007848 8750572 11% /

/dev/hda1 148830 935 140211 1% /boot

/dev/hda5 6551272 4612 6213872 1% /home

/dev/hda6 806056 400460 364648 53% /var

/dev/hda7 297693 777 281546 1% /tmp

/dev/hda8 728696 20 691660 1% /home2

/dev/cdrom 478606 478606 0 100% /mnt/cdrom

The second stage was where I fell into some traps. The first thing I noticed was that my cdrom wasn't working in the second stage (at this point I was still planning on installing from cds). At one point in the installation, Debian told me that I didn't need PCMCIA drivers and wanted to remove them. I normally just let Linux do whatever it suggests. But in this case when I didn't remove the PCMCIA drivers, my cdrom would work. I don't know whether this was the real cause of the problem, because there were other mistakes. But from that point on, I never uninstalled PCMCIA support.

A minor issue is that to install Debian, you should understand the 2 prefix notation for locales (i.e. en_US = English United States). It wasn't a problem for me since I know that notation, but it might be for some people.

In Debian when you are installing packages, there are two stages to that part of the install. The first part is called taskel. It lists some simple package groups (like desktop, dialup system, C/C++) and you just mark what you want. Once minor mistake I made, was to try to install dialup on my system. Like I said, with Redhat I just install everything. When you try to install dialup, Debian asks you for things like your phone number. I started to fill in fake data, and after a while I realized that it was just too much of a bother to answer these questions. So to reiterate, only install the things you need. So for me this meant no dialup, which is fine. The second stage is where you would fine tune your selections. I went to this stage figuring that I could check some box to install everything. I couldn't find a way to do this. Whenever I would check a random package, Debian would ask questions and occasionally say that some other package had to be uninstalled or some other package is preferred. After a while I just quit using the second stage of the package install. I would recommend that you just don't bother with the second stage of the package install (just use taskel). If you want a package later use apt-get to get it. I think this is actually what most Debian users do. In KDE, there is a graphical interface if you don't like the command line (and there is probably one in Gnome as well).

Even after realizing all these things, I was still having problems. Of course during this time I finally quit using the CD based install and just downloaded packages from the network (meaning I should have never downloaded the CDs in the first place). There was still one other error. Debian uses apt-get to install packages on your system, and apt-get uses /var to store its data. I had only given /var 300M during the partitioning phase. For what I was installing it needed about 370M on /var. Once I realized this I repartitioned my drives to give 800M on /var and it worked fine. The only error I got was in the installation of a package called cxref. I just ignored that error and was able to pass the second stage of the install.

Once you complete the install, there is always the issue of how to get X started. In X, there is a configuration file called XF86Config (XF86Config-4 in Debian). I thought I knew what my video card and monitor settings were and I gave them to Debian. In fact, I was wrong about most of my settings. This creates significant problems getting X to work. If you want to find out about your system and are not in X (i.e. at the command line) use X -probeonly. It should get you what you need about the video card (mainly the chipset). For the monitor, just search for the specifications online and you should be able to find them. I have an uncommon monitor (Iiyama VisionMaster 9017E) and was still able to find what was needed (mainly vertical and horizontal sync frequencies). The other way to do this process would be to install Redhat and take the values it autoprobes for. Since I was having some trouble getting the X system to install, at one point I actually did this. I installed Redhat and copied its XF86Config file to a floppy. It ended up that I didn't need to do this once I found the other mistake I was making.

At one point in the debian install process for X, they ask you if you want to use a kernel framebuffer or directly access the video hardware. The default is to use the kernel framebuffer, so I generally kept the default. The message also said either approach should work. Eventually I decided to access the video hardware directly, and that worked for me. So if you have all your settings for your hardware, if you are still getting failures try accessing the video hardware directly.

 

General Comments:

 

Now, finally Debian seems to work. I am able to use apt-get to get packages at least for the stable version. I have not yet looked at getting more recent packages from testing. I also have not tried to work my soundcard yet. Redhat autodetects, but I am not sure if Debian will. I am going to stick with Debian for a while and see how I like it. As I said I don't want to really start a flamewar about distributions. At this point, I can't say which one I prefer. One thing I do like about the way Debian works is that it does make a distinction between stable, testing, and unstable. Debian explicitly shows you the tradeoff between stability and additional features (i.e. the more stable the package is the older it is, which means less features) With apt-get, you should be able to run a mixed system. By that I mean have a stable core for most all packages. For things like emacs, kde, gnome, etc. just download a testing version which should have more features. You can do the same thing in Redhat (by directly accessing the rpms), but I think it is easier to do that in Debian. 

You may wonder why the Debian install process is harder than Redhat. There seems to be alot less autodetection and other nice features in the Debian install process. I actually think that paradoxically the success of the apt-get program has led to far less work by Debian developers on the install process. I think most Debian users just initially install the system and never use the install process again. They just continually update their distribution, since apt-get works very well for them. This extends to the testing process as well. When testing a new package or distribution, they don't reinstall, they just download the testing version using apt-get and fix the problems they find. I am hoping this means that for me I won't ever need to reinstall. Of course for new users it can be a problem.

Just a caveat here, all the problems I had with Debian can just be ascribed to me being an idiot. I always consider that a possible explanation for any problem that I have. If that is true, then I am an experienced idiot - and believe me there is such a thing :-). I have used Linux for years and I even regularly install Cygwin/Emacs on any microsoft box I am forced to work with. I had several problems, and I really don't know if they were interacting with each other. That is, problem "A" may have really been caused by me doing thing "B" wrong. This may be the case with the /boot problem or the PCMCIA problem. I am not motivated enough to really sort out the true causes. I would say that the following list of things are what you should do/watch out for when installing Debian:

1. Use a network install process.

2. Don't try to install all packages at once, just use taskel, and if you need more packages use apt-get or its corresponding graphical tool in your favorite windowing system.

3. Make sure you have enough space on /var (if you partition it separately).

4. Make sure you know your video hardware. X -probeonly can help or look at the error trace.

5. Watch out for using "video hardware directly" or "kernel framebuffer". The default is kernel framebuffer, but that didn't work for me.

Hope this may help someone at least not make the same mistakes I made, maybe just make different ones :-)

Later,

Bill Gooding 

 



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