upgrade of etch from beta2 net install to current level

linux-image-2.6-686 is not the actual kernel image. It is a transitional package which has a dependency on the latest 2.6.x kernel-image. So your kernel will be upgraded everytime you do an upgrade. If you don't want to have your kernel upgraded automatically then install the actual kernel-im

Alsa needs reconfiguration after every reboot

Are you using Sarge or Etch? It sounds like you have a problem with your install. You only need to run alasaconf once and it saves the configuration. After that you only need to run alsaconf if you change your sound card or add one. Try using apt-get to purge alsa-base and alsa-utils. Clear a

/etc/network/interfaces file ?

It seems the point is being missed here. The issue is that "allow-hotplug eth0" does *not* work while "auto eth0" does work! If "allow-hotplug" is used then "dhclient" has to be run manually in order for eth0 to get its IP related settings. This seems to be a bug. Greg since you started this

New hardware under Etch ?

Currently the limitation is the Linux kernel itself not the Debian modified version. The Debian kernel maintainers take the original Linux kernel and modifies it as need so that it works better with Debian and conforms to the Debian definition of OSS (Open Source Software). You can read more a

New Debian user

Welcome. You have made the right choice. Or at least I think so :) Debian releases may have been slow but its built on a solid foundation and as can be see now its release times are getting shorter. Debian may take awhile to get to where other distributions are but once it gets there it is ro

New hardware under Etch ?

Like other have stated here cat /proc/cpuinfo will list processor 0 and 1 if it finds them. You can run the above command from any terminal as a non-root user. You may want to use "less" if the info runs off the screen. You can use Page-up Page-down keys with "less" cat /proc/cpuinfo | less

/etc/network/interfaces file ?

I've noticed the same thing and I've done a similar change in the /etc/network/interfaces file. change: "allow-hotplug eth0" to: "auto eth0" I'm not sure what is causing the problem and don't know which package to file a bug against. I'm assuming that "allow-hotplug eth0" does a cable check