[TriLUG] Debian installation.

[Ben Pitzer]

Folks,

No, Debian's hardware detection leaves something to be desired, but it's
something that they're working on.  They're also working on a graphical
installer that is a very high priority for the new Debian project leader
Martin Michlmayr.  Keep an eye out on the Debian Weekly News
(http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/) for updates on things like that.  It
also gives a very good accounting of new packages, orphaned packages (ones
that no longer have an official Debian maintainer), and packages with
security issues and updates.

Back to the point.  While the Debian installer does not do very good
hardware detection, it is also true that Debian expects users to know a bit
more about their hardware than your average Red Hat install does.
Personally, I consider this a good thing, but it's difficult when you get
down into the realms of non-standard hardware, and specialty stuff.
Debian's USB support is there, but not as intuitive as other distros.  It
does require you to know a little bit more about the software doing the USB
work than do other distros.  That being said, it's still not an overly
difficult process, to my mind, and most folks will learn alot about their
systems in the process of making all of this stuff work.  If that's not your
cup of tea, you probably want to go with a Debian distro like Xandros, which
has better support for that kind of thing at present.  I'm sure the Debian
project will claim a great deal of that technology over time, the way they
did with the Progeny and Corel Debian distros.

Bill, that is an EXCELLENT document on the installation of Debian.  I'd like
to see that put into a document that we can have up on our website for users
who may be interested in trying Debian, but who may want to know more about
the install process before trying it.  The buzz on the process is typically
MUCH worse than the install process itself, and so many users don't even try
it, or wait a long time to do so, largely due to the intimidation factor.
This might help to alleviate alot of that.  Thanks for putting it together.
You did an excellent job.  It actually pointed out in a better way than I
might have described the process, and looked at it from a much more
realistic point of view.  I never really thought of the install process as
being in 2 stages, but you're quite right in saying that it is.  You might
want to emphasize that Debian is quite easy to install over a high speed
Internet connection, and that those with that facility may wish to avoid
downloading the CDs altogether, or at most, only download the first CD.
Only folks doing a standalone system with no connectivity need all three
CDs.

One person mentioned that the sources.list file was a bit intimidating.  I
thought so at first as well, but maybe we can change that.  The file is
fairly straight forward in that it simply defines protocols (http, ftp),
server URLs, distro versions (woody, sarge, sid, or stable, testing,
unstable, either way), etc. for downloading packages through apt, and
updating your system with security and bug fixes.  Once you get a good
sources.list file, it's easy to just port that too other machines via a
floppy, and use it elsewhere.  In fact, it is not even architecture
dependent, as I ported one from an Intel box, and it worked flawlessly on a
Sparc machine without ever needing to edit it.  Also, by just changing
stable to testing, or woody to sarge, whatever, you can then just run
'apt-get update' and 'apt-get dist-upgrade' and easily go from one Debian
distro to the next.  I've never been able to do that with Red Hat.  I've
ALWAYS had problems trying to upgrade those, whereas Debian's dist-upgrade
process has been an absolute joy.  YMMV.

That's my tupence.  Thanks again, Bill.

Regards,
Ben Pitzer

---------------------------------------------

"Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety
 deserve neither liberty nor safety."
 --Ben Franklin--




> -----Original Message-----
> From: trilug-admin at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-admin at trilug.org]On Behalf
> Of Tarus Balog
> Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 4:23 PM
> To: trilug at trilug.org
> Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Debian installation.
>
>
>
> Ken Wahl said:
>
> > Thanks, this was useful for me.  I've been a Red Hat user since 6.2 and
> > I was thinking of giving Debian unstable a whirl.  I wanted to ask for
> > this very type of feedback from RedHat users about their experiences
> > installing Debian but was afraid the question would come off as a troll
> > and/or start a distro war.
>
> I just rebuilt my main server this morning (with a Debian wizard's help)
> and the one thing to emphasize is that Debian's install doesn't seem to
> auto-detect hardware as well as Red Hat's install process. So be sure to
> know the manufacturer and model of your network card, graphics card, etc.
> (those were the two I needed, and it only needed to be as specific as
> "EtherExpress Pro" and "ATI"). Outside of that it was pretty slick.
>
> What I liked about woody is that since the new CDs are out, there was very
> little that had to be downloaded to get current stable.
>
> Finally, if you want the latest kernel, start the process with disk number
> 5 - that will install 2.4.18 - and then insert disk number 1 when asked.
>
> -T
> --
> Tarus Balog
> Consultant
> Sortova Consulting Group, http://www.sortova.com
> +1-919-696-7625
> tarus at sortova.com
>
>
>
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