I too did my first install a few weeks ago. My first install failed because I have an ATA100 drive and the default kernel wouldn't work. After sucessfully loading the 2.4 kernel with Woody, I decided to install everything, fart around see what stuff I liked. My 3rd and final install only has stuff I want, except my Yamaha soundcard doesn't work.
As far as tasksel and deselect...WORTHLESS! I tried kpackage and instantly began liking Debian. I really don't see going back to Redhat (using it since 6.1). On Wed, 2003-04-02 at 17:37, Bill Klintoe wrote: > Hi. I took some personal notes in a message format > during my first Debian install. I'm posting them here > in case they might help someone else. If I've said > anything horribly wrong then sorry. I've only been > using Debian for 3 days now. All these notes are my > experience and opinion only. If I've violated any > sacred Debian laws then feel free to follow-up. > > ---------- > > My Debian Install Notes: > > To start, I downloaded the following file and burned > it to a CD: > http://people.debian.org/~blade/boot-floppies/netinst-full-pre/bootbf2.4.iso > > There are tons of boot images, and in blade's > directory (see URL above) the same ISO file exists > under a few different directories. Finding the right > boot image is a bit tricky because there are so many, > and each is a bit different, however I think most of > them are common enough to handle most install needs. > There are "vanilla" flavors, and bf2.4 flavors, and > each mean something a little different and you can > read more about that on the Debian site. I chose the > bf2.4 image because I read something about it > supporting USB well, and I have a USB mouse. > > After I had the CD, i went into the BIOS and switched > the boot order to run the CD before the hard drive, > and the Debian installer loaded. This let me partition > things. It was straightforward until I got into the > somewhat intimidating "Configure Device Drivers" > section. The first time i skipped it, and that was a > mistake. It never loaded my network card driver, and > so I couldn't do the network install. Basically, > despite a very long and intimidating (to me) list, All > i had to do was scroll down and find the network or > ethernet section, and find my ethernet driver (which > was tulip) and activate that so it was built or added > to the kernel or whatever that does. Someone on the > #debian irc channel on irc.freenode.net said that I > probably didn't need to worry about all the other > hundred categories of device drivers, and they were > right. Some people might need some extra ones though. > I just didn't want to spend all day picking out tons > of drivers, which was my initial (incorrect) assuption > when i saw that screen. > > Next, it asked me to configure my network. I added my > IP, netmask, DNS, etc, and after a few more options, I > booted into a simple, basic no frills debian. The > first time after it rebooted, i got to set my root > password, and after doing that, it automatically ran > two programs called "tasksel" and "dselect". Tasksel > is basically a program that lets you grab a bunch of > related packages at once, so if you check "X window > system" and "Desktop Environment" it will go out and > grab all the XFree stuff and KDE or something like > that. It's meant to get you started so you don't have > to boot into a command prompt and then fend for > yourself. After trying to use tasksel once, it worked > OK, but eventually I chose to reinstall and skip that > step. After tasksel, it runs "dselect", a program > which is supposed to allow you to pick all sorts of > packages and it calculates dependencies and whatnot. > The instructions tell you to use this and NOT use > apt-get for big upgrades and installations and such, > however I must make it clear: > > ** dselect was awful, seemed to mess up alot, and > confused the hell out of me. When I told it to grab > one thing, it would try to grab all the dependencies > too, which theorhetically is good, but it was goofy > and i felt like i had no control. Eventually, some > kind of dependency messup happened and that was it, i > was in dselect hell. I'll try to never use it again. > > Instead, I quit both tasksel and dselect WITHOUT DOING > ANYTHING, and went into a bare, debian command prompt > with only minimal stuff installed that came with the > netinst CD. It was a clean system that couldn't do > much at this point. > > Next, I wanted to get KDE 3.1 running. I decided that > basically I wanted to run the latest and greatest of > everything despite one of Debian's features being the > stability of the present Woody release, so I edited > /etc/apt/sources.list to look like this: > > deb http://mirror.csit.fsu.edu/debian/ unstable main > non-free contrib > deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US > unstable/non-US main contrib non-free > deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main > contrib non-free > > What this did is told debian WHERE to go to get files. > See where it says "unstable"? well you can also > duplicate the first two lines, and duplicate them > twice (so there are 6 total) and change two of them to > "testing" and the other two to "stable" if you want > more options. You can read about debian's > stable/testing/unstable releases on the Debian main > site. Next, I had to make an /etc/apt/preferences file > that looked like this: > > Package: * > Pin: release a=unstable > Pin-Priority: 600 > > once again, you can have a testing and stable version > of these 3 lines also. And you can read about the PIN > priority also, it's a pretty robust system of being > able to upgrade, downgrade, etc with various stability > levels of the programs. I just want the cutting edge > stuff, and realize it may not all work great, so I > just put in the unstable line. There are some links > that talk about pinning at > http://jaqque.sbih.org/kplug/apt-pinning.html and > http://www.argon.org/~roderick/apt-pinning.html > > Next, sometimes when I would run "apt-get update" it > would crash if there were too many package names it > grabs to tell you whats available, so I made a file > called /etc/apt/apt.conf (don't be confused by the > already existing directory apt.conf.d) and in this new > file I put the line: > > APT::Cache-Limit 25165824; > > and don't forget the semi-colon. Then I ran "apt-get > update" and it fetched all the available packages I > could install. I started with two bases, I wanted to > get X Windows and KDE running, and I did with: > > apt-get install x-window-system > apt-get install kde-base > > they installed great - but some standard X/KDE > problems happened. First, my USB/Optical Logitech > Wheel Mouse was acting downright weird. Occaisionally > it would experience pointer jumping. I solved this by > doing an "apt-get install gpm" and changing the device > to /dev/gpmdata in my XF86Config file. Also, sound > seemed to be having a problem, and I went into a > program (i think it was modconf or something?) and > made sure that the following drivers were out there, > kernel supported, etc, etc, and i also added the > following into /etc/modules : emu10k1, op13, sound, > soundcore, ac97_codec -- and after doing that sound > worked through the artsd program. You may have to > restart artsd or even reboot to get the modules > working unless you want to do a "modprobe > <modulename>" on them all. Great, KDE, Mouse and Sound > working. One final problem, although sound was > working, my favorite player xmms wasn't playing > anything. I needed to get a program "apt-get install > xmmsarts" which is the xmms arts output plugin. After > installing that, I went into xmms, preferences, and > changed the output driver to artsd (before that it was > at the default OSS) > > Then I grabbed some other programs too, like mozilla, > xchat, gaim, etc > > Someone told me at this point that i might want to do > an "apt-get dist-upgrade" and that was a good idea. > Basically i still had some old packages from the > original netinst CD, because I never bothered to > update them. They were still in the "stable" version > even though everything else I was using was from > "unstable". I had trouble installing "apt-get install > kuickshow" for example, until after i had done the > dist-upgrade. > > Those were the problems I had trying to install Debian > for the first time. As always, installing a new OS can > be a bit tricky, but I really like Debian's feature of > being able to start off with a clean, bare-bones OS > and then being able to add things package by package. > I also found the following commands useful: > > apt-get remove <package> for when i messed up and > wanted a package gone > dpkg -i somefile.deb for when i found a .deb that was > not part of the debian sources that i had > dpkg -l gave me a list of packages on my > system, > similar to "rpm -qa" on redhat > dpkg -L <package> told me what files, and where, > apt-get put things from recently installed packages > > Hope these notes are helpful to someone. Please > remember that if you ask a question on the > internet/mail lists and you find out how to fix > something, it's always nice to post one final message > and say how you got it working. I always find posts > where people say "i figured it out" but don't tell how > extremely annonying. > > > __________________________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more > http://tax.yahoo.com -- Brian Gonzales <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
