Jump to content

getting Debian "testing"


Recommended Posts

after d/l dvd iso's several times, and always getting mis-matched md5sums, I'm gonna just buy a dvd set from one of the cheap CD places, probably MadTux.org. Most places have the "official" release, which is older than what I want.

 

If I install the stable Sarge release, it will just be a matter of editing the sources file to point to "testing' repositories, and then doing an update, then a dist-upgrade... is that correct?

 

Some things I am wondering about:

 

stable sarge is pretty ancient. the box I'm putting it on has a usb wireless internet connection. will sarge even recognize an internet connection with this...? or maybe before installing sarge I should connect the eth cable back to my machine (which still has the card inside) - maybe sarge will pick that connection up better.

 

I won't worry about nvidia and multimedia stuff until I get up to "testing". I think sarge uses xfree, but testing uses xorg...

 

I am just gonna play with this after installing, don't care about screwing up... gonna learn somethin'

 

edit: after being on mandriva for around 7 months, I kind of miss my favorite forum - Other Linux Distros...

Edited by null
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes. If you install sarge then edit your source list to testing instead of stable and do an apt-get dist-upgrade you will get testing and all its problems that it may have that day. :wall: Sarge does use xfree and testing is on xorg. I'd hardly call sarge ancient mind you but it is called stable for a reason. :D

 

Also why are you dling a full dvd iso? Why not just get the netinstall which fits on a mini cd. Once thats done you use apt-get to install whatever else you want.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you want to use Debian then bite the bullet and go unstable/Sid... :D

Nothing in common with Cooker- Sid has just some workable bugs (cannot count them- you have to DIY!), while Cooker is a genuine mess...

 

 

I don't agree. I am using cooker and except for the little (and short mess of about 3 hours) when upgrading from xorg 6.9->7.0 it has been quite stable.

 

I tried Kanotix (ie Debian Unstable), it was very fast and I liked it for that but at that moment many things were broken (okay I only tested for one weekend...) so I reinstalled Ubuntu. What did surprise me however that many packages were older than Ubuntu Dapper or had just been upgraded, like xorg which was only upgraded to 7 recently (just a bit before I tried it out) whilst Ubuntu and Mandriva were there already a long time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you want to use Debian then bite the bullet and go unstable/Sid... :D

Nothing in common with Cooker- Sid has just some workable bugs (cannot count them- you have to DIY!), while Cooker is a genuine mess...

 

 

I don't agree. I am using cooker and except for the little (and short mess of about 3 hours) when upgrading from xorg 6.9->7.0 it has been quite stable.

 

I honestly think that having used both on an extended period of time that Debian SID is way more stable than cooker. Also you can quite easily downgrade a package to testing .. not recommended as a everyday thing but when one package is particualrly bad or you just need a different version (I do this with mysql) on my server that you can mix 'n' match ....

 

I tried Kanotix (ie Debian Unstable), it was very fast and I liked it for that but at that moment many things were broken (okay I only tested for one weekend...) so I reinstalled Ubuntu. What did surprise me however that many packages were older than Ubuntu Dapper or had just been upgraded, like xorg which was only upgraded to 7 recently (just a bit before I tried it out) whilst Ubuntu and Mandriva were there already a long time.

 

I think you have to actually look at the packages themselves.

Yes, Xorg was held back and for quite a while but at the same time many other progs were not.

Xfree->Xorg is not something that happens everyday... whereas incremental updates are. In general the incremental updates are available for Debian before Ubutnu or Mandriva but there are certain packages that are not.

 

Stability wise I upgraded via apt from XFree->Xorg .... I'm just guessing here but has anyone managed that by urpmi?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you want to use Debian then bite the bullet and go unstable/Sid... :D

Nothing in common with Cooker- Sid has just some workable bugs (cannot count them- you have to DIY!), while Cooker is a genuine mess...

 

 

Now theres a bad idea. Installing Sid. Unless you can fix it yourself WHEN it breaks not if but when you shouldn't be running Sid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you want to use Debian then bite the bullet and go unstable/Sid... :D

Nothing in common with Cooker- Sid has just some workable bugs (cannot count them- you have to DIY!), while Cooker is a genuine mess...

 

 

Now theres a bad idea. Installing Sid. Unless you can fix it yourself WHEN it breaks not if but when you shouldn't be running Sid.

Or you can wait a day or so....

Usually if a package really is borked the fix is pretty rapid :D

 

I lost count of the number of times I have hacked away for a day or so on something .. all proud to have fixed it then find it was already done.... :wall:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why not just get the netinstall which fits on a mini cd. Once thats done you use apt-get to install whatever else you want.

yeah, I read about this. Sounds handy. My earlier comment about my wireless usb adapter for my internet connection VS. using an ethernet cable instead... was related to the netinstall option...

 

I don't have to have the bleeding edge latest and greatest stuff. Testing should be fine. Want to learn on it, plus it gets really great reviews on the linux distro review sites.

 

This is going to go on my win2k / XP machine, which is currently in limbo due to XP install probs.... see other thread in talk-talk. When the smoke clears from the win2k/XP fiasco, I'll be gung-ho to install debian, just to screw around with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why not just get the netinstall which fits on a mini cd. Once thats done you use apt-get to install whatever else you want.

yeah, I read about this. Sounds handy. My earlier comment about my wireless usb adapter for my internet connection VS. using an ethernet cable instead... was related to the netinstall option...

 

I don't have to have the bleeding edge latest and greatest stuff. Testing should be fine. Want to learn on it, plus it gets really great reviews on the linux distro review sites.

 

This is going to go on my win2k / XP machine, which is currently in limbo due to XP install probs.... see other thread in talk-talk. When the smoke clears from the win2k/XP fiasco, I'll be gung-ho to install debian, just to screw around with.

Make sure your second PC is working.. sometimes it helps to know packages on netinstall. Course once you get used to Debian you don't need this but my first install took me forever just to get X and a WM.... my last install from netinstall took about 1/2 hr!

 

Another good way is to find all the packages you need and then just pass the list to apt-get.

If you bork an install remember to save the /var/apt/cache/ and you don't need to dload the packages the next time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

regarding my XP / win2000 probs, I'm gonna just re-install win2k, and completely re-format the entire 160 GB H-D. I'm giving the XP back to the guy who gave it to me. Then I'm going to install debian Testing.

 

I'm planning to play around with video capturing & editing in win2k AND debian, so if I let each OS have half of the drive, or 80 GB each, will that be enough for capturing, say 60 min. of video?

 

I hate to have to buy another HD.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

regarding my XP / win2000 probs, I'm gonna just re-install win2k, and completely re-format the entire 160 GB H-D.
This solved all of mine!

 

 

I'm giving the XP back to the guy who gave it to me. Then I'm going to install debian Testing.

That's not very nice of you. :P poor guy.

I'm planning to play around with video capturing & editing in win2k AND debian, so if I let each OS have half of the drive, or 80 GB each, will that be enough for capturing, say 60 min. of video?

 

I hate to have to buy another HD.

 

Hmm.. problem is you need to use a FAT32 to share a data drive and this is really not very suited to capturing MM.

But hard drives are dropping in price and increasing in capacity on a nearly basis... 250GB is now under $100...

 

Make sure you install the sources for Christian Marillat at debianmultimedia.org.

http://www.debian-multimedia.org/

 

Disk space is dependent upon CODEC so if you have CPU you can compress more ... if not then ultimately you record RAW. Mencoder has loads of ways from the CLI to stream from one format to another.

 

If this is a primary goal then you might think about going kanotix route... because kano is pretty much into this and I got loads of tips off him directly. (like recording RSTP streams using mencoder) but with kano its usually more a nudge in the right direction rather than explicit instructions! (he's a busy guy)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm.. problem is you need to use a FAT32 to share a data drive and this is really not very suited to capturing MM.

No, I don't mean sharing back and forth. I mean I want to learn video capturing ONLY on the debian side, and/or only on the windows side. Don't really care about sharing between the 2. Already formatted the "C" half of my 160 GB last night as NTFS, and re-installed win2k on it. Now I'm gonna get one of those freebie "disk shredder" progs that gowater & others recommended to me in the Talk-Talk winXP thread and shred the "D" half tonight. Then I will put debian testing on that half (probably ext3). So I was wondering if 80 GB ext3 and 80 GB NTFS was enough for capturing up to 60 minutes of video. I will probably only be capturing around 30 minutes at a time however...

 

This solved all of mine!

I have ended up reinstalling win2k about every 1.5 years, not necessarily due to probs, but mostly due to me wanting to "wipe everything and start fresh".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd always had to reinstall every 3 months when I had Win9x systems. Windows 2000 lasted much longer for me, and I think XP was the longest ever on my system compared to previous versions before it needed a reinstall.

 

Ditched it in the end cos it stopped recognising my sound card, whereas it worked in Linux. Bizarre problem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm.. problem is you need to use a FAT32 to share a data drive and this is really not very suited to capturing MM.

 

Not anymore- you can use NTFS. The FUSE 3g-ntfs read/write driver works "almost" flawlessly ( free space isn't reported correctly, and no metadata are handled ), but it's very fast, very reliable and with no stupid 4 GB filesize limitation. Quite easy to build and install as well- it's fuse based.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...