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Debian - not so tough after all


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Hello forum!

If you look around this forum, you will see my name attached to some pretty desperate posts while trying out Debian. Mostly I knew nothing at the time what I was doing, and every little thing got me. I can now say that I learned a lot while learning to have a debian install.

I am certainly not an expert, but here are my thoughts.

 

One thing is, it is troublesome to install Knoppix to hard drive and expect it to act as a pure debian system, because it is a mix of testing and unstable, and it can break if upgraded.

 

Debian doesn't do everything 'automatically' the way Mandrake, SuSE and others do, for example, if you apt-get install KDE it will NOT auto install all of the other things you need to make KDE run, such as X-window-system. This was really hard for me to understand, and was one of the major problems I had months ago (see debian newbie cant get into X).

 

Another problem for me was upgrading my system then not being patient enough to wait for the occasional broken package to be fixed. When a broken package finds it's way into the mirrors, it will be discovered almost immediately by countless users, and a bug-fix will be made rather quickly.

 

As for the Sarge or Sid? debate, you can find lots of reasons to run Sid, (such as broken packages get fixed quicker than in sarge) but I am finding sarge, or testing, to be more reliable, and that's just my opinion. Apparently, most folks agree that Woody or stable is best left to servers (Not me saying that, just what I have seen).

 

The new debian installer gets better every week. You no longer have to acquire the 'stable' CDs and install from those, then update with apt. You can now download 'official' testing CDs which are updated weekly, and by the way now include kde3.2 and kernel 2.6.x. See this link for how to 'jigdo' debian testing CDs:

http://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/

It really isn't that hard to figure out and works very well. Oh, and most folks only need the first 3,4 or 5 of the 13 CD images.

 

If your gonna try Debian, I suggest you subscribe to the debian users mailing list

http://lists.debian.org/

and get really familiar with google, cuz some of the people on the list really HATE it if you post a question without trying on your own to solve it. Trust me on this!

 

I would recommend debian now, where before I wondered "what's the attraction?"

I now have a solid debian testing system with all the apps and games I can run in Mandrake or SuSE.

It took a while to get it that way, but it is a learning experience!

 

Thanks for listening...

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I heard Debian was the smallest Linux I could install on a Hard disk

is that true ?

How much RAM does it need ?

 

Thanks

I installed Debian Woody/2.2 kernel om an old 1997 pc at work with a p133 and 16mbRAM (in fact it's the only distro out of 7 that would install on it).

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one of the major problems I had months ago (see debian newbie cant get into X).

 

lol, I remember that thread.

 

But the question is, was getting up and going with Debian worth all that time, effort and trouble instead of going with a friendlier distro?

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