<Insert Debian defense here>

mrben · Post by **mrben** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 3:34 am

OK - just listening to last nights tech show, and thought I would drop in a couple of helpful hints for Debian.

1. Debian 3.0 does allow for a 2.4 kernel install, by using the boot command bf24. Anything newer will need to be compiled.

2. To find packages, the command you want is apt-cache search <package>. You can also look at http://packages.debian.org

3. Vim is already packaged for Debian - assuming you have all the normal sources in your sources list then you should be able to do apt-get install vim

3. Debian support for other Window Managers is pretty good whenever I tried it - if you apt-get install the package then it has usually been packaged to include the Debian menu system, so that you have consistent menus between different managers, and it will add new programs direct. I've had fluxbox, xfce, GNOME and KDE all working well.

4. Compiling kernels in Debian is well documented online - there are tools that compile your kernel into a nice .deb package that you then install with dpkg -i <packagename>, and it updates your bootloader and all the stuff like that.

5. To get up-to-date packages, make sure you change your /etc/apt/sources.list to look for either the testing or unstable packages; unstable is anything but, IMHO - I have an unstable desktop system running perfectly well.

6. There is a package called cron-apt which will set up your machine to automatically apt-get update (which will install security updates), and even apt-get upgrade / apt-get dist-upgrade.

Post by **Patrick** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 7:39 am

I had Debian running for over a year on my main box and overall the experience was mostly positive. My impressions:
The positives:
Apt-get is awesome. It resolves all package dependencies nicely and there are thousands of pre-compiled packages available. The system ran quite well and I didn't have any major issues with it. There are versions for it on a mulitude of platforms.

The negatives:
It's not a good idea to use a stock kernel when upgrading. I tried upgrading to 2.6.0 from 2.4.26 and I could not get a clean compile using a stock kernel. Slackware is by far the easiest kernel compile I've ever experienced. Even runing unstable new software additions were fairly slow (compared to other distros) getting into the package repositories. The install process (at the time) might be difficult for a newbie. For someone familiar with linux it shouldn't be a major deal.

I would try Debian again. I liked it a lot. I hear the AMD64 version is near completion. Since I'm thinking about my next system I would consider using it on a 64bit AMD system.

To me, anyone who uses Debian, Slackware or Gentoo is on the right track. To a complete newbie Mandrake or Suse might be a better choice.
Just my opinion

mrben · Post by **mrben** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 10:26 am

Patrick wrote:It's not a good idea to use a stock kernel when upgrading. I tried upgrading to 2.6.0 from 2.4.26 and I could not get a clean compile using a stock kernel. Slackware is by far the easiest kernel compile I've ever experienced.

That's really weird - I'm running stock kernels quite happily, and never had any problems (except when I forgot to install the new module-init-tools) - I keep my kernel up-to-date these days, and am even happy installing and rebooting remotely.

Even runing unstable new software additions were fairly slow (compared to other distros) getting into the package repositories. The install process (at the time) might be difficult for a newbie. For someone familiar with linux it shouldn't be a major deal.

Agreed, sometimes you have to either look for new repositories, or wait for the software to hit unstable, which can be a pain.

The new debian-installer looks like it might actually be quite good - it certainly aims to do much more hardware detection.

Post by **dann** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 5:36 pm

I really believe the problem is not so much with Debian, but with PPC overall. There is a lot of kludge there. I'm seeing it with Gentoo. While I think both Gentoo and Debian are great distrubtions, when it comes to PPC there is a whole other world of difficulty. You don't really see these problems on YellowDog until you start deviating from their packages and/or compiling your own kernels. So long as you remain in the YellowDog world stuff pretty much works as to be expected. With Debian and Gentoo there is a whole other world open to you complete with trials and tribulations I don't think are as aparent on i386 architecture.

But that is my opinion and my experience. Who knows, I could be talking out my butt.

mrben · Post by **mrben** » Fri Aug 20, 2004 5:12 am

Admittedly I don't have any experience with PPC, or, in fact, anything other than Intel-based hardware.

However......

From what I understand from the way that Debian works, a package doesn't get included in the main Debian repositories until there are available binaries for all architectures (or did I imagine this?). Thus while the installation may vary slightly, the way the system works, and the software available should be the same across all architecture. (Unless, as you say, you start deviating from the main packages)

Post by **Patrick** » Fri Aug 20, 2004 12:48 pm

mrben wrote: That's really weird - I'm running stock kernels quite happily, and never had any problems (except when I forgot to install the new module-init-tools) - I keep my kernel up-to-date these days, and am even happy installing and rebooting remotely.

I did numerous kernel recompiles with Debian and for the most part were painless. I had the bright idea to compile 2.6.0 before anybody wrote up a HOW-TO listing all the potential gotchas. No better way of learning than to screw it up!